Catartis

The Magic Dragonfly Award goes to ...

I have to crow over my dear buddy, Lisa! Her incredible new "Cafe Lisa" blog design is gaining recognition in all sorts of interesting places:

Web Standards Awards
(Thursday October 28th, 2004)

CSS Beauty
(Monday, October 25th, 2004)

and the site is listed in this month's Noteworthy Category at CSS Vault.

We of the Cathouse are now declaring her the first and only winner of the Magic Dragonfly Award. She and that lovely dragonfly are certainly flying high this week!!

The scruffy old _^..^_ and I are going take this out-of-date blog we still have not redesigned and hide under the bed now. Someday.... Someday.... [wink]

Sweet Dreams!

Farron

Print Styles: Are We Control Freaks?

Earlier this afternoon, I was kicked back nibbling the last of the homemade soup from this weekend’s batch and mindlessly [mindfully?] surfing around some blog links to see where they might lead.

It has struck me that, in the last few days, I have been falling into more than my usual share of articles dealing with print in one form or fashion.

This article from The Man in Blue blog:

CSS, printing and user expectation

got me thinking in this direction again. I have read similar comments about the average user looking for and expecting a “Printer Friendly” link or icon, or both. Some might actually want to print out the little messes with graphics and sidebars and such that we display on the screen.

Maybe we are trying to snatch too much control back from our users. Usability is about choices for the person who accesses our web pages, not for us.

None of us want to go back to having to maintain two pages, one for print and one for onscreen display. Having to create .pdf files manually adds extra maintenance for the web designer, as well.

Printable .pdf's also add another twist for Susie Surfer who has never heard of the Adobe Reader and suddenly has that “deer in the headlights” look when it is suggested that she download a program from the web. Didn't that fellow who just charged her an arm and a leg to clean wicked viruses off her system warn her never, ever to do that? Surely Adobe is just sitting there waiting for her to do that so they can add something to her system that will cause her to crash and burn, again! [Someone please tell Susie that Adobe is only interested in draining her wallet, not infecting her machine. ;^]

Several alternatives are discussed in the article and following comments including one which is slightly off-topic, but interesting, on including logos in your print style.

Shortly after reading this article and having this thought replanted in my brain, I ran across this printing solution using a small snippet of PHP at maratz.com:

Ten Minutes to a Printer Friendly Page

This one spawned some debate on the accuracy of the PHP and bandwidth use, but it sounds like it might be worth testing and forming our own opinions of the results.

Speaking of more user friendly pages, I suppose I need to get myself out of the habit of “breaking the back button,” on external links even if I do it with a little script that does not break valid coding. Hey, if users would move out of that clunky, horrid, outdated browser [you know the one I mean] , they would have tabbed browsing and external links would be unnecessary to keep from losing the original website. *sigh*

If you are interested in finding a few of the other articles vaguely related to print, among other things, that I have wandered into lately, check that del.icio.us link down in the resource links in the sidebar on this page.

Farron
[who’s off to feed a hungry _^..^_ ]

View Page Structure Tool

I just ran across a slick toy for looking at the structure of a page:

http://www.ilovejackdaniels.com/resources/view-page-structure/

Yes, I know there are other ways to check structure, but run your mouse over this one for ease of viewing and display.

Fun and helpful for a fast peek under the hood of pages. I've added the bookmarklet to my toolbar for snooping.... errr studying? ..... layouts that interest me. Also helpful for quick troubleshooting of inheritance issues in your own pages, which I believe is it's intended use.

Farron
[ _^..^_ is ignoring this post. no food involved ]

Gallery2, Planes, Cars and Fish Tales

Mornin' All,

_^..^_ and I were testing Gallery2/Alpha-3 last night. From the looks of what I had seen on their forums, it appeared that it might be worth a try at this point.

Installing was easy. Very close to the same as G1. The main (not clearly noted) difference was that the /setup directory is now called /install. That wasn't hard to spot though. The step-by-step setup is extremely clear.

I haven't diddled with the styles or many of the underpinning yet, but I have to say, it creates some lovely codes. Hit it with the validator, gang. That's what's generated automatically by G2. Yah!

The only visual change I have made so far is to slap a font fish and Tony's name in the corner where the Gallery heading that was nothing more than an ad banner was hiding. That I couldn't stand for more than five seconds. I simply added a same size quickie replacement for the testing page.

