big props to the Lord for the time off work, and big props to my boy jae choi for introducing me to movable type. This software was really what introduced me to CSS on a usable level. It also got me thinking about software again, and getting down to writing it for the fun of it. It introduced me to a grip of people who dig software development, design, and both even. It’s difficult to be up here in South Bend where you find none of that. The only thing that’s near close to this experience is when i started working for Blue Martini some years ago, and got to work with just sooo many people who actually understood HTTP and the workings of the Web, deeply. It was just trippy, after being the “top dawg” at my little company (no link–RIP:), and moving into an arena where there are Real Live experts around, and you can interact with them. What I picked up at that company was another stone in the foundation of my knowledge.

I’ve gained much knowledge on things CSS and web standards (and logical reasons why they matter even with valid business reasons this time around!) in my short span of time blogging, through a lot of the folk in the technical/creative blogsphere, and it’s been good for me, since i spend most of my hours doing coding that only slightly involves presentation (although i managed to slip a little bit of presentation smarts in for a successful demo). I even reunited with an old love–mozilla, my now primary browser (can your browser do tabs?).

Learning more about web standards has even helped in my coding though. One example is that i’ve picked up on using XML for practical purposes, and now it’s “just a thang” now, to consider using XML for an implementation–as opposed to a “oh man now i got to learn such and thus will i have time i’m not sure if i can do it”. Then again, that’s the beauty of using web standards. Implementation is actually easier now, so i can focus on being creative.

Thank God for MT and an extended vacation!!! Thank God for paying work though, as well :D

aight, had to throw up a different banner for the different style (stylesheet 5). couldn’t be having the same banner on two different styles. peep the style selecta on the left to choose your “skin”.

this is fun. people get paid for this? ;)

you know what i hate, though–is when i have 5 different stylesheets, and i need to tweak the display in a template (so that all are affected–case in point my monthly archives), so i’m faced with a choice to either change each of the stylesheets, or add a “style” attribute to a tag, the latter of which i don’t think is just proper. instead i put two <br/> ‘s to space what i was trying to. :(

Good discussion over at Pseudo Design about blogs and allowing authentication. Simon Willison took the time to make a comment that made perfect sense–being able to authenticate doesn’t remove the “anonymous” privileges from users, but adds another “level”. and after last nights debacle in the “Contact Sheet” comments section (by yours truly) i couldn’t be in more agreement, and would add (if they haven’t already) that another “logged in” privilege would be the ability to edit/delete/consolidate faulty postings. It’ll stop folk like myself by leaving blog droppings!

Our beatography group had our second mission — i think that our buddy from australia had the long end of the stick, given he got to shoot on a sunday morning, as opposed to my saturday evening, which had us booked for a double date. It was cool anyway, ‘cos i had a slight excuse to bring the camera to dinner, since our double datees were celebrating birthdays that weekend.

I was relieved that these shots came out–i’d taken the camera to the beach a few weeks back and the sand that got into it had apparently messed up the lens so that we couldn’t set the aperture. joy thoroughly blew out the sand a few weeks later (basically going over my sad job of getting it out), and apparently that did the trick. Full-sized pics can be found in my gallery.

NeXTstation

wow this kinda brings a tear to the old eye. I went to Rose Hulman my first year of college, and this was my first unix (like) experience. ironically enough on the page, the colour station is the only B&W pic on the page. :)

Interface Builder was my STUFF, even though i had no idea what i was doing. and who can forget the english accent of “Your printer is out of paper”, and “Paper is jaaaamed in your printer”. . If i had one now i’d put it to better use.

yack. apparently i’m having an issue with spitting out php as my suffix for building the site, and the links generated by “recent comments”, as well as new comments now showing up! i’m working on that now.

it’s all jacked up.

UPDATE: aight, fixed that. grr. gotta be careful!

i redid my wife’s blog. she asked for pink the first time so i obliged, but i never was really feeling it…to pepto-bismolly. so i took a crack at just redoing the thing to something that she could maybe stand for a while. she’s mad picky, but i hope she digs it when she wakes up and checks it out. ;) shoot it looks better than all 3 of my layouts! it has the simplicity that i wanted. it’s crazy basic, but i like the colours more.

CSS2 is hard, annoying, and only 3/4 works properly (yeah i know it’s an implementation not a design issue). Mozilla is the definite winner in the “do what i tell you to do” category of rendering css.

Just finished an engagement. They have extended the contract. The project went well–on time and on budget. I love a project like this. One of the main reasons i think this happened was a basic human factor–trust. There was trust on the PM’s end that the developers knew what they were doing and could produce competent estimates, and trust on the developer’s end that the PM was willing to listen, and knew how to handle a schedule and ask the right questions on the development project.
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Man! Stevie Wonder. What else can you say? I’m peeping this tribute replay on BET right now, and after Ja Rule did his little jacked up rendition of “do i do”, the lovely, foine India.Arie’s set redeems the time. Girl had me in tears (doing her song “Wonderful” and stevie’s “Overjoyed”). It’s such a contrast, to see someone who’s uncomfortable with what they’re doing (mr. Rule–he appeared as if he was trying to hard to “be cool”) and someone whose heart is soo much into what they’re doing that they just do their thing.
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