I received word from a former neighbor that I had a UPS package delivered to our old address. Today I picked it up (luckily just a few blocks away), and it turned out to be my author copies of Web Standards Solutions.
Being able to physically thumb through the book is very surreal. The results of a better part of a year are finally printed and ready for consumption. I couldn’t be happier with the way everything turned out. And I’m sure this means they’ll be shipping any day now from Amazon, and will hopefully start appearing in bookstores.
A single book can never be all things to all people, but I have high hopes for this little book. I hope that people enjoy it, as well as find it useful. It was fun to write and a gigantic learning experience.
As a teaser, here are a few of my favorite (yet corny and ridiculous) subheadings from the book:
- Wrapper’s delight
- Totally tabular
- Worth its (font-)weight in bold
There are more of course… some better, mostly worse.
So if you haven’t ordered yet, now’s a good time to do so, as the wait won’t be long at all.
June 8, 2004 | Comments Off
The incomparable Russ Weakley of the Web Standards Group had asked me ten questions as part of an ongoing series. I answered them. And now they are published for all to read.
In the interview, I talk about “web design, standards, semantically correct markup, SimpleQuiz and [my] hot-off-the-presses book.”
June 7, 2004 | Comments Off
While working out at the gym today (a rare occurrence), I was looking around the room, noticing that everyone was stepping, pedaling and treadmilling away. And then it hit me — what if all gyms around the world were all plugged into some sort of global turbine? We’d have a constant source of clean power!
I was then reminded of a stroke of genius I once had somewhere around the 3rd grade. My idea was to install a small hand crank appliance in every home througout Earth. Everyday, your duty as a citizen would be to crank the handle for a set time — nothing strenuous, say… 5 minutes. Perhaps a bonus system could be devised to award those that crank longer than they need too.
Anyway, the general idea was that, by the power of numbers, we’d all be powering the world. Self-sufficiently.
Other Notes
In unrelated news, I’ve moved some things around recently — adding a Publications section to house articles, tips, and other works that aren’t web sites themselves. This is also where the Photos section now lives, in case you miss it from the primary navigation.
I’ve also unceremoniously dubbed the weblog portion of the site “Notebook” (neither exciting, nor out of the ordinary), adding a tab to the navigation that brings you to the archives page for date, keyword or category browsing. Yay for site news.
And in unrelated to the unrelated news, I’m turning 30 tomorrow. Normally, I’d never think to announce my birthday. Everybody has them. Every year. But I suppose it’s a milestone worth pondering. I feel numb to it at the moment — and I think this makes perfect sense. People over 30 will probably tell you that turning 30 is no big deal, perhaps even saying that it’s “great!”. People under 30 will tell you that they don’t want to turn 30 — that it seems “old”.
So here I am stuck in the middle not sure what to think. It’ll work itself out in time though.
June 3, 2004 |
62 Comments
Amidst all my travelling and whatnot, I realized I hadn’t written a wrap-up for the latest SimpleQuiz, Launching Windows.
The camps were rather divided on this one — with roughly half voting for a Javascript pop-up solution, and the other half voting for using XHTML 1.0 Transitional, which allows for the target attribute without incident.
The argument I found interesting, was “you should never launch links in new windows”. While there may be moral opposition to triggering unwanted events for the user, in reality, designers and developers alike will no doubt find themselves in a situation with an employer or client where this is a requirement.
So often, it’s not a moral decision, but a business one. A sometimes unfortunate reality. In a perfect world (perhaps one’s personal web site) it’s easy to stick to ideals. But in the real world it’s not. Decisions are made that may or may not involve the web designer, and the requirements must then be dealt with. Sometimes you have to make the best out of what you’ve got.
June 3, 2004 |
25 Comments
I’m slowly trying to get back to reality after arriving home last night from our trip to Sweden. The time change didn’t affect us all that much going over, but it certainly did coming back. As with any time you’re unplugged for that long, getting back to a routine is painful. I need to dig out of a gigantic pile of email, and have a lot of catching up to do.
The trip itself was phenomenal. Sweden is a beautiful country — far more so than I had even anticipated.
We started the trip by staying three nights in Stockholm, then renting a car, driving across the country on a southern route to Göteborg (I think I can sort of pronounce this now) on the opposite coast, then driving back on a northern route. All along the way, stopping only for a night here and there, while checking out the little towns and cities in between. Then we spent the last two nights back in Stockholm. It sort of felt like we were coming “home” there.
I could go on and on about how much we loved Stockholm — it’s a large city, but clean, with an unhurried pace. And its island stucture of separate regions of the city is fascinating.
One of the highlights was meeting up with Stockholmers, Kate England and Dave Brasgalla, both of Icon Factory. They were both kind enough to show us around a bit and answer our various questions about all things Swedish. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out their stellar work. Would’ve liked to have met more folks along the way, but got too wrapped up in everything.
Some things I liked about Sweden:
- Everyone speaks English. This makes it so easy to travel around the country.
- 11:30pm and the sun is still settting.
- The “head start” you get from a traffic light as it turns red and yellow just before turning green.
- Mariestads beer (I believe the best of those I tried — and there were a lot). Named after a nice little town that we stopped at.
- Glass (ice cream). It’s everywhere. Swedes love ice cream. This is a good thing.
- Saying “tack” (thanks) almost excessively — the only way we ever sounded like locals.
- Hotel Birger Jarl — an amazing Swedish design hotel we capped the trip off with. Highly recommended, with also the best breakfast we had.
- That every house (it seemed) in the country was the same color red.
The entire country was also inspiring from a design perspective — with the the clean lines of the furniture and everyday objects, as well as the sans-serif typography that’s used so often.
As is customary when one goes on a trip to faraway lands, photographic images are captured to immortalize the moment. This trip was no exception, and I’ve posted a 38-image slideshow from the 240 that I took along the way.
It’s time now to get used to the idea of not being on vacation, replying to the mountain of email and working the six-hour time difference out.
June 1, 2004 |
35 Comments
We’re packed and ready to head out on our overnight flight to Stockholm. We have a one hour stop-over in Iceland — a place I’d love to visit properly someday.
I’ll be happily unplugged and offline for the next nine days. And who knows, when I return, perhaps a certain book will be back from the printers.
So until then, may your markup be lean, and your style unprecendented.
May 21, 2004 | Comments Off
Every year I’m amused by a certain catch phrase that sweeps the media. Last year it was “cold snap” — at least here in the Northeast United States. Everyone was using this phrase. Predictably, every weatherman found a way to work in the hip term, but hearing it being used in normal conversation was the real true sign that “cold snap” had made the big time.
At the grocery store: “that’ll be $29.54. Can’t wait till this cold snap ends. It’s been brutal.”
Previous to last year I had never heard these two words used in conjunction. And this last winter it disappeared and was never uttered again. It had reached its Tipping Point, and people moved on to other ways of describing how cold the weather was.
This year, it’s “reveal”. Specifically when used as a noun. This word is everywhere, and we can blame reality television for it. Any makeover show — or one with a surprise ending will use this to describe the portion of the program that you just can’t miss.
“The big reveal is coming up… right after the break.”
I’m guessing that “reveal” has almost reached its tipping point. And I’m wondering if that moment will be obvious to us all. Perhaps this coming November, Tom Brokaw will tease the announcement of the next US president, by stating that the “big reveal” is moments away. Then we’ll be looking to what next year’s catch phrase will be.
May 19, 2004 |
51 Comments
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