17 Feb 02, Monday
Remember the Nikon 995 I was drooling over back in January? Here's one of the first of what I hope is many more digital images from it.
Lake Louise in winter, late afternoon on a dark snowy day, taken on my way back to the Chateau. The day had turned a funky blue shade and the color you see is only slightly enhanced from what came out of the camera.
Link: /* More to come, I promise. */
16 Feb 02, Sunday
Found this today at Robert Jan Verkade's site. I don't know if he made this or if the link is external, I just follow links. Might help if this van der Woning could read dutch, but I can't.
While you're visiting Robert's site take a moment to mouse over the blurry duck on the top-left of the page. More and more I am impressed with clean, simple designs with one mind-blowing geek effect. It's kind of a I know how to do this and youuuuu don't, nyah nyah nyah!.
Link: /* Neener Neener. */
16 Feb 02, Saturday
Michael asked me the same question as Tim did. Why are you using float: left; in your css instead of absolute positioning? Which is a good question given I am employing a fixed-width layout.
He also pointed out a width error in one of my box model hacks.
The reason I say change it to 480px is that your correct specified width of 400 plus the padding of 40px on both sides adds up to 480px. This will make the design look identical in all browsers. If you actually want an overall width of 500px, then your correct specified width should have been 420px not 400px. But setting the IE width to 480px fixes your problem so I went with that.
Um, yeah. I couldn't see the forest for the trees. You can stare at your own code for hours and not find a freaking thing wrong.
I haven't employed his other suggestions just yet. I did fix the width error. It no longer dances in IE5.5Win.
Mac community, I say, does it look the same in IE5Mac as in NN6Mac?
Link: /* "I'll get by with a little help from my friends." */
Tim seems to echo my fascination and frustration with web standards. It's like eating peas. You know it's good for you, but they make you gag anyway. And there's just no way to make it better.
Maybe it'll get better when you're older.
Link: /* How's that for an analogy? */
15 Feb 02, Friday
Some thoughtful Mac users replied to yesterday's plea for help. I received a helpful e-mail from a Mac user named Rob Stevenson (of no fixed URL) this morning. Rob provided some nice clear feedback with broswer versions. Now I know my layout breaks in iCab as well as IE for Mac. Thanks Rob!
Alwin sent a note and also included a couple of screenshots. Thanks Al!
Paul dropped in, representing the U.K. Mac community. He had a vested interest. Thank you Paul!
Nigel, also from the U.K., wrote me regarding some Mac layout issues I've been kvetching about. We bantered back and forth lightly via e-mail and he sent me some useful screenshots.
I remarked to Nigel that "you guys across the pond are awesome" or some such. They do care about the colonies, they do. I forgot to share that sentiment with Paul. Nigel mentioned that at one time he was a Nova Scotian. I could go off on a tangent about the web bringing total strangers together. I'll leave it be. You may thank me later.
I had read about Nigel's unfortunate financial situation while visiting his site a while back. I tossed an offhand 'how you doing?' in a cheeky reply to him this morning. (We had been joking about his status as an Ex-Pat Nova Scotian)
Should I have bothered to visit his site for an update, I might have phrased my comments to him differently. I was too self absorbed to bother. It doesn't make me a bad person, but it does make me feel like an ass. I read that post this afternoon and realized that Nigel took the time to write me (about my site looking "butt ugly in Netscape 6 on a Mac") just one day after a rather dark episode in his life.
I am rather powerless to offer him anything that would be as helpful to him as his time was to me.
Link: /* Assumptions were correct. They care. Thanks fellas. */
14 Feb 02, Valentine's Day
Paul e-mailed me a revised script for the Stylesheet Switcher.
I should now be able to rename title tags on the stylesheets with impunity.
If you have problems with the layout of this site in your Level 5+ browser [Opera excluded], toss your cookies. Not because you need to, but just because.
Now onto the IE5Mac issues. Would the Mac community please if this site lays out differently in IE5Mac? I don't want to have to go out and buy an iMac just for testing. I'm enough of a geek to do it, but my war department would never approve of such drastic measures.
Link: /* Assumptions: 1. Using another browser, 2. They care. */
13 Feb 02, Wednesday
Paul Sowden weighed in on my troubles. He confirmed my suspicion, but in a way unexpected. Evidently the act of renaming the title tags in the switcher was the cause.
Ray man, that busted it. It remembers the style sheet according to the title, so if you change them it doesn't find the right one.
Yes of course.
I'm wondering if we'll all have to manually flick the CausticSense cookie from our browser's cache. If so, would this be as unforgivable as changing your URLs without including re-directs?
Link: /* Yes I know, I suck, sorry. */
For the record, the site lays out correctly in NN6Mac according to a (screen shot) Nigel sent me. I killed the stylesheet switcher, that cured the NN6Mac layout problems. Nigel reported NN6Mac was displaying an unformatted page. This should only happen in NN4.X_anyplatform. I expected that. I renamed my stylesheets in the switcher last night and must have broken something.
I see it's still foobar in IE5Mac, we suspect a conspiracy by Bill Gates to create inconsistent software for the Mac vs the PC. You have another idea maybe?
Nancy is reporting all is well after I killed the switcher. She's using that AOHell browser.
Link: /* All eyes slowly turn toward the 'switcher'. Me, I'm just staring at my shoes. */
I replied to my friend, Nigel:
I'm leaning towards an all text, left-aligned look circa 1993. I hear <font> tags are universally supported among all browsers.....
He replied:
My suggestion would be to simply write all entries with a regular biro [a set of felt tip pens could be used to add a little colour] then cut out any pictures from magazines you want to include to brighten up the layout and paste them to the paper using a household adhesive. Finally take a digital photograph of the finished layout and post it to your website. Admittedly it may align differently between browsers and platforms but the majority of the content will be consistent.
This site will look better in a 3 ring binder, but is accessible in all forms of stationery. Best archived in a scrapbook on non-bleached, acid free paper. Glass of red wine is optional.
Link: /* I think we're on the right track now. */
A friend writes:
Ray,
FYI - your site looks butt ugly in Netscape 6 on a mac. White background, and all the text aligned to the left, no columns.
So I opened up IE5 on my mac and saw a dark grey background but no text at all.
I have to say I don't get web standards. Every site that has implemented them has resulted in a much less attractive site. And really I don't see the point. Yes your code may be better, like a highly tuned jaguar engine, but a jaguar engine with the body styling of a tractor will not sell.
BTW - while looking for an email link I clicked your About page and suddenly there was a nice looking page.
Anyway - this was mostly just a heads up - that us mac users cant see your site as you intend it to look. Feel free to disregard the rant about Web standards.
Happy coding,
My sister-in-law writes:
Hey, your web site is really looking smart!!!!
Dude, she's using a Dell.
Mac friends, I suspect some poor implementation of .float and such. I will be working on a fix that is both Valid and Works.
Link: /* Foobar in the Mac. Bummer */