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2002’s Posts.

  1. France’s email

  2. Lowercase Internet; css-discuss Wiki

    Hope everyone enjoyed a bit of a break — me I’m still fighting the cold that started just before my holidays began. By the way, rumour has it the latest CBC Radio 3 webzine is using a David Elfstrom photo…

  3. December 28, 2001

    Updated and fixed some links in the Recommended Links section

  4. Holidays

    With the holiday season in full swing, expect few posts here until the new year. In the meantime, I hope you, too, can enjoy some time off to have a good holiday

  5. December 19, 2002

    The contents of saila.com are now covered under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License. In certain cases, I may add a more restrictive licence on the a work, but it will be clearly declared

  6. Creative Commons; two views of convergence

  7. Mozilla 1.3 alpha and Opera 7 beta 2; blogging and the mainstream press

    Two new browsers for you to play around with:

  8. Dean Allen’s Textile; inside HotBot’s new design

    Interrupting the overworked-induced silence to point to Dean Allen’s great typography tool, and a new all-CSS design at HotBot (my one-time search engine of choice). Those interested in corporate site development and how things come to be, should read Doug Bowman’s inside-look at the development of HotBot’s new design

  9. Russell Mills, CanWest make-up; intermediate design guide

    You may remember how Russell Mills was dismissed from CanWest allegedly for publishing an article questioning one of the owner’s friends (i.e., Jean Chrétien). Seems they’ve kissed and made-up.

  10. Growing Google

    Looking at some of the newest offerings and experiments from the search engine with the funny name.

  11. Ranting, or raving, about Google Labs

  12. XSLT; styling headlines; fighting copyright tariffs

    Although I’m extremely busy right now I have the opportunity to finally practice what I preach about the separation of presentation and structure, and am finally realizing how valuable XSLT would be in a real-world situation.

  13. Specifying character sets; Netscape 7.0.1

    A new series, the “WaSP Asks the W3C,” starts off with an informative little Q&A about setting the proper character set on documents.

  14. December 9, 2002

    Cleaned up some Recommended Links, and I’ve began tightening up the site’s HTML (like some anorexic anchors)

  15. Email at work; meeting Mr. Clark; Ghostzilla

    Admittedly, I’m one of the power users this survey on email overload mentions (given I receive in excess of 300 non-spam messages a day, a quarter of which are for me directly), but it confirms what I’ve long suspected.

  16. CBC Radio 3 a masterpiece; W3C goes tableless

    Not sure how I missed this, given my status as an unofficial CBC groupie, but its Web network has relaunched as weekly magazine gorgeously designed in, ahem, Flash. CBC Radio 3: Music and Modern Media looks to be what Shift once was — but with the design of a hip Wallpaper*.

  17. Harvard Mouse unpatentable

    Well, one potentially scary chain of events has been stopped at the source. Canada’s supreme court has just ruled the so-called “Harvard mouse” cannot be patented

  18. Fixing Trade by Numbers; Sun to unionize?

    Mozilla 1.2.1 is out, and it fixes the problems that caused 1.2 to be pulled.

  19. LaPointe’s list; DOM2 Events in IE

    Kirk LaPointe has assembled a mammoth list of news- and media-related links. The look is not pretty, but with Type Ahead Find, or a bit of patience, the list is an impressive resource. (LaPointe, by the way, was the Senior Vice-President at CTV News, the Executive Editor of the National Post, as well as the editor of The Hamilton Spectator. He’s now “at large”.)

  20. Mozilla 1.2 released; arguing the benefits of cross-ownership

    Mozilla 1.2 is out. Although 1.2 beta was a bit flaky, this build is much improved and is much better than the latest nightlies. If you still don’t use this amazing browser, perhaps its worth (re)reading the “101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot” as selected by fellow Torontonian Neil Deakin.

  21. New validator

    The new W3C validator is now available. The changes include increased XHTML support and many bugfixes

  22. CSS filters; better headings; WSJ stable

    Kevin Smith has done a tremendous amount of organizational work to clarify where all the various CSS “hacks” work. While other sites are listed from it, his CSS Filters page will likely become my one-stop hack shop.

  23. Outliner menus; CBC.ca excellence

    Over the past few weeks, a number of people have commented on the outliner-style navigation menu most of you see at the left. I told a couple of them I was considering releasing the script for it to the public.

  24. JSP errors

    You think?

  25. Moving briefs; CSS menus

    Some good reading I found over the weekend (unfortunately, since we’re moving in less than two weeks reading time is at a premium):

  26. New gig; GetContentSize; XUL; no W3C patents

    As has been officially announced, I’m now the Assistant Editor at Digital Web Magazine meaning I’ll be handling interviews, like this one with Jakob Nielson conducted by Meryl K. Evans and Nick Finck.

  27. DOM talk

    DOM support in the new Opera 7 beta is not quite ready for prime time (that’s why its “beta”) so if you want to visit this site using that browser I highly recommend you turn-off JavaScript before arriving. CSS support seems excellent, though. (Opera has a full list of what’s supported.) If you do notice bugs, read the support documentation, and then — with a qualified test case — submit them.

  28. Star redesign results; Opera 7 beta

    To match the new look of the paper, The Toronto Star redesigned its Web site, which had been less than pretty. The new site uses white space well, and is crisply and cleanly designed (the work of freelance designer Simone Paradisi). Unfortunately it still uses unreadable long CMS-generated URLs. Some quickly noted improvements:

  29. Blogging; Contribute

    Some of you may have seen this, but for designers itching to get the work out to a huge audience, the Blogger Template Contest may be of interest.

