In Living Can Kill You Archive
Welcome to the beta of the new saila.com. Send in your bugs.
Living Can Kill You Posted on 2002
“Living Can Kill You” first appeared as a chapbook poems in 1994, before being the name used to describe a regular blog starting in June of 2000.
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France’s email
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Lowercase Internet; css-discuss Wiki
Hope everyone enjoyed a bit of a break — me I’m still fighting the cold that started just before my holidays began. By the way, rumour has it the latest CBC Radio 3 webzine is using a David Elfstrom photo… -
Holidays
With the holiday season in full swing, expect few posts here until the new year. In the meantime, I hope you, too, can enjoy some time off to have a good holiday -
Creative Commons; two views of convergence
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Mozilla 1.3 alpha and Opera 7 beta 2; blogging and the mainstream press
Two new browsers for you to play around with: -
Dean Allen’s Textile; inside HotBot’s new design
Interrupting the overworked-induced silence to point to Dean Allen’s great typography tool, and a new all-CSS design at HotBot (my one-time search engine of choice). Those interested in corporate site development and how things come to be, should read Doug Bowman’s inside-look at the development of HotBot’s new design -
Russell Mills, CanWest make-up; intermediate design guide
You may remember how Russell Mills was dismissed from CanWest allegedly for publishing an article questioning one of the owner’s friends (i.e., Jean Chrétien). Seems they’ve kissed and made-up. -
Ranting, or raving, about Google Labs
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XSLT; styling headlines; fighting copyright tariffs
Although I’m extremely busy right now I have the opportunity to finally practice what I preach about the separation of presentation and structure, and am finally realizing how valuable XSLT would be in a real-world situation. -
Specifying character sets; Netscape 7.0.1
A new series, the “WaSP Asks the W3C,” starts off with an informative little Q&A about setting the proper character set on documents. -
Email at work; meeting Mr. Clark; Ghostzilla
Admittedly, I’m one of the power users this survey on email overload mentions (given I receive in excess of 300 non-spam messages a day, a quarter of which are for me directly), but it confirms what I’ve long suspected. -
CBC Radio 3 a masterpiece; W3C goes tableless
Not sure how I missed this, given my status as an unofficial CBC groupie, but its Web network has relaunched as weekly magazine gorgeously designed in, ahem, Flash. CBC Radio 3: Music and Modern Media looks to be what Shift once was — but with the design of a hip Wallpaper*. -
Harvard Mouse unpatentable
Well, one potentially scary chain of events has been stopped at the source. Canada’s supreme court has just ruled the so-called “Harvard mouse” cannot be patented -
Fixing Trade by Numbers; Sun to unionize?
Mozilla 1.2.1 is out, and it fixes the problems that caused 1.2 to be pulled. -
LaPointe’s list; DOM2 Events in IE
Kirk LaPointe has assembled a mammoth list of news- and media-related links. The look is not pretty, but with Type Ahead Find, or a bit of patience, the list is an impressive resource. (LaPointe, by the way, was the Senior Vice-President at CTV News, the Executive Editor of the National Post, as well as the editor of The Hamilton Spectator. He’s now “at large”.) -
Mozilla 1.2 released; arguing the benefits of cross-ownership
Mozilla 1.2 is out. Although 1.2 beta was a bit flaky, this build is much improved and is much better than the latest nightlies. If you still don’t use this amazing browser, perhaps its worth (re)reading the “101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot” as selected by fellow Torontonian Neil Deakin. -
New validator
The new W3C validator is now available. The changes include increased XHTML support and many bugfixes -
CSS filters; better headings; WSJ stable
Kevin Smith has done a tremendous amount of organizational work to clarify where all the various CSS “hacks” work. While other sites are listed from it, his CSS Filters page will likely become my one-stop hack shop. -
Outliner menus; CBC.ca excellence
Over the past few weeks, a number of people have commented on the outliner-style navigation menu most of you see at the left. I told a couple of them I was considering releasing the script for it to the public. -
JSP errors
You think? -
Moving briefs; CSS menus
Some good reading I found over the weekend (unfortunately, since we’re moving in less than two weeks reading time is at a premium): -
New gig; GetContentSize; XUL; no W3C patents
As has been officially announced, I’m now the Assistant Editor at Digital Web Magazine meaning I’ll be handling interviews, like this one with Jakob Nielson conducted by Meryl K. Evans and Nick Finck. -
