Flat input buttons in Leopard? Here's why.
After installing Leopard this afternoon one of the first things I noticed had nothing to do with the updated operating system, but rather how form input buttons appeared in Safari. The classic silver aqua look had been replaced with a flat, unattractive, style that (for me anyway) left a lot to be desired. But then I noticed something even stranger...Continue
June 29, 2007iPhone Day!
Can you stand it? Oh my god, it's iPhone HYSTERIA day. I flipped around cable this morning before heading into the office and it was being fondled by numerous television news outlets. You just can't buy hype like this. Or maybe you can. Anyway, for those who can't unshackle themselves from their jobs or wait in line at a local...Continue
June 11, 2007Safari 3 Public Beta
Apple has released a public beta of Safari 3 for Mac OS X and Windows. Great news of course, but for Mac users it comes with one big caveat -- like IE on Windows, Apple has taken a rather draconian approach by replacing Safari 2 when you install Safari 3. So if you run any Safari add-ons, like Red Snapper...Continue
May 23, 2007How to install IE 7 and keep IE 6
As every web developer knows (or should know), testing your work across all major web browsers is part of doing business. My own setup is primarily on OS X using Safari and Firefox, but I also keep Parallels open running Windows XP and IE 6 to quickly catch problems. But there's one browser missing -- IE 7. Yeah, it's supposed...Continue
March 03, 2007Registerfly meltdown
Do you have an account at Registerfly? Does it manage domain names you care about? If so, you should consider moving them away immediately. The reason? Well, looks like they may lose their accreditation in the next 10 days. This comes after a series of months where at least 75,000 customer domains expired, one of which belonged to me. Back...Continue
December 15, 2006Photoshop CS3 beta out
A public beta of Photoshop CS3 for Windows and OS X is now available for download. If you use Photoshop on an Intel Mac, you owe it to yourself to install this immediately. The best part? After launching the app at least once, subsequent launches take about two and a half seconds on my MacBook Pro. In a word, it's...Continue
October 31, 2006Introducing Super Deluxe
For the past year I've written a handful of posts about a new Turner project I was working on, and yesterday the press release finally went out. It's Super Deluxe -- a new, broadband entertainment network from Turner focused on original comedy. (The link above goes to where the site will eventually be. In the meantime, the creative team thought...Continue
May 02, 2006Thoughts on ABC.com's full episode streaming
Chances are you've already noticed that ABC.com is streaming full length episodes of some of their more popular shows. This normally wouldn't be news with everyone jumping into video these days, but there are two things that set it apart. One, it's free. Two, it's amazingly open to anyone (in the US) who wants to watch. Normally with sites like...Continue
April 08, 2006Boot Camp
On my way home from work yesterday I picked up a copy of Windows XP Professional, a couple of games I've been wanting to play (Half Life 2, Far Cry), and got to work installing them all on my MacBook Pro using Apple's new Boot Camp, which everyone has heard about by now. The installation process couldn't have been simpler....Continue
March 08, 2006My topic for An Event Apart
When I was invited a few weeks ago to speak at An Event Apart Atlanta (which recently sold out by the way), I had no idea what I was going to talk about. I'm anything but a regular convention speaker, so I didn't have a ready-made presentation to dig up, or much of anything to immediately pull from. But I...Continue
February 16, 2006Campfire goes live
37signals new Campfire web chat app has gone live, and I'm testing it out. Update: Chat closed down for now. What's been learned? Well, in all Campfire is smooth, easy, and an improvement on most browser-based chat apps I've tinkered with. The design is simple and straightforward, and thankfully nearly all textual. A lot of time could have been wasted...Continue
January 12, 2006iWeb's HTML markup. Not so good.
Wondering what the HTML source of Apple's new iWeb looks like? Check this out, and view source. Granted, this is just one template, and I'm assuming the author didn't modify anything, but all I can say is...WTF? 1) iWeb inserts it's own Generator tag. Should feel right at home for anyone using FrontPage. 2) The style sheet is a redundant...Continue
December 22, 2005Looking for a crew
Out with the old, in with the new. The old -- my work at Turner Sports Interactive, where I designed sites for The Ryder Cup and The PGA Championship as part of the PGA.com team. The new -- Creative Director on an exciting new venture within Turner Entertainment. There will be multiple positions available on my team, including junior and...Continue
October 18, 2005The Ultimate TV/Monitor
Slowly but surely, the differences are eroding between LCD monitors sold for computers and LCD televisions sold for the living room. Both are getting bigger, cheaper, and better. Only trouble is, there isn't one display (that I could find) that has the best features of both. Either the resolution is too low for decent computer usage (like Dell's LCD TVs)...Continue
September 13, 2005Ouch!