There is a nasty little hack in the styles that is said to be for IE5/Mac. It rips at the style validity. I need to go dig around and find where exactly that style sheet links to the pages so I can see how easy it would be to edit the link to nuke codes for IE5/Mac completely. As far as I am concerned, that needs to be sent to the annoyances corner with NN4.x, but the page does need to remain usable. It's day is done, so let's let the sun set on it quickly. Pull those styles to encourage a move, gang!

As it stands now, G2 is very plain jane both out in public view and behind the scenes. The user interface is extremely limited and not very intuitive. But what do you expect from an alpha release?

I know there will probably not be a route to migrate this alpha to the next generation, and it will have to be deleted rather than moved. It is noted that there will probably not be a good upgrade path until the Beta releases. There were also suggestions about saving a duplicate in G1 and importing your data that way. Might be worth a look.

I have attempted to set up so information can be reset at least fairly easily. There is one issue with that though, the upload is the slowest thing I have seen in years! Picture a GeoCities file manager handling a full sized image on dial-up. That's about where it stands. Possible even slower. Ugh!

If I dig around, I think there may be a way to mass upload. If there is not, surely there will be soon. A max of four images at a time or 2MG, whichever is smaller is the pits!

Oh! Did you want to peek? The look is a yawn and since I don't know what captions or titles would be wanted, I have to hold on that, along with the styles since I think *the boys at the office* may be peeking today, so I don't want to be breaking it apart right now. (Yes, dT, this is a time working on Apache locally might be handy. ;^)

Here ya go:

http://tonyb-ict.com/gallery2/main.php

Butzi, the plane you wanted to see is there, so are those Mustangs I never put anywhere. I'm more of a toes in the sand kinda girl than someone who plays with that mechanical stuff.

Images for slide show are sized down to 400x300 since Tony (and most of the guys in his office?) still run on 800x600. Wanted them to be able to see the images in one screen. They can be enlarged to 640x480 or original monster size for details. Humm, that's another thing I wanted to look at... if you change to 640x480 size, is there a way to keep the slideshow running at that size? And max size nukes tall images down to small in that option. Lots of diddling needed, but this is finally a quick gallery that doesn't have codes I am not only humiliated to put on a page, but codes that I absolutely refuse to use. Definitely a beginning in the right direction for the Gallery guys. Three cheers to them from...

... Farron and That _^..^_

P.S. I have some little notes that I will pull together and post over on the Wiki.

Building to a Higher Standard

Maybe the real title of this post should be "How to Sneak a Web Standards Plug Into My Hurricane Ivan Obsession"?

I have been watching for a certain little house in Gulf Shores to post results of how it weathered the storm. Some of you may remember that, about two years ago I was dancing around with glee at the owner's use of MiracleGro and Rice Krispies in floor treatments, and a wonderful mosaic shower. All sorts of things. This lady should really write, "A Million Uses for MiracleGro" along the lines of published lists of all the ways you can use duct tape or baking soda. I had a blast reading that part.

But what was, really interesting to Tony and to me was how carefully they were paying attention to building the house to a standard that would withstand a major storm. From the pictures and comments she is starting to post, it appears all that hard work and attention to detail paid off:

The Dac-Art House After Ivan

Moral of the story as related to web design? Make it pretty, make it fun, but when you get lazy (like I often do) and want to fudge on serious structural details, think about some of the other buildings you have seen in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and other points on the NW Gulf Coast that are all over the news and linked in posts all over these blog posts. Think of them as pages designed with old fashioned tag soup, twisted table layouts and codes that do not comply with minimal W3C standards. Much of the time they will plod along and hang in for *sunny day viewing.* But hit them with a serious storm of all the different issues which can affect page display, accessibility and usability and BAM, down they go in a crumpled heap. Strucutral failure supreme.

Then think of this little house when you are grumbling about taking the small amount of time to design up to standards. Sure, like this house your site/page will need a few tweaks and adjustments after a serious battering, but it will weather the winds and rain.

Why do I get a funny feeling that the tiny building itself, left alone with out loving owners to watch over it, stuck out it's little dac-art tongue and gave ol' Ivan one of our quadruple cat dares, just begging him to hit her with his best shot? He did just that, but doesn't seem to have been any match for her southern strength and stubbornness. Too bad, Ivan, take your wind & rain to Huntsville where you can really terrify a house. [wink, wink]

Now that is your standards driven page comparison. It may have a bump or a bruise, but it's still usable, it's still accessible (provided you can get past the mandatory blockades and the *stuff* in the road) and it's still standing strong.