  30. CSS3 releases; the Content Provider’s Manifesto

    The CSS3 modules are being churned out at a furious pace recently. Last calls were issued for the text and box-model Working Drafts. A second draft was published for lists and and a first one for borders. The latter has some interesting visual additions including implementations for drop shadows (which would render my CSS trick obsolete), rounded corners (which would render another CSS trick obsolete) and creating borders using images.

  31. Distributed computing renamed

    Apparently distributed computing (of SETI@Home fame) is now called grid computing.

  32. Multiculturalism and privacy

    Canada takes pride in describing its implementation of multiculturalism using the metaphor of a tapestry (or salad bowl , or mosaic) to contrast with the idea of a melting pot. But recent attempts by the U.S. government to fingerprint some foreign-born Canadians crossing the border prompted the federal privacy commissioner to suggest passports no longer display the place of birth.

  33. Star redesign; responding to Asper; privacy in Canada

    The Toronto Star, Canada’s biggest paper, is celebrating 110 years in print by redesigning itself (due a week today), and running a retrospective series. Some of the more interesting ones are about the paper itself, including a great piece on the Star’s legendary switchboard and a bittersweet reminisce of the newsrooms of old.

  34. Gemini winners; Lasica interview

  35. November 3, 2002

    Begun replacing email links with a feedback form

  36. IE 5/Mac tips; Asper rants

    The Macintosh version of the Internet Explorer 5 was the best browser for rendering CSS when it first appeared in early 2000. Now, two-and-a-half years later, other browsers provide more consistent support and that browsers quirks have become more apparent. Thankfully Apple.com commissioned an excellent article detailing workarounds for the most common problems. (A thorough list of bugs is available from CodeBitch.)

  37. 25dates.com; Cashets; Guerilla News

  38. Trade by Numbers

    The last of the two big projects I’ve been working on this month finally launched today. Although Trade by Numbers is a small, monthly e-zine, it is, I believe, the first time a globe*.com site

  39. Hiding from IE5/Mac; titling pages

    A new (?) CSS trick that serves styles only to IE 5.x on the Macintosh has been uncovered by Geoff Sheridan. (Get more CSS tricks using import.)

  40. The elements of user experience

    Boxes and Arrows has a good review of Jesse James Garrett’s The Elements of User Experience, which includes links to the must have one-page diagram the book was named for and a sample chapter which expands on that diagram.

  41. The butterfly effect

    If you’re using Internet Explorer, and visiting any non-AOL-owned site today, you’ll likely see the MSN “butterfly” ads. Adrian Holovaty expands on a topic raised on online-news: a story on MSN and AOL running at The New York Times’s technology section also has those MSN ads.

  42. Jakob jumps the shark; International New Media Festival

    A tangential thought: saw this, and thought of Jump the Shark, which led me to wonder when did Jakob jump the shark? I’ argue it was his partnership with Marcomedia, and those who read his last Alertbox column just might agree, especially given his earlier feelings about Flash.

  43. Bell Globemedia Interactive lay-offs; updated validator

    BGM Interactive, one of the heavyweights in the Canada Internet content game, has cut about 10 percent of its workforce. The company — my employer — operates The Globe and Mail Web sites, CTV’s Web sites, and Sympatico, among others.

  44. OJA surprise; accessibility and the law

    The winners of the 2002 Online Journalism Awards were announced on October 18, 2002. Unfortunately, I had to search out the results myself. Despite being a screener for the Awards, I received no notice (granted, it could have been lost).

  45. Fear Dot Com; Zeldman a Maoist?

    This has to be one of the most clever and original movie reviews I’ve read in a long time.

  46. Building accessible web sites

    Joe Clark’s long anticipated book, Building Accessible Websites has been published. Clark is probably the accessibility expert for electronic communication, and it’s technical editor was Mark Pilgrim (of Dive Into Accessibility fame). If you care about accessibility online, this book is a must read.

  47. Mozilla 1.2 beta; Bowman’s blog

    Mozilla 1.2 beta is out, featuring “link prefetching.”

  48. New tableless Opera site

    I’m coming down with a cold and have two big projects due this week, so postings may be rare. However, you may be cheered to know that Opera.com has also abandoned tables, and uses valid XHTML and CSS on its site

  49. October 11, 2002

    Fixed the permissions (I hate permissions), so you can again comment on the LCKY entries

  50. Wired in style

    Wired has done something very few big sites have the balls to do: abandon tables in favour of an all CSS-based layout (that even includes a text resizing widget).

  51. No Gecko for AOL

    No Gecko for AOL. The new verision is out, but its Windows users are still stuck with IE’s rendering engine. Both the CompuServe and AOL Mac services use a Gecko-based browser. Both, though, have tiny audiences when compared to AOL for Windows

  52. October 8, 2002

    Not sure about the usability of this one, but the menu is now automatically “unfixed” if it is longer than the browser window in Gecko-based browsers

  53. Fixing Dreamweaver; the blog beat; DevEdge Sidebar

    LIFT NN/g is an interesting attempt to solve accessibility problems at the source (i.e., the Web editor) — problem is Dreamweaver is rarely used to complete large Web projects. For those places that do use Dreamweaver all the way through the process, the price could be a little too steep.

  54. Gemini does the Web; Dogma W4

    The Gemini’s have a “Most Popular Web Site” category, and are asking Canadians to vote for their favourite TV Web site. From the looks of it the first round is made up of every major Canadian TV show with a site (actually it’s only 20). By the fourth round, when five are selected, let’s hope some genuinely good sites emerge.

