CSS Compressor

CSS Compressor is an online form that takes your CSS and compresses it down to reduce the filesize. A nifty little utility for those of you whose CSS is starting to get out of control.

MTV’s underOverdrive

MTV bills its next great thing as “the Ultimate Broadband Video Channel”, great since I love to watch music videos of Beyonce, Alicia Keyes, and even Britney do their thing. So I head on over to the site and am instantly impressed by the design mostly because of the smooth color scheme.

Then I try to read the font…I can’t…I view the CSS to see what font that is and what size they are trying to blind me with. I see the CSS and my eyes cross and my vision gets blurry. I am go blind. I quickly close the editcss window and decide that it’s time to just watch some videos.

I can’t. Why? Well it seems that using a Dual 1.8GHz G5 with Firefox simply isn’t cutting edge enough.

Detecting OS…

WE’RE SORRY!

In order to offer a broad selection of full-length music videos on-demand and free of charge, MTV Overdrive uses Windows Digital Rights Management (DRM) to protect videos from unauthorized re-distribution.

Unfortunately, Microsoft’s Windows Media Player Plug-in for Macintosh does not support Windows DRM. If DRM support becomes available for Macintosh, MTV will develop a version of MTV Overdrive that works on a Mac.

So not only do I get a table-based layout with typography that could only be read by an ant, but I also can’t access the site because of proprietary technology available to only one audience. Welcome back to 1999.

Over the past year I have learned to control my anger and think things through because I figure there is always a good reason behind decisions such as these. However, I am dumbfounded on this one. Don’t need tables for the site. Don’t need typography that is unreadable. And I shouldn’t be restricted to simply using one OS, with one browser, while watching through only one media player.

Did I mention that it has a nice color scheme?

Vault Gets A Facelift

If you haven’t been to the CSS Vault today I suggest you head on over and checkout the new design. I am glad to see Jacob taking care of the site and improving upon what I couldn’t. In classic Vault commentary let’s have a look at it…

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Presentation, Professionalism, and the Forever Geek Redesign

Two weeks ago I put a call out looking for a designer to handle the Forever Geek redesign. Within 24 hours I had received over 30 emails from designers that showed a great deal of interest in doing the work. No surprise because freelance designers can only survive by doing design, duh. I went with Forty Media for a couple of reasons and thought if I shared my reasoning this would help everyone out in the future when trying to find client work.

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Trick Readers and Drink With Scrivs

Keith and Garrett decide to play a little joke on the world. What this means is that they built up false thoughts and emotions for their readers and came back to say they were just kidding. What I am interested in is how the comments on Garrett’s site have bloggers lecturing him, while in Keith’s entry they seem to offer pats on the back.

Amazing what a little reputation and standing in the community will get you.

On a sidenote, I saw Keith’s new look before SXSW and dubbed it CouTraction or SubDal (yes I said that to his face about a million times) and constantly laughed at him about it while we (including Rundle and Garrett) hopped around from bar to bar scooping up the ladies…errrr, I mean I was scooping up the ladies while Keith was missing his fiancee…oh and Garret was talking about his girlfriend…damn, and Rundle was missing his…errr, ummm, yeah.

So what’s the lesson that we can all learn from this? Is it that we shouldn’t fool our readers because they are what make our blogs so special? No, that isn’t it. The lesson to be learned here is that you should never go out drinking with Scrivs unless you are single.

9rules Network Blog

I would like to introduce you to the 9rules Network Blog. The old 9rules blog has gone and past away so if you liked what I said on that one or are just curious to keep up to date on the 9rules network happenings then I suggest you give the new blog a ride.

For the design I asked for something minimal, but with a style of its own and Rundle delivered on this one. I could’ve given him weeks to work on a more detailed and elaborate design, but for what the purpose of the blog is, the design works perfectly in my opinion. Knowing him you will probably see some tweaks over the next couple of weeks, but the foundation has been laid.

This is the first of many new blogs that will expand on the WordPress platform. We have some crazy things in the works for the network that involve WordPress and RSS so all you WordPress fans make sure to keep your eyes open.