DOM talk
DOM support in the new Opera 7 beta is not quite ready for prime time (that’s why its “beta”) so if you want to visit this site using that browser I highly recommend you turn-off JavaScript before arriving. CSS support seems excellent, though. (Opera has a full list of what’s supported.) If you do notice bugs, read the support documentation, and then — with a qualified test case — submit them. -
Star redesign results; Opera 7 beta
To match the new look of the paper, The Toronto Star redesigned its Web site, which had been less than pretty. The new site uses white space well, and is crisply and cleanly designed (the work of freelance designer Simone Paradisi). Unfortunately it still uses unreadable long CMS-generated URLs. Some quickly noted improvements: -
Blogging; Contribute
Some of you may have seen this, but for designers itching to get the work out to a huge audience, the Blogger Template Contest may be of interest. -
CSS3 releases; the Content Provider’s Manifesto
The CSS3 modules are being churned out at a furious pace recently. Last calls were issued for the text and box-model Working Drafts. A second draft was published for lists and and a first one for borders. The latter has some interesting visual additions including implementations for drop shadows (which would render my CSS trick obsolete), rounded corners (which would render another CSS trick obsolete) and creating borders using images. -
Distributed computing renamed
Apparently distributed computing (of SETI@Home fame) is now called grid computing. -
Multiculturalism and privacy
Canada takes pride in describing its implementation of multiculturalism using the metaphor of a tapestry (or salad bowl , or mosaic) to contrast with the idea of a melting pot. But recent attempts by the U.S. government to fingerprint some foreign-born Canadians crossing the border prompted the federal privacy commissioner to suggest passports no longer display the place of birth. -
Star redesign; responding to Asper; privacy in Canada
The Toronto Star, Canada’s biggest paper, is celebrating 110 years in print by redesigning itself (due a week today), and running a retrospective series. Some of the more interesting ones are about the paper itself, including a great piece on the Star’s legendary switchboard and a bittersweet reminisce of the newsrooms of old. -
Gemini winners; Lasica interview
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IE 5/Mac tips; Asper rants
The Macintosh version of the Internet Explorer 5 was the best browser for rendering CSS when it first appeared in early 2000. Now, two-and-a-half years later, other browsers provide more consistent support and that browsers quirks have become more apparent. Thankfully Apple.com commissioned an excellent article detailing workarounds for the most common problems. (A thorough list of bugs is available from CodeBitch.) -
25dates.com; Cashets; Guerilla News
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Trade by Numbers
The last of the two big projects I’ve been working on this month finally launched today. Although Trade by Numbers is a small, monthly e-zine, it is, I believe, the first time a globe*.com site -
Hiding from IE5/Mac; titling pages
A new (?) CSS trick that serves styles only to IE 5.x on the Macintosh has been uncovered by Geoff Sheridan. (Get more CSS tricks using import.) -
The elements of user experience
Boxes and Arrows has a good review of Jesse James Garrett’s The Elements of User Experience, which includes links to the must have one-page diagram the book was named for and a sample chapter which expands on that diagram. -
The butterfly effect
If you’re using Internet Explorer, and visiting any non-AOL-owned site today, you’ll likely see the MSN “butterfly” ads. Adrian Holovaty expands on a topic raised on online-news: a story on MSN and AOL running at The New York Times’s technology section also has those MSN ads. -
Jakob jumps the shark; International New Media Festival
A tangential thought: saw this, and thought of Jump the Shark, which led me to wonder when did Jakob jump the shark? I’ argue it was his partnership with Marcomedia, and those who read his last Alertbox column just might agree, especially given his earlier feelings about Flash. -
Bell Globemedia Interactive lay-offs; updated validator
BGM Interactive, one of the heavyweights in the Canada Internet content game, has cut about 10 percent of its workforce. The company — my employer — operates The Globe and Mail Web sites, CTV’s Web sites, and Sympatico, among others. -
OJA surprise; accessibility and the law
The winners of the 2002 Online Journalism Awards were announced on October 18, 2002. Unfortunately, I had to search out the results myself. Despite being a screener for the Awards, I received no notice (granted, it could have been lost). -
Fear Dot Com; Zeldman a Maoist?
