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 2003
“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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Happy New Year’s; Berners-Lee knighted; advanced tables
A long-time friend just called to wish me a happy New Year — literally. He’s in Sydney and said he just saw the most spectacular fireworks display; this was happening in the background as we spoke. -
Best of 2003; MOZiE; liquid layouts
The New York Times makes smart use of its “E-Mail This Article” feature, and creates a quirky profile of its readers. -
Martin threatens paulmartintime.ca
Yesterday was supposed to by my last post for the holidays, but the Liberal Party of Canada’s threats to sue a parody site — Paul Martim Time — couldn’t be ignored. As it looks the Prime Minister’s people were less than pleased about the site, and timed its moves to appear during a dead news cycle. I wonder whether they would have had such a problem with the site’s design had it been a site filled with compliments for PM²? -
Buzzing: XFN, delicious, RSS and Atom; IE accessibility toolbar; hiking gas prices; year ending
XFN is starting to build some momentum, but I haven’t really bought into the concept for use on this site. Who knows, maybe in the next version… What I do like is proposed method — XMDP — for marking up profiles though. -
CANOE Money’s back; high-speed and dail-up users equal
During the dot-com boom, I was working at CANOE’s financial site, CANOE Money. The ride was fast and crazy and less than a year after I left the site underwent a drastic redesign that rebranded it Webfin. -
A century of flying; images in liquid layouts
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CIRA to sue; Web design patterns
Well, the Canadian Recording Industry Association sure isn’t wasting anytime. According to the National Post, it will start suing Canadians who upload music early next year (downloading being legal in Canada, for now). -
Blue prize won’t be for MSNBC; Web generations; downloading legal; paulmartintime.ca
The well-designed Man in Blue is contemplating a regular prize for XHTML/CSS-based sites and wants to know your thoughts. (FWIW, I agree with Tom.) -
Au revoir, Ti Jean; usable Web fonts; Widgetopia; interviewing chofmann; limited copyright tariffs
Bye bye, mon Chrétien… I doubt the new guy will be as much fun as you were over the past decade. (For example, “I’m Feeling Lucky” Google search for "What is the worst blog in the world".) -
URL spoofing; liquid vs. fixed; digital junkyard; Mozilla 1.6 beta released
A disturbing new twist to an old trick (using URLs usernames that look like hostnames): Interent Explorer can be tricked to display a page that appears to be hosted from a different domain. -
NYTimes on: the American perspective of Canada, flawed Ecstasy studies, and the iPod; bad HMTL
Yes, it requires registration — get used to it, registration is going to be the trend of ’04 — but The New York Times has a number of good pieces today, including: -
Beautiful blogs; Selectutorial; ID3; quote expreriment
Lars Holst lists some beautifully-designed Weblogs (if only I could design…). -
Mississauga’s new face and digital city rankings
Torontonians may love to mock our suburban 905 neighbours, but Mississauga’s new city site is incredible. Not only is it written in XHTML and uses a CSS-based layout that leaves Netscape 4 behind, it also provides a wide range of e-services. (It does, however, have ugly URLs and the site is impossible to validate, though a quick scan shows it comes close.) -
Standard bitterness; Safari hacks; Movies for Me
Not sure when everything got so nasty… -
Fixing Acrobat Reader; Peer Review; ThrashBox; subheads;
Been having problems with how slow Acrobat Reader 6 is? Try re-organizing the program’s files. -
Black resigns; OJA winners
Former-Canadian newspaper magnate (and author of a very well-reviewed biography on FDR) Conrad Black has resigned as CEO of his own company. Something about $32-million in unauthorized payments to he and his co-executivess… -
Advanced CSS ornamentation; four-column layouts; Chrétien profiled
The Literary Moose is known for his clever designs that push the limits of CSS (and also, though valid, tend only to work in Opera). And now, like a rule-breaking magician, he reveals a number of his tricks at the Nemesis Project to an awe-filled audience. -
Text presentation; Dictionary of Canadian Biography online; convergence defined
