New Tutorial: CSS Curly Quotes
January 3rd, 2006
It’s been a while since I posted a CSS tutorial here, so this feels like a good way to be starting the New Year.
Simon Collison recently explained how to create Swooshy Curly Quotes Without Images using CSS. It’s a nice technique that works cross-browser, but you have to add span tags to your markup for it to work.
I’ve written a short article outlining an alternate method for creating CSS Curly Quotes that requires no changes to your markup, and works in modern CSS2 compatible browsers like Firefox. Simon’s technique is cross browser, while my approach gives your cleaner markup. I can think of reasons to use both.
Wordpress 2.0
January 2nd, 2006
I updated the blog to Wordpress 2.0 today. I have to say that while I like the list of improvments, the upgrade process was missing an important step: put a temporary index.php file in place during the upgrade with a “Back in 5 minutes” message.
Following the Upgrade Instructions you need to delete your old Worpress files… which leaves you with a broken website for 5 minutes or so while you upload the new files and run the update script. I guess 5 minutes isn’t that bad, but it didn’t feel like a very smooth upgrade.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I really do like the new admin interface—it’s a big improvement over the last version, with all sorts of AJAX goodness. The more I work with it, the more I’m liking it. Definitely worth the upgrade—just remember your back in 5 minutes sign.
Webhosting for your Webcomic
January 1st, 2006
Here’s a special New Year’s offer I’m making to webcomic artists. If your New Year’s resolution was to setup your own website for your comic, I’d like to help you get started.
Sign up for any new 1 or 2 year hosting package with Dreamhost and I’ll help by setting up your blog for you! Wordpress, the most popular optional plugins, and one of 3 great starting templates. If you think it wouldn’t be too hard to setup Worpress on your own… you’d be right! If you don’t need any technical help, you can use the promotional code ‘WEBCOMIC’ when you sign up with Dreamhost and get an extra $15 off. More details are available on the Webhosting page .
I moved DesignMeme to Dreamhost in late November when I saw the prices starting at $7.95 a month. I was a bit surprised at how inexpensive that was compared to what I remembered from a few years ago. Since moving the site my Adsense earnings have really improved and now more than cover my hosting costs! Moving the site is something I should have done a long time ago, and if you’re considering making the move in 2006—I encourage you to go for it.
New Years Resolutions for 2006
December 30th, 2005
As 2005 draws to a close, I’ve been thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t need to lose weight or quit smoking, and even if I did—those wouldn’t be very interesting for you to read about. What would be interesting—and by interesting, I also mean challenging—is to resolve to complete a number of different creative projects and post about them here on my blog.
Creative Project Resolutions
- Comic
After having worked with so many comic artists, been involved in a comic collective, helped start a comic printing company, and contributed to a book on comics, it’s somewhat surprising that I’ve never created one of my own. - Design
Redesign this site. Yes, this is an inevitable one… - Game
Over the last year I’ve been doing a lot of reading about game design theory, and working on some ideas for what I think would make a fun board-game. This year I’m going to turn those ideas into a finished game and publish it. - Music
Learn to play some type of musical instrument. The Ukelele is looking like a real contender here. - Painting
At least 2 paintings I feel good enough about to put in frames. - Software
It’s been a while since I’ve done much coding, so in 2006 I’m going to make sure I produce at least one interesting script, plugin, extension, or widget. - Video
It’s been much too long since I shot and edited any video. This year I’m going to finish a 5 minute creative video and submit it to some type of competition or festival. - Writing
Over the next year I’m going to try and improve the quality, quantity and frequency of my writing—both for this website and for other projects—whether they’re technical articles, creative writing, or contributions to collaborative projects.
Let’s see how well I can keep these resolutions. Wish me luck!
See some other people’s 2006resolutions.
Traditional Christmas Carrot Pudding
December 19th, 2005
This is my wife Catherine’s recipe for Christmas Pudding. Her grandmother gave it to her, and it’s been in her family for at least 100 years. She was looking for Christmas recipes online tonight and couldn’t find very many for Christmas Pudding. We thought it would be a nice thing to make available for people wanting to make a traditional holiday dessert.
Ingredients
1 cup Brown Sugar
1 cup Raisins
1 cup Dates
1 cup Currants
1 cup Margarine* (scant — just under 1 cup)
1 cup Shredded Carrot
1 cup Grated Potato
1 1/4 cups Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 pinch Salt
* Traditionally Suet would have been used instead of Margarine
Directions
- Mix all the ingredients together in large bowl
- Cover the bowl with tinfoil
- Steam for 3 hours**
** To steam the pudding, you can use a large pot with a small amount of water in the bottom. We use an inverted pyrex bowl in the bottom of the pot to keep the bowl with the pudding above the level of the water. Make sure you continue to carefully add small amounts of water to the pot so that it doesn’t boil dry.
Serve with a Brown Sugar Sauce or Custard. Merry Christmas!
Top 5 Firefox Extensions for Web Designers
December 15th, 2005
One of the best features of Firefox is that it can be expanded with a wide range of optional extensions. There are extensions to help with blogging, privacy, working with RSS files, or just having fun. Here’s my list of the 5 extensions I find most useful when doing web design work:
- Web Developer
Adds a menu and toolbar with many useful tools. Simply being able to open the CSS of a page for live editing makes it essential any web designer or developer. This extension is like an entire toolbox of extensions, and provides numerous useful features. - GreaseMonkey
Greasemonkey’s user scripts let you customize any aspect of a web page’s design or interaction. Hundreds of user scripts, for a wide variety of popular sites are available and very easy to install. - del.icio.us
This extension integrates del.icio.us with Firefox. Del.icio.us is an excellent way to find new tips, tutorials and resources—which are important for any web designer or developer. - Aardvark
When activated, this extension outlines and provides class or id names for any element under the cursor. You can then choose to remove or isolate specific elements on a page. The most useful feature is being able to quickly view the source code of the selected element. - Colorzilla
Adds an advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies. With ColorZilla you can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program.
If you haven’t tried it already— Firefox is free, easy to use, and a relatively small download.