Can your web page design handle abuse so well? If not, get to work! And yes, I am looking at myself in a mirror and pointing a finger as I say that! I need a good storm to blow away a few gazillion old ones still lurking out there.

No, I do not know the owners or builders. (Except that the owners are also Tennesseans. ;^) I've just been watching for that one to surface online because it has really interested me for quite awhile now. And it was such a joy to see someone withstanding this storm. Amazing what some advance planning and attention to detail can do for you, isn't it? (Stop making faces Slacker!! I know you write stellar codes, even if you don't like to admit it! ;^)

The place is actually inspiring me to clean up this outdated mess at Catartis and, finally, get it moved to a new system. Like their south side hurricane shutters, it seemed like a good idea when it was created (with NN4 still in mind) but that's been awhile. I have lived and learned since then. Besides, I am deathly sick of that butterscotch color and have been too lazy to do anything about even that over here. Shame on me!

Hummm, and I could shorten the number of days that posts stay on this main page while I am it. With my recent obsession, load time is more than a little heavy at the moment. To put it mildly, haha!

Excuse for this story: Design to Standards! Go above and beyond them in your attention to details. Plan for the worse, enjoy the best and easy, sunny days. Doesn't matter if it's a house or a web page. The principle holds true.

So did I sneak enough web stuff in here to get back to my current obsession? There is one more house I'd like to find online and see how it fared. The pink one we dilly dallied and didn't grab. I have a funny feeling that it may be okay except for the lower level *under pinnings* as long as the foundation didn't shift or sink.

Needless to say, I am taking notes and filing ideas for our future home in Gulf Shores. It will happen.... someday. *sigh*

TaTa for now,

Farron
[and _^..^_ who wants to know if he really has to ride in a C-A-R to move to the beach]

Styles for Small Screen Rendering

There is an interesting article at ALA regarding small screen rendering.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/pocket/

I was enjoying the section about Opera and stylesheets for the small screen in particular.

Here's a quote from the start of that section:

"Opera works under the assumption that most web pages are not designed for handhelds. If "fit to screen" is enabled, which it is by default on most devices, author styles are ignored and pages are reformatted for the small screen unless the page has a style sheet specifically aimed at handhelds."

Now I need to go check out some of the included links and see what information I can dig up on other browsers. Have to say though, if I were to break down and buy one of those "electronic leashes" I have been so stubbornly avoiding, I think I would have to grab Opera as my small screen browser of choice. They appear to have really been working hard to fine tune for that market.

Opera & Small Screen Rendering
http://www.opera.com/products/smartphone/smallscreen/

Back to more reading ... after dinner. That is an all important time at the Cathouse, you know.

Farron & One Hungry _^..^_

Validation of (X)HTML Files with messIE ~ SP2

There seems to be yet another problem for those unfortunate souls who still use messIE and have downloaded SP-2.

When attempting to validate code on a local .html/.htm page the following error/warning will be generated:

"Sorry, I am unable to validate this document because its content type is text/plain, which is not currently supported by this service.

The Content-Type field is sent by your web server (or web browser if you use the file upload interface) and depends on its configuration. Commonly, web servers will have a mapping of filename extensions (such as ".html") to MIME Content-Type values (such as text/html).

That you received this message can mean that your server is not configured correctly, that your file does not have the correct filename extension, or that you are attempting to validate a file type that we do not support yet. In the latter case you should let us know that you need us to support that content type (please include all relevant details, including the URL to the standards document defining the content type) using the instructions on the Feedback Page."

There seems to be very little documentation of this problem online. Purrrrhaps because so few designers bother to validate their codes? *sigh*

Huge thanks to someone I do not have the pleasure of knowing named Lachy for this blog post with a potential fix.

I still think the best solution is to lose that funky browser and steer clear of SP-2 at this point in time, but that's not always possible for one reason or another.

The _^..^_ simply says:

but he's much better and coming up with the sensible solution than I am. For those of you who will not listen to the sage advice of *THE* wise senior feline, the alternate fix may be of assistance.

Farron
[proud to learn at the paws of *THE* Master _^..^_ ]

Causes, Campaigns & Coding

In doing just a wee bit of that blog surfing I planned to blow off the rest of the night. Ran across a few spots that seem to be trying to spread the word about issues near and dear to my coding and computing heart.

First, here's one the students will love. A new *sticker* to strut on the pages they are creating with their new found coding skills:

This *sticker* button links to information about why table layouts should be avoided and the value of table free design.