New sites for the network could start to appear any day now…

Forums and Tables

I am setting up a forum for all the members of the 9rules Network and remembered the million times that my buddy JC asked me to do a CSS skin for phpBB (the forum software that I will be using). When using CSS and tables it is accepted that tables should only be used when using tabular data (duh right?). However, does forum content equate to tabular data or should it really be done in all CSS?

I think it should be in tables because each data cell represents a specific column in a specific row. That’s my indepth scientific explanation.

If the general consensus is that it isn’t tabular data and I create a CSS skin, I will make sure to release it to the community in case anybody else wishes to use it. However, if it really should be in tables I don’t wish to use a pure CSS layout without tables when it is isn’t needed.

iPod Shuffle Contest

Having an iPod Shuffle contest is the new “in” thing so I figured I might as well have one too. What you have to do is write a how-to article that relates to web design, web programming, or webmastering. Articles will be posted on Whitespace and we will vote on the best one at the end of May. Yes this is to get more content on my site and generate fun discussions so if you don’t wish to participate then I am not forcing you. Simple as that.

Here are the rules:

• Proofread. If I find too many errors in your article (more than I find in my own entry) then it might not get posted up at all and therefore you have no chance of winning.
• Original. The article could not have been published anywhere else on the web or in print before.
• Unlimited Submissions. You have an unlimited amount of submissions.
• Minimum 500 Words. Word count doesn’t always equate to quality, but anything less than 500 words usually is not worth it.
• Can non-US Residents Participate? As long as my ass doesn’t get arrested for shipping the iPod to your country.
• Deadline. May 31, 2005.
• So just a chance to win? At the end of your article you are more than welcome to write a mini-bio with a link back to your site, so at the very least you will get one or two more visitors that day.

Why wouldn’t I do something cool (or maybe you do think this is cool)? Well, since the old entries are stuck in purgatory I could use new content and I think this is a good way to get it (yes, I know many people will disagree). Also, you don’t see too many how-to’s on blogs now so I figured this might start a trend. I am doing a similar contest for FG/i25 and it has generated some great articles with great discussions. As time goes on I will probably add some more prizes so more people can win (or the same person who submits 25 articles).

Send your article(s) to contest{AT}9rules.com. If you have any questions, feel free to comment or email me.

Hosting Costs

Out of curiousity how much do you pay for web hosting and what are the specs?

• Dedicated server?
• One site hosting?
• Virtual hosting?

Let me know.

Yahoo! Gets Design…Finally

It’s really no secret that Yahoo and Google are starting to resemble each other more and more everyday with their selection of services. Both have search engines. Both have webmail. Both have news. Once you start offering the same services as your competition how can you find ways to differentiate yourself from them? Well an obvious method is to create more features. Gmail came out the blocks with over 1gig in email storage blowing away Yahoo. However, even though Google trumped Yahoo in webmail features, what really makes Gmail standout (for me) is its interface in comparison to Yahoo! Mail’s, which is the case with many people I am sure.

I am giving Yahoo the benefit of the doubt with regards to its webmail interface since it has been around for so long (I believe that last redesign was 3-4 years ago) and its only competition was the equally horrendous Hotmail. But looking past that you will see that when people are comparing Yahoo! Mail with Gmail the interface design is a key feature in why they are deciding to switch along with spam protection and storage capacity.

On the web adding more features to a webpage isn’t as easy as it is to add more features to a desktop application. Eventually, you will probably see all of Google’s properties and Yahoo’s properties having the same features list. For example, Yahoo can add the same amount of storage and use the same exact spam filter as Gmail, but until their interface design changes, they will always be behind.

However, now I am starting to see a trend across the Yahoo properties that shows they have put more of a focus on design and this is a good thing. Earlier when I said that Gmail’s interface was superior to Yahoo Mail’s, I wasn’t speaking in terms of aesthetics, but how well the interface works. To me none of Google’s web applications show a great sense of visual design. You sort of get the feeling that all the engineers that are creating these projects also have to create the interfaces as well.

Yahoo recently launched their beta Yahoo! News section and it follows along the same paths of other recently launched Yahoo properties (homepage) in that it uses CSS and has a much cleaner design. If you take a look at Google News you will see a webpage screaming to be redesigned. Granted you can use the same argument with this page that I used about Yahoo! Mail with regards to age, but it’s hard to see any other place where Google is putting focus on design (although Google Maps is very slick with its use of Ajax).

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