18 August 2001
[11 am]
In an odd fit of myopia, Jakob Nielsen blames "cool" design for the "dot-bomb" meltdown. Funny, we thought the downturn was caused by a weakening global economy; overbuilt web agencies; and useless dot-com services structured around wishful business models. Design—"cool" or otherwise—can't save a bad product, though it can make a good one easier and more enjoyable to use. :::
 
17 August 2001
[2 pm]
Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin. (Live Photoshop Tennis begins 3 p.m. EST, noon Pacific, 8 p.m. Dundee time.) :::
 
[midnight]
In this week's double issue of A List Apart, for people who make websites:
        PRACTICAL CSS LAYOUT Tips, Tricks & Techniques—by Mark Newhouse. Think you need HTML tables to craft complex liquid layouts? Not so! In this tip-packed tutorial, Mark Newhouse shares advanced yet practical CSS techniques any web designer can use. Plus:
        GLOBAL TREATY COULD TRANSFORM WEB—by Dennis Mahoney. Mahoney is boiling mad over a proposed global treaty that could turn our worldwide web into a mishmash of regional Intranets, each attending to whatever local regulation allows.
        These stories and the ALA CODERS FORUM await you at alistapart.com. :::
 
16 August 2001
[6 pm]
WebVisions and Web Design World conference attendees, the Web Standards Lecture Notes and CSS Lecture Notes are available for your pleasure right on this here site.
        The graphical CSS layouts everyone has been asking about may be found on Owen Briggs's Little Boxes page. Click a layout to reveal the Stylesheet that created it.
        The key CSS articles at A List Apart include:
        Fear of Stylesheets 4 (why pixels work when more accessible alternatives such as ems and keywords fail);
        Size Matters by Todd Fahrner (how to work around browser bugs that might otherwise prevent you from using accessible CSS font size keywords);
        A Web Designer's Journey (making the transition from HTML table-based design to CSS design when it's appropriate for your audience); and ...
        Practical CSS Layout Tips, Tricks & Techniques by Mark Newhouse, which will go live Friday, 17 August at approximately 12:00 midnight, E.S.T. as part of Issue 119. :::
 
[4 pm]
Private Parts, a CNET Builder.com web authoring tutorial, explains how the W3C's Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) standard works. (Basically, P3P uses XML to automatically protect your privacy while you surf.) Netscape 6/Mozilla and Microsoft's upcoming IE6 support the P3P standard.

Zeldman defends Gotham in a Photoshop Tennis match against the terrifically talented Brian "Rustboy" Taylor of Dundee, Scotland—complete with live, layer-by-layer commentary from Rosecrans of The Morning News. Tune to coudal.com tomorrow, Friday 17 August, at 3:00 p.m. E.S.T. to catch the match. :::
 
15 August 2001
[10 am | 9 am]
Now this is what the web is for.

Following up on yesterday's ad-blocking post, Waferbaby sent us this mini-tutorial on blocking pop-up ads in Mac OSX. Which is probably really helpful if you use OSX. Which we don't.

The new issue of Digital Web Magazine is all about COMMUNITY, baby. Features include "Community for Dummies;" a Matt Haughey tutorial on building online communities; an interview with Derek Powazek (author of Design For Community); and more. Cover design by Molly Sokolow , who was also a featured panelist at last week's WebVisions event.

All websites are about community, whether the human connection is explicit or implied. Reader response plays a key part in that equation. We regret that workload, sheer email glut, and our strange desire to have a life make it hard for us to respond to all the mail we get. We do love you and we do try to answer most letters eventually.

Except letters about OSX. :::
 
14 August 2001
[5 pm]
Die, X10, Die! Eric Meyer, author of Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, sent us this lovely opt-out hack that lets you kill those annoying X10 pop-under ads until the year 2015 if you desire:
        Click this link to kill all X10 pop-under ads for the next 1000 days. Or, if you prefer, click this one to kill all X10 pop-under ads for the next 5000 days. Viewing Cookies in IE will confirm that you're pop-under-free until 23 April 2015. Sheer bliss.
        For more ad-killing pleasure, see Blocking Ads at Textism. It's a web capitalist's worst nightmare. Well, actually, the current economy is a web capitalist's worst nightmare. But your ability to easily block most web ads with less than two minutes' work can't exactly have them breaking out the champagne at DoubleClick. :::
 
[noon]
Pardon our silence. We're hard at work on an upcoming double issue of A List Apart. Look for it this Friday. :::
 
13 August 2001
[midnight | 10 am]
Expectations and Misunderstandings, a spankin' new Word from the WaSP! at webstandards.org, discusses the impact of web software on web standards, and explains why some designers and developers would like a little more power from their power tools.

Deep discounts, baby: Amazon has radically lowered the price of Taking Your Talent to the Web (list: $40 US, "our price:" $28 US). More news in Book News.

"Art is a verb." Future Farmer Amy Franceschini, a true web original, gives good Q&A in this month's Design Is Kinky. (Amy also designed the issue's animated cover page.)

"Markets are conversations." The entire text of the Cluetrain Manifesto may now be read online. (Hat tip: the Head Lemur.)

Great, but what's the revenue model? Webmissive enables you to "kill someone else's time by sending him or her an e-mail that is made entirely of images (not regular text)." :::
 
11 August 2001
[3 pm]
After a long strange trek through oblivion, Style vs. Design is back online at Adobe.com. (For more of our online yammerings, see Les Misc.) :::
 
[11 am]
Shirley the K has put together a way-too-complimentary (but otherwise well-written) review of the WebVisions conference in Portland. :::

 
10 August 2001
[10 am | 11 am]
Polly want a tumor? According to her owner, the bird on the left dislikes cigarette smoke, even in open-air sidewalk cafes like this one in Northwest Portland. Snapshot by Geoffrey Hiller, web designer, photojournalist, and our gracious host in Oregon. Additional thanks to Nick, Shirley, and Brad.

The events and people in Seattle and Portland were lovely beyond belief and could easily fill 100 Glamorous Life entries if only we had time to write them. Thunder Lizard put on its usual superb show, serving up inspiring keynotes by Tim Bray and Jeffrey Veen, two folks who know where the web has been and have a pretty good idea of where it's going next. Later this month, Nate Vaughn of folktrash.com will be streaming video excerpts from the Portland event, which also featured the incredibly talented (and nice!) Gabe Kean, Molly Sokolow, Geoffrey Hiller, and Heather Irwin.

Pardon our stench. We returned from the breezy Northwest to a New York City that's hotter than Satan's perineum. We're five projects and two thousand emails behind schedule. Your patience is appreciated.

Web Community meets Web Standards: UBB Developers has posted an XHTML 1.0-compliant template for the most-used forum script on the web.

Nano Sans is a new 'techno' pixel font family from Joe Gillespie, designer of the ubiquitous MINI 7. Perfect for screen presentations requiring that "retro/progressive" look, the Nano Sans TrueType family comes in two sizes, 5 px (small caps plus special "alternative" letters) and 7 px (caps and lowercase). Includes Roman, bold, oblique, and bold oblique, all for just $15.

Derek Powazek is the proud poppa of a brand new baby book on the subject of Design For Community. What's great about Derek as an author is that he's a working designer with loads of real-life experience. (Theory is great but working experience is always best, we think.)

Live Photoshop Tennis continues at coudal.com. Today's match, pitting Michelangelo Capraro of hopbot against Michael Schmidt of K10k, starts at 12:00 noon San Francisco time (2 p.m. Chicago time, 3 p.m. New York City, 8 p.m. London). :::