John Gruber, while ostensibly talking about Panther’s text rendering capabilities, explains everything you need to know about text presentation on computer displays. If you ever place words on a screen, read his article (via Coudal Partners). -
Eolas patent re-examined; Canadians willing to pay for content; homepage usability
Microsoft nature is so often debated in Web/software-related discussions, it’s mere mention is almost becoming a variant of Godwin’s Law. The one safe area seems to be when discussing the company in relation to Eolas’ “906” patent. The problems with said patent have encouraged the USPTO to re-examine the issue (no doubt prompted by Microsoft’s lobbyists), and I hope, it will rule the patent invalid. -
Toronto votes; IE 3 and 4; PIE tutorials
Torontonians (and other Ontarians): don’t forget to vote today. -
Google Deskbar; reasons against registration; cross-ownership in the media
For those who can’t get enough Google, there’s now a tool to search the engine, browser-free, via the Windows toolbar. Pretty clever. -
Multiple IE browsers in Windows
One of the supposed truth’s about Web design is that unlike almost any other browser, you can’t run two versions Internet Explorer side-by-side. But Joe Maddalone has seemingly proved that false. He explains which files to remove, and which ones to add, to make testing Web pages that much easier. (via webgraphics) -
Toronto Star doing registration; new media type proposed; invalid mayours
Here comes the predicted changes: the Toronto Star looks like it will be implementing registration on its site — it will be using Tacoda Systems’ Web audience management and the new registration system. -
Was Wired right? Analyzing canada.com’s subscriptions
Some quick hits: -
XAML implications; resting Rainmain
Chris Kaminski (through the WaSP’s Buzz blog) has posted a thorough overview of XAML and its implications, including a bit about the W3C’s “response”: SVG 1.2’s Rendering Custom Content. -
QuirksMode; opposing Eolas
Note: when streetcar tracks are wet and you are passing over them on a diagonal on a fast-moving bicycle, do so carefully. -
XAML is real;
XAML is real, is pronounced zamel, and is “the language used to declaratively render the user interface of the pages that make up the application” within Longhorn. (The presentation subsystem XAML accesses is dubbed “Avalon,” the UI, “Aero.”) From an article on MSDN, here’s the simplest XAML-based file you can write: -
Safari 1.1 released; more XAML; BMO redesigns; Gore and the CBC
Thanks to Simon for picking up on the news about Safari 1.1 — a release I’d yet to hear about — and the fact that it is starting to support XUL (as well as opacity, through -khtml-opacity). -
Microsoft’s XUL: XAML
Coming out from under a pile of work to alert you about XAML (which as of this moment only pulls hits from Google on the “Transaction Authority Markup Language” — not the rumoured new language from Microsoft). Eric Meyer echoes exactly my grave concerns about this. -
New Mozilla site, browsers, and mail client; Web design practices
Dave Shea has redesigned the Mozilla site in a gorgeous CSS treatment. There are some minor problems in IE 5.5 and Opera 7.x, but overall it’s a great example of how progressive enhancement can improve design (try rolling over the sell boxes on the right). Nice touch: headlines become standalone boxes on roll-over. -
OJA nominees; Floatutorial; Sympatico brought to its knees
The American government seems to have found a clever way around the freedom of the press: treat online journalists as ISPs. -
CanWest’s subscriptions; new WebDesign-L policies; interviewing Clark
CanWest has unveiled its some details about its subscriptions for canada.com, although there’s no obvious mention of the changes on the site. The news portal will become a pay-to-view site next Monday, with four planned levels: -
Irrelevant news
Today’s editorial in the Aspen Daily News accurately sums up my feelings on the mass coverage of an American sexual assault trial is receiving in North America. Ever since a football star was caught in a slow-speed highway chase seven years ago, this kind of mob journalism has grown out of control. -
Boston.com redesigns; how things work
In the new Boston.com redesign you’ll notice one thing missing: a left-side navigation bar. The new look is cohesive — as both the homepage and story pages share the same look-and-feel — and may single a mainstream trend. Many independent sites have already abadoned the left-side navigation (thanks in part to blogging templates), and more commercial sites may be headed in that direction to accomdate the “big box” that eat up too much screen width. -
