Recently in Web Design Category
Yslow has inspired me to learn more about website performance. I noticed that the default install of Apache on Mac does not have mod_gzip installed. I found a great tutorial, but I was getting make errors. Marc Liyanage to the rescue. He has the compiled module, which worked for me.
A quick tip on implementing permanent URL redirections via the .htaccess file. I orginally posted this entry with a title of "Movable Type, Marsedit and SSH." A few days later I changed the title to the more inclusve "Marsedit and SSH" when I realized that the tutorial wasn't necessarily Movable Type specific. The permalinks for entries on this site are based on the title, so when the title changed, the permalink changed. This presented a few issues, because I had already linked to the tutorial from another site, and Google had already indexed the old permalink. A quick edit to the .htaccess file is all I needed to get everything straightened out. Amazingly, Google has already indexed the proper page. Here's the code:
Redirect 301 /2005/02/15/movable_type_marsedit_and_ssh.html http://www.jetrow.com/2005/02/15/marsedit_and_ssh.html
Disclosure: I totally lifted the style for the code above from Andy Budd. I vaguely recall seeing him style his <pre> tags with "overflow:scroll" applied. I think it's a great way to display code without breaking the design of the site.
Secure Wireless Email on Max OS X was incredibly enlightening. I've long been suffering from SSH ignorance. Thanks to that article, I locked up my POP3 and IMAP email accounts. Then Daring Fireball casually mentions that he uses, "...SSH tunneling not just for email, but for posting to Movable Type with MarsEdit as well." In a flash of inspiration, I think I figured it out. I am an SSH neophyte, so your mileage may vary. I tested using MacSniffer. It looks like my sessions were encrytped, as I couldn't see my username and password in clear text, as I could without SSH tunneling.
In SSH Tunnel Manager (SSHTM), I added a new local redirection to a tunnel I already configured for IMAP mail access. I set the LAN Host to be my domain. I set the remote port to 80, which is the default port for http. I arbitrarily mapped the local port to be 1431.
In MarsEdit, I replaced my domain in "RPC URL" with "localhost:1431". 1431 is the local port I specified in SSHTM.
That's it. Make sure you've started your tunnel in SSHTM, and you should be all set, posting securely via MarsEdit.
Update: This was origninally written for Movable Type, but it will obviously apply to any blogging system using the XML RPC. Thus, I made the post a bit more generic.
I'm working on a re-design, which gives me pause to reflect on the current design. Here's a little insight into the development of the current design. The design was inspired by this photo that I saw on the HBO Six Feet Under website. I built the entire design around the colors in the photo. I had a picture taken from a plane of the tops of clouds. I tweaked the colors of the clouds to match the photo and flipped the clouds upside down to become the header.
Another update. Site looks good in the following browsers: IE6/Win, IE5.5/Win, IE5/Win, Firebird 0.6/Win, Opera 7.11/Win, Mozilla 1.4/WIN, Netscape 7.1/Win, IE 5.2.2/Mac, Safari 1.0/Mac. While adhering to web standards certainly eased cross browser trouble-shooting, there were still bugs. Bugs that wasted time. IE5 was the biggest culprit.
The text on this page, and every page here, is now fully re-sizable in IE6. It was always re-sizable in every other browser.
I instituted a secondary blog strictly for static content following the lead of Brad Choate. The About page was created this way. In order to make the site as modular as possible, I used the MTOtherBlog plugin. This let me use the custom templates from my main blog in the static content blog. I did not want to have two custom header templates in each blog. The MTOtherBlog plugin eliminated that.
I changed the URL hierarchy as well. Though, it's a work in progress. To give you an example of what I changed, individual entries like the one I posted on August 23rd had a URL of http://www.jetrow.com/mt/store/archive/000288.html#000288. That URL is now http://www.jetrow.com/2003/08/23/pardon_our_dust.html. Aren't clean URLs great?
On August 21, Zeldman posted a link to a Pocket PC Emulator. The emulator was supposed to display web pages on a Pocket PC from the comfort of your desktop/laptop. This would have been great, had it worked. I sent Zeldman a note indicating that it wasn't even close to properly emulating. I included a link to the evidence. He got some other comments, and issued a clarification. He even name-dropped Jet Row. I feel like the kid in the Mean Joe Greene Coke commercial, sans the sweaty jersey, of course.
