:: Personal website of a Toronto web designer
Archive, April 2004
Friday, 30. April 2004
An interview with CSS expert
[05:47 pm]
Ten questions for Eric Meyer Eric Meyer is an internationally renowned expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is also the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, a company which focuses on helping clients save money and increase efficiency through the use of standards-oriented Web design techniques.
Wednesday, 28. April 2004
Paris
[08:01 pm]
In about a month, we are heading to Europe and start our trip with a visit to Paris. To get us started, we bought Eyewitness Travel Guide, Paris and discovered a site with a very nice collection of Paris shots. Yaay!
Tuesday, 27. April 2004
So true . . .
[11:39 pm]
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." - Bill Watterson
Sunday, 25. April 2004
Thunderbird
[11:48 pm]
I've been using Outlook Express for years, but a few days ago I decided to switch to Thunderbird, and haven't looked back since. Interestingly enough, this great email client will now get a new logo, and we all can take a look at how it was created from ground up. Needless to say, the new logo looks absolutely awesome.
Friday, 23. April 2004
Playing chess online
[09:54 pm]
Just a few years ago, it was imaginable to play chess real time with somebody on the other side of the Globe. Now it is pretty easy, long live Internet! I spend a lot of my time online playing chess, so I thought I should give a quick instruction to those who might want to combine the beauty of Chess and Internet. There are many sites where people can play chess online, I think I tried them all, but FICS (Free Internet Chess Server) is the only one I would really recommend. FICS is a free, (and advertisement free!) chess place great to spend (or waste?) your time chess-playing and chatting with other people! All you need is an interface program to connect to the server. An alternative to an interface program is JavaBoard, available at the FICS website, but it lacks many features and I wouldn't recommend it. On the other hand I like two programs, WinBoard and BabasChess. There are many others, but I cannot recommend them, as I have never used them. I've been using WinBoard since 1999, it is a simple and easy to use program, but it hasn't been updated for a quite some time now and it lacks many features found in more recently developed programs. I discovered BabasChess a few weeks ago and was positively surprised. I would especially recommend it to those who are just starting using FICS, since it has many server commands built-in.
Once you connect to the FICS server, feel free to challenge me, my handle is "sofy". See you there!
Wednesday, 21. April 2004
Surgeon's keepsake
[11:57 am]
If a web designer makes a mistake, the page may throw some stupid errors, users may find the page ugly and leave it, hackers may find security holes and shut down the website, . . . so, no big deal really, right? But what if a surgeon makes a mistake? Seeing surgical scissors in somebody's stomach makes me think and really appreciate my job!
Tuesday, 20. April 2004
Bookmarks Synchronizer
[04:24 pm]
Bookmarks Synchronizer (FTP) Bookmarks Synchronizer is a Mozilla Firefox extension that let you connect to an FTP server and synchronize your bookmarks that are stored in an XML file. Setup is easy.
It looks like I finally found an easy to use tool that will keep my bookmarks in sync.
Sunday, 18. April 2004
CSS Templates
[08:31 pm]
Some interesting CSS templates found at CSS Intensivstation. The site is in German, but that will hardly stop you to take a look at the CSS template solutions.
Friday, 16. April 2004
Froggy Pen
[11:21 pm]
This could be a suitable sashaDesign mascot. We found this little creature, attached to a pen, in our local book store. On the picture, it looks bigger than it really is. We didn't buy the froggy pen, but a Paris travel guide instead.
Wednesday, 14. April 2004
Funny referrals
[09:51 pm]
Yahoo: Pornographic websites, "proudly" the first.
PS:
Not any more ;-)
Monday, 12. April 2004
PHP for Designers
[05:55 pm]
Digital Web is an online magazine I read frequently. This month's article PHP for Designers explains PHP from the versatile designer's perspective. Writing code is not very different from writing prose or poetry, it's just a different medium and audience. There are rules of syntax, grammar, and style. In English, word choice can make or ruin a sentence.
Friday, 09. April 2004
Spring in Toronto
[11:58 pm]
Today was one of those early spring days when you feel that the winter is on the way out. It seemed the whole city of Toronto was out strolling and walking. Perfect time to take some pictures, which I wasn't doing much lately.
Wednesday, 07. April 2004
W32ValidXHTML.A
[11:46 pm]
A very funny post at the Web Standards Project website written by Steven Champeon on April the 1. Since I am always one week late, I read the post today and had a good laugh. We all hate computer viruses, but W32ValidXHTML.A is a type of a virus I kind of wish it existed.
Tuesday, 06. April 2004
Newsmap
[09:52 pm]
Google News in Flash. Terrific.
Monday, 05. April 2004
CSS, Step by Step
[11:53 pm]
Gradually Implementing CSS in Your Site, by Greg Rewis How do I move from traditional HTML markup to CSS? The answer, as you all know, is 'Very carefully'. All kidding aside, the truth of the matter is that there is no silver bullet capable of slaying the <table> and <font> dragons and rendering your site a complete, fluid, and flexible CSS masterpiece.
Saturday, 03. April 2004
A cover letter we recieved the other day . . .
[03:59 pm]
If you hire me because I am bright,
I'll do a swell job designing your sites.
If you hire me because I am keen,
I'll pull my weight as part of your team.
If you hire me because of my smile,
I'll show you design like it's going out of style.
If you hire me because of this rhyme,
I'll dedicate myself, 110% of the time.
Hello, uh, is this thing on?
I look forward to hearing if I even made you smile.
Friday, 02. April 2004
A Web Standards Primer
[06:14 pm]
Making A Commercial Case for Adopting Web Standards [MACCAWS] - The Kit.
MACCAWS has released their work as white papers today. Great resource for both, website owners and web designers.
Thursday, 01. April 2004
Aprililili
[10:48 pm]
In my opinion, April jokes work best in the morning, before coffee and daily portion of news. It is the time when the brain is particularly inefficient and when one might think that the world has changed over night. Today morning, I made Sofia, who is Portuguese by the way, believe that UEFA EURO 2004 has been surprisingly transferred from Portugal to Germany. "Unbelievable, this is going to be bad for the Portuguese economy. We will have to plan our trip again!", she said. We had a good laugh afterwards, especially because I said "Aprililili" to her, which I wrongly thought to be universal in any language.
So, who fell for your April Fools' Day joke today?