In-browser XHTML editor; testing CSS designs; ALA redesigns; Postman has died
A Toronto-based company called Belus Technology has developed an ActiveX-based WYSIWYG editor that produces valid CSS and XHTML 1.1 content. After a quick demo run, it looks to be good in-browser editor, and an excellent replacement for the typical mark-up produced by contentEditable interfaces. It could also be a solution to the problem Tom Gilder raised yesterday. -
Eolas forces IE update; HTMLDog; Izzy Asper has died
Eolas has forced Microsoft to release an new version of Internet Explorer that causes an alert box to appear whenever a plug-in loads on a page. To get around it, Microsoft is suggesting developers add a proprietary attribute to object or write the entire object to the page using JavaScript. -
Asper v. MacDonald; calling VeriSign’s bluff; future of email
Still more on Asper v. MacDonald, via the Toronto Star media column by Antonia Zerbisias and a press release from Leonard Asper about the aforementioned Canadian Press article. -
More fallout from Asper’s speech
The debate over Leonard Asper’s speech has continued on the Canadian Association of Journalists’s mailing list (much of it focusing on the use of an ellipsis), and in the op-ed and letters to the editor pages of The Globe and Mail (no doubt relishing a chance to criticize its competitor’s owner. -
Aspers’ hobby horse
An unsanctioned attempt to make Mozilla’s Web site support standards, has devolved into a sadly typical debate. A new, sanctioned, design should be appear in a couple of weeks (probably along with Mozilla 1.5, Firebird 0.7, and Thunderbird 0.3). -
Election day in Ontario
It’s election day here in the fine province of Ontario; if you are a resident, please get out and vote. Maybe, just maybe, the new government won’t be as callous as the last. -
Definitive essay on abbreviations; online news initiatives
Lars Holst has written what may be the definitive essay on the use of abbr and acronym. The well-researched piece concludes: -
The Walrus launches, the Red Herring relaunches; Google News creator
The Walrus has launched (look for a longer rant on this, probably later today) — haven’t seen a copy yet, but I have subscribed — and the buzz is good. -
Cutting the new media fund; best bloggin practices; Opera 7.20 out; P2P to the rescue;
As if the new media industry (when does it — i.e., the Internet, interactive television, wireless devices — stop being “new media”) isn’t hurting enough, the CRTC has a made a seemingly inconsequential ruling that will cut 40 percent from the fund that capitalizes many projects for Canada’s small digital media shops. -
The case for standards; more on Eolas; newspapers tackle the future
A year or so ago, before big sites began embracing CSS-based layouts a group called MACCAWS formed to push the commercial case for Web standards. Although its efforts have yet to be released, Jeffrey Veen has written an excellent argument supporting the idea. -
CanWest embraces registration
This should be interesting: in an effort to stem the losses from the National Post, the brain trust at CanWest Global is moving to a “a paid subscription model in November for the online versions of its [eleven] newspapers” now found on canada.com. -
Dropping “AOL”; ROB loves PKP; analysis of market analysis
Is convergence dead or not? Even as AOL Time Warner drops the “AOL” from its name, the business press are fawning over PKP and the converged Quebecor Media’s IPO. -
System styles; stopping mega media mergers
A discussion on evolt’s thelist reverting forms to the system style introduced me to Jeff Howden’s chart of User-Defined Colors, Fonts, & Cursors. As I mentioned in a subsequent post, although system colours will be deprecated in CSS3 a new property called appearance will be introduced which allows, with one value, the author to specify the users default system’s “color, font, background, padding, border, and margin.” Also some of the values in Jeff’s table only IE6 currently supports have made their way into this draft (specifically the values in font and cursor). -
News.com does CSS; CSS 2.1, and Paged Media module drafts
News.com has followed Wired News’s lead and switched to a CSS-based layout. Although the mark-up doesn’t validate, it does seem to be semantically organized. A few people, however, have reported the design chokes when displayed in IE 5.x on the Macintosh and Windows. -
