Last month, there was quite a bit of discussion around how URL shorteners are bad for the internet, and what we developers and users might be able to do to minimize the potential damage. One big idea was to use HTTP headers and rel(or revrel attribute has been called into service in other areas, namely in defining relationships between people (or to other sites you own or have a profile on), and in telling robots how to treat a link.

The first suggested solution to the short URL problem to get broad exposure was rev=”canonical”, which proposed that a page should define a “reverse” relationship to a given short URL. In other words… “You see that short url over there? well, I’m the canonical version of it, so nyah.” (In my head, web pages are full of attitude. This probably comes from years of having to physically subdue rowdy CSS.)

rev=canonical was picked up by several major sites, and has some traction. When I was looking into the issue myself, thinking about what I wanted to do for this site, I found an alternate recommendation that seemed to make more sense to me.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am not certain of the pedigree of the Koan, but am familiar with it primarily as a feature of Zen practice. Essentially, a koan is a word, phrase, anecdote, or story which is intended to illustrate a particular point, or which is intended to, by virtue of it’s profundity or logical disconnection, trigger at least a momentary glimpse of awakening in the student.

Obviously, there is quite a bit of context underlying the above paragraph, which I am not going to get into in this post, but I do encourage you to investigate Zen further if you are so inclined. Zen is a fascinating branch of Buddhism in it’s own right, and is probably one of the more “commonly known” forms here in the States.

What I do want to do here, is feature one of my favorite koans. It takes the form of a story:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Tale of Peter Rabbit is one of those classic books that probably every kid has read at some point. It is also a story that has been told and retold in children’s stories, probably since there were stories. It’s the classic tale of the mischievous child—Peter—who, when given clear instruction and a compelling reason to not do something, proceeds to do exactly what he was warned against. As if that weren’t enough, Peter’s total lack of self-control extends to his eating habits, such that, when presented with an abundance of food and no supervision, he eats himself sick. As could be expected, his situation goes from bad to worse, and he ends up naked, wet, cold, and alone, with the hidden enemy lurking somewhere between him and the freedom he seeks, which lies in some unknown direction. Upon finally arriving home, Peter’s only punishment is his own self-inflicted illness, despite his having lost yet another set of clothing, and having obviously been up to no good. As near as I can tell, the moral of this story is that you can be as disobedient and mischievous as you like, as long as you’re smart about it.

This and the final track on the 2004 CD were a bit of a concession, in that this isn’t necessarily one of my favorite stories. I think I felt that three stories wasn’t quite enough, so I picked the last two to fill out the list a bit. I do like this story, however, and there is just something fun about saying “Flopsy, Mopsy.”

Enjoy the reading.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:43 — 2.6MB)

Back when I was strictly a front-end guy (meaning HTML/CSS/JavaScript, ya potty-minded sleezebags!) I had to muck around in Photoshop every day. A big part of my job was taking files—usually from people who had little to no idea how I did my job—and cutting them up into building blocks for a webpage. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of sloppy Photoshop files, and have figured out a few things that a lot of designers apparently never seem to notice.

When I started, table-based layouts were the gold-standard, as they were really the only way of exerting any form of control over a layout, HTML-wise. Because of the way tables worked, elements in web layouts had to be sized and aligned to pixel-perfection, otherwise, things just ended up looking all screwy. Unfortunately, back then, getting pixel-perfect layouts was like winning the dollar lottery with a fifty cent ticket. (It didn’t happen, see.*) Today things are a bit better, and the rise of CSS allows for both more and easier layout control, and for a somewhat reduced requirement for pixel-perfection.

This is definitely not to say that designers should be let off the hook—if you’re executing a gridded layout, or a series of thumbnails and the edges don’t line up or the thumbnails aren’t all the same dimensions, then you’re being lazy, or sloppy, or both. The fact that Photoshop gives you fairly elegant tools to avoid these problems means that there’s really no excuse for it.

That being said, there are some things that can make a designer’s job harder. I’m planning to post a few of the Photoshop tips, tricks, and guidelines I’ve picked up as a web developer, starting with this one, dealing with a particularly annoying and quirky behavior of Photoshop’s guides.

Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about becoming a more productive computer user, it’s this: keyboard shortcuts are the holy grail. In my average workday, I would guess that I could shave over an hour off my time on a lengthy project, just by learning and judiciously applying keyboard shortcuts.

Obviously, this will be most effective for people who already spend most of their time with their fingers on the home row (writers & coders), but many of the best mouse-centric programs often have single-letter or one-handed shortcuts that are very beneficial.

Though I’m planning to write a few posts dealing with specific applications that I use every day, and my favorite or most frequently used shortcuts in those applications, there is also quite a bit that is available by default in most modern operating systems. In this post, I’m going to try to give you a few common shortcuts that will work on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Read the rest of this entry »