How To's
PNG Headers
My good friend and general brilliant guy (he really is) Nick Chapman clued me in on a layout technique that I think is revolutionary. To his credit he did try to get me sold on the idea a while back, for use with my old template (example), but I would have had to forgo the part of the header graphic that creeps into the content area in order to support Win/IE. Although in retrospect it's such a cool technique I should have jumped ship back then.
The technique is fairly straight forward. You layer 2 images on top of each other. The top image is a PNG with an alpha-channel that makes some areas transparent and other not transparent. The bottom image is a plain JPEG or GIF that shows through the transparent parts of the overlaying PNG file. The implication is that you can design a header for a website template (for example) that is attractive and orderly but still allows novice users/bloggers to personalize their site in a meaningful way. Upload a new image to a site and change one URL in that sites CSS and you can change the content of the banner.
The technique might be straightforward but getting it to work with Win/IE is not. Nick put together a great tutorial that explains the process.
In the future Nick promises to put together another tutorial that will show you how to combine this technique with a little JavaScript to created headers the rotate on reloads while also overlaying descriptive text, like in this example.Please, sweat the small stuff
Cammeron Moll has some good advice about sharpening images before adding them to your website. Check out his comments, because his readers have some unique and interesting tips as well.Manila Howto: Fixing the crap that happens when you copy and paste content from Micrsoft Word
Most Windows based Manila users are aware of a huge problem with copying content directly from Microsoft Word to their Manila sites. It's not just a Manila problem. It's a general problem with any system that uses a browser based WYSIWYG editor.
The Problem
When you copy text from Word and paste it into your website, the resulting page is riddled with random tags and other oddities.
The Solution
A solution I teach to my clients (passed on to me by one of my blog readers - thanks) is to use Wordpad to clean the content before placing it on websites. It's not a perfect solution but it does get rid of all the hidden font and formating information that MS Word carries.
After you have copied your content from Microsoft Word, open Wordpad (usually it's found under StartMenu>Programs>Accessories) Once opened, click Edit>PasteSpecial. A dialog box will appear. Select "Unformatted Text." This cleans out the hidden font and formating information. Copy this clean content and then paste it onto your website.
This method works well for removing the awful mess that Word leaves behind, but it's not completely ideal. For example, your bolds and bullets will be lost. You need to do a follow up edit with your WYSIWYG put that type of information back into the content.
IE Whitespace Bug
"Its been a sort of Holy Grail for me (well maybe a Holy Teacup) to find a solution the IE Whitespace bug. If you’re not familiar with this, then you probably haven’t applied display:block to links within an unordered list. Adding this CSS property creates a solid ‘button’ out of what would’ve been a humble inline link, one that can be sized and prettied up as you like. The trouble is, IE windows adds another line height between all these links – unless you remove every bit of whitespace from the HTML."- [hicksdesign]
2004 DNC speeches available free at iTMS
"The iTunes Music Store (iTMS) is now offering free audio downloads of speeches given at this year's Democratic National Convention... [MacMinute.com]"