Well that sucked. Late yesterday afternoon all, and I mean all, of my Dreamhost-hosted sites took a nose dive due to the Los Angeles power outage. No mail, no web, no FTP. It was off for hours and didn't come back online until sometime around midnight. For kicks I loaded my entire "Blogs" directory of bookmarks to see how many...Continue
September 01, 2005Trying on Backpack
When 37signals released Backpack a while back, my first impression was...eh. The thought of paying for a web-based service that essentially held all the crap I was already bookmarking and pasting into Stickies simply didn't appeal to me. A smart idea for sure, but not something I saw myself using, let alone paying for (it's what desktop computers and PDAs...Continue
August 11, 2005PGA Champ podcast
Update (7/17/05): The podcast is now available in the iTMS. Not only that, but it was selected as a featured item at the top of the Podcast page under "New and Notable." Sweet. Few things are as much fun for web nerds than trying out new technology. Case in point -- the 2005 PGA Championship is now podcasting. Copy this...Continue
July 22, 2005Vista
Get used it it folks -- according to Engadget, which lifted their news from ActiveWin.com, the next version of the Windows operating system will be named "Vista." This replaces the beloved "Longhorn" everyone has been poking fun at for the past few years, and Engadget readers are hardly pleased with the new name. In its defense, "Vista" is nowhere near...Continue
July 01, 2005Nvu
Now available for download is Nvu 1.0 -- a 'complete web authoring system' for Linux, Windows, and OS X. It's free, and packs quite a punch in the features department -- integrated FTP, site management, tabbed documents, spell checker, in-line preview, css editor, and numerous wizards for building tables, forms, and other elements. Web developers comfortable with the interface of...Continue
June 07, 2005Apple and Intel, The Day After
There are two theories floating around concerning the whole Apple / Intel marriage announced yesterday by Steve Jobs at the WWDC. One, Apple was forced into bed with Intel by IBM. Two, Apple sought out Intel as part of a long range roadmap IBM simply wasn't interested in. If I were a betting man, I'd let it all ride on...Continue
May 02, 2005Internet Explorer no longer bundled with OS X
It's official -- Internet Explorer is no longer bundled with OS X. The browser is completely absent from fresh installations of 10.4. But the good news gets better -- according to a coworker of mine who freshly installed Tiger (I chose the 'Archive and Install' method) the ubiquitous Microsoft web fonts -- Verdana and Georgia -- are included. For those...Continue
April 18, 2005Adobe Buys Macromedia
What!?!?? WHHHAATTT? Adobe to buy Macromedia? Okay, now that I've had at least thirty minutes or so to jam my eyes back in their sockets, a few quick thoughts on this. First, and I'm honestly not trying to be overly dramatic, but for me this is the end of an era. Macromedia was the younger, more tech-savvy upstart eating into...Continue
April 13, 2005Activity window for Firefox?
One of the features in Safari for OS X that keeps me loyal -- along with bookmark syncing -- has been the Activity window. If you haven't noticed it before, you can open it under Window>Activity in the top menu bar, and it will trace every piece of content that is called by a document. You can then double-click on...Continue
March 24, 2005My PSP - Jacked!
Imagine my surprise -- delivered to my door today was a big box from EB Games, and I knew exactly what it was. I pulled out the scissors, split the tape down the top of the box, and opened it to find a bunch of games, accessories, headphones, a remote, an instruction booklet, and a white Sony PSP box...with a...Continue
March 13, 2005Coming soon: Professional CSS
Hitting a bookshelf near you this summer -- Professional CSS by Christopher Schmitt, Mark Trammell, Ethan Marcotte, Dunstan Orchard and...me. Published by Wrox (the company with sun deprived developers on all their book covers), the 500-page book will "...give developers a peek into the process of the best CSS designers in the world through the work of high profile, real-world...Continue
March 01, 2005Pop-ups sneaking into Safari
If you're a Safari user, chances are you've seen some strange things in your browser lately. Internet Explorer users on Windows are all too familiar with the putrid little beasts, but I hadn't seen one in quite a long time. Yet, there it was -- a pop-up ad for Verizon Wireless, tucked behind the page I had just visited (which...Continue
December 03, 2004DreamHost Adds One-Click WordPress Install
My web host, DreamHost, announced today that WordPress, the free and rapidly spreading blogging software, can now be automatically installed on any account. You pick which domain and directory you want the software on, type the name of the MySQL database you'd like to create (if you don't already have one), and their new utility takes care of the rest....Continue
November 09, 2004Firefox 1.0 is Finally Here
After God only knows how long, the final 1.0 build of Firefox is now freely available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Today also marks the beginning of many marketing efforts on the part of the Spread Firefox community, a full page ad in the NY Times, parties all around the country, and lots of other promotional stuff to...Continue
October 27, 2004Be a Code Monster at Dreamhost
Dreamhost, the web host I've been using for over two years now, and frankly the first I've ever been satisfied with, is currently offering a fantastic deal that's available to new customers and existing ones like myself. For $19.95 a month (or even less if you pay for two years up-front) you can be a "Code Monster" for the same...Continue
October 26, 2004Firefox is on the move
I never thought this day would come. Firefox, the once-bastard stepchild of the Mozilla project, is suddenly taking off. This is hardly news to anyone working in web development and/or the Slashdot peanut gallery, but the speed with which Firefox is beginning to eat away at Internet Explorer's market dominance is stunning, and as someone who works daily with the...Continue
October 11, 2004Extensis Suitcase upgrade warning
I'm not 100% sure when this 'feature' was added, but after recently upgrading my copy of Extensis Suitcase to 11.0.4 (released 10/8/04), and restarting my PowerBook, I received a pop-up window noting that there were 'too many users of my serial number', identified the name of the 'offending' machine (my PowerMac), and then proceeded to quit. Now, technically speaking, I...Continue
August 12, 2004My web development testing setup
I received an email today asking how I test my web development work across multiple browsers and platforms, so I thought I'd post a public response for others to potentially benefit from. I work primarily in OS X for all my web development work, from Flash to hand-coding in BBEdit. Whenever I'm working with CSS and XHTML though, I pull...Continue
June 17, 2004Firefox Bookmark Sync
Since signing up for .Mac, I've been hooked on Safari's bookmark syncing. The process is invisible, painless, and makes a huge contribution to my daily sanity and productivity. And for the immediate future, I assumed it would be the only browser to provide such a feature. Well, leave it to the open source community to come up with the new...Continue
June 09, 2004The Safari Conundrum
Recently I signed up for a new Bill Pay service through Wachovia so I can pay nearly all of my bills automatically through my online account. I was already using their online services for other tasks, so adding Bill Pay was the logical next step. And thus far, it has made an amazing difference in how I handle the monthly...Continue
April 01, 2004CSS / XHTML developer job opening
Looking for full-time work? Live in, near, or would be up for moving to Detroit? If so, a major Detroit area advertising agency is looking for a full-time css / xhtml web developer to join their crew. Update: Apparentely a number of qualified people have responded to this quickly, so the business in question is no longer looking....Continue
March 04, 2004I have management?
