Why I Love the Internet (to be Followed Closely by Why I Hate It)
August 25, 2004
First, the love. I like many of you have been watching the Olympics off and on, and as always I am just about as interested in the commercials as I am in the Games themselves. I find I get a lot of design/creative inspiration while watching what others are doing with television production, particularly surrounding a big event like the Olympics.
Read the Full Entry :: Feedback (6)
bradleyboy 4.5...or 5.0, I lost track
August 21, 2004
If you have been following the Web Process series, you know that I have been undergoing a makeover of bradleyboy.com. There are more articles to come, but I didn't want my business site to be down too long as I have been getting good referrals of late. So take a look, it is a little rough around the edges I am sure. I will be adding more to the portfolio in the coming weeks as well as other tweaks here and there. Feel free to let me know if something is off (likely) or something is spelled wrong (very likely).
UPDATE: After looking at this on Internet Explorer this morning, I pulled half my hair out. It is doing some weird stuff on the main page, but it will have to wait for Monday. Meanwhile, why not Browse Happy?
Web Process V coming Monday...
Web Process: Part IV
August 16, 2004
Ok, I gave you the rest of last week to digest the quick hitting Part I, Part II and Part III of the Web Design Process series. Now we get into geekier territory, as we ditch table-based design and lay out a clean, semantic XHTML document. Why? I'm glad you asked.
Read the Full Entry :: Feedback (0)
Bye Bye Omnis, Times Have Passed You By....
August 11, 2004
I have moved servers. Omnis was great, but better things are now available. If you are seeing this message, everything has happened already. If you notice any quirks please let me know. Look for Part IV of the Web Process series come Monday.
Web Process: Part III
August 11, 2004
We got the ball rolling last Friday with the basics of hosting, domains and DNS. Yesterday we got to the heart of the matter by outlining the vision of the site. Finally, we can design. Note I said finally. The mistake I always used to make was jumping right into what the site should look like, without even thinking about what the site should accomplish. But we're past that now and we're ready to bring together a web composition.
Read the Full Entry :: Feedback (3)
Web Process: Part II
August 10, 2004
This is the second installment (first one is here) on the development process of a web site. Part II is all about vision. What will the site be? Why is the site even there? What part of the content drives the site? And finally, what it should look like.
Read the Full Entry :: Feedback (3)
Hoverless Current Links sans Titles
August 9, 2004
Recently, Mike Rundle wrote one of those articles that makes you slap your forehead and say, "How in the world did I not think of that?". Mike's idea was to use the CSS cursor rule to make a link to the page you were currently view appear not to be a link. By using cursor:default there is no change to that ever telling hand cursor, making the user think there is no link to be found. As Mike states, nothing is more frustrating than clicking a piece of the navigation, only to see the same page load again. UPDATE: Through the comments on Mike's article, some are suggesting using cursor:text to show the text selection tool instead of the cursor. Works too, I still prefer the default cursor.
I started applying this to a site I was working on and quickly ran into a new issue, what about the title attribute?
Read the Full Entry :: Feedback (15)
Web Process: Part I
August 6, 2004
All 7 of you who regularly come by here will forgive me for not posting over the last week or so, I had a bit of a writer's block. Also, we are gearing up for a big move, bradleyboy.com and I. After some time at hosting provider Omnis, I am shifting bradleyboy.com et al (that means northoftheborder too..) to my Dreamhost Account to save me money and headaches, mostly the latter.
As I was doing this, and going through writer's block as well, I realized I get many questions to the effect of "What do you do anyway?". The ways of web development usually are reserved for the uber-geek, and it is usually in the interest of the geek for it to remain that way. After all there is nothing better than job security, right? Well here we go, part one of a series on the making of a web site from the very beginning in laymen's terms.