  55. A box model fix and a JavaScript verifier

    Thor Larholm wants to make sure every box is the same size.

  56. Spam cop and tiny fonts

  57. September 30, 2002

    The site now has a CSS Signature of www-saila-com. This allows you to alter the appearance of saila.com in your user-defined style sheets

  58. CSS signatures

    Inspired by one of Eric A. Meyer’s recent postings to css-discuss, saila.com now has a “CSS Signature” allowing you to re-style this site.

  59. More on Google News while Google’s banned in China

    There already is professional reaction to Google News.

  60. AOL Time Warner Disney; gzip

    Looks like AOL is looking for an MSNBC killer.

  61. CSS photos; libel online

    Inspired by Steve Champeon’s experiments, R.Livsey posted to evolt’s thelist a PHP script that quickly accomplishes the same thing.

  62. CNN.com and Google News redesign

    Had a good time celebrating with friends last night after a fantastic dinner, doubt the smiley will have the same today as it celebrates 20 years.

  63. In-house Web design; WCAG 2 draft; 100% height

    Well, I’m another year older today and that coincides with someone finally hitting this site looking for the Saila-brand of licorice mints. (Apparently “Saila” is also the name of the chief or prophet of the Kuna people in Panama.)

  64. Zero Knowledge and Sympatico

    Zero Knowledge Systems, the poster company for privacy in the late nineties, is offering its services to Sympatico cutomers for $5.95 a month. Not only is it affordable, its a great deal for both Zero Knowledge and the ISP’s customers. Ironically though, those customers can get most of those services — for free — by downloading a little browser called Mozilla

  65. Accessibility tests, OJA finalists

    Last Wednesday, Yahoo greyed-out its homepage to commemorate the events of last September 11. On the MACCAWS list, a discussion began about how easy it would have been to do this using CSS. Others commented how this was a good way to see the Web as the colour blind do (yes, it was also mentioned that most people who are colour blind can see some colour).

  66. Broker Survey

    For those of you wondering what I do for a paid job, The Globe and Mail’s 2002 On-Line Broker Survey is a good example (and those using Gecko-based browser will see a simple, CSS-based rollover effect on the tables).

  67. Veen blogs

    For a long time, the Jeffrey I associated with Web design was not Zeldman, but Veen. (As I’ve mentioned before, HotWired had quite an influence on me.) Now, it looks as though he’s blogging.

  68. Mozilla 1.2 and box-sizing

    The alpha version of Mozilla 1.2 is now available, with some helpful keyboard-based navigation improvements.

  69. Covering September 11 one year later

    When working in the media, it is too easy to contribute to the noise and drown out the signal. Many journalists are (somewhat) privately wringing their hands over the appropriate way to cover the one year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Professionally, though, the organizations they (and I) work for, are busy creating a media event.

  70. WebWord.com style

    WebWord.com is thinking about switching to a CSS-based layout, and is soliciting opinions. As an example of the potential of a CSS layout, I put together a mock-up of the WebWord.com homepage (with the exception of the ad, the JavaScript caused problems in Netscape 4). The design works in Netscape 4 and up, is valid, more accessible, works better for non-visual browsers, and is basically identical to the tabled version.

  71. CBC at 50, interactive style, and detecting browsers

    Fifty years ago today in Montreal, CBC Television debuted with an English-language children’s movie. Two days later, the Toronto station flickered to life with an upside-down logo and a newscast hosted by Lorne Greene — the National aired a bit of that first newscast last night.

  72. Champeon and Kaiser interviewed, IE 5/Mac bug fixed

    Digital Web magazine has a new issue out, and this one focuses on Web standards, specifically, an interview with Steve Champeon (List Mom for WebDesign-L) and Shirley Kaiser about the WaSP, as well as an excerpt from Zeldman’s forthcoming book, Forward Compatibility: Designing & Building With Standards.

  73. Searchable newspapers from history

    Following on the heels of the Newseum’s showcase of the latest front pages, xBlog plugged the Canadian site Paper of Record (aside: its unlinkable about page has some interesting history on Canadian newspapers).

  74. Tables and CSS

    Zeldman’s words carry a lot of weight amongst a large group of Web designers. So when he wrote “To Hell With Old Browsers” sparked a heated debate. While the debate was healthy, it was often wrong-headed, and yesterday he tried to clarify the issue in regards to tables and CSS.

  75. Netscape 7; Canadian net user’ database

  76. SatireWire clipped; online-media accessibility

  77. New TSN.ca and real-life Spidey skills

    The new TSN.ca site relaunched today with a new look (which, at launch ran the same main photo as Canada’s other big sports site was) and a new mandate. The site now incorporates all of content from six television channels: TSN, RDS, ESPN Classic Canada, NHL Network, WTSN, and OLN.

  78. August 25, 2002

    A new version of the Special Characters Converter was released allowing both entities and characters converted

  79. August 25, 2002

    Added Marek Prokop’s abbr fix for IE/Windows

  80. August 23, 2002

    Did some modifications to the structure of the Web Design Tips. Now each tip is on its own page. This reduces download time, and makes the tips more flexible. Also added was the ability to show just a subset of tips

  81. No hyperlink patent

    One of the stupider patent claims has been struck down. British Telecom’s attempt to charge a U.S. ISP a fee for using hyperlinks was nixed. The judge ruled that the patent may not even cover hyperlinks, saying the backbone of the patent, “BT’s alleged ‘complete address’ — the path name — is by definition incomplete on a network of networks like the Internet.”