CSS filter results; screen readers study
Thanks to those who tested the CSS filters I posted here a couple of weeks ago, my initial tests are now confirmed. -
Sobig.F; Listamatic; Coupland interviewed, Gatenby resigns; Darwinian Poetry; BBC revolution
After returning from a week away, I find my Yahoo email has been (and is being) hammered by Sobig.F (given how the address is used, I think a Canadian journalist might have been patient zero for this outbreak). Although my anti-virus software and Mozilla prevented any damage, it has meant a delay in responding to genuine emails, so apologies if you haven’t yet received a reply. -
Styling legend; CSS filters for Opera
While trying to find a way to style fieldsets and legend, I stumbled across a CSS filter that looks to hide rules from Opera 7 and Safari — it could be a replacement for the *7 Hack. -
New Liberal candidate
“The cries of various groups have reached my ears and call me forth…” The Liberal leadership race takes an interesting turn. -
Clipping clip; new products from Macromedia
SimpleBits has a nice example of CSS-based zoom feature for images (based on Pixy’s rollover), and that in turn, inspired me to try to do use clip to create a thumbnail/zoom function. The results so far have been less than satisfying…CSS’s clip property is one of those things that never behaves as I think it should. -
Happenings
Happenings: -
Self-healing systems
Talk about self-healing systems: a new worm is crawling the Web trying to patch the Windows’ security hole used by Blaster (via SvN) -
Post-blackout links
Back from the blackout (my neighbourhood was essentially powerless until Sunday morning) with some links. (I have posted a description of the first day and night without power along with some pics.) As Toronto powers ahead at (please, please) half-steam, here are some links for your consideration: -
XForms 1.0, and more CSS modules; Eolas patent
The W3C has been busy once again. XForms 1.0 is now a proposed recommendation — this is what may be used in XHTML 2.0 — but Microsoft is already going its own way by using its own XML-based form tool in the version of Office. -
Why we write for the Web
Just spent sometime reading two essays, one by Josh Allen and the other by Paul Ford. Both are contemporaries in terms of age (as most us doing this are) and attitude toward the Web, and both were writing on why they write for this medium. Suffice it to say, I agree, and that, in turn, got me thinking about this site’s whole redesign -
CSS designs for finance sites
The second in a series of new products I’ve been working on has launched; like the first, it’s a financial service company’s mutual fund profile using an all CSS-layout. Read the related rant for more details about the process. -
CBC listenership; Frank’s angel; climate data online
News that the CBC is now the third-most listened to radio station in Canada is a good-news/bad-news scenario: while it’s good that more people are listening to my favourite media outlet, most of the listeners are older. (The CBC is trying to attract younger listeners, but the results recent changes may not have shown up in this survey.) -
SARS-Stock and Chicago 15
Today is SARS-Stock. While it’s doubtful this will actually relieve Toronto’s bruised tourism and service sectors, it has been an “emotional rescue” for pun-loving journalists. -
Firebird extensions
As promised, Firebird 0.6.1 is out. I’m running it using the Firebird Modern theme with some added extensions designed to mimic or improve on the default Mozilla behaviours: -
Web development bookmarklets; Mozilla 1.5a, Firebird 0.6.1, and Thunderbird released; simple forms
Jesse Rudman has a collection of a dozen-half Mozilla-friendly Web development bookmarklets, many of which also work in IE and Opera. Three work in Netscape 4. -
Inline lists and rounded corners
Old memes are burping to the surface, including inline lists and rounded corners. The former was inspired by a new article at evolt, the latter by a Adam Kalsey’s method for rounding corners. In both cases Eric Meyer shared some of his insight. -
Balancing semantic mark-up with effective design
Inspired by postings today on evolt.org’s lists and CSS Discuss, I wrote a new piece on balancing semantic mark-up with effective design. -
Webstandards.TO mailing list; interviewing Veen; Google’s advanced news search
Emma Jane Hogbin has launched Webstandards.TO’s site and mailing list — all those interested in finding out about meetings should head over. -
What would you change?
