Month: January 2003

jnd.org

I’m not quite sure how I got to this site — one of the disadvantages with how I use tabbed browsing: I tend to open a bunch of links in new tabs while reading something, then move on to my next tab and open a bunch more links in new tabs, and reapeat as I move from left to right across my tab bar, but I digress…

Anyway, there are a bunch of interesting essays available. everything from education system reform to DVD UI Design to Toilet Paper (Bog Roll) selection algorithms

I’m definately bookmarking that site for when I have more time.

(BTW Gossip, I like the new formatting tools quick link behavior – I think)

[Edit: I just wanted to add a couple more essay links..]

Gratuitous Graphics and Human-Centered Website Design

Emotion & Design: Attractive Things Work Better

I’m doing some planning for a redesign of a few sections of my company’s web site. These two articles have given me a few things to think about, since one of my goals is to make it easier for visitors to find information they are looking for. The first article also gives a voice to some of the things that have been buging me about a recent site lauch we did, which definately puts design abovecontent.

Edited on Jan 22nd 2003, 01:47 by Hooloovoo

Set set your stingers to "stun"

[Quote] WASHINGTON (AP) — Scorpions don’t bother to waste venom killing a victim if they don’t have to. Instead they use a prevenom that causes extreme pain, resorting to the deadlier version only when necessary, researchers have discovered. [Quote]

I still wouldn’t want to piss off a scorpion. Even if it isn’t likely to kill me with the first sting, it’s still gonna hurt like hell. (Which I guess is the point.)

Full article found here

Some People…

So, I’m looking at some printouts at my desk, and decide I could do with a bit more light. I reach over to turn my desklamp on and nothing happens.

I examine the lamp more closely and realize that someone’s stolen the lightbulb, out of my lamp, which is sitting on my desk. What the hell?

I thought briefly about bitching to the company-bulk mailing list, but that never has the desired response. I would have just started a chain of smart-ass replies. 1/8 of the company would feel obliged to share thier remarkable wit, (“The lights are on but nobody’s home..” , “Who’s bright idea was that?” , “Huh heheh huhhuh – you said ‘bulb'”, and worse – ad infinitum.) 1/8 would send “please quit with the stupid replies” to the jokesters, but it would go to the whole company, (since they don’t know the difference between “Reply” and “Reply to all” in Outlook,) and 3/4 of the company (the remainder) would laugh, then get annoyed, and then update thier filters to block the rest of the thread – not neccisarly in that order.

Instead, I went down to see the nice folks in facilities. I told them what happened, and after sharing my exasperation with the annonymous bulb-filtcher, they gave me 2 new bulbs. Now I have a spare in case the first one burns out, (or someone steals it again.)

Now I’m tempted to send a message to company bulk that says:

[Quote]
To all those that might be interested: The next time the bulb in your desklamp burns out, feel free to contact facilities for a replacement. They have plenty on hand, so you shouldn’t feel the need to take the one out of the lamp on your neigbor’s desk.

This has been a public service announcement brought to you by the web team.
[Quote]

But again, I’d just succeed in annoying 3/4 of the company. So I’m bloogging it instead.

At least they didn’t take the bulb from my Lava-Lamp.

Edited on Jan 17th 2003, 01:25 by Hooloovoo

IE PNG Petition

Not that it really bothers me too much as a user, (since my primary browser has proper PNG support) but as a designer, my life would be made that much easier if MSIE supported the PNG image format correctly. So, without further adieu, I present to you the Proper PNG Support in Internet Explorer for Windows online petition.

I’m not sure if anyone remembers, but a while ago, I posted this image in an entry:

That is an example of why PNG alpha transparency is cool, and why no one really uses them yet. If your browser supports the format properly, you will see a penny sitting on the background color of the page (no matter which theme you happen to be using) without the anti-aliased “fringe” so common to transparent GIF images. If your browser doesn’t (*cough* IE) you see the penny sitting in a light-grey box.

There are work-arounds for getting PNG images to display properly in IE, but the methods I’ve seen thus far seem kludgy to me.

When did that happen?

http://g-blog.net/rankings.php

Zhan, I probably wouldn’t have noticed for a few more days if you hadn’t mentioned it.

I guess that’s what I get for hiding off-line for a couple of weeks. Grats, Zhaneel. 🙂 I’m actually a little surprised you didn’t take over the number 2 spot sooner. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why I’ve had so many hits since Gossip added the tracking system.

There are a couple of entries I’ve been kicking around in my head. They’re a little different from my normal ramblings, or the “link” blogs (an entry where I just post a few links I found that I want to remember) I normaly post. A little more personal, and probably a more interesting read. I’m still not entirely sure I want to post them, and I don’t know why that is. I think I might try out the new privacy feature. I’ll post one or two, make the appropriate edits, and then open them up (or re-post them) to the public.

I’m back (sorta)

I haven’t been here since the 25th. Not even to lurk. I got hit with a pretty nasty cold during my vacation, and for some reason I just decided that I needed to spend some time not-online. I didn’t even do any of the work on PHP projects (not to mention GLUE themes) that I promised myself I would over the holiday. I’m sure that there is a whole bunch of stuff to catch up on, but I still don’t quite feel up to it.

Anyway – I’m not dead, I’m just not online much right now…

-Hool