Anthony's Web Site

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logged by Anthony at 9:48:49 PM Link

This site will take an image and make a compatible .ico file for use as a Favicon.

Check out Chami.com FavIcon from Pics

logged by Anthony at 10:06:37 PM Link

I have noticed on a number of web design sites that there is a lot of discussion on using scalable font sizes. By this we are referring to defining font sizes by either Percentage or Em and specifically not by Pixel.

Most web browsers now include the ability to zoom the web page, this has become increasingly important as screens resolution increases. A 10 pixel font might look fine at 800x600 but go past 1200x900 and that is another matter.

Most web browsers, except for Internet Explorer will scale all fonts including Pixel sized fonts. However as most people continue to use Internet Explorer and with the new devices appearing on the internet, like WebTV, Mobile Phones, PDA's and Refrigerators, there is an increasing need to have more flexible page design.

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logged by Anthony at 6:52:50 PM Link

The Sydney Morning Herald implemented full CSS on Thursday, April 29. and I must say I really like the new design. Using Print style sheets now means no loading pages for printer friendly styles and they have two layouts one for 800x600 and one for larger screens. Once again CSS allows readers to more easily access content. They even use the same style switch that I do from ALA.

Peter Ottery will address a meeting of the Web standard Group on June to discuss it. I'd love to go but I will be in Sydney the day before and will miss it.

I do have one concern though. The site nowhere near validates. I accept some items are there for older browsers, but I don't think having all tags in upper case was necessary. And making your tags up like <HEADLINE> is inexcusable.

logged by Anthony at 10:50:41 AM Link

In a similar fashion to iCapture there is an ieCapture that takes screen shots of your web site with various versions of Internet Explorer, Opera and Firefox. A great development tool. ieCapture

logged by Anthony at 2:49:32 PM Link

logged by Anthony at 1:00:08 PM Link

I am proud to say my web pages carry the Made With Notepad icon. While I actually use Wordpad, it is only used for text documents.

Basically all the CSS and the Java script and all the html layout and content is written using Wordpad or another text editor.

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logged by Anthony at 9:24:14 AM Link

I came across this great website The Imposter that has a great page on CSS design tips and tricks. Check it out!

logged by Anthony at 12:56:06 PM Link

One benefit of using a pure CSS design is that live real time skin changes can be made using only CSS and Javascript. As you will see along the side of my pages I list the current skin design. Below is a list of alternative skin designs, and clicking them changes the design, and sometimes the layout of the pages, in an instant. No need to refresh because all of the layout information is contained in CSS files the html can remain the same and does not try to fight with the CSS. No padding images, no forced tables.

I find that using CSS to do the formatting also makes site updates much easier as I don't have to remember how or where I achieved design ideas. It's all in the CSS. I even have a global CSS file that applies to all layout and includes the basics to img Border set to 0. No need to key it in, no need to have a program default the property. To create a common CSS just add the CSS tag but don't include the title. Mine is

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="common/common.css">

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logged by Anthony at 10:59:39 AM Link

One technique, that I have used which avoids the need for PHP, ASP etc, is to use Java script for client side includes.

This technique does has some advantages over server side includes. The main benefit is that a browser can cache the javascript and possibly save downloading it again when looking at another page. It terms of the html it also increase the content ratio of the page as side bars and information areas are reduced to one liners.

I have also heard that browsers for vision impaired people prefer Java script for sidebars, but not navigation. This is because when have a web page read out aloud it wastes a lot of time to hear the weather somewhere else or what some one is reading, when fully sighted people can happily ignore that information if they want.

There are websites that can help you automate the Client side include

logged by Anthony at 9:11:40 AM Link

The main problem with running a web site is updating the content, while maintaining a consistent layout. This is usually achieved using software that updates your pages. As I run a blog and try to provide more static content through a web site, I use two tools.

For my blog, I use an small but amazing piece of software called 'Blog'. This is Care-ware published by Fahim A. Farook. It is amazing because is bundles everything required for offline composing and online uploading is a program that can be moved/copies with no implications.

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logged by Anthony at 8:54:24 AM Link

I now have a mirror site. This blog and web pages can be found at www.yager.id.au and au.geocities.com/anthony_yager/

logged by Anthony at 4:21:13 PM Link

In CSS it is clear that using Span and Div with class or id tags you could create your own html language for formatting. However the W3C strongly recommend that you don't. The reason being that this would defeat the purpose of the original intention of the web. More...

logged by Anthony at 5:18:07 PM Link

Cascading Style Sheets if the single greatest thing to happen to web design. When the web was initialled developed, they were happy just to get the information out. Having tags to represent headings was enough.

Then along came Mosaic and provided graphics, then designers were given tables and the web changed forever. Not for the best I might say as this increased the size of web pages to download, graphics meant the information could to be used by other applications, such as search engines etc. Tables then required the whole page to be downloaded prior to display.

With CSS all this information can be presented using a style sheet and the html just has to be the text. For those that write web documents using a CSS also means that you can have a consistent style across the pages and updating the style is a simple rewrite of the CSS file.

Using CSS also increase the content to markup ratio of you page so search engines rank it higher because it has more content.

The only thing to watch is the later standards are taking a while for Microsoft to adopt so Internet Explorer doesn't always display it, you may have to dumb it down for IE. CSS2 is about a far as you can go to be safe.

For more info check out the World Wide Web Consortium CSS page

logged by Anthony at 11:36:34 AM Link

This web page allows you to view you web site through the Safari web browser on a MAC. Great for double checking your design follows standards while maintaining cross browser compatibility.

Also on Pixy's site I found this Favelet for viewing it in LynxView

logged by Anthony at 10:30:51 AM Link

The use of specific font sizes makes web pages harder for users to use. There is no need to specify the height of a font in pixels. Creative use of font size can still be achieved, but still allow users some control to suit their particular circumstances.

This area falls into the same category as using single pixel spacer images. One trend I have begun to notice in web page design, especially Blog skins, is to specifically state the font size in the number of pixels. This make render some web pages unreadable on screen with ever increasing resolutions while at the same time user of low resolution products, like mobile phones and WebTV having to constantly scroll.

The alternative to using pixel height is to use a percentage in the style sheet. If the percentage is used for the body tag then all font sizes start from the same base and then headings and annotations are specified as a percentage of the body size. Browsers are then free to scale the size of the font at the users request, eg IE, View, Text size. A webTV user may want it smaller so then need not scroll some one using as resolution over 1600 may want is larger to make it easier to read.

Information on how to use percentages can be found in the W3C CSS web standards.

logged by Anthony at 9:36:40 AM Link

I'm looking to develop my own logo and I came across this web page on the trends in logo design. It shows some of the common themes in current logo design, such as the use of shadows, styles, and some specific objects.

logged by Anthony at 12:48:56 PM Link

ColorMatch Remix is a colour combination service that displays variations on a colour for web page design. ColorMatch Remix via kadyellebee

logged by Anthony at 12:43:15 PM Link

logged by Anthony at 2:15:41 PM Link

I initialled developed this weBOLG to allow me to cut down on the number of email's I sent. You know how you get a stack of emails from friends all telling the latest joke etc. It get annoying when you get the same joke up to three or more times a day. So I thought if I put together a blog I could post the jokes, tech news and local news items. My friends and family could then read my blog. That way I wasn't nagging them with email and they could still 'catch up' if they wanted to. I also made my stuff available to peoples like you.

logged by Anthony at 8:25:25 AM Link