My Blogger problems have forced me to speed up my oft-delayed overhaul of the entire site. Despite my sporadic in postings here, progress elsewhere is being achieved. Which leads me to… -
Webstandards.TO meeting; Netscape goes quietly
The next Webstandards.TO is meeting tonight. I probably won’t be making it, but you should — this month it’s at the Duke of York. -
The future of Web browsers; CSS design variations
Never fails post a message saying it will be quiet, and then post a bunch of links a few days later. -
Update: few updates coming
Updates here will be a bit quite here for a little while because: -
Building fans online
Here’s an idea that hasn’t surfaced for a while (and runs counter to some recent predictions): build a publication then move it to print. This time round, though, it’s a national newspaper. A Canadian national newspaper. -
CSS design competition; Meyer interviewed
Rudy alerted me (and thelist) to a new CSS design competition in the spirit of the CSS Zen Garden hosted by SitePoint. Nice to see this meme spreading. -
Netscape 7.1, Mozilla 1.4 released; media catfight
Blogger still won’t publish my posts…not happy. -
Mozilla news; AdsML; Usability 101
This post was delayed due to the Blogger upgrades that have now prevented me from even using this service. As a result, this has been posted manually and future posts may be sporadic until the problem is fixed. (Note to self: must hurry development on new site.) -
Safari 1.0; Hack HotBot winner losses; SARS concert webcast
Some quick hits: -
Blatchford to the Globe; progressive enhancement; Web standard articles
Coup: Christie Blatchford is leaving the National Post to join my employer, The Globe and Mail. -
Mozilla 1.4 RC2 released with annoying bug
Mozilla 1.4 Release Candidate 2 is finally out, although the annoying ATI bug is still there -
Meet Zeldman; CSS menus
Meet the Makers has a conversation with the always entertaining Zeldman. Interviews, especially of the Q&A variety, are never an easy thing to pull off well but somehow Brian Alvey manages to consistently produce engaging and informative ones of extraordinary length. My only complaint, and it’s a minor one, is that reading the interview means clicking through seven pages — it’d be great it there was a single-page option. -
Webstandards.TO site; Sympatico and MSN; CSS3 selector support
Joe’s got a page for Webstandards.TO, which meets again this Thursday at 7 West at 7. Unlike the meetups (and barring an ice storm) this won’t be cancelled, so if Web standards are your bag, come on by. -
MSN for Mac OS X the last IE for Macs
It’s official: no further versions of Internet Explorer for the Macintosh will be released. (Not sure if this also includes -
Advertising lite; Canadian media growth
John Dowdell points to an interesting online-ad campaign that successful plays to people’s annoyance with things like Shoshkeles™. -
Meyer redesigns
Eric Meyer has unveiled a series of new designs for his site along with some explanation about the process. My current fav: Mondrian (although you can’t link directly to this layout, it would be quite interesting if you could…) -
GIF patent expires; CBC wins Webby; welcome Louie; mini-tabs
All the buzz about the Internet Explorer�s lack of support for PNGs, may have been for naught, as the patent on the compression scheme used in the GIF is set to expire. -
Top Times editors resign
Whoa. The executive and managing editors of The New York Times just resigned. -
Alpha transparency fix; IE improvements?
Bob Osala has created a simple and clever fix to get alpha transparency in PNGs working in Internet Explorer using one JavaScript call. There’s some catches, but it looks to be a fairly elegant solution. This is the type of thing we need more of if Microsoft isn’t going to update the standalone version of its browser. -
CNMA winners; stopdesign’s process; IE bug demos
The winners for the 2003 CNMAs were announced last night, and are now available online. Look for the next big awards, the Webbys, to be announced Thursday in a live webcast. Thursday is also the Web standards Meetup, happening in Toronto at the Rivoli at 8 p.m — come by if you’re in the city. -
Microsoft buys(-off) AOL
In case, for some reason, you haven’t heard: Microsoft paid AOL a bunch of money to forget about the “past” (i.e., Netscape) and embrace the “future” (i.e., Microsoft). -
Mozilla 1.4 RC 1 released
Mozilla 1.4, Release Candidate 1 is out. This version (once finalized) will be the last to have everything bundled together. -
MSN for Mac OS X; saila.com in Russian; decriminalizing pot; PNGs
Following on the release of a new version of Internet Explorer for the Mac (called MSN for Mac OS X), CodeBitch did tested it for the known CSS bugs in the previous version. The results were posted css-discuss. -
Top 5 CSS problems in IE; “dead” site still living
The top five CSS-related problems in Internet Explorer 6: -
Is the Web not enough?
