Tech

Tech-focused ramblings. Computers, blogs, and whatever else fits.

Site design: why CSS?

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As I’m currently with a fair amount of time without a whole lot of neccessary things to do, I’ve decided to explore one of the ideas I’ve had bouncing around in my head for a while. I’m redesigning the site (I know, I never got around to finishing the last redesign — but I found some tricks midway through) to comply with current Cascading Style Sheet standards. While I’d been using CSS for a while now to standardize and simplify the formatting across the site, this is my first foray into using CSS for the actual site layout.

Previously, I’d been using a table-based system to lay out the page. It works — and in some ways could be considered a de-facto standard across the web at the moment — but it’s kludgy, makes the code difficult to read, and is a royal pain when facing a site update. By switching to CSS-based layout (the basic framework was found at Glish), my code is much leaner, and once done, I’ll be able to make large, sweeping changes to the site when I decide to redesign in the future by editing a single .css file, instead of having to recode every page on the site. Much, much nicer.

There is one downside to this — certain browsers (either older browsers [Netscape 4.x or previous, or IE 4.x or previous] or browsers still in development [such as OmniWeb for Mac OS X] will not display my page correctly. If you’re using an older browser, visit the Web Standards Organization upgrade project to see what browsers are available to you. If you’re using a current browser that is not standards-compliant, write the company to request compatibility with the currently published standards.

Of course, what this means at the moment is that if you start bouncing through my site, there are currently three different ‘themes’ to the pages — the older blue/green layout, the grid-background I was recently working with, and this CSS-based layout. I’m hoping to get the entire site converted over to this new style fairly quickly, however — this main page was just the matter of a couple hours work, and now that I’ve got the tweaking finalized, the rest of the pages should fly by fairly quickly.

So that’s it for now — a bit of work in front of the ‘puter to give my skin a rest from the constant flirtation with sunburn that I’ve been playing with for the past couple weeks. Ta ta for now….

Slight page updates

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I just went through and made some slight adjustments to some of the pages on the site (mainly this one, my resume, and my DJ Wüdi propaganda) to reflect the fact that I’m not going to be in Anchorage for much longer. More later…it’s about lunchtime here at work.

Though I do have to wonder…should I worry that most of the people answering the poll went for the sex change option? Hmm…just what do people think of me, anyway?

Statistics

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I did a little work on my webserver last night, and was able to get the statistics page up and running again. Now, if you’re really bored, you can take a look at just how much (or, more accurately, how little) traffic my webserver actually gets. The page is generated automatically every day at midnight, so the numbers should always be up to date. Purdy nifty.

Heaven forbid that happen!

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Imagine the disincentive to software development if after months of work another company could come along and copy your work and market it under its own name…without legal restraints to such copying, companies like Apple could not afford to advance the state of the art.

— Bill Gates, 1983 (New York Times, 25 Sep 1983, pg. F2)

More site work

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Work continues on the site redesign. I’ve completed the changeover of the Quotebook introduction and the first page of Amusing bits, and added some information over to the right hand side of this page. In addition to the link to the messageboard, there is now a section of random stuff about me — some biographical, and some small lists. You’ll find there whatever I’m currently reading or have just read, the last 5 CD’s I bought, and the last 5 DVD’s I’ve bought. Beneath that are links to other blog sites, and then links to some of the places I hit on the web on a regular basis.

I wasn’t really down…

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Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Okay, for any of you who might be interested, here’s the deal. I run my own webserver here at home, and my ‘net connection is provided through GCI‘s cable modem service. Technically, this is a dynamic IP service — my IP address (the four-part number that is the true address of a computer on the ‘net) isn’t permanently assigned to me, and can change every time I establish a new ‘net connection. However, as cable modem service has very little downtime, my ‘dynamic’ IP is almost static — if I don’t have any downtime, then the IP doesn’t change.

It’s because of the dynamic nature of my IP address that I haven’t yet gone for a better web address — i.e., something along the lines of www.djwudi.com or some such — registering for one of those generally requires having a permanent, dedicated IP. Instead, I go through the services provided by www.dyndns.org. This free service allows me to have my djwudi.dyndns.org address, and all I have to do is put the current IP of my webserver into their database.

Occasionally, however, my IP will change — which is what happened today. I’m not sure why my IP suddenly reset today, there was no actual downtime that I’m aware of, and I would have expected it to change when my cable modem was actually disconnected a week ago, but it didn’t. In any case, as soon as I saw that things weren’t working I put the new IP into the database, but it took a few hours for it to propagate through the system. However, between the time I started typing this and now, it’s made it through, so all should be good from here on out…at least, until the next time GCI decides to kick my IP.