Pocket PC 2002's Pocket Internet Explorer does not support stylesheets. I'm of the impression that the newly released Pocket IE on Pocket PC 2003 does support stylesheets. I'll have to get my hands on a copy to test. Will post results here.
...as we grow to serve you better. Still working on the redesign. The never-ending battle between work and play has left Jet Row on the burner behind the back burner. The easy part was switching out the stylesheet for the new look, which I'm still tweaking. Only the front page is presentable at the moment. All interior pages on the site look funny, and not like funny ha ha. Now, I've rolled up the sleeves and am doing quite a bit of work under the hood. Including, but not limited too...
Switching all of my pixel sized fonts to font-size keyword sized fonts. This will enable those using IE6, to re-size the text size to their liking.
Ripping Movable Type apart, only to put it back together again. There's been a lot of hot action lately regarding the use of Movable Type for commercial projects. This has brought new challenges and new solutions. I found enlightenment in the form of Brad Choate's - Doing Your Whole Site in MT and the MTOther blog plugin.
Simplifying Jet Row URLs. This has many benefits, helps search engine visibility, makes URLs informative and generally keeps 'em nice and tidy. More info on this topic can be found at Brainstorms and Raves.
Adding search functionality. One day you will need to quickly reference something brilliant that I've written here, but you'll need site search to find it.
Hopping on the bandwagon that is RSS. RSS didn't make a lot of sense until I started using NetNewsWire. NetNewsWire is now as indispensable an app as any that I use. I intend to get the RSS feeds for this site cleaned up and working.
I've already done all of this for a project at work. Now, I bring this knowledge and experience to Jet Row. With any luck, I'll get all of these fixes implemented sooner than later. I intend to write up tutorials on each subject.
There's been an incredible amount of action, (or is it inaction?) in the browser space lately. AOL sold out to Microsoft, which some believe will mark the end of the Netscape broswer. Microsoft announced that it will no longer release any browsers, as any new features would require integration with the operating system. Oh, and Microsoft's next operating system, codenamed Longhorn, won't be out for another two years, which means you won't be using it for 3 or 4 years. Now, Microsoft announces that IE on the Mac is finished. This isn't that disappointing, as I (and most Mac users) use Camino and Safari for browsing. It's the lack of broswer innovation on Microsoft's part that is troubling. Need I remind you that IE6 is 3 years old? Without going into too much more detail, I'll direct you to Zeldman, who talks about this far more eloquently than I ever will. I will mention, that if this doesn't mean anything to you as you find yourself content with IE6, you need to check out Phoenix, and browse a bit with that to see what you're missing, like pop-up blocking, ad-blocking and tabbed browsing.
I had the opportunity to learn about DNS. I use the term "opportunity" loosely as I was thrust into this opportunity via the "Inertia of Slacker Fucks." The "Inertia of Slacker Fucks" dictates that your fellow employee slacks, thus you assume their responsibilities, since you are a real "go-getter". Thus, the slacker employee slacks even more, while your workload is increased even more. A very powerful force, indeed. Regardless of my half-baked theorems on inertia, I found these resources to be incredibly useful.
- Ins and Outs of DNS - a Webmonkey tutorial
- DNS Oversimplified - some random tutorial
- DNS Stuff - free online utility
- DNS Report - another free online utility
Came up with a favelet for use with Lotus QuickPlace. It lets managers edit any document, whether they have edit access or not. Call it version 0.9, as I've only tested it on QP 2.08/NT with IE6/Win2K. with revisions. Simply drag and drop the link below to your favorites. Click the link when you're on a QP page that you'd like to edit.
note: the favelet above invalidates the markup of this site.
I came across a tricky issue yesterday, and the solution was not published much, so I thought I'd share it.
Scenario: I'm in the process of adding employee photos to our corporate employee directory on our intranet. The photos reside in a folder on the web server, and are dynamically pulled based on the directory entry.
Issue: For employees that don't have pictures, the standard broken-image graphic appears in its place. I wanted a client side (to minimize overhead) solution that would replace the broken-image graphic with a standard graphic that said "picture not available".
The Solution: <img src="photo.jpg" OnError="this.src='error.gif'"> A nice simple solution that was a pain in the ass to find. Props to Herb from Montreal who posted this solution at JavaScript City.