  82. Better online journalism

    I’ve long bemoaned the dearth of original (commercial) content online, but it looks as though AOL might start doing just that in an effort to “creat[e] online communities around content.” Of course, it is an effort to create a more “sticky” AOL to drive up CPM rates, but still…

  83. thenewforum.ca; news front pages

    So you know about Monday, yesterday I had a brutal headache, and today I wish I just stayed in bed. Looking forward to the rest of the week…

  84. Contingency design; font sizes

  85. Hypertext writing

    Mark Bernstein remains, even amongst Webheads, a relatively unkown person and that is shame. Those that recognize it generally do so because of his work with Eastgate. But he is also one of the few people who have been serioulsy advocating hypertext — which, ironically enough, seems to be a dying artform on the Web.

  86. Microsoft removes its fonts; email money

    Further proof that nothing ever dies on the Net: yesterday it became public knowledge that Microsoft had removed its core Web fonts from its site. Conspiracy theories were quickly silenced by when typographica asked a simple question. Nevertheless, the core fonts were re-discovered, safely stored by the Internet Archive. I like that these digital packages have both the qualities of both a physical object a transient idea.

  87. CANOE spams, email thrives

    Like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, CANOE Money began appearing to me each night at the same time. Starting Monday I began receiving CANOE Money’s Mortgage Alert, as I requested. Strangely enough, I'd never requested it on the email address I was receiving it at. In fact I can’t recall ever requesting it…

  88. August 13, 2002

    The Special Characters Converter is having some problems right now. Expect an upgrade in the next couple of days

  89. Rogers scolded; CBC TV at 50

    In the “what sounded like a good idea at the time” department: Rogers was scolded by the CRTC scolded Rogers for using its community TV channels last fall to explain how it’s Internet unit was dealing with the @Home bankruptcy. (Thanks to David Elfstrom.)

  90. AOL and Mozilla, and IE updates

    AOL’s latest version for the Macintosh, designed for OS X, uses a Gecko-based browser, let’s hope the next Windows version does the same. Follow the speculation in Mozillazine’s forums.

  91. August 9, 2002

    Updated the Special Characters Converter and added some link elements to the templates

  92. The Distillery District; tabbed newspaper

    The Gooderham and Worts Distillery has been closed to the public for almost 170 years. As part of the Toronto’s efforts to reclaim its waterfront, the complex is re-opening, and becoming the anchor for a new neighbourhood.

  93. Standards and steganography

    When standards go bad: Chuck Scholton wrote a fascinating study of the problems with the standardized list of country names.

  94. XHTML 2 and CSS 3

  95. XHTML revised

    Reading the new XHTML 1.0 (second edition) recommendation, I came across this suggestion, in appendix C.13:

  96. HTML is not an acronym…

    Discover the difference between an acronym, an abbreviation, and an initialism while learning some suggestions on how to treat them in Web pages.

  97. August 1, 2002

    saila.com begins its sixth year as this site’s domain

  98. Five years of saila.com; roach-bait marketing

    Five years ago today, I moved my tilde account (once found at http://www.interlog.com/~saila/), which had been online since late 1996, to its current domain, saila.com. Take a look at the past designs of the site as it evolved from a personal portfolio/resumé site to its current incarnation:

  99. Uncle Sam wants your email

    Canada Post’s epost offers every Canadian a free, secure, spam-free email account. Unfortunately the system is a one-to-many service for sending bills and catalogs from less than 60 organizations to the 210,000 people who have signed up. (An early review of the service by Chuck McKinnon offers a good description of the service and some its usability problems.)

  100. Synchronicity

    Sometimes coincidences happen at such a perfect moment, it’s as they share a connecting principle.

  101. csschallenge.com

    Tim Parkin’s csschallenge.com plans to be a site to offer layouts for CSS evangelists (like me) and those favouring tables to work on. After he posted the link on css-discuss a number of people met the challenge.

  102. Bizarro SoundScan; CANOE redesigns

    When SoundScan debuted — about ten years ago — it radically changed the top 40 genre, as its rankings are based on sales. The CDDB could therefore be the Bizzaro version of SoundScan as it records how often an album is played. The differences are subtle — as you can see by comparing the resulting Digital Top Ten list with the Billboard 200 — but important.

  103. MSN smarts; Google art; and webcasting fees

    Seems some MSN TV (née Web TV) users have been falling for a prank email that changes their dialup number from the ISP’s to 911. Not going to make any comment that might reinforce any stereotypes about certain types of Net users…

  104. July 23, 2002

    Fixed an annoyingly persistent JavaScript bug that only appeared on the homepage in IE 6. Also removed the text-scaling feature, again, because I was unhappy with the results, again

  105. Mozilla 1.1 beta; TIPS; working with Digital Web

    Mozilla 1.1 beta has been released.

  106. Lycos Europe and Web standards; JPEG fallout

    Word is spreading fast about Lycos Europe’s planned switch to a valid XHTML/CSS page layouts. Lycos Germany has rolled-out the new look (though it uses tables for layout due to a high portion of Netscape 4.x users), but a version of the valid layout is being showcased at Thor Larholm’ site.

  107. McLuhan’s birthday

    Today would be Marshall McLuhan’s 91st birthday.

  108. JPEG patented?!

    How come it took almost 15 years for Forgent to clarify “its licensing program regarding…JPEG data compression technology”? Is it because there are only two hits on Google for “US Patent No. 4,698,672” (one of them is a news story about this issue) and none them are for Forgent?