For the past couple of months I have been inundated with emails containing all the various Windows-related worms. Thankfully, because all I use are Macs, the emails have added up to nothing more than a mild nuisance, and at times -- like today -- comedic fodder. Today I received yet another worm email, but this time from my own domain...Continue
February 17, 2004No Show at SXSW
I've been privately asked by multiple people if I'll be attending the Interactive portion of SXSW this year, and the answer is no. Last year was my first conference, and while I had a great time being a panelist, and meeting lots of people I've only "met" online, I have too much going on this year to attend. Truth be...Continue
February 11, 2004Wednesday Grab Bag of Goodies
In no particular order, here are a few items of interest I've come across lately that others might be interested in. SideTrack -- For whatever reason, Apple has never taken full advantage of their laptop trackpads, unlike Windows laptops where users can scroll documents, double-tap, and perform other actions without having to move their cursor all over the screen. SideTrack...Continue
December 19, 2003The Best of 2003
Another year, another chance to enumerate the "best" stuff we heard, watched, read, and used. This is merely a list of lists I stumbled across here and there, in no particular order, and will continue to update when more is found. If you have a suggestion, drop me an email. Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003 by Jakob NielsenBest...Continue
November 20, 2003Road Runner Flash Portal
Tipped off by PixelSurgeon, this morning I stumbled across this Road Runner portal built entirely out of Flash. Every widget, every button, every text field, everything is Flash. (To enter, click "Enter Road Runner", choose a State, and go). The site, without a doubt, is slick. Very slick. It feels like Macromedia Central yet is designed more like a traditional...Continue
October 28, 2003No Georgia/Verdana without IE on the Mac?
Matt Jalbert wrote to me with an interesting observation. While recently upgrading to OS X 10.3, Jalbert decided to not install Internet Explorer 5 (which you can remove in the 'Customize' window). After his installation was complete, and Jalbert opened Safari to surf the web, he was greeted with an ugly surprise -- all the type was in either Times...Continue
October 26, 2003Text-Shadow in Safari 1.1
Got Panther? Good. Using Safari? Excellent. Safari 1.1, shipping with OS X 10.3 (and should hopefully be available soon as a free download for 10.2 and under), comes with support for the Text-Shadow property found in CSS2. From what I can tell, Safari is the first - and only - browser to support this property. So if you've got Safari...Continue
October 19, 2003The Activation Game
This weekend I participated in an old rainy-day ritual of mine -- backing up all my data from a Mac, erasing its hard drive, installing a fresh build of the operating system, and then moving everything back to where it once was. It's a time consuming (but for me very worthwhile) task that only happens when a big upgrade to...Continue
October 13, 2003Testing Slow User Connections
After one of my recent posts about testing Flash preloaders locally, I received an email from a reader pointing me in the direction of "mod_bandwidth" -- a free module for Apache web server (which is built into OS X) that simulates web connections for dial-up users. Considering that most web developers (at least ones I know) use broadband connections, and/or...Continue
October 07, 2003Get Ready for IE Changes
Apple has posted helpful developer documentation concerning the changes Microsoft will be making (as required by the Eolas case) to Internet Explorer in early 2004, and how web developers (on any platform) can prepare now in advance: Creating the Best User Experience for Active Web ContentAuthoring Websites for Compatibility with Internet Explorer for Windows FAQPreparing Websites with Active Content for...Continue
September 29, 2003Dead End Naming Conventions
Today Adobe announced Creative Suite, an all-in-one bundle of their most popular applications including Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, and InDesign. Along with the release is a re-branding of their entire product line, including the removal of the numerical naming convention the company has used since its origin. Taking a page from Macromedia's "MX," Adobe's products are now branded with "CS" to...Continue
September 25, 2003Eolas: Donate the Money
A thought occurred to me while reading this article covering the massive ramifications Eolas' recent $520.6 million court victory over Microsoft may have on web development, and the future of the desktop browser. But before I get to that... We, because of this legal victory, will be able to reinstate a whole new area for competitive development in the software...Continue
September 10, 2003RIAA Legal Defense Fund
I'm interested to know if any non-profit, online organization is raising money to help support the 12 year old honors student recently extorted by the RIAA for $2,000. A girl, in case you haven't been following the story, who is an honors student living with a single mother in a NYC Housing Authority apartment. The mother, it should be noted,...Continue
August 27, 2003Congrats to Zeldman, Bowman
A huge, big, damn - gargantuan, congratulations to Jeffrey Zeldman and Dougas Bowman who have been contracted by Apple to help redesign their web site. Considering their respective resumes, it's safe to assume Apple.com will soon become a crown jewel of standards compliant corporate sites on the web. To see two talented friends I hold in high esteem be picked...Continue
Macromedia's Hybrid Navigation
I could be late to the party on this, but while browsing around the Macromedia home page this morning, I noticed something interesting about their primary navigation. In their Store, Macromedia's web developers are using a mix of css, javascript, and unordered lists to create a gorgeous, Aqua-style navigation with glowing rollovers, sub-navigation, spacer pipes, and a search area. The...Continue
August 07, 2003Bad Flash Sniffers
Every time Macromedia releases a new version of the Flash player, from Flash 4 to 5 to 6 and now 7, web sites everywhere break. Not because of a buggy public beta player, but because certain web developers build (or copy) Flash player sniffers coded in JavaScript that utterly fail to provide any forward compatibility. In other words, if a...Continue
