Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

Dec 17 2007 at 2:15pm

More on fonts in operating systems and CSS

Todays’s 24 Ways article, Increase Your Font Stacks With Font Matrix is another take on listing the fonts available in different operating systems and encouraging designers to use a wider range of fonts. This is something I covered with my Complete Guide to Pre-Installed Fonts in Linux, Mac, and Windows (not sure what to think about the similarities there!). Obviously Richard Rutter knows a whole lot more about typography than I do so it’s good to have his take on this topic.

I was inspired to come up with my list after looking at the font stacks on Joe Clark’s site. Check out his typography stylesheet for some interesting ideas.

I find myself using the list I from my A Padded Cell article all the time now. Just today I added a few more options as a back-up for a heading that’s already replaced by sIFR. From the way I have it’s easy to pick one font from each column, although I find Rutter’s chart to be a lot cleaner and better as a quick reference (and he’s got Adobe fonts included). I thought a lot about the best way to display that information, especially since I wanted to include information about which fonts are near equivalents of each other, as originated here.

In an upcoming update to A Padded Cell I’m using this font stack:

"Lucida Grande","Lucida Sans Unicode","Eras Medium ITC","Mg Open Moderna",Helvetica,Verdana,sans-serif

It’s working well so far but we need to do some more thorough testing before final release. I’ve also used that list to add some Linux alternatives to the font stack in various stylesheets I’ve come across at work.

If you’re finding my list to be useful I’d love to hear about it!

Posted in Design, Software, Web Standards | No Comments »

Dec 13 2007 at 10:40am

Opera files antitrust complaint against Microsoft

The Web has become essential to our everyday lives. We can’t let one company, Microsoft, control its innovation. This is a fight to protect the Web’s future.

I hope that as developers and Web users you will all show support for this cause. This is not Opera vs. Microsoft, but rather the continued innovation of the Web vs. Microsoft.

The complaint was filed with the European Comission and essentially requests that Microsoft

implement web standards properly
detach IE from the Windows operating system or provide other browsers by default

Posted in Software, Web Standards | No Comments »

Nov 23 2007 at 12:09pm

How did I ever get by without Mac and Linux?

Up until just over a year ago I had really only ever used Windows. I’d encountered Mac in passing but hadn’t actually used it. Why? Pure ambivalence. I didn’t feel the need to try other operating systems. And let’s face it, OSX isn’t exactly easy to acquire for the average PC user. Buy a new computer just to try a diffent OS? Not happening. I had a vague awareness of Linux but I assumed it was just for super-geeks.

Was I ever missing out! I’ve ben using OSX for over a month now at my new job. Although I wouldn’t say I’m enamored with it I do appreciate many differences from Windows. Liam (my husband) encouraged me to swtich to linux at home (when I had my old computer last year) and I haven’t looked back. Just this week I installed Ubuntu on a new laptop at work (and put Windows in virtualization) without much trouble at all. Any problems are always a quick Ubuntu Forums search away. I’ve always been big on customization so Linux is a great choice for me.

As an avid computer user and web professional it’s been a great experience to have a better understanding of how other operating systems work. Can you imagine only ever using Inernet Explorer? Of course not! So why are you satistfied with the default operating system that came with your computer?

I’m finding that OSX + Ubuntu is a great combination for web design. OSX for graphics, multimedia, and Dreamweaver. Ubunutu for file management and development tasks (one of the reasons why I wanted a Linux laptop is because I find the file manager in OSX to be really limiting). Of course, it helps that right now my Mac is hooked up to the nice big monitors That may change…

Come think of it, the lack of diversity in operating systems is really kind of sad. I don’t mean that alternatives aren’t available — they are. But the general computer using masses have very little awareness of them. Can you imagine if everyone drove the same kind of car? Or bought the same kind of DVD player? With almost any product used by regular people you can think of a wealth of alternatives. Consumers have choice. With operating systems, they don’t take advantage of the choices available. But you can’t really blame the average consumer, because the choice really isn’t available. Ever try to purchase a PC with no operating system or even an operating system other than windows? Generally not available (unless you know where to look and even then it’s difficult).

Posted in Open Source, Software | 7 Comments »

Jul 30 2007 at 4:02pm

Here’s my Opera – Where’s Yours?

OperaWatch pointed out a call for submissions for a compilation of interesting screenshots from non-Firefox browsers at LifeHacker.

I submitted mine, although it’s not really that interesting compared to what you could do with O:

When is it Our Job to Educate People About Browsers?

There are many people still using outdated browsers. This is obviously a problem for webmasters, yet most of us don’t do anything about it. It’s not our problem, we say. We can’t annoy users by complaining about their browser version. But how do we expect the situation to ever change if we continue to be so complacent?
Read more…

Posted in Software, Web Standards | 9 Comments »

Jun 05 2007 at 10:46am

4 Reasons Why Free Code Needs to be Standards Compliant

Mike Cherim has another post today about the poor quality of free code. This is something I’ve come across many times – you think there should be a script out there to do what you need to do, go out looking, find something that looks good only to realize that they’ve got layout tables embedded in the PHP. Do you try to fix it or go look for something else? If there is nothing else, do you decide to make it yourself to avoid the hassle?

These developers don’t seem to realize that there is a problem with writing code like this. Here are 4 reasons why distributed code needs to be of high quality and standards compliant:
Read more…

Posted in Software, Web Standards | 3 Comments »