Web Design

Have you ever wanted to format the first letter of a paragraph so that it was larger than the rest of the text in the paragraph? This effect - commonly seen in print - is called the “dropcap”. The easiest way to do this is with a little bit ‘o CSS. It works in most browsers and adds a smidge of flair to your site. You only need to utilize three style attributes to get it to work.
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The Scriptygoddess wrote a terrific little tutorial on protecting your bandwidth from image-link theft by modifying your .htaccess files.

Are you using MovableType to manage your blog? If so, you might be interested in the tutorial I just added to my Works in Progress blog - How to Add a “BlogData” Footer to Each Post. It’s nifty (I hope!) because I explained how to take advantage of several aspects of the MovableType framework that most users probably never use.
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Cool! My XML feed validated without a hitch. I was able to successfully register it with XMLTree and UserLand.com.

From Son of Web Pages That Suck:

If you’ve got a “real” Web site, and by real I mean a site that gets real traffic, then you don’t need a counter on each page. Counters are not only unimpressive, they make you look like an amateur. Do you see a counter on any page at Microsoft, IBM, or General Motors? Counters appear on sites like Larry The Locksmith (apologies in advance to all locksmiths named Larry). If you can’t afford log file software, then you’re not a real site. Sorry. Most hosting services will provide you with log software. Some of the programs are probably good and some are probably bad.

More good stuff from A List Apart: The Trouble With EM ‘n EN. My reading list ( and things to fix on my site) runneth over.

“I’d love a proportional-width relative-positioning design for my weblog, but I’m too afraid of cross-browser compatability issues. I don’t want to spend more than a weekend figuring out how to get two columns to work in three browsers.” - Dan Sanderson

I have to agree with Dan’s sentiment here. It’s a bear to get relative positioning to work. I’ve got a two-column layout on my main site and a three-column layout here. I know that things look great at 1024×768 on IE6/PC, but I’m not so sure about other browser/OS configurations. My pages should be CSS and (x)HTML compliant, but does that really mean they render nicely? I doubt it. I’d love to please everyone, but I just don’t know if it’s possible without spending hours (days?) making hacks for every browser/OS combination out there. My stats tell me that almost all my visitors are using IE5 or better on a PC. Is it really worth the effort to try to be Netscape / Mac-friendly? I’d like to know. Are any of my visitors using Macs or Netscape? How do my pages look to you?

Finally! The latest issue of A List Apart includes a lesson on Fixing Your Site With the Right DOCTYPE. This is terrific and I’m going to fix my pages as soon as I can. ALA saves the day (again!).

If you’re interested in the recent changes I’ve made to the design of this place, I’ve posted a few thoughts on the Works in Progress blog detailing the why and whatfor.

I just thought I’d post a few notes about the minor design changes I’ve made here recently.

You may have noticed the addition of mini-icons below each post. These link to what I call the “blogdata” items of each entry. They can be used for permalinking, Google-searching, commenting, and sending a link to the entry.

I’ve changed the way “the good stuff” blog works, too. “The good stuff” blog is the top ten list in the sidebar over there. If you click-and-drag the link at the top of the list (the one that says “the good stuff”) onto your menu bar, you’ll be able to use that as a side-panel Internet Explorer widget similar to the IE-embedded search panel and history panel.
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Write better web pages, free design from content, and resolve CSS browser-compatibility issues with Tantek’s High Pass Filter!

Brian Costner has compiled the best guide to designing menus using CSS Rollovers that exists to date. Check there for everything you need to know about creating a cross-browser-compliant css rollover menu.

Hey! I didn’t know you could mix and match classes in css!

I found the mack-daddy of all bookmarklets at webgraphics this evening. This just absolutely rocks:

Try it and see!