And how about spreading the word that messIE6 is [ahem] not the ideal choice in browsers? It's about time some of the superior and more compliant browsers like Mozilla/FireFox and Opera started getting more attention and use:

Commentary from scottandrew.com:
http://www.scottandrew.com/main/ie-psa

Several links to articles like this one are included.

Internet Explorer is Too Dangerous to Keep Using:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1617931,00.asp

And last, but not least, what about these notes on an unfortunate step backward in time from Apple and the Dashboard project?

http://jking.dark-phantasy.com/log/?post=91
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2004/07/07/wrapped-in-canvas/

Okay, I'm pooped now. Enough for tonight. Time to snuggle in with a fella, a pillow and THE _^..^_.

Sweet dreams all!

Farron

W3C's AWOL CSS Validator

I am being reminded how much we rely on W3C and their services to all of those who design and attempt to navigate web pages.

The W3C CSS validation service has been offline for over twenty-four hours now. Since I have not been able to find any information on this outage, my best guess is that there is maintenance or upgrading in the works.

Needless to say, some of our students who had planned to work on coding/styling assignments over the extended holiday weekend are in a bit of a holding pattern. They have come to rely on those W3C validation services as an extra set of eyes to assist them with cleaning up pages and learning the proper way to write codes and styles.

Some might call the validators crutches. I see them as extremely useful tools and hope the CSS service will be operational again soon.

But then, purrrrhaps it is the angels who watch over coders and designers stepping in and saying that we all need a break at times. Now go and enjoy the weekend!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend, everyone!

Farron
[& THAT _^..^_ ]

It's Pink!!!!

Ahahaha,

Becky finally put it online!!!

Here is her tribute to the latest Eric Meyer workbook, "More Eric Meyer on CSS."

Check it out...Now!

Farron

P.S. Beckster, this now means you can't move that page. nanner nanner

Pondering Monster Font Size

I have run into an interesting font sizing issue regarding people who need very large text size. It sounds like a bug caused by piggybacking AOL off of IE6 when IE is set to largest.

A student commented to me that it was uncomfortable to read pages I have setup in an extremely simple two column sort of style to be able to include a right side link sidebar. She commented that, at the large text size she uses it read like a ticker tape down the page.

I did some testing and, yes, my page and just about any page in a column setup [including Zeldman's blog, the WaSP site, etc] were uncomfortable to read if you were running in absolutely gigantic text. Some broke and overlapped in any straight text resize offered by browsers. Opera definitely handled the issue better than others with the zoom of the entire page rather than singling out the text as the only element to enlarge. Many horizontal scrolls were evident, but page layouts were left much closer to the designer's intent.

After getting a bit more information from the student, it seems she is running an older version of AOL. Seven. She also has five or six other browsers on her system but prefers using AOsmelL because she likes the way it handles Favorites. She keeps IE6 set to largest text size under the view menu. But then she heads to AOL, which picks up her IE6 settings but then seems to double the "largest" text by applying one of it's own. There is no view control in that version of the browser that she can find so she is stuck with it unless she goes back to IE and redoes her settings there.

From the description I was getting from it, it sounds like the size she is seeing would be roughly equivalent to clicking the enlarge text option 4 to 5 times above normal in Firefox, or at least 200% in Opera's zoom. [The view, though messy in Opera is handled more elegantly than the others.]

I think her situation is rather a fluke and I have had her looking at options in other browsers. She says she thinks Firefox does the best job, but still wants to use AOL. [Go figure.] Since IE does not resize fixed size fonts, it does not seem to be an issue for locked in text size on pages, but then she would be stuck with text that is not large enough to read.

The whole thing has me thinking about column layouts and people who require huge text due to visual problems. I am thinking the best policy to try to please more of the people more of the time may be a built in style swapper on column layouts. Something offering an option that deletes the columns completely, but purrrrhaps a bit more attractive than a totally unstyled page. Just a few touches.

That does not address people with javascript disabled, but it might help a larger audience.

Just musing and thinking here. I may experiment with my lesson styles over summer break when there is plenty of fiddle time [she says] and see if I can hit on a workable solution.

Try surfing around at an absolutely huge text size. Don't do it in Opera, try another browser. FF maybe? Hit some blogs and column layout pages at a size roughly double what IE would call *largest*. It's a miserable experience. But if it was my only option due to visual problems, I would probably be wading through it as well.

Back to a sunny Saturday.

Later,

Farron and That _^..^_

Forget Taxes 4/15/04 Is A Good Day!

Oh Horrah!

The #2 Beta of the W3C *fussy* validator has just released.