This has to be one of the most clever and original movie reviews I’ve read in a long time. -
Building accessible web sites
Joe Clark’s long anticipated book, Building Accessible Websites has been published. Clark is probably the accessibility expert for electronic communication, and it’s technical editor was Mark Pilgrim (of Dive Into Accessibility fame). If you care about accessibility online, this book is a must read. -
Mozilla 1.2 beta; Bowman’s blog
Mozilla 1.2 beta is out, featuring “link prefetching.” -
New tableless Opera site
I’m coming down with a cold and have two big projects due this week, so postings may be rare. However, you may be cheered to know that Opera.com has also abandoned tables, and uses valid XHTML and CSS on its site -
Wired in style
Wired has done something very few big sites have the balls to do: abandon tables in favour of an all CSS-based layout (that even includes a text resizing widget). -
No Gecko for AOL
No Gecko for AOL. The new verision is out, but its Windows users are still stuck with IE’s rendering engine. Both the CompuServe and AOL Mac services use a Gecko-based browser. Both, though, have tiny audiences when compared to AOL for Windows -
Google tweaks; link icons
Perhaps in an effort to prevent the news sites practising something like google-bombing, the search engine has tweaked its service. The Register offers a peak behind Google’s curtain. -
Fixing Dreamweaver; the blog beat; DevEdge Sidebar
LIFT NN/g is an interesting attempt to solve accessibility problems at the source (i.e., the Web editor) — problem is Dreamweaver is rarely used to complete large Web projects. For those places that do use Dreamweaver all the way through the process, the price could be a little too steep. -
Gemini does the Web; Dogma W4
The Gemini’s have a “Most Popular Web Site” category, and are asking Canadians to vote for their favourite TV Web site. From the looks of it the first round is made up of every major Canadian TV show with a site (actually it’s only 20). By the fourth round, when five are selected, let’s hope some genuinely good sites emerge. -
A box model fix and a JavaScript verifier
Thor Larholm wants to make sure every box is the same size. -
Spam cop and tiny fonts
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CSS signatures
Inspired by one of Eric A. Meyer’s recent postings to css-discuss, saila.com now has a “CSS Signature” allowing you to re-style this site. -
More on Google News while Google’s banned in China
There already is professional reaction to Google News. -
AOL Time Warner Disney; gzip
Looks like AOL is looking for an MSNBC killer. -
Google News relaunches
Google News has relaunched its service, and, as holovaty.com found out in an early preview, it does a pretty good impersonation of a traditional news portal. But this one is created automatically, using Google’s algorithms. -
CSS photos; libel online
Inspired by Steve Champeon’s experiments, R.Livsey posted to evolt’s thelist a PHP script that quickly accomplishes the same thing. -
CNN.com and Google News redesign
Had a good time celebrating with friends last night after a fantastic dinner, doubt the smiley will have the same today as it celebrates 20 years. -
In-house Web design; WCAG 2 draft; 100% height
Well, I’m another year older today and that coincides with someone finally hitting this site looking for the Saila-brand of licorice mints. (Apparently “Saila” is also the name of the chief or prophet of the Kuna people in Panama.) -
Zero Knowledge and Sympatico
Zero Knowledge Systems, the poster company for privacy in the late nineties, is offering its services to Sympatico cutomers for $5.95 a month. Not only is it affordable, its a great deal for both Zero Knowledge and the ISP’s customers. Ironically though, those customers can get most of those services — for free — by downloading a little browser called Mozilla -
Accessibility tests, OJA finalists
Last Wednesday, Yahoo greyed-out its homepage to commemorate the events of last September 11. On the MACCAWS list, a discussion began about how easy it would have been to do this using CSS. Others commented how this was a good way to see the Web as the colour blind do (yes, it was also mentioned that most people who are colour blind can see some colour). -
Broker Survey
For those of you wondering what I do for a paid job, The Globe and Mail’s 2002 On-Line Broker Survey is a good example (and those using Gecko-based browser will see a simple, CSS-based rollover effect on the tables). -
Veen blogs
For a long time, the Jeffrey I associated with Web design was not Zeldman, but Veen. (As I’ve mentioned before, HotWired had quite an influence on me.) Now, it looks as though he’s blogging. -
Mozilla 1.2 and box-sizing
The alpha version of Mozilla 1.2 is now available, with some helpful keyboard-based navigation improvements. -
Covering September 11 one year later
When working in the media, it is too easy to contribute to the noise and drown out the signal. Many journalists are (somewhat) privately wringing their hands over the appropriate way to cover the one year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Professionally, though, the organizations they (and I) work for, are busy creating a media event. -
WebWord.com style