July 26, 2003Find Fluffy with Woz
Just the other day I was a scrounging around the backyard of a nearby house looking for one of our cats. He had not returned home in hours, and because we recently moved into the area, I was concerned he was lost. After searching and calling for nearly half an hour - his orange head popped up from behind a...Continue
July 10, 2003Goodbye Comcast
As if to further punish me for what has been an intolerable, time-sucking relationship, my home Comcast internet cable connection died a week ago today. The reason? According to a tech support rep, Comcast had "accidentally erased my registration information." No problem. I've been through this before. All I had to do was give my ethernet ID, power down my...Continue
June 25, 2003Horrible Time to Buy a TV
After many moves in my lifetime, I've developed a theory - no matter how carefully you pack, carry, and unpack household possessions, there will always be at least one object that fails to participate, and choses that moment for a celestial dirt nap. In this move, the deceased was a 1987 21" Toshiba television. It wasn't dropped or mishandled in...Continue
June 13, 2003The Disturbing Trend in Browsers
By now, most people have heard the news: Microsoft is killing development of Internet Explorer for the Mac. Not only that, but the free, standalone version of IE for Windows. Now, as a Mac OS X user, I couldn't care less about IE. The browser was very necessary a few years ago in the "dark days" of Apple (when it...Continue
May 31, 2003R.I.P. Netscape
And so, ladies and gentlemen, it goes - Microsoft and AOL have become friends again. AOL Time Warner gets $750 million (which is probably a day of interest on Microsoft's horde of money), but like all other court cases related to Microsoft, there's a twist. As part of their agreement, AOL will be "allowed" to use Internet Explorer as their...Continue
May 07, 2003AOL Weblogs?
Down at the bottom of today's post by Dave Winer comes a rather interesting rumor - AOL may be developing a weblog publishing system. Considering how popular the "medium" has become, and because AOL is actively searching for new revenue streams, the news is hardly surprising. What is interesting is that according to Winer's source, AOL Time Warner has 400...Continue
May 06, 2003A Small Safari Request
To view a document's source in Mozilla, Camino, or Internet Explorer for OS X, the keyboard shortcut is Command-E. The shortcut, to a Mac web developer, is as universal as typing Command-S to save a document. But in Safari, the view source shortcut - for whatever reason - is a clunky triple key press of Command-Option-V. But Command-E must already...Continue
May 02, 2003Standards Compliant "_blank" Windows
One of the often-heard complaints among web developers who migrate their HTML 4.0 or XHTML 1.0 Transitional content to XHTML 1.0 Strict is that the anchor tag property "target" no longer exists. Which, in turn, means that designers striving for complete document validity can no longer pop-open a user's window when linking to off-site content. Ever since I updated this...Continue
March 17, 2003Macromedia.com Progress Report
Web developers everywhere will certainly appreciate and enjoy reading "Macromedia's Beta 1 Progress Report" which details what they learned, and changed, from the recent relaunch of their home site. Perhaps most interesting, to me anyhow, was the crossroad of choosing which tool to use to solve a particular navigational problem, and the internal politics that likely surrounded their decision making....Continue
March 07, 2003SXSW We Go
Tomorrow I head off to attend and participate in the 2003 SXSW Interactive Festival. Attending, to meet and greet boat loads of industry people I've only spoken to electronically - phone, IM, email - and participating by sitting in as panelist for the Sunday afternoon "Because We Can: Web Publishing For the Hell of It" panel alongside Jeffrey Zeldman and...Continue
Danger!
Yesterday I borrowed a friend's Danger HipTop for a few minutes to check out the interface, surf around the net, and basically grin my ass off over the wonderful mini-keyboard, thumb-scroll wheel, and rotating screen. While handling it, I snapped a photo of What Do I Know loaded in the HipTop web browser. With the exception of my menu bar,...Continue
March 03, 2003Illustrator 11 Rumors
Think Secret has posted some very tantalizing details of the forthcoming Illustrator 11 from Adobe. Two points stand out - one, that Adobe has learned through internal studies that most Illustrator users are still using version 8, even if they paid for the two subsequent upgrades (speed is the reason), and two, that Adobe's dormant 3D program Adobe Dimensions will...Continue
February 23, 2003Money Pit
There was a time, three to four years ago, when Salon.com was one of the brightest lights on the internet. They were original, confident, talented, and at times even broke stories ahead of the big media establishments. They proved - for a while - that the internet was a completely new medium flush with opportunity for independent, original content. But...Continue
February 22, 2003ESPN Moves Forward with Standards
I'm admittedly a little late reporting this news, despite the fact that the ESPN.com web design team sent me a personal email to announce the news (thanks guys) and others have already written about it, but, well, I've been quite busy. But here it goes anyway - ESPN has new, lean, mean, standards compliant, so-close-to-validating-you-can-taste-it home page redesign. Once they...Continue
February 21, 2003The Elusive CSS Footer
Yesterday while crunching, munching, belching, and...well, typing a bunch of CSS code and template markup for a project I'm working on, I was smacked upside the head with one of the greatest weakness of using CSS (and not tables) for element positioning - those blasted footers. Don't know what I'm talking about? Take a look at this collection of CSS...Continue
February 19, 2003MovableType Tip: Comment Status
Thanks to the latest build of MovableType, users now have three options for the handling of comments in their entries - none, open, and closed. That said, even if you decide to close access to an entry's comment thread, users won't know whether a thread is available for commenting until after they enter their form data, click Post, and are...Continue
February 16, 2003Blogger Backlash?
