 |
Tuesday, 18 June 2002 |
I have been waiting what seems like forever for the first practical book on CSS to be written.
Eric Meyer’s authoritative book of CSS theory—Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide—published by O’Reilly is a good text, and I also have his Cascading Style Sheets 2.0: Programmer’s Reference, but what has been so badly needed for so long is a hands-on book on using CSS in the real world. And with current web browsers.
Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design is due out in late June or early July in the United States. I can hardly wait. This is momentous. Here are some quotes from advance reviewers on the book’s website.
“CSS is a powerful, elegant instrument with far more possibilities than most of us realize. That’s why Eric Meyer on CSS is so valuable: it provides a well-balanced combination of hands-on instruction and explanatory theory.”
“Eric Meyer is perhaps the most knowledgeable expert on CSS. His understanding of the technology has pushed the boundaries for how we use CSS on the web and beyond. Through carefully planned projects, this book brings those ideas and solutions to the forefront so you can take advantage of them.”
“This book is filled with code, but it’s really filled with ideas. Practical ideas that solve problems we all face as working Web designers. Unique ideas that inspire one’s own creativity. You can prop this book open and use it as a crib sheet when you’re facing tough deadlines, or you can read it on a sunny, secluded hillside and extrapolate its concepts into artistic ideas of your own. I plan to do both.”
11:32:39 PM 
|
|
[Source: c|net News.Com.]
Software company ThinkFree on Monday announced a low-cost alternative to Microsoft’s Office software for Mac OS X, offering a package of word processing, graphics and spreadsheet software for $50.
With ThinkFree Office, the company is one of several aiming to grab a piece of the office software market, once a hotbed of competition but now dominated by Microsoft. Corel and IBM still sell versions of WordPerfect Office and Lotus SmartSuite, respectively, and Sun Microsystems recently began charging $76 for a new version of StarOffice.
“They’ve reopened the discussion,” James Sullivan, ThinkFree’s executive vice president of worldwide sales, said about the recent resurgence of interest in the office software market.
9:52:47 PM
|
|
[Source: c|net News.Com.]
U.S. digital camera sales are expected to grow 30 percent this year, boosted by improved options for making prints, according to a report released Monday by research firm Gartner Dataquest.
U.S. sales of point-and-shoot digital cameras—a category that excludes PC cameras and professional models—are on track to reach 8.3 million units this year, compared with 6.4 million in 2001. About 17 percent of U.S. households will have a digital camera by the end of the year, according to the report, with penetration exceeding 50 percent by 2006.
“The top five camera makers, in order, are—Sony, Olympus, Hewlett-Packard, Kodak and Fujifilm,” said Gartner analyst Andrew Johnson, who declined to give individual market share numbers.
9:41:45 PM
|
|
[Source: c|net News.Com.]
In the latest experiment to rev up online advertising sales, five major Web publishers, including New York Times Digital, CBS MarketWatch and USA Today.com, are joining forces to sell advertising that spans all of their sites.
The five Web sites, which also include Weather.com and CNET Networks, publisher of News.com, said Monday that they have formed a loose partnership to sell ad packages to big marketers, which also want more bang for their buck in hard economic times.
9:36:47 PM
|
|
I dropped by the Perth Myer department store a couple of days ago, and stopped by the homewares department as is my wont. I enjoy seeing great design thinking applied to simple domestic products, and like to collect the odd object or two when it tickles my fancy.
I have a routine in these places—check out the high-end brands that have an acute design awareness first, then the special designer products ranges like Alessi, then the stainless steel and titanium kitchenware, the whitegoods and finally the electrical products. I am always on the lookout for a surprise.
This time it was what remains in Myer of the OXO products. They don’t stock many of OXO’s vast range of products any more. They prefer keeping big collections of knock-offs by inferior manufacturers, perhaps because the knock-offs are a little cheaper.
There was even less OXO stuff than usual, but then one object hanging up high caught my eye—a magnificent-looking flyswatter. All black plastic, black rubber handgrip, long black handle, the rounded triangular swatting surface perforated by carefully-spaced circular holes, with another hole off to one side, the exact size and shape of a fly in full frontal profile.
I picked the swatter up, flicked it to and fro, and the balance was beautiful. Swish, swish, swish. No fly would be safe from me.
I ran my fingertips all over this thing, and the attention to detail, to superb touch and feel, was excellent. I had to have it. I fished out the last of my cash, the exact amount, and bought it.
I have purchased as gifts a number of Philippe Starck’s famous flyswatter where the holes in the swatting surface make a face, and the handle ends in a tripod that it stands on, but that swatter is nothing on this one. My new OXO flyswat is a fifth the price and ten times better.
9:18:44 PM
|
|
The CFO is threatening to slash the IT budget and lay off staff because the network is a money pit.
9:12:21 PM
|
|
They’ve just bought a new Windows PC, and they feel the need to take a night school course to learn how to do the simplest of things—connect to the Internet, write an email, zip a file and send it as an attachment, do some wordprocessing, view a photograph or a movie, make a new one.
9:04:27 PM
|
|
© Copyright 2002 Karl-Peter Gottschalk.
|
|
|