I haven't had a chance to play with it yet since I just spotted it, but I can say the new look is vastly improved. You'll hardly believe you are on the W3C site!

http://validator.w3.org:8001/

Can't wait to give it a spin and a bit of a workout. Even if there is a wee bit of a typo on the page that says it releases on September 15th, 2004, so maybe we aren't allowed to hit it hard yet? Fat Chance!

And!!! I just received notice from Amazon that my copy of the new Eric Meyer book, "More on CSS" had shipped this afternoon. That release was not scheuduled until the 19th. Pleasant surprise! I have my copy on the way, so now I can suggest you grab one of your own since I now know I won't get stuck in eternal backorder if supplies run short. Greedy, aren't I?

One more little goodie would make the day complete. [Things tend to come to me in threes so I can hope.] It would be icing on the cake if I spotted a way to have the now dearly loved Web Developer Toolbar for FireFox link to the *fussy* validator rather than the standard one. That's an awfully easy and highly addicting method to click and check.

Hope you had a good and non-taxing day, too!

Farron
[and that _^..^_ who doesn't care as long as he's fed]

P.S. Great spring weather here again as well. Shorts were the order of the day after threats of snow flurries yesterday. Go figure. But *we* won't count that as number three good thing [or risk putting it in the body of this post] since *we* are greedy and want more, More, MORE! TaTa!!

Web Standards Supporters!

I was just shown a link by a fellow LVS staff member that I do not want to lose, so I am adding it here.

MACCAWS... Making A Commercial Case for Adopting Web Standards

I might also suggest that anyone wanting to make a case for the advantages of designing to web standards to an employer or client might suggest they at least flip through Jeffery Zeldman's book “Designing With Web Standards” or look at a long time favorite site, Zen Garden and a new, soon to be favorite just discovered thanks to the MACCAWS site:

Web Standards Awards

Be sure to take a peek and see some of the goodies there. I notice that the [until very recently] hybrid site, Happy Cog, has been reinvented and picked up an award here. And the most recent winner, Twinsparc, is absolutely lovely in my humble opinion. Since it posted on my birthday, I consider it a personal gift. [Wish I could take credit for being the designer...lol.]

I really need to get on the stick and work with this level of design and standards. Until the first of this year, enough of a percentage of my user base was still using good old Netscape 4.x as their primary, or only corporate, browsers that I was rather hopelessly stuck in beating all but *playtime* pages with hacks to accommodate them visually. But, like magic, they have finally started dropping that old browser like a hot potato in the last few months. What a freeing turn of events that has been! I can finally wander into the 21st century!

TaTa for now!

Farron & That _^..^_

An Event Apart

Just go to the link and look what's in the works.

http://www.alistapart.com/live/

Fingers crossed big time that there's a location and time that works out for this resident of the Cathouse.

Now stop whining about my not adding more content here and click the link!

Nuff said,

Farron
(& THE _^..^_ who could care less as long as he's fed)

Students & XHTML

The first group of students are rolling along in week three of the newly rewritten Level 2 XHTML/CSS class at LVS Online. We are starting them off in the Transtional DTD and taking everything in baby steps.

It is quite an experience to watch those new to coding start out at square one with XHTML and CSS instead of HTML4.01 with those good old <font> tags and twisted hacks we all cut our teeth on.

This class completed the first run of debbieT's Level One last term and I have them in Intermediate as we speak. Happy to report that the majority of them are taking to it like ducks to water. Issues and problems seem fewer and farther between than they were at this stage in the old HTML 4.01 style classes with hacks and deprecated codes included. That makes *the instuctor* happy and leading the class a much more pleasant experience.

And what's even more fun is seeing the interest in basic accessibility information.

In working with data tables this week I introduced a little tool that I had not seen in the piles of goodies hidden at WAI/W3C until I was researching the lesson. The WAI Tablin tool:

http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/Tablin/form

I thought there might be groans but they are looking and experimenting with ways to make the content of data tables read in a more logical, linear fashion. Treating it like a fun, new toy, not just another drudgy checkpoint. Woo Hoo!

Wouldn't it be fun if we could influence even a few of the next generation of coders and designers to use standardized coding, CSS and accessibility features without even thinking hard about it. Have it become as natural as breathing. One can hope and work toward that goal in their own little corner of the world. *smile*

I wish I had been shown some of these things on day one. Just think of all the deeply ingrained bad habits I could have avoided. Coulda, Shoulda, Didn't. lol

That's all for now from our 17" view of cyberspace....