So today the weblog world and technology presses are basically freaking out because Google has purchased Pyra, the company behind Blogger. While most people seem to be in favor of the move, and dreaming up all kinds of cross-media integration ideas, I can't help but wonder what will happen to the community surrounding the tool. Like indie rock, or any...Continue
February 13, 2003The Communities of Macromedia and Adobe
Reading Kevin Lynch's new weblog, I ran across the following: There will likely be more blogs from folks at Macromedia as we're finding this is another great channel to stay in touch with what really matters to folks and get feedback on the work we do. I think it's becoming quite essential to be in tune with the blog community,...Continue
February 05, 2003Dell Drops the Floppy
According to this article, Dell is formally announcing that the time has come to kill the floppy disk drives in their desktop machines; a move that comes, oh, nearly half a decade after Apple broke the mold by ripping the outdated slot out of the iMac. Once again, Michael Dell will probably boast about being a visionary by doing so,...Continue
The Informed Reporter
Chances are if you watched cable news this past weekend or in the weekdays following the loss of Columbia, you saw Miles O'Brien - one of the most well-informed, educated news anchors in the field of NASA and aeronautics handling the channel's coverage of the tragedy. Watching O'Brien, I kept expecting him to eventually leave and make room for a...Continue
January 26, 2003Launch.com: Are You Experienced?
While browsing around this afternoon looking for some new music videos, I had an interesting experience, to say the least, at Launch.com - "Your Yahoo! Music Experience." When you click on any video link on this page, a separate pop-up window launches to embed, or I assume allow the user to choose, a QuickTime, RealPlayer, or Windows Media movie. Instead...Continue
January 23, 2003SXSW
On Sunday, March 9, at the 2003 South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival, I'll be a panelist alongside Jeffrey Zeldman and Adam Greenfield for an hour-plus session exploring the ins and outs of the independent web publisher. We'll be discussing and answering audience questions concerning the rewards, triumphs, and discontents of indie web publishing. If you plan to attend SXSW...Continue
Textpattern
Dean Allen of Textism has opened the official home of Textpattern, his self-rolled, soon to be released CMS system for weblogs and the like. Dean contributes some very interesting ideas to the software genre, including (my favorite) a page layout preference pane for newbies who need easy access to templates, separation of entries into multiple categories and sections, a simple...Continue
January 22, 2003Verizon Ordered to Hand Over Kazaa User
According to this New York Times article, the RIAA has successfully argued their case in front a federal judge to allow them access to a subscriber of Verizon Communcations "suspected" of making available hundreds of unauthorized mp3 files. Essentially, the judge is allowing the recording industry to demand from internet service providers lists of their subscribers, subscribers they "suspect" of...Continue
January 16, 2003Vertical Plasmas in Television News
The latest trend in television news set design is clearly the flat-panel plasma screen. Most mount them in a landscape perspective, but some clever news channels (like most notably MSNBC and CNBC) are mounting the screens vertically to create a semi-life like, quasi-hologram effect for when an anchor is interviewing a reporter or guest. But what I want to know...Continue
Two New MovableType Tips
Wandering around tonight I stumbled across two new, handy little scripts for MovableType for those who want to further customize their weblogs. First is this graphical date tutorial from Garrett Murray of Maniacal Rage, which details how to create date stamps for your entries using images joined together by MovableType when a post is published. The methodology is quite simple,...Continue
January 14, 2003Intuit's Criminal Customers
I have to admit, I feel a certain glee watching what has happened to Intuit thanks to their new 2002 version of TurboTax. What? You haven't heard? Well, the story goes like this: Intuit, in a boneheaded move to "fight piracy" has bundled each copy of their tax-preparation software with an encryption system similar to Windows XP that prevents users...Continue
Dave Hyatt's Safari Weblog
One of the best things about using and following the developments of open source web browsers like Mozilla, Phoenix, Chimera, and now Safari, is that you can easily find information online - often times written by the developers themselves - about documented bugs, suggested workarounds, and insights into the mind of the developer (and team). While the average Joe may...Continue
December 23, 2002Apple Web Developer List
Are you a web developer? Do you use a Mac? Do you relish in the thought of receiving hundreds of emails from people who can't correctly position an element in Mozilla which looks just fine in IE? If the collective answer is yes, then sign up for Apple's new Web-development Discusssion List, where "both client and server side developers discuss...Continue
December 21, 2002So That's Where The Money Went
Millions of dollars over-budget and years later than expected, Boston's new highway system (dubbed the "Big Dig") is not expected to open until sometime in 2004, but thanks to the web and streaming video, Bostonians can begin acclimating themselves to the roads, tunnels, and exit signs (in virtual, digital mockups) thanks to the Big Dig virtual tunnel tours. I see...Continue
November 13, 2002WSJ: Technology Prevented Accurate Election Polling
The days following last week's GOP sweep of the Congressional elections have been quite interesting to watch. Pollsters, politicians, and talk show hosts have repeatedly asked why nobody was able to predict the power-shifting outcome of the election, and the various reasons for their collective blunder. Some media outlets, like Salon.com, have adopted rural rednecks in Georgia as one of...Continue
November 11, 2002Macromedia Announces "Contribute"
Take a tour of Macromedia's new stripped-down HTML editor named "Macromedia Contribute," aka Dreamweaver Lite. Available for Windows next month, Mac OSX "sometime next year." Oh well....Continue
November 06, 2002101 Reasons to Use Mozilla
Plucked from a Slashdot discussion comes a rather interesting list of the 101 things Mozilla can do that IE cannot. Worth checking out....Continue
November 02, 2002Why Does IE 5 Survive?