WebWord.com is thinking about switching to a CSS-based layout, and is soliciting opinions. As an example of the potential of a CSS layout, I put together a mock-up of the WebWord.com homepage (with the exception of the ad, the JavaScript caused problems in Netscape 4). The design works in Netscape 4 and up, is valid, more accessible, works better for non-visual browsers, and is basically identical to the tabled version. -
CBC at 50, interactive style, and detecting browsers
Fifty years ago today in Montreal, CBC Television debuted with an English-language children’s movie. Two days later, the Toronto station flickered to life with an upside-down logo and a newscast hosted by Lorne Greene — the National aired a bit of that first newscast last night. -
Champeon and Kaiser interviewed, IE 5/Mac bug fixed
Digital Web magazine has a new issue out, and this one focuses on Web standards, specifically, an interview with Steve Champeon (List Mom for WebDesign-L) and Shirley Kaiser about the WaSP, as well as an excerpt from Zeldman’s forthcoming book, Forward Compatibility: Designing & Building With Standards. -
Searchable newspapers from history
Following on the heels of the Newseum’s showcase of the latest front pages, xBlog plugged the Canadian site Paper of Record (aside: its unlinkable about page has some interesting history on Canadian newspapers). -
Tables and CSS
Zeldman’s words carry a lot of weight amongst a large group of Web designers. So when he wrote “To Hell With Old Browsers” sparked a heated debate. While the debate was healthy, it was often wrong-headed, and yesterday he tried to clarify the issue in regards to tables and CSS. -
Netscape 7; Canadian net user’ database
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SatireWire clipped; online-media accessibility
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New TSN.ca and real-life Spidey skills
The new TSN.ca site relaunched today with a new look (which, at launch ran the same main photo as Canada’s other big sports site was) and a new mandate. The site now incorporates all of content from six television channels: TSN, RDS, ESPN Classic Canada, NHL Network, WTSN, and OLN. -
No hyperlink patent
One of the stupider patent claims has been struck down. British Telecom’s attempt to charge a U.S. ISP a fee for using hyperlinks was nixed. The judge ruled that the patent may not even cover hyperlinks, saying the backbone of the patent, “BT’s alleged ‘complete address’ — the path name — is by definition incomplete on a network of networks like the Internet.” -
Better online journalism
I’ve long bemoaned the dearth of original (commercial) content online, but it looks as though AOL might start doing just that in an effort to “creat[e] online communities around content.” Of course, it is an effort to create a more “sticky” AOL to drive up CPM rates, but still… -
thenewforum.ca; news front pages
So you know about Monday, yesterday I had a brutal headache, and today I wish I just stayed in bed. Looking forward to the rest of the week… -
Contingency design; font sizes
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Hypertext writing
Mark Bernstein remains, even amongst Webheads, a relatively unkown person and that is shame. Those that recognize it generally do so because of his work with Eastgate. But he is also one of the few people who have been serioulsy advocating hypertext — which, ironically enough, seems to be a dying artform on the Web. -
Microsoft removes its fonts; email money
Further proof that nothing ever dies on the Net: yesterday it became public knowledge that Microsoft had removed its core Web fonts from its site. Conspiracy theories were quickly silenced by when typographica asked a simple question. Nevertheless, the core fonts were re-discovered, safely stored by the Internet Archive. I like that these digital packages have both the qualities of both a physical object a transient idea. -
CANOE spams, email thrives
Like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, CANOE Money began appearing to me each night at the same time. Starting Monday I began receiving CANOE Money’s Mortgage Alert, as I requested. Strangely enough, I'd never requested it on the email address I was receiving it at. In fact I can’t recall ever requesting it… -
Rogers scolded; CBC TV at 50
In the “what sounded like a good idea at the time” department: Rogers was scolded by the CRTC scolded Rogers for using its community TV channels last fall to explain how it’s Internet unit was dealing with the @Home bankruptcy. (Thanks to David Elfstrom.) -
AOL and Mozilla, and IE updates
AOL’s latest version for the Macintosh, designed for OS X, uses a Gecko-based browser, let’s hope the next Windows version does the same. Follow the speculation in Mozillazine’s forums. -
The Distillery District; tabbed newspaper
The Gooderham and Worts Distillery has been closed to the public for almost 170 years. As part of the Toronto’s efforts to reclaim its waterfront, the complex is re-opening, and becoming the anchor for a new neighbourhood. -
Standards and steganography
When standards go bad: Chuck Scholton wrote a fascinating study of the problems with the standardized list of country names. -
XHTML 2 and CSS 3
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XHTML revised
Reading the new XHTML 1.0 (second edition) recommendation, I came across this suggestion, in appendix C.13: -
Five years of saila.com; roach-bait marketing
Five years ago today, I moved my tilde account (once found at http://www.interlog.com/~saila/), which had been online since late 1996, to its current domain, saila.com. Take a look at the past designs of the site as it evolved from a personal portfolio/resumé site to its current incarnation: -