Farron and That _^..^_

Visiting from the Edge of Sanity

I seem to have taken a break from blogging....again. Actually, I have been busily putting together a new class and the first lesson posted for students *officially* today. That means it really went up last night. [laugh]

The last two weeks are still being finished and polished, but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And it doesn't look like a train. Yippee!!

In looking at a few resources for one of those unfinished weeks I started getting lost in links. Fun links! Landed in the SXSW site. I forget about that nifty little festival since I am no longer involved in the comings and goings of Music Row...thank goodness!

I did notice the web awards. Seems the winners will be announced in a ceremony tomorrow.

The finalists are here:

http://www.sxsw.com/interactive/web_awards/finalists/

Before I made it to the finalists' page, I was clicking the *random website* link over on the main site. Peek at one, reload and check another.

Although there were some pretty things there, I was a bit dismayed to see the sort of out of date and/or invalid coding used in many that I hit. Should decent coding not be part of the criterion? Certainly would be if *I* ran the circus. {{sigh}}

From the few I have checked in the finalists, it may have counted for something with the judges. The selections are looking a bit more inline with what I would have expected. But I reserve judgment until I look at a few more. ;^)

So fingers are crossed for Zen Garden to be the shining star of the day. I do see it made the final cut. There are some other goodies there as well. I need to go back and poke around a bit, then it's back to polishing the lessons to send others in the direction of valid XHTML and CSS.

And no Becky, I am not picking on your precious Flash. I am fussing about the static pages...[snicker]

Writing those lessons has been a learning experience in and of itself. I don't *do* logical thinking very often. If giving it a try doesn't kill me, it certainly may push me over that dreaded edge.

Happy Trails!

Farron
[and that TOTALLY valid but often inaccessible _^..^_ ]

Multiple Versions of IE on One Computer?

Hummm,

I saw this several days ago and am just wandering back to inspect a bit more closely. Might just have to give this little trick to add multiple versions of IE to a single Windows system a try:

Mulitple Versions of IE on Windows

That is something a lot of us have wanted to do for page checking for ages.

Back to do more reading and see what is involved.

Farron

Fussy, Fussy W3C!

Check out the latest Beta Validator at W3C.

Notes about it:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2003Aug/0105.html

The validator:
http://validator.w3.org:8001

It has FUSSY mode! I love it.

Yippee!!

Farron and That _^..^_

ReUseit Design Challenge

Have you ever complained about the plain jane look of Jakob Nielsen's useit.com and used it as an excuse to avoid accessibility and valid coding?

Here's your chance to try redesigning that site to a more visually pleasing level:

http://www.builtforthefuture.com/reuseit/

No one says it will be used for anything, but might be an interesting exercise. I know I could use some practice in that direction. How about you?

Farron

Hummingbirds , Pesky Websites & CSS Text Images

In my travels around the web while sipping coffee and watching the new little humming residents of the patio garden, I spotted a tidbit that may be old news to many of you, but part of it was news to me. Knowing that it concerns a site that many of us have had major complaints about, I thought I would pass it along.

We all know about the death of Netscape by now, old news I had also heard that, although CSS and standards guru, Eric Meyer had not been one of the first heads to roll in the AOL layoffs, he had decided to leave and go out on his own. What I had not heard was the news that a certain major website that has caused more howls since their redesign that Carter has [had?] little pills was one of his redesign clients.

Check the August 1st entry in his weblog here: http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2003c.html#t20030731

to find out which major website has set their eye toward accessibile CSS. Yippee!! Of course, if he gets things set in his normal manner, older browers will receive the information in plain vanilla, style free fashion, but that is far more acceptable to me than the rude, "upgrade your brower" lockout page that is there now. [smile]

Another tidbit I have located that may be of interest because several of us have been discussing and trying the orginal article/technique of accessible Image Replacement in CSS. I think we had pretty much agreed it was a wonderful idea, but not quite *there* yet. According to the August 8th entry in Zeldman's blog there are a few alternatives in the works.

http://www.zeldman.com/

Still not quite all together, all together, but getting there.

Enough of my rambles for a Sunday morning. Time to refill my mug with a bit more of that nice strong New Orleans style, chicory coffee, hug a cat and watch my newest friends, the hummingbirds.

TaTa for Now,

Farron

Note: Photo was taken on the first morning the feeder was hung. It is of poor quality since it was taken through a window so I would not disturb my new little friend. As they are becoming more comfortable with we large, lower lifeforms invading *their* new turf, I am hopeful that I will be able to catch some outdoor shots soon.