One of the questions I've been asking myself (and others) lately when viewing the stats of this site is why nearly half of Windows users out there continue to use some flavor of IE 5 and not 6. Granted, I don't keep up with Windows / Microsoft related news anywhere near as much as I do Apple, but regardless of...Continue
October 21, 2002Mena Trott, Zeldman Redesign
In case you don't read their sites, both Mena Trott and Zeldman have redesigned their personal sites. Zeldman is still working on his - which will now be all CSS - while Mena has pretty well completed hers with a fetching, classic look. Quite nice....Continue
September 22, 2002The FrontPage Blues
In between my fits of anger, denial, and anxiety the past couple of weeks, I found myself in one of those "pass-the-buck" scenarios you often see in design circles. The characters change names, but the story is always the same - a business hires a designer, the designer flakes out (or in the case of this story, lands in jail...Continue
September 04, 2002Everything is Broken
Reading Jeffrey Zeldman's feature article "99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete" in the latest issue of Digital Web Magazine, I was impressed with one rather obvious, yet important point. ...in the world of programming, if you write your code correctly, it works. If you write it incorrectly, it fails. Languages like C++ and Java don't merely encourage proper coding practices, they...Continue
August 12, 2002How Much?
On a trip to my friendly neighborhood Staples this morning I witnessed a sad, frustrating sight - a seemingly pleasant woman buying an ink jet cartridge for her new Epson printer. Mouth gaped, eyes on fire, she stood in disbelief as the cashier rang up her single cartridge. "Wait a second - how much is it?" "$45." "Forty-five dollars for...Continue
August 01, 2002Interland Nightmare
Two months ago my American Express statement contained a rather interesting surprise - $99 from Interland. Interland? Thinking it was an error, I called American Express and questioned the charge. My card was credited for $99 while American Express researched the matter. This week, the charge reappeared, thanks to Interland faxing a mocked-up, adhoc "invoice" to American Express plus a...Continue
July 24, 2002Salon Blogs
Salon has followed the footsteps of companies like MSNBC and Macromedia and is now allowing their employees (*ahem* writers) to join the blogging bandwagon. The lights aren't completely on yet, but you can now check out a number of Salon blogs in their virginal, "Hey, does this work? Test Test 123" stage. Speaking of Salon, my annual subscription just came...Continue
July 23, 2002Aqua Mozilla
Ditch those ugly "Modern" and "Classic" themes in Mozilla / Netscape 7 and make the browser feel right at home in OS X with the beautiful pinstripe theme for Mozilla....Continue
July 17, 2002Amazon.com Web Services
Amazon.com has launched their web services information page. Considering how successful their Associates program has been, Amazon's foray into SOAP and XML should be quite interesting to watch....Continue
July 08, 2002eBay Buying PayPal
PayPal, one of the true success stories of the internet, has been acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock. Less competition naturally breeds higher prices and less choice, yet they have the nerve to say this is "good for their customers." Maybe for eBay users, but not for people who use PayPal for small business e-commerce transactions. Wonder how...Continue
June 21, 2002NPR: Hype and Paranoia
What was once a small, rather silly rant about NPR's linking policy on their web site has bloomed into a full blown tech news story. I'm not going to bother rehashing what everyone else has done an admirable job of covering already. But I will offer a personal perspective, as someone who once worked inside public radio. Of all the...Continue
June 20, 2002Customized Mozilla Icon
I've never liked Mozilla's big blue M icon. It lacks a certain...personality, that can easily be replaced with this fetching beast. Download icon. Note: to replace the icon, change it using the tried and true Get Info copy / paste method from OS 9 and below. Trouble is, icon replacement is still kind of buggy in X. When you paste,...Continue
Webbys
There was once a time when the Webby Awards were on the tip of every web developer's tongue and splashed across media publications the world over. Things obviously aren't what they used to be, for I didn't hear or see a thing about the 2002 awards until it was all over. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Webbys aren't...Continue
June 17, 2002For The Love of Palm
We have a new baby. No, not that kind of baby, but a new Handspring PDA. My wife has needed one for quite some time, and this week (for her birthday) she finally got one. We've already synched it with Palm Desktop under OS X, added a few things here and there, but for the most part the Palm OS...Continue
June 13, 2002This is an Improvement?