  109. MACCAWS

    Been busy working on a draft mission site for the new group, MACCAWS — Making A Commercial Case for Adopting Web Standards. Stay tuned for more about it and some proof old dogs can learn new tricks

  110. July 16, 2002

    Josh Feingold alerted me to a problem in IE 5.0/Windows. Apparently it has a similar problem with the tools menu as IE 5.5/Windows did. Unfortunately it looks to have a different solution, which, until found, means IE 5.0/Windows users won’t be able to see the tools menu.Gecko-based browsers should be able to scale the font size (again) by resizing the browser. Though it also works on IE, I don’t like the visual result (there’s a flash before the text is resized) so until that is solved it will remain Gecko-only

  111. Email issues; war on terrorism; and who’s phoned?

    Lost all email sent to me yesterday thanks to a system-wide crash, so if you sent me a message can you please resend it? Thanks.

  112. July 12, 2002

    For the first time in recent memory, a version of a Netscape browser is now the second most common browser used to visit this site. The good news, it’s identified as Netscape 6. Opera 6 also breaks into the top five. Here are the top 10, by percentage:

  113. Welcome Netscape users; CanWest gives up

    For the first time in recent memory, a version of a Netscape browser is now the second most common browser used to visit this site. The good news, it’s identified as Netscape 6. (View the list of the top 10 browsers.)

  114. Deep-linking

    Venting: people, especially journalists, who oppose deep-linking confound me

  115. Online banking taking off

    Couldn’t access Google for a little while today, so Hugh Blair (via thelist) recommend I try the Google mirror. Glad I did.

  116. July 8, 2002

    An addition to style switcher caused IE 5.5/Windows to not load this site. The problem, pointed out by “ecd” on css-discuss, relates to a bug I’d encountered before in that browser, but forgotten about. It should now be fixed

  117. eBay buys PayPal; new leaders

    The little company that began as a nifty way to share money via Palm devices, has been bought by the Web site that began as a way to trade Pez dispensers. Though both systems deal in hard dollars, this long-expected deal could prove to become a stronger beachhead for the cashless society.

  118. Best of Europe; TechStuff.ca

    Europe has picked its best in online journalism. Although BBC News Online did quite well, a number of independent and non-English services won as well. The justification for the awards should be read by every one of the so-called “big, traditional media institutions.”

  119. Rebuilding with, and without, CSS

    Christopher Schmitt explains how to change table-based sites into CSS-based ones, using Digital Web as an example. Although the results aren’t pixel perfect (and in fact the navigation is a bit off), the techniques he uses are excellent.

  120. Net access; Gecko DOCTYPE snifffing

    Here’s a couple of administrative-type stories that could have a big effect on how we access and use the Net:

  121. July 1st; Salon, CNET bleeding

    Going into a long weekend here in Canada (despite May 24, I still consider the July 1st weekend the first long weekend of the summer — as it official is) and I’m awaiting my shipment of an “employee”-discounted copy of Windows XP.

  122. Black doesn’t back CanWest; G8

  123. Maclean’s redesign; Amazon.ca arrives

    The Maclean’s redesign is gorgeous. Not only does it seem to have a strong editorial sense of itself — which feels like a return to its prime days in the ’60s — but visually its a crisp, easy to read design thanks in a large part to Ross Macdonald’s body typeface, “Maclean’s Text,” the first designed for a Canadian magazines.

  124. Timothy Findley is dead; CanWest damage control

    Timothy Findley is dead. He was 71.

  125. Mills fallout

    Because the firing of Russell Mills story is malleable enough to suit a range of topics, you may notice this blog bend away from Web building and Web journalism issues for a bit — but I have no plans to turn this into the press freedom (or whatever) equivalent of a warblog.

  126. Russell Mills explains; Webby winners

    Russell Mills publicly explains, in today’s Globe, what happened — which includes allegation CanWest was willing to pay him off for his silence on the issue.

  127. June 18, 2002

    Updated the option menus so that they now close when you click anywhere on the browser canvas. And, in Gecko-based browsers, the Tools menu now has an option to fix/unfix the navigation menu so it can scroll with the page

  128. No Mozilla AOL; Russell Mills was fired

    AOL 8.0 beta is being tested and IE, not Mozilla, is the default browser.

  129. It’s a Monday…

    Today is definitely a Monday. Want proof?

  130. June 14, 2002

    Added some more entries to the Web Building Tips

  131. Blocking AOL

    Let the shouting match come north.

  132. Accessibility problems with the Post

    The National Post redesign has been unveiled, and although looking clean and crisp it’s an accessibility nightmare.

  133. Email etiquette; CSS outliner menu

    Scott Andrew LePera wishes Netscape 4.x a happy birthday.

  134. Mozilla; WaSP returns; writing for the Web

  135. The WaSP’s new target

    With the browsers behaving, the WaSP tries to change the developers behaviour.

  136. Yahoo’s new look

    Yahoo, arguably the site that invented the portal model, will be unleashing a new homepage later this month. Though the changes are minor, they do include plans for more advertising—which represents the losing struggle between the old-school belief in speed with the market-driven desires for profits.

  137. Mafiaboy; journalism: awards and blogs

    Mafiaboy successful brought down some major sites in 1999, and the National Post has a book excerpt about the 14-year-old Montrealer’s exploits.

  138. More Mozilla

    Scott Andrew LePera goes Mozilla mad, and points to some cool Mozilla-related resources, including:

  139. June 5, 2002

    Overcame some obstacles (which included some hope jumping) and managed to indicate how many comments have been made about a Living Can Kill You entry. Though not ideal, it’s a decent enough hack. Also added the Special Characters Converter to the “Links” area of the homepage.

