Code HTML Email Templates by Breaking the Rules
If you’re anything like me, the first time someone told you to make an email template, you thought, “Piece of cake!” After all, emails use HTML (or the types that needs templates do, at any rate), and HTML is a cinch, right? As it turns out, you’d be wrong. HTML is a cinch, but the [...]
Internet Explorer Must Be Stopped
Casual web users probably find this chart amusing, but my fellow web professionals know how close it comes to the truth. Today, I’d like you to take note of the giant yellow section in the top, right-hand corner that indicates, “Time spent trying to get the bastard to work in Internet fucking Explorer.” In case [...]
CSS Menus Made Simple
CSS is wonderful stuff. Really. If you know what you’re doing, you can twist standard, boring HTML elements into almost any display state you like, all while maintaining the sort of semantic accessibility that’s so important for things like SEO and section 508 compliance. One of my favorite examples is turning a standard HTML list [...]
Float vs Position in Layout: My Gripe with Andy Clarke
In his book, Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design, author Andy Clarke argues in favor of content-out markup. This approach centers around defining the content on the page in a semantic way that makes sense to those using browsers without style information. The base XHTML should be as free of layout coding as [...]
WYSIWYR: What You See is What You Regret
Once upon a time much earlier in my career, a coworker observed me composing code in a basic text editor and described the approach as, “Spartan.” I argued that my argument was cleaner, leaner, and all together better. My coworker argued that WYSIWYG code was more convenient and efficient. In the time since, I’ve progressed [...]
My First Impressions of Google Chrome
Chances are good you’ve already heard the news but, in case you haven’t, Google recently released its own browser, Google Chrome. Naturally, the blogosphere is absolutely buzzing with feature mashups, performance comparisons, and more than a few conspiracy theories. I’ll digress with the more noteworthy points that you are better told by the front page [...]
Launching a Successful Website, Step Four: Building the Site
You know what you want to build, you’ve got the experts to build it, and you’ve decided on a brand. The stage is set, so now it’s time to see your vision brought to life. Proper website creation can follow any number of different models. Like me, you may be going into the process with [...]
Launching a Successful Website, Step Two: Identifying Expertise
Successful websites don’t just appear out of thin air. More often than not, they require a team of professionals to build and operate. Even websites that seem to be run by lone individuals (like this one) often involve the participation of others. Before actually beginning the work of creating the website, then, it’s important to [...]