For those of you who don't run OS X 10.1.5 or Mozilla 1.1a, you're probably unaware of the browser's new, supposedly improved text rendering. Taking a cue from other OS X browsers like Chimera and OmniWeb, Mozilla now taps in to OS X's Quartz graphics engine, allowing the browser to render smooth, antialiased type. Maybe it's my eyes, or my...Continue
June 12, 2002Chill Out
Are you one of those sweaty types that gets all funky while cranking out code or playing Quake? Well, Kensington has the answer. FlyFan is a USB powered personal fan you can plug in and chill out just about anywhere with. $24.99....Continue
May 22, 2002Netscape 7 Preview
Netscape has released Netscape 7 PR1 for Windows, Mac OS X, Mac Classic, and Linux. Which makes me wonder--what happened to 6? Perhaps Netscape is looking to sweep Netscape 6's bad reputation for being slow, buggy, and ugly. Sure, they fixed lots of stuff after 6.0, but first impressions are important, and most people I know tried, and trashed, 6.0...Continue
April 29, 2002eMac and MX
Talk about a double jolt of news to wash down with your morning cup of coffee. Apple comes out of nowhere with a brand new, redesigned version of the iMac for education, and Macromedia formally announces Dreamweaver MX and Fireworks MX. Apple's new iMac, now known as an eMac, answers many teacher's concerns about the recently launched iMac, namely that...Continue
April 26, 2002Free Seminar: Driven By Design
Adobe and Apple are cosponsoring a free, six hour seminar called Driven By Design that will show tips, techniques, and creative solutions for designers using Mac OS X and the full suite of Adobe products. Touring metro areas across the US and Canada, with Atlanta being the first stop. Monday, April 29th from 1-7pm. And hey, it's free. Click the...Continue
My True Desktop
I contributed a photo of my workspace to the Project: Workspace exhibition. If you've ever wondered what my little corner of the world looks like, here you go....Continue
April 22, 2002XtraPain
Stewart Alsop of "Alsop on Infotech" in Fortune, a column ironically sponsored by Microsoft, calls Windows XP a burden, a pain, and wonders why a company with billions in cash can't do better. This on a day that Gates testified in court that by providing a stripped down version of Windows, the courts would cause the software industry to lose...Continue
Adobe Pulling Plug on LiveMotion?
A rather interesting rumor about layoffs, reassignments, and a "demoralizing" air around Adobe's LiveMotion web animation group. If true, which I'd bet money on, the rumor would validate what I've thought all along - Macromedia Flash, for better or worse, owns this domain, and Adobe's belated effort would be seen as foolhardy, costly, and largely ignored by the web development...Continue
April 06, 2002eDesign Premieres
I received the premiere issue of eDesign, the magazine of interactive design and commerce, this past week, and so far the magazine looks like a winner. Contrary to other graphic design magazines like Print, HOW and Communication Arts, eDesign is focused squarely on the digital industry. This may seem like an odd time for a web or internet related magazine...Continue
March 31, 2002Watch Out Google
There's a new, unmemorably named kid in town....Continue
March 26, 2002Bring It On AOL. I'm Ready.
Today News.com published a piece entitled "Web developers wary of AOL switch," that takes a look at the ramifications AOL's rumored switch to Netscape may have on web developers. The title was enough, but my jaw dropped when I read this... For all practical purposes, the Web has become a one-browser world over the past few years. Web authors mostly...Continue
March 20, 2002MovableType 2.0
After weeks of beta testing, MovableType 2.0 (the publishing back-end of this web site) has been released to the masses. Ben and Mena put a hell of a lot of effort into this upgrade - answering questions, squashing bugs, and putting up with lots of complainers - all while moving between cities and living out of boxes. My congrats for...Continue
March 13, 2002Name That Hard Drive!
You can learn a lot about someone by the names they give their hard drives. This thread at Slashdot compiles some naming convention ideas you could use next time you reformat a hard drive or buy a new machine. Including...The Seven Dwarfs (after 7, make your own dwarfs, like "Slutty")Names of Your Company's Top ExecutivesThe Periodic Table of ElementsPop Stars...Continue
March 12, 2002Nokia 9210i
Pinch me, I think I'm dreaming. Nokia unveiled today a spiffy new device, part cell phone, part multimedia PDA, known as the 9210i Communicator. Color screen, Opera web browser with support for JavaScript, Flash (doesn't say which version), and Real Network's RealOne Player for a multitude of media formats. God I want one. Also check out the official page....Continue
AOL To Drop IE?
According to NewsForge, AOL is planning on dropping Internet Explorer in the near future and bundling Mozilla as their default web browser. Now, I've never been a fan of AOL. I don't trust them. I don't like their wasteful marketing tactics. I don't like their new TV ads promoting public web sites like eBay and WebMD as if they're exclusive...Continue
March 06, 2002Screenshots of Dreamweaver MX
ThinkSecret has posted a sneek-peek of Macromedia Dreamweaver MX with screenshots running gorgeously under OSX. Don't wait - get over there for a look because content like this doesn't stay around very long....Continue
March 05, 2002CSS Image Rollovers
This belongs in that big, miserable folder I keep in the back of my brain labeled, "why the f#$% didn't I think of that?" Designmeme.com has posted a simple solution for creating image rollovers with CSS instead of JavaScript using none of the extra "on" images you usually have to chop out. Careful - it's so simple it'll make you...Continue
March 01, 2002Cross Platform Made Easy
If you're a web designer on a Macintosh, you simply cannot stay in business unless you have a physical, or virtual, Windows machine to perform cross-platform tests on. It's a matter of common sense - the rest of the world, all 95% of them - use Windows. Not because Windows is better, but...oh never mind. Anyway, A List Apart has...Continue
February 27, 2002Netscape Failed Due to Poor Design?
I personally disagree with the opinions of Stewart Alsop in his recent InfoTech collumn for Fortune, but it is an interesting take on why he thinks 95% of web users today use Internet Explorer, not Netscape, and that AOL Time Warner's lawsuit against Microsoft for running Netscape into the ground is bogus. Why did Netscape fail? Because it was managed...Continue
Fired for a Weblog
Due to the unseemly efforts of an anonymous nark, Heather Hamilton got fired from her job yesterday because of the content she was posting to her weblog. Let the witch hunt begin....Continue
January 30, 2002Sound the Alarm. MicroMedia?