  140. Banner ads; Mozilla 1.0 arrives

    Somewhere, out there, there’s a group of people responsible for defining the size of ads that appear on Web pages. But that space doesn’t always have to be filled by a commercial message, it could display art. That’s the idea behind the Banner Art Collective.

  141. June 24, 2002

    Fixed some minor aesthetic problems in the option menus as displayed by the Windows version of Internet Explorer 5.x

  142. New job, new economy

    Settling into the new job and running into some old faces and putting faces to people I’d only known as names.

  143. Muppet Manley

    Nearly, four years ago I participated in my first real media scrum while covering a story for CANOE Money. Bill Gates, and a then Beaker-like John Manley were announcing a $1-million donation to Canada’s SchoolNet.

  144. A new Post and an Amazon for Canada

    This from the National Post on June 11 the online version of the paper will unveil its new look by “jazzing up the National Post Online interface, adding new features and tinkering with the technical innards of the site” according to a message from National Post Online producer, Mitch Cooper. Good that the site is letting it’s readers know what’s happening with the site.

  145. Netscape 4 is five

    My most favourite browser in the whole world is hitting its fifth birthday on June 11 as rediscovered thanks to Matt Haughey and as detailed in a Netscape press release from the time. That’s like 35 Internet years.

  146. Impressive online journalism

    The big bugbear of this site is the current state of online journalism. Lest I give the impression all is lost, I thought I’d point you to some excellent examples.

  147. May 27 and 28, 2002

    Adding a couple of tips about special characters and one about indexing sites to the Web Building Tips. Also built the Special Characters Converter

  148. Showing your attribtues

    New at saila.com and evolt.org: “Show your attributes!” The mini-tutorial explains how to use the DOM to access attributes, like title, and display them on a page

  149. Browser updates; bombs

    Some browser updates for you:

  150. Show your attributes!

    This mini-tutorial illustrates how to use the Document Object Model to access attributes, like title, and display them on a Web page.

  151. online journalism as photojournalism

    Poynter’s online-news list has been debating the future of online-news industry for a while. But it was a recent posting by Clyde Bentley of the Missouri School of Journalism that crystallized an internal debate I’ve been having for a while.

  152. Netscape 7 coming

    Well, looks like Netscape 6 will have one of the shortest shelf lives of any recent browser (Netscape 4.x, released in 1997, is still kicking): version 7 is now in pre-release. This appears to be based on Mozilla 1.0 RC2.

  153. Google talks

    Though nearly impossible to get through right now, this is quite cool: Google is in the early stages of testing a voice-based search system. After phoning up the number, and speaking a search query, the results reportedly appear a Web browser after you click the relevant link. Laying aside the model’s apparent paradox, it could lead to some interesting applications (such as a cellphone-based search service).

  154. Mozilla-powered AOL

    As long rumoured, AOL is making big moves toward ditching Internet Explorer in favour of its own Netscape browser. The latest Macintosh version of the software will be, according to Reuters, using Netscape-developed technology, i.e., the Gecko layout engine.

  155. Episode II; changes

    So last night, I saw one of the first public screenings of Star Wars: Episode II after avoiding almost all the hype and comments about it. Although I do want to share some quick impressions about it, I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so most people will be able to reveal my comments if they want.

  156. Speaking the unspoken

    Here’s a new way to put words in your mouth: MIT has developed software that creates video of people saying words they have never spoken. While good for computer animation, it could become a powerful tool for propoganda, as the The Boston Globe briefly mentions in it’s overview of the technology.

  157. May 14, 2002

    Now that everything seems to be moving smoothly, I will be sending out the much delayed newsletter shortly. Also planning on some minor additions to the Glossary and Web Building Tips

  158. Blogging as journalism

    A while back, I sketched out what was to be a piece for the Web Journalism section on “blogging as journalism.”

  159. Tables, djc leaves

    When the Ontario Science Centre needed a new homepage fast, I, ironically, found myself resorting to a table-based layout.

  160. May 9, 2002

    The options menus and homepage should now load, without error, in IE 5.x. Thanks to the readers who helped me narrow the problem down

  161. Conditional comments and Greenspon

    Some conscientious readers alerted me to the fact IE 5 and 5.5 weren’t displaying the homepage properly. I’ve got a temporary fix in place, but it seems to stem from the same situation that was plaguing me with Opera: object support being reported as true despite the fact there its incomplete. IE 6 displayed the page fine.

  162. Netscape 4 layouts, Dreamweaver, and ethics

    Updated the list of Netscape 4.x CSS templates with a bunch from the CSS Colouring Book.

  163. May 7, 2002

    Fixed a homepage error that appeared in IE 6, tightened up the JavaScript error-catching for Opera, but am stumbling on a new problem: it doesn’t seem one can set an input’s type attribute via the DOM…

  164. Fixing the site

    Some observations about fixing the site after it’s redesign…

  165. May 6, 2002

    Moved out some minor design changes, as well as a complete reworking of many dynamic elements so that they will be created through the DOM. The latter change has not been thoroughly tested, and is known to cause some problems in Opera. Over the next few days these will be fixed…

  166. Strike’s done

    After 54 days, its over. Fifty-four days. This has not been something I would like to repeat anytime soon.

  167. Take some time away from work

    The Europeans have been doing this for a longtime, and I have been a quiet proponent of the ideas as well: taking a month off to recharge one’s batteries.