Salon has run a monster of an article refuting one of my long standing-beliefs. The piece argues the Web isn’t capable of countering the growing media concentration (and it’s conclusions imply the South Korean experience may remain the exception). Of course, the article is set against the back-drop of loosening regulations down south where they don’t have a strong public broadcaster. -
Relaunches out of style; multimedia journalism; patent policy for the W3C
I was just thinking about this: “The Quiet Death of the Major Re-Launch.” The whole concept now seems as much a part of the bubble-era as Aeron chairs and brick-and-beam loft offices. (Via Digital Web.) -
Canadian New Media Awards; usability guidelines; content management design;access keys
The first week in June is “new media week” here in Toronto, timed to coincide with the Canadian New Media Awards. This year, the CNMA is a full-day event featuring a series of workshops. Interesting note, the awards (at least last year) are partially funded by nominees paying a $25 fee to be considered. -
Interviewing Andy King
Had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew B. King for Digital Web about optimizing the medium, and the result is now available online. King, the founder of WebReference.com and JavaScript.com, offers some insightful and surprising advice about tightening even the slimmest of sites -
Roll-your-own DTD; all-in-one DevEdge sidebar
Those wondering how to roll-your-own DTD might well be served by reading the W3C recommendation on the Modularization of XHTML. Helpful to know if you want to push the limits of XHTML. -
Copyright term extensions; Digital Web Magazine at seven
Canada looks to be following on the heels of the U.S. in granting copyright extensions. Here it’s been dubbed the “Lucy Maud Montgomery Copyright Term Extension Act” because the unpublished works by the creator of Anne of Green Gables would enter the public domain January 1, 2004 if this doesn’t pass. If it does, Anne would be protected until 2018. -
Google News hits the world;XUL-based Internet desktop; Composer++
When Google News launched its latest beta, there was a lot of buzzing happening in the online news community. Today, the service localized, and has subsites for Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, the U.K., and of course, the U.S.. More prominence is given to local sources and stories, which is quite obvious in the non-North American editions. At Google News Canada—my new bookmark—there’s a “Canada” section, and a better focus on Canadian business news. -
The paradox of Stephen Williams
This is a situation I haven’t decided on. On the one hand, I support Stephen Williams right to publish work that is available in the public domain, but his decision to publish all of his research online on the Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka case leaves me with an uncomfortable feeling. I’ve long said online journalists should make their research available along with stories to improve the readers understanding, but this time I just don’t know -
CSS Zen Garden
I think after all the noise earlier this week over how hard CSS is, a lot of people who love CSS got to thinking. The truth is, CSS is not a computer language, it’s a graphic design language. In fact in my unpublished rant, this became a touchstone: -
Semantic mark-up; TV funding; new XHTML 2.0 draft
Pretty much decided to scrap the rant I was going to publish about the latest CSS debate. The arguments have been made quite rationally by a number of people I respect, so I don’t think there’s a need to go over them again here. -
Creating dotted borders in IE
Caio Chassot (of Caio’s Hack fame) has come up with a clever solution to create nice dashed and dotted borders for Internet Explorer using a repeating background graphic. Take a look at the page’s source to see how it works -
Responding to JWZ; XUL for Web apps
Just read Simon Willison’s reposnse to JMZ’s rant about Cascading Style Sheets, and both prompted me to elucidate my own feelings about CSS-based design. However, given the rant is not even close to being ready for publication, go (re-)read Owen Briggs’ Design Rant and my own piece on using tables or CSS. (and this is too funny). -
Standard-compliant new-window links
Via What Do I Know, a clever hack for opening pages in a new window, and similar to what I had planned to do (except I was using a class, which I might just drop) -
Mozilla’s Midas and other browser tools
Tim Berners-Lee mentions in his book, Weaving the Web, that he had originally intended the Web-pages to be fully editable in one application. You load up a page and edit the document within the browser. Amaya does this by default. Internet Explorer has had a couple of proprietary extension for this since 4.0 (designMode and contentEditable). Mozilla introduced its version of “designMode” in 1.3. -
Slate makes money; 50+ Headings; the next IE
Slate has become one of the few online publications to make money, and is the only big one to do so that’s not related to a traditional media outlet. (Yes, it is owned by Microsoft, but many print financed by deep-pocketed organizations, too). -
Firebird fight; position: fixed; RSS; CSS for handhelds
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SARS; merits of CSS-based media filters
Everyone at work just got a personal santizer to use for washing our hands, as well as instructions on how to properly do just that. Th