Archive for April, 2001
what no tables?
Welcome to my redesign!
It doesn’t all quite validate yet, although both stylesheets (which are rather important when one has no tables) do.
Anyone visiting this site in outdated browsers will now see the lovely grey upgrade page, pointing them to some information about how to see the web as it is intended…. I’m sure that will please some people *grin*
I have checked this in IE5.5, Opera 5, Konqueror 2.1 and Netscape 6.0 and all seems to be well… let me know if it does anything weird. This is an experiment, and I’m not finished yet.
The Joy of HTML
Back in the bad old days. September 1996 to be exact. I discovered the internet, obviously it had been discovered before then, but not by me. It was all new.
I also discovered, almost by accident, that one could build a webpage. The whole new world that was version 2 browsers lay before me. I loved it, bored and pregnant I spent night after night poring over the source of my favourite sites, memorising html tags as I went along, just me, notepad and an endless stream of other people’s code.
Somewhere along the line I got quite good at it, somewhere along the line I learned JavaScript, a bit of perl, how to use Photoshop proficiently, and later Dreamweaver replaced my text editors and then my hobby, my late night solace became my job…
… and I forgot how much I loved it, I forgot the sheer thrill of figuring something out for the first time, learning new techniques became a neccessity instead of fun and in the midst of clients and invoices, web teams to look after and projects to run from the outside I forgot the enjoyment of late night sessions staring at two lines of code accompanied by a few tired souls on icq and the hum of my computers.
A few weeks ago, I announced my decision to rebuild this site to new standards. To work towards code that validated, to dump tables for layout in favour of css positioning and quit worrying in my personal space about v.4 browsers.
My resolution has created lots of work, each time I think I am getting near I figure out something new, read another article, hit view source one more time and have to rebuild. I think I’m getting there though.
My first tentative steps were to try using css positioning instead of tables and recreate some of the existing pages of this site. I have since dumped that approach and am rebuilding from scratch, keeping the same feel but enjoying my new positioning powers! Hopefully I will be able to show you this soon.
Just for these few hours – grabbed inbetween work, taking care of the small person, various freelance projects and life in general – its been like the old days, frustrating and fun, just for a while I can remember why I got into this business at all.
small things
I saw the sweetest thing this morning as I staggered into work.
As I was walking up the drive the smallest, fluffiest bird I have ever seen hovered right in front of me and then ‘plop’ fell onto the ground. I moved back a little way so as not to scare it, but as I was right in the middle of the driveway on the way up to the office I didn’t want to leave it alone because of the cars.
So, I was standing there, looking at the small bird and wondering what to do about the fact it was in danger of being hit by a car, when another larger bird (presumably its mother) landed next to it, prodded it with its beak and chased it off into the bushes.
I watched for a little while as they hopped up the branches – to make another flight attempt no doubt.
still poorly sick
I’m really fed up of being ill now. Not only am I feeling guilty about not being at work, I am feeling too grotty to just enjoy being able to snuggle up under the duvet and keep warm as I can’t stop coughing whatever I do. I’ll have to try and get into work tomorrow.
Another thing … it is school holidays so there is no dreadful morning TV to watch, dreadful morning TV being the best thing being off work ill. I’m very disappointed.
Drew had the cheek to suggest this evening that I don’t update my blog enough. This coming from the man whose idea it was that we had blogs and still hasn’t done anything about his. Granted, he is writing a book, but really!
I must sort out this page, it is next on the list of html 4.0 validating pages. So if you are reading this in a v.4 browser…. not for much longer MwaHaHaHa!!! (Of course you could upgrade)
Always read the label
The poorly sickness of yesterday turned out to be a nasty chest infection neccesitating a visit to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor. This one was very cheerful and told me to relax more then gave me evil antibiotics which I wouldn’t normlly take but I seem to be getting worse not better.
Always read the label… bad move…
“Other side effects include … poisoning of the skin leading to death of the skin…”
What! I think I’d rather keep the cough, its no wonder they normally give you these things in glass bottles with no instruction leaflet.