  168. Canadian New Media Awards finalists; CodZilla update

    The 2002 Canadian New Media Awards finalists were announced today, and although I wasn’t a finalist for my nominated category of Best Educator, my buddies at ThinData were. The Toronto Web design firm is nominated, for the second year-in-a-row, in the Best Employer category; and CEO Chris Carder is a finalist for Best Volunteer.

  169. On- and offline reading

    Gotta love the weekend rituals. First read the Globe while drinking some coffee (today’s mug: a two-cupper from promoting excite.ca), then grabbing my email and reading the latest Netsurfer Digest, from whence these came:

  170. Text ads; Sympatico rate hike

    Last September, usability expert Jakob Nielsen wrote a column on how to milk text ads for all they’re worth. When Christophe Bruno tried to do the same, in a more poetic manner, Google pulled them.

  171. Wired vs. Shift; rich media

    Lynn Crosbie’s latest Globe column is a nice, lay-person’s introduction to two magazines that seemingly cover the same topics—Wired> and Shift.

  172. Mike Bullard and Steve Mann

    Went to the taping of Mike Bullard’s show after picketing today. During my time on the line I’ve read a few books, the latest being Cyborg. Written by the eccentric Steve Mann (the wearable computer guy), it’s, unintentionally, a fascinating insight into a hard-core geek’s head.

  173. Not online journalism

    The only thing the following bits have in common is the fact there is no mention of the state of online journalism in Canada:

  174. Digesting the lay-offs

    More on the CANOE cuts, which includes actually almost all the editorial people. Reuters says the “the sites will be used as a ‘showcase’ for Quebecor’s other media properties”. Why?

  175. Online media gutted

    As rumoured, Quebecor cut 67 jobs from its Netgraphe division—including CANOE—late this morning. Reportedly, among the 67 jobs:

  176. April 15, 2002

    Created a section for photographs in the Attic

  177. Queen’s Park sit-in

    Went to OPSEU’s big protest at Queen’s Park. We’ve been on strike, for almost five weeks, and the union decided to make its presence felt as Ernie Eves was sworn in as Ontario’s new premier.

  178. Correct DOCTYPEs

    Zeldman points out something many Web builders (myself included) have missed: most of DOCTYPEs being included in today’s Web sites are wrong. The reason? They don’t include the full URLs.

  179. Final days for CANOE?

    Quebecor reportedly plans to restructure CANOE by eliminating original editorial content and almost half the staff.

  180. Spring redesigns

    With the smell of spring in the air, Web sites have begun their redesigns. This site will be unveiling a tweak to its design shortly, but glish.com has unveiled a complete overhaul of the site.

  181. McKinsey on the online industry

    Though the writing style is often dry, and the focus can be a bit to business, the McKinsey Quarterly usually has some excellent pieces about the Information Economy and online industry. For example:

  182. DOCTYPE clarity

    If you ever wondered what DOCTYPE triggers a browser’s strict mode, Eric A. Meyer has the chart for you.

  183. Codzilla

    Is CodZilla for real?

  184. Long-form journalism not Web-friendly?

    Ironically, Michael Kinsley, ex-editor of Slate, has been saying in various exit interviews, that at Slate they were unable to successfully do long-form journalism à la The New Yorker. (Ironically, The New York Times published a story claiming even magazines were abandoning this style of journalism.)

  185. Planting sources, spaying ships

    Waterloo police admitted to a shocking abuse of power: planting false information in that city’s newspaper.

  186. CNN charging for video

    With every new announcement, the sense of inevitability grows stronger. Yahoo is considering charging for content, and CNN is ready to do the same.

  187. Get a Coaster this St. Patrick’s Day

    Any country country that got me dancing, can’t be all that bad—happy St. Patrick’s Day!

  188. March 16, 2002

    You can now comment on the Living Can Kill You posts

  189. Media mergers, and paying for PDA browsers

    The McKinsey Quarterly has republished an excellent article on media mergers an article from The Wall Street Journal. What makes the piece worthwhile is its clear, concise explanation of why these companies are really merging and what challenges they face.

  190. Salon’s former quality seen in Mozilla article

    Salon.com was once the example of intelligent online journalism. In my mind, they slipped from that pedestal shortly after doing to the American Republicans exactly what they’d been criticizing that party of doing to the Clinton and his Democrats.

  191. Strike; CSS Masters Series

    Well, I won’t be working for a while.

  192. Mozilla 0.9.9; increasing the copyright tariff

    Mozilla 1.0 is almost—finally—here. Version 0.9.9 has been released and its a good one. Download and use it now.

  193. March 11, 2002

    Updated the Web Design Resources section with some new resources and templates—including some CSS-based ones

  194. AOL offers Mozilla a boost; tabless layouts

    Last May, I quoted a StatMarket survey showing Netscape would jump to a 20 percent marketshare if AOL switched to the Gecko-based browser. That 14 percent gain looks to become a reality: AOL version 8 will reportedly switch from IE to Netscape. As I said then:

  195. CANOE at six; AWOL show

    CANOE had its sixth anniversary on March 4, and unlike past years, there was no big mention of it on the site. In fact, go to the history section and you’ll see no mention of it. The message that greets you is from last year, and the timeline has been updated since last January.

  196. March 5, 2002

    The Web Building Tips are now available for syndication, all you need is one little line of HTML, and your page will display a common Web design question linked to the answer. Get saila.com’s Web Building Tips now

  197. The state of the Net

    Bruce Sterling, always an interesting read, has a good article in The Austin Chronicle, ostensibly about SXSW Interactive, but really about the state of the Net now. In it he initiates a great little meme: “What if it turned out that the Net was just plain too much for business to handle? That it was downright toxic to free enterprise?”

