28 February 2001
[3 pm]
My Glamorous Life No. 34: Interruptus. :::
[1 am]
Do you find pages like this beautiful? We do. We don't just mean "appropriately designed," though we think it is that, too. The designer, François Naudé, is also an interesting writer. His Eulogy for Design questions the designer's role in online media, and challenges us to balance style with substance.
He is heavy, he's our brother: Pete Zeldman has a website containing solo drum tracks and loops for multimedia projects.
Can you really replace table-based design with CSS? Exhibit A: Waferbaby does the Style Sheet mambo. Exhibit B: Dynamic Ribbon Device. Smells like tables, but it's all DIVs and Style Sheets. ::: If you're thinking about cross-browser scripting, be sure to check Scott Andrew. (Hat tip: Glish.) :::
27 February 2001
[11 pm]
We just finished enjoying our third DSL blackout of the day. The company whose T3 lines power the chain apparently underestimated how much juice this part of New York City requires. They're claiming the problem is fixed, though thousands of DSL users in this area know otherwise. Our ISP and DSL provider must now join forces to persuade this third party to really fix the problem—a process that could take hours, days, or weeks.
Though this company cannot supply sufficient bandwidth to its partners, it is currently selling DSL services in the area under its own brand. If you watch the multi-million-dollar commercials carefully, you'll notice a fine print disclaimer stating that they cannot promise uninterrupted service. We wish the owners of this company were required to use their own service. We bet they'd fix it fast. If fast food magnates had to eat their own grub, MacDonald's would serve fresh vegetables.
At this time, we're working on a major production site, waiting for our publisher to deliver four book chapters that need a final author edit, and putting the finishing touches on ALA Issue No. 100. At least, that's what we would be doing if we had a working Internet connection. As to receiving and answering mail, we've pretty much given up hope. :::
[4 pm]
Still more about centering block-level elements in CSS. :::
[noon]
Another day, another DSL blackout—the third in four days. This one lasted nine and a half hours and could kick back in at any time. "All telespeed services out of NYCMNY30 (Manhattan, NY) are presently down. We are presently working along side the ILEC to resolve this issue." :::
[1 am]
Ooh, la la! A List Apart Issue No. 100 is nearly finished. Mmm, it's going to be good. Issue No. 100 will go live on Friday, 2 March. ::: Sacre bleu! MacSlash has conned us into doing another of those interviews where readers get to rip us apar— er, ask thought-provoking questions. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. ::: Mon dieu! ALA is a How Magazine Top 10 Link.
Disability is one of those subjects nobody likes to think about—until they lose their eyesight, their hearing, or their ability to move. Joe Clark's series on Mac accessibility continues with Part Two, Access Solutions, at Tidbits.
Tools for those who toil: From the ALA forums: centering a box in CSS. ::: From MyComputer.com: current browser stats. (Your mileage may vary. Or not. See below.) ::: From Mozilla.org: the ultimate JavaScript client sniffer.
Zeldman.com stats from last week
Total successful requests: 2,270,842. Average successful requests per day: 324,374. Top referrers: Google icon search, ALA, Yahoo icon search, and Scripting News. Top 20 Browsers:
#reqs: %bytes: browser
--------- ------ -------
1,962,040: 80.50%: Netscape (compatible) [IE]
292,724: 15.44%: Netscape
5,697: 0.30%: Opera
5,515: 0.11%: MSProxy
1,798: 0.11%: -
931: 0.06%: iCab
794: 0.16%: contype
627: 0.12%: Teleport Pro
601: 0.02%: Lynx
557: 0.08%: moget
551: 0.89%: RMA
502: 0.07%: MIIxpc
500: 0.06%: Slurp.so
450: 0.08%: libwww-perl
421: : Gulliver
400: 0.01%: Dual Proxy
394: 0.01%: none
361: 0.01%: Java1.3.0
336: 0.01%: Ad Muncher v4.18
282: 0.01%: unknown
What do your referrer logs tell you? :::
26 February 2001
[noon]
MacEdition likes the Browser Upgrade campaign. Matthias Gutfeldt thinks it stinks. W3C has linked to it from their Conformance and Quality Assurance page, and their conformance manager has thanked us.
Hundreds of site designers and developers—too many to list—have written to tell us they've upgraded their sites to W3C spec. Many others dislike the whole idea. We can no longer respond to letters on the subject. There are simply too many. A page at Webstandards.org tells where you can send your comments instead of writing to us.
Please remember that the Browser Upgrade campaign is merely one starting point in a process you can choose to begin now or later. Ultimately all sites will comply with W3C and ECMA recommendations. Ultimately even FrontPage will generate standards-compliant markup. Ultimately broken browsers will fade away because they simply don't work well enough.
This is the web's future. WaSP and A List Apart are trying to help you get there. If you're not ready, or don't like the idea, that's fine with us. Time takes time. :::
[midnight]
Another day, another DSL blackout. It always seem to happen when we're up against a tight deadline. Then again, we always seem to be up against a tight deadline. Anyway, we're back—for now.
Yesterday's five hour blackout could be traced to a network outage. Today's three hour blackout couldn't be traced.
Troubleshooting intermittent packet loss is a technician's worst nightmare—and a customer's. They come, everything checks out, they leave, the system dies. They come back another day, everything checks out, they leave, the system dies. Soon you're on a first-name basis. Then you're telling each other your life stories. You still have no service but you've made friends with the technician. The technician's daily visit is the one bright spot in your otherwise blighted existence.
Then, because the blackouts have prevented you from getting any work done, you can't pay your bills. Eventually you become homeless. At that point they close out the "trouble ticket" and the problem is considered "resolved."
On a lighter note, A List Apart briefly went down tonight due to a problem it would be imprudent to discuss in public. Hmm. That wasn't really a lighter note.
Anyway, at least our keyboard is still workkkkkk :::