Now this, folks, is pretty scary. According to the ever slanderous FuckedCompany.com, Macromedia may (with an fistful of emphasis on may) be in talks with Microsoft for a possible buyout. Macromedia has hit rough waters the past few months, absorbing the hit of the dot-com bubble burst while simultaneously trying to ramp up new product revisions, including Dreamweaver 5 and...Continue
January 22, 2002A Measly Penny
Rarely has a single penny meant so much. At long last, today Amazon.com delivered its first-ever net profit. For years, dot-com naysayers have used Jeff Bezos and Amazon as a prime example of why the tech and internet sector is ultimately doomed and will fail fruition. But today, in what quite possibly could be a major turning point for the...Continue
January 19, 2002AOLinux?
According to the Washington Post in a mindblowing article released today, AOL is in negotiations to buy Red Hat. In case you don't know, Red Hat is a North Carolina based software company that sells products and services based on Linux. For a while there in the late 90s, Wall Street (and certain Linux desktop advocates) were betting that Linux,...Continue
January 18, 2002Gettin' Paid
For the past few days I've been drafting a list of recommendations for freelance or independent contractors when it comes to that all-important topic of money. Yes, we don't like to mix money with design, and the fact is most designers stink at business, the law, and protecting yourself in case a job goes awry. I don't claim to know...Continue
January 15, 2002The Imploding Web Designer
If you spend most of your days in a semi-lit room staring into a computer screen, you've undoubtedly had days like Jailbitch. He's decided to pitch all his work (and he did have lots of great game related Flash work) into the trash, raise his finger at the online world, and become a carpenter...or something. You know...I sometimes think... oh...Continue
January 02, 2002Just What the World Needs - Another Audio Format
Get ready folks, because Napster is coming back. In case you haven't heard, the "new" Napster is far different from it's previous, popular incarnation. Today, Shawn Fanning and company are firmly in bed with the RIAA, and through a new service will offer a closed database of songs that you can only access if you pay a monthly subscription. Napster...Continue
December 14, 2001Blowing it Bigtime
Despite Zeldman's reassuring words about the demise, vacation, breather, bender, whatever you want to call the WaSP's sudden announcement that they are taking a "gentle leave of absence," I feel like they've totally blown it, and made one hell of a bad public relations move. Instead of simply scaling back their efforts, they're turning off the lights and reflecting about...Continue
Feeling Moody?
In case you haven't seen it, the crew at Kaliber10000 (known more affectionately as k10k) have cranked out their "very first program in our line of 'emotional software'" known as Moodstats. If you could place a GUI on top of a weblog, and use sliders and graphs to record your daily emotional states and thoughts rather than words, this would...Continue
December 13, 2001Can We Talk About Web Design?
Excellent article by Owen Briggs at The Noodle Incident that tackles why the W3C and their standards are worth supporting. This isn't a rant about Netscape 4, but a powerful argument for the preservation of the web's content for future historical purposes, whatever devices the future may bring. His argument? Quit thinking about PCs and Macs, or even using the...Continue
December 03, 2001So That's IT?
This morning on "Good Morning America" Dean Kamen unveiled the mystical "IT" or "Ginger", or as it is now officially called, "Segway" for all the world to see, officially bringing to a close one of the most fascinating sagas of the internet age. There isn't much point in writing about Segway in depth (I'll leave that for the paid tech...Continue
November 29, 2001Is "It" Coming?
Get ready for "Ginger." What? You mean you don't remember? Ah yes, before September 11th, the dot-com bust, Gary Condit, and Ricky Martin shakin' his bon bon at George W.'s innagural bash, inventor Dean Kamen set the then-obviously-bored news world ablaze with promises of a new invention that could radically change the world. As back up, CEO's from around the...Continue
November 20, 2001The desktop is dead
Many years from now, the current "desktop" computer interface will be a relic in a museum. Created by Xerox in the 70s, and brought to fruition by the first Apple Macintosh, the system of pull down menus, files, folders, windows and mouse pointers will give way to a dazzling new era in smart computer interface design. Or, at least that's...Continue
November 01, 2001There Goes Nothing
What a truly ridiculous day this is. Wall Street is wetting itself over the news today that the Justice Department has reached a settlement with Microsoft, with penalties so small and inconsequential they're laughable. This isn't all that surprising, especially to political watchers who knew during the 2000 Presidential race that Bill Gates and company were pouring millions into George...Continue
October 25, 2001Bill Gates Smacked on CNBC
Today marks the launch of Microsoft's Windows XP, and Bill Gates is all over the news. Perhaps he has a cold, or is simply worried about the public accepting his company's latest over-hyped operating system, for the guy looks like hell. Gates appeared on three cable news channels this morning to trumpet XP's ease of use, instant messaging, ya da...Continue
October 03, 2001Salon Switches to Subscription System
The digital gravy train has officially run out of juice. Starting today Salon will begin publishing virtually all of its News and Politics articles in our Premium edition. This means that if you don't already subscribe to Salon Premium, you will need to do so in order to keep reading Salon's coverage of the Bush administration and the current global...Continue
September 19, 2001Hewpaq
Good article over at Morningstar.com taking a second look at the HP / Compaq merger, and the PC industry as a whole. My favorite quote: Compaq and HP can't do a darned thing to make their boxes better at digital music and imaging than anyone else's boxes, because the stuff that makes them better -- software and components -- is...Continue
September 10, 2001AOL to Buy AT+T?
What a way to start a Monday. I get my coffee, feed the cats, pour some cereal, open (uh...I mean click open) my morning paper, and look at what pops out: "AOL Time Warner Said to Be Pursuing AT+T's Cable Unit." I've been a subscriber to AT+T Broadband since it took over MediaOne, and have been very pleased with it...Continue