  198. March 3, 2002

    Added a feature letting Living Can Kill You be alerted by email when there’s a new posting

  199. Slashdot subscriptions

    This is it. Slashdot.org has decided to do the subscription-thing, and as expected from the site, its a unique system. Instead of a flat monthly or annual fee, subscribers pay US$5 to read 1,000 pages.

  200. Attacking the messenger

    Despite the old adage, it really isn’t a good idea to kill (or hit, in this case) the messenger if you want to generate any level of sympathy from the general public.

  201. Fact checking

    One of the dark secrets of journalism is almost no-one double-check’s the reporter’s facts (except in magazines—usually).

  202. Tables or CSS?

    This article covers the benefits found in using style sheets instead of tables, and provides some questions to should ask before developing a CSS-based layout.

  203. Client-side is not server-side

    Hear hear!

  204. Convergence culture clash

    Five years ago, I was the managing editor at Canada’s first daily webzine about technology, called The Convergence (it was to be called Convergence, but the dot-com was taken). Ostensibly, it was about how the coming convergence of technology would affect our daily lives.

  205. WSJ’s US$28 million redesign

    Last month, The Wall Street Journal Online unveiled its US$28 million redesign, which was about a tenth of the print edition’s redesign costs. OJR has an interesting interview with the online editon’s publisher about the redesign process, as well as reaction to the new site.

  206. Microsoft phones home

    With the desktop and the Web browser locked-up—and established beachheads in the TV, PDA, and gaming console worlds—Microsoft jumped into the cellphone market today by unveiling “recipes”, including PhonePC, that let manufacturers quickly build wireless components (like Net access) into their phones. Nokia, Motorola, and Ericsson are all offering their own flavours of this technology.

  207. Standards

    The bane and beauty of the term “standard” is that it can be used in so many ways.

  208. February 14, 2002

    Corrected two display problems that presented the privacy statement (how ironic) as well as the homepage (in Opera 5.x) from displaying

  209. The Meta Pad

    Though a good couple years away from consumer use, IBM’s Meta Pad could be an amazingly convenient piece of hardware.

  210. Olympic hurdles; layout thanks

    While in Ireland a year and a half ago, I went to one of the most western parts of Europe, Valentia Island. The early radio operators there were one of the only points of contact for ocean going vessels, thanks greatly to the work of Guglielmo Marconi.

  211. Paying for content

    Looks as though 2002 will be the year the free-ride ends and people begin paying for content. The list of sites moving toward a pay-model are numerous. Most are doing so by offering a teaser of free content, and charging for the good stuff.

  212. Impossible tuitions

    Almost six years ago to the day, I was part of a protest that saw hundreds of students storm the Ontario Legislative Assembly. Thousands of students had gathered across the country to raise their voices against staggering tuition increases.

  213. Saila CSS Layouts

    A tableless CSS-based, liquid, three-column layout that works in Netscape 4, Internet Explorer 4 and up, Gecko-based browsers like Mozilla and Netscape 7, as well as Opera.

  214. The buzz on Shift.com

    With the dearth of original, Canadian content online, I have to remind myself to go to Shift.com more—after all, I’m now receiving its email newsletters.

  215. CanWest defending national editorial; Salon in print

    Ironically, two days after a major U.S. paper ran a scathing report on CanWest’s policy of imposing national editorials, a CanWest national editorial appears defending the policy.

  216. January 28, 2002

    Made the main navigation DOM-compliant, and as a result it is a bit “smarter”—the title now provides more helpful tips. Unfortunately, it still does not work in IE 5 on the Macintosh

  217. The colour of the Tennenbuams

    As you can probably tell from the muted tones on this site, combining different colours together is not one of my strengths.

  218. January 24, 2002

    Added dates to this News page’s items. In DOM-compliant browsers, the actual date of the entry will be displayed. All browsers will have the items broken down by month

  219. New Tecumseth Free Press Online; Gzowski has died

    J.D. Lasica’s latest OJR piece is out, and this one focuses on one-person consumer and community reporting, done with the help of the Web. For online journalism, niche reporting is where it’s at and its nice to see some light being shed on the topic, too.

  220. January 23, 2002

    More work on Living Can Kill You, this time altering the way the archives are listed in an attempt to make the search-engine-friendly

  221. January 23, 2002

    Moved the Living Can Kill You blurb into the centre, and the Site News into the right column. Looking into a way to automatically push the LCKY item to the top when it’s new…

  222. Peter Gzowski ill

    With a item like this, the blog’s title seems horribly inappropriate. Nevertheless…

  223. “Hip” Toronto and bad writing

    Funny how these themes emerge. Today, writing.

  224. CanWest’s editorials; hip iMacs; dull newscasts

    A whole bunch of media stories caught my eye today.

  225. January 14, 2002

    Added a small BlobSnob ad under the Reading List of Living Can Kill You. These grassroots initiatives to promote each other’s work are admirable—this one was initiated by an 18-year-old in India

  226. Intelligent targeting; new economy unions

    Meant to link to this story about DoubleClick abandoning its attempts to target individual users on Friday—quite interesting in light of the shrinking ad industry, and the company’s closure of its Canadian branch.

  227. Back…

    Well, that took longer than I’d imagined. After answering a former students questions about online journalism, I decided I will be adding to the Web Journalism section a FAQ about the craft/industry. One of these days I’ll get around to finishing my five-year-old treatise about online writing.