Uncle Sam wants your email
Canada Post’s epost offers every Canadian a free, secure, spam-free email account. Unfortunately the system is a one-to-many service for sending bills and catalogs from less than 60 organizations to the 210,000 people who have signed up. (An early review of the service by Chuck McKinnon offers a good description of the service and some its usability problems.) -
Synchronicity
Sometimes coincidences happen at such a perfect moment, it’s as they share a connecting principle. -
csschallenge.com
Tim Parkin’s csschallenge.com plans to be a site to offer layouts for CSS evangelists (like me) and those favouring tables to work on. After he posted the link on css-discuss a number of people met the challenge. -
Bizarro SoundScan; CANOE redesigns
When SoundScan debuted — about ten years ago — it radically changed the top 40 genre, as its rankings are based on sales. The CDDB could therefore be the Bizzaro version of SoundScan as it records how often an album is played. The differences are subtle — as you can see by comparing the resulting Digital Top Ten list with the Billboard 200 — but important. -
MSN smarts; Google art; and webcasting fees
Seems some MSN TV (née Web TV) users have been falling for a prank email that changes their dialup number from the ISP’s to 911. Not going to make any comment that might reinforce any stereotypes about certain types of Net users… -
Mozilla 1.1 beta; TIPS; working with Digital Web
Mozilla 1.1 beta has been released. -
Lycos Europe and Web standards; JPEG fallout
Word is spreading fast about Lycos Europe’s planned switch to a valid XHTML/CSS page layouts. Lycos Germany has rolled-out the new look (though it uses tables for layout due to a high portion of Netscape 4.x users), but a version of the valid layout is being showcased at Thor Larholm’ site. -
McLuhan’s birthday
Today would be Marshall McLuhan’s 91st birthday. -
JPEG patented?!
How come it took almost 15 years for Forgent to clarify “its licensing program regarding…JPEG data compression technology”? Is it because there are only two hits on Google for “US Patent No. 4,698,672” (one of them is a news story about this issue) and none them are for Forgent? -
MACCAWS
Been busy working on a draft mission site for the new group, MACCAWS — Making A Commercial Case for Adopting Web Standards. Stay tuned for more about it and some proof old dogs can learn new tricks -
Email issues; war on terrorism; and who’s phoned?
Lost all email sent to me yesterday thanks to a system-wide crash, so if you sent me a message can you please resend it? Thanks. -
Welcome Netscape users; CanWest gives up
For the first time in recent memory, a version of a Netscape browser is now the second most common browser used to visit this site. The good news, it’s identified as Netscape 6. (View the list of the top 10 browsers.) -
Deep-linking
Venting: people, especially journalists, who oppose deep-linking confound me -
Online banking taking off
Couldn’t access Google for a little while today, so Hugh Blair (via thelist) recommend I try the Google mirror. Glad I did. -
eBay buys PayPal; new leaders
The little company that began as a nifty way to share money via Palm devices, has been bought by the Web site that began as a way to trade Pez dispensers. Though both systems deal in hard dollars, this long-expected deal could prove to become a stronger beachhead for the cashless society. -
Best of Europe; TechStuff.ca
Europe has picked its best in online journalism. Although BBC News Online did quite well, a number of independent and non-English services won as well. The justification for the awards should be read by every one of the so-called “big, traditional media institutions.” -
Rebuilding with, and without, CSS
Christopher Schmitt explains how to change table-based sites into CSS-based ones, using Digital Web as an example. Although the results aren’t pixel perfect (and in fact the navigation is a bit off), the techniques he uses are excellent. -
Net access; Gecko DOCTYPE snifffing
Here’s a couple of administrative-type stories that could have a big effect on how we access and use the Net: -
July 1st; Salon, CNET bleeding
Going into a long weekend here in Canada (despite May 24, I still consider the July 1st weekend the first long weekend of the summer — as it official is) and I’m awaiting my shipment of an “employee”-discounted copy of Windows XP. -
Black doesn’t back CanWest; G8
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Maclean’s redesign; Amazon.ca arrives
The Maclean’s redesign is gorgeous. Not only does it seem to have a strong editorial sense of itself — which feels like a return to its prime days in the ’60s — but visually its a crisp, easy to read design thanks in a large part to Ross Macdonald’s body typeface, “Maclean’s Text,” the first designed for a Canadian magazines. -
Timothy Findley is dead; CanWest damage control
Timothy Findley is dead. He was 71. -
Mills fallout
Because the firing of Russell Mills story is malleable enough to suit a range of topics, you may notice this blog bend away from Web building and Web journalism issues for a bit — but I have no plans to turn this into the press freedom (or whatever) equivalent of a warblog. -
Russell Mills explains; Webby winners
Russell Mills publicly explains, in today’s Globe, what happened — which includes allegation CanWest was willing to pay him off for his silence on the issue.