Here are six minutes of A List Apart during an ordinary hour of an ordinary weekday:
Fig A Six minutes of A List Apart traffic on an ordinary weekday. (Enlarge.)
Fig B Six minutes of A List Apart traffic on an ordinary weekday. (Enlarge.)
Here are six minutes of A List Apart during an ordinary hour of an ordinary weekday:
Fig A Six minutes of A List Apart traffic on an ordinary weekday. (Enlarge.)
Fig B Six minutes of A List Apart traffic on an ordinary weekday. (Enlarge.)
When I was younger, I considered myself too “creative” to work on anything that wasn’t cool or exciting. Eventually I buckled down and became a genuine client services professional. For over two decades, I brought my best to every job, no matter how dull.
So much for that. Today I can choose what I want to work on. And I choose projects that are cool, fun, and personally meaningful. In that context, I link to Ma.gnolia.
Designed by Happy Cog and taken out of private beta 15 February, Ma.gnolia is a new social bookmarking tool with well-thought-out features like Saved Copies (so you never lose a web page, even if it moves or goes offline), Bookmark Ratings, Bookmark Privacy, and Groups. Not to mention a Linkroll I like so much I use it here at zeldman.com.
Gnolia Systems envisioned the product and made it run. (The heavy programming? That’s all them.) Happy Cog developed the user pathways, brand identity, and creamy site design. The best part? Leading a dream team of Tanya Rabourn (information architect), Greg Storey (user interface design), Jason Santa Maria (brand identity design), Erin Kissane (brand director), and Mr Eric Meyer (semantician and technologist).
To the tune of Mercedes Benz
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me
A Mercedes Benz
My friends all drive Porsches
I must make amends
Worked hard all my lifetime
No help from my friends
So, oh Lord, won’t you buy me
A Mercedes Benz
For the Valentine’s issue of A List Apart, we asked you, our gentle readers, what you love and hate about the web.
If you love this issue of A List Apart, give yourself a warm hand. If you hate this issue, slap yourself.
Miss the deadline for submitting your hugs and hates? Not to worry! Join the discussions.
Yes, Happy Cog has a layout problem in Internet Explorer 7 beta. Not to worry: According to Molly Holzschlag of The Web Standards Project, Microsoft has fixed the problem, as we’ll see in a future IE7 release. The current beta chokes on this rule:
div#headwrap h1 {
background: transparent url(/i/happycog.gif)
top left no-repeat;
margin: 0;
border: 0;
padding: 0;
padding-top: 100px;
overflow: hidden;
height: 0px !important; /* for most browsers */
height /**/:100px; /* for pre 6.0 IE Win */
}
It’s an image replacement technique that uses an alternate box model hack.
Designers use box model hacks to compensate for inaccuracies in the way some browsers (mostly Microsoft’s) calculate element widths with respect to padding and borders. I wrote this rule to insert my agency’s logo at the top of the page in visual browsers while presenting a text equivalent for screen readers and nongraphical browsers. The hacks force older Microsoft browsers to display these elements correctly.
When Microsoft released IE5, it was great for its day, but not always accurate. When they released IE6, it was better but not perfect. The company then declared victory and announced that the browser was dead and there would be no more IE browsers forever.
So designers got busy compensating for the standards deficiencies of IE5, IE5.5, and IE6 (and other companies’ browsers), using hacks like those seen here. The idea is to take the hackery out of markup, where it never belonged, and hide it in style sheets.
IE7 beta’s standards accuracy is already very good and getting better, and, despite what you might have heard to the contrary, Microsoft’s engineers are working with the community (and in particular with The Web Standards Project) to identify and fix CSS bugs and errors and to compensate for hacks like the one seen here. Using IE7? Finding bugs? Microsoft and The Web Standards Project want to hear from you.
It is pure pleasure to announce that famed web designer, developer, author, blogger, and entrepreneur Todd Dominey and fast-rising art director/designer/blogger Jason Santa Maria will join Eric Meyer and me on the speaker’s platform at An Event Apart Atlanta.
Todd Dominey is a living preview of tomorrow’s web designer: busy with client services, but also creating his own products; delivering powerful graphic design but always in the context of what the user needs to see; adept at web standards and Flash.
As for Jason Santa Maria, I hired him at Happy Cog and entrusted him with the redesign of A List Apart, so I think he’s pretty good.
Actually, I think Todd Dominey and Jason Santa Maria rock harder than Metallica and am thrilled that we will have them both on our stage. I hope some of you can join us at An Event Apart Atlanta.
In the 211th edition of A List Apart, for people who make webites:
Plus, listen up, ALA readers! A List Apart wants to know what you love—and hate—about the web right now…whatever makes you swoon or drives you nuts. We’ll feature a selection of responses in our next issue.
Pardon the intrusion, but registration is now available for An Event Apart Atlanta. Seating is limited, first come, first served. Sign up before 3 March 2006 to reserve your seat and lock in the early bird rate of $499. Additional savings are available for groups.