Redesign in progress

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In case you hadn’t already noticed by the dramatic change in the look of the site, I’m in the process of redesigning. No real reason, other than that I thought it was time for a change — I do this every so often.

Rather than do the whole site in the background and then replace it in one swell foop, I decided to just replace the pages as I get them set. As I’m typing this, the main page is the only one that’s finished so far…the rest will follow eventually. All this really means is that at the moment, the site will look pretty goofy as the pages switch between different appearances, but eventually it’ll all gell. In the meantime…well, WYSIWYG.

Downtime, upgrades, moving to Mars

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Grrrr…frikkin’ bills. I dunno why everybody’s so picky about wanting their money on time.

Um…yeah. If you haven’t guessed, the reason for the recent downtime was nothing more than my own stupidity when it comes to billpaying. Sorry about that.

However, bills are paid, and everything’s back up and running again. I took advantage of the server going up and down to install the 10.0.1 update to Mac OS X that hit the ‘net today…and, have to admit, this is nice. Not sure what might be there as far as new features, but it’s a heck of a lot faster. Woohoo!

Anyway, not much going on at the moment — since Studio 99 switched me to Saturdays, I’m not dj’ing tonight…so actually have a night to relax. Went out and rented Mission To Mars and Red Planet to watch tonight. Going off to Mars this evening…see y’all when I get back!

I love finding things like this…

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…I found this over on /. in the middle of a discussion about Mac OS X. While probably only of interest to my more ‘geeky’ friends, I think it’s damn cool….

Mac OS X is better than I could have imagined!

Let me begin by saying that I used to be a rabid, frothing at the mouth Linux/UNIX advocator. I’ve been using Linux exclusively for nearly two years.

Anyways, when I found out about Mac OS X, I was very excited. I wanted to try it. The interface looked so incredibly well done. Whoever says that Windows has a nice user interface must be joking; I think that the Windows GUI is extremely bland.

So I bought an iMac 233 for a steal over at eBay. I ran Mac OS X Public Beta for many months in anticipation of the final release.

The day the final release came out, I was so impressed with Apple hardware and the beta, that I ran out and bought one of the new iMacs just so that I would have the extra speed boost in running OS X.

Anyways, let me say that I have not been disappointed in the slightest! OS X is everything that Linux should have been. It’s powerful enough for the command line lovers, but elegant enough for the common desktop user. I don’t care what anyone says; Linux is not ready for the common user.

Common Linux scenario. I’m running KDE with some GNOME apps, along with Netscape 4.77 and emacs. Say I want to change my computer’s theme. That means I have to find a KDE theme, a GTK theme (and figure out how to install it from KDE), and edit my .Xdefaults file, testing new values for Netscape and emacs until everything is the way I want.

That’s just too inconvenient. In fact, after running OS X for a week now, I found that there were a lot of annoying inconveniences that I put up with in Linux that I don’t have to deal with in OS X. It got to the point with Linux where I was saying, “I’m so tired of constant sysadmin battles…I just want something that works.” You know what? Mac OS X just works.

Not to mention the fact that I find Apple hardware far superior. There’s none of the Intel Driver Hell that I’ve dealt with using other OSes. I plugged in my iMac (which was equipped with CDRW, ethernet, modem, etc…) and everything worked, no tweaking necessary.

What I like the best is the XonX program that a bunch of sourceforgers are working on. By hitting Command-Alt A, I can switch back and forth between my old XFce desktop and my new, spiffy Aqua desktop.

To those who say that Apple hardware is too expensive…yes, the powermacs and the cubes are still fairly high in price. If you’re looking to play around with OS X, pick up an iMac. They’re very reasonably priced machines that pack a lot of power.

— vorpal^

Wudicam down

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I’ve taken the link to the Wudicam off the page for now. I’m now running Mac OS X 10.0 about 95% of the time on this machine, and there aren’t drivers for the iRez KritterCam for OS X just yet. I can still turn the cam on if I really want/need to by booting into OS 9, but these days about the only time I do boot into OS 9 is when I want to watch a DVD on this machine…and if I’m watching a movie, I’m not likely to have the cam on. So…until drivers get released…no cam. Ah, well. Y’all will just have to satisfy your voyeuristic urges somewhere else for now. ;)