Author: Steven Garrity

this site is best viewed at 800 by 600 in the designer’s basement

by Steven Garrity

“Liquid Layout”. I picked up the term a few years ago from a tutorial by Lance Arthur of Glassdog.com. Liquid layout describes a website with a variable width, depending on how big your browser window (and screen) is. For example, open CNN.com, close the annoying popup window that asks you what continent you are from (!?!), and then try stretching and squishing the size of your browser window. Notice how the content of the site stays the same width regardless of the browser width. Now try Search.com. Notice how the content stretches and squishes to fit your window without introducing a horizontal scroll bar.

Who cares? Very few people, apparently. I do. A good liquid layout ensures a good visual experience for users on a wide variety of screen sizes. It’s harder to do for the designer and involves some sacrifices and limitations, but some of the best design comes from within strict constraints.

Imagine a print designer who claimed that to truly see his masterpiece coffee table book at its best you had to look at it in natural light and with 20/20 eyesight.

“Colors look a little washed out and the type is small.”
“Fluorescents won’t do. I designed it to be seen in the light of nature. Maybe you need glasses.”
“Fuck you.”

Expecting someone to change their computer configuration (particularly screen size) is like expecting people to buy a new car to go to the drive-in. Rather than clinging desperately to control of each and every pixel with white knuckles, web designers should embrace the openness of the web.

For those web developers who struggle with browser incompatibilities and nested tables for the perfect liquid layout, I appreciate it (for what it’s worth). Below are a few examples of fine liquid layouts I’ve come across. If you know of a good liquid layout let me know (steven@actsofvolition.com).

  • Blogger.com – One of the best I’ve seen. Designed by Derek Powazek of Powazek.com (currently a k10k news contributor).
     
  • Amazon.com – Kings of the useable web. Their related products features are frighteningly effective. One of the few major sites that still works at a 640 by 480 resolution.
     
  • Search.com – One of Cnet’s few remaining liquid layouts (along with Cnet.com). R.I.P. Gamecenter.com and the formerly liquid News.com.
     
  • Sapient – Monster web shop. Creativity and originality on an assembly line (they must use macs). Nicely liquid pages, although they start quite wide (defeating the purpose somewhat).
     
  • Slashdot – Ugly but distinctive. Coders must think designing with white space is like writing inefficient code.
     
  • Send me more: steven@actsofvolition.com
 

weekend picks

by Steven Garrity

A song, movie, and TV show you should enjoy:

song:
Westray by Weeping Tile (now of Sarah Harmer fame)
 
movie:
The Truman Show. Watch it again, for the first time.
 
show:
The episode of Northern Exposure where Chris Stevens, the host of KBHR builds a giant catapault to fling a live cow (it’s art).

If the media companies weren’t busy peeing their collective pants, I would have some way of linking you to these fine works. As it stands right now, you couldn’t even go find these gems even if you were willing to pay for them. Let’s wait and see if capitalism works it out.

 

blind progress in the visual sciences

by Steven Garrity

I think the logic goes something like this:

Premise :
1995 was better than 1985

Premise :
T2 was better than Terminator

Conclusion:
The higher the number, the better.

While I worry that much of what is happening in the world is powered by such logic, my concern today is more specific.

I read an article on News.com about upcoming software for the 3D Internet. I can’t wait to try to convince some online stamp store that they don’t need 3D walkthroughs of their stamps. It’s hard enough convincing people that they don’t need a cartoon at the start of every site.

Of course, there are good potential applications for the third dimension in computing, but as the ultimate computer weenie, Jakob Nielsen, says (roughly paraphrased) 3D is not always an efficient mode of navigation on a computer. For example, think how easy Quake or Doom would be if you just looked at a 2D map from above and click on the bad guys you wanted to kill.

* The first premise is subjective, but the second premise is clearly true.
 

robots: fast as hell, still not so great with context.

by Steven Garrity

The following email was sent from Network Solutions in regards to a domain name update request. I was aware that robots were sending emails, but I had thought we were still a few years away from the robots actually writing the emails themselves.

At least the robot was polite enough to wish us “Best regards”. Thank you, robot, but I don’t appear to be the first to have trouble with you and your “solutions”.

Thank you for responding to our Notify Template. Because you
omitted information from line 1a, we cannot act on your instructions.

At the bottom of this e-mail, we’ve added the Notify Template with
our original information intact. In order for us to execute your
instructions, please follow these steps in this sequence.

  1. Hit the Reply button in your email program. Attention AOL users:
    see below* before proceeding.
  2. In line 0a, enter the Guardian method you chose
    when you set up your contact record.
  3. Based on what you entered in line 0a, make the
    appropriate choice for line 0b:

    • If you entered Mail-From, leave line 0b blank.
    • If you entered Crypt-PW, put your plain text password in
      line 0b.
    • If you entered PGP, leave line 0b blank, but be sure to
      sign the template with your PGP private key.
  4. If you agree with the modification request in its entirety,
    reply to this email by inserting Y or YES on line 1a.
    OR
    If you disagree with the modification request, enter
    N or NO on line 1a.
  5. Do not remove the version number or alter the template in any
    other way.
  6. Hit the Send button in your e-mail program.

Best regards,

Network Solutions Registrar
help@networksolutions.com

*AOL software prevents you from simply replying to this message.
Instead, follow these steps:
a) Highlight the entire message
b) Click on the Reply button
c) Return to step 2, above.

====================
xxxx00
=======================

 

drop that number!

by Steven Garrity

For the seasoned weblog readers, this is be second hand old news, but I couldn’t help but post it.

Apparently a mathematician stumbled across (suspicious, I know) a prime number (seen below) that when written in hexadecimal format forms a Zip file that contains the DeCSS information (the now infamous DVD decryption software).

The obvious joke here is that no court could seriously render a number illegal (I’m not so confident in the legal systems of the world).

Other humorous versions of the DeCSS include a Mircrosoft wizard who will tell you a story containing the code (wacky plugin and download), the DVD logo itself rendered from the code, and my personal favourite, the code written in plain English.

The Number:
485650789657397829309841
894694286137707442087351
357924019652073668698513
401047237446968797439926
117510973777701027447528
049058831384037549709987
909653955227011712157025
974666993240226834596619
606034851742497735846851
885567457025712547499964
821941846557100841190862
597169479707991520048667
099759235960613207259737
979936188606316914473588
300245336972781813914797
955513399949394882899846
917836100182597890103160
196183503434489568705384
520853804584241565482488
933380474758711283395989
685223254460840897111977
127694120795862440547161
321005006459820176961771
809478113622002723448272
249323259547234688002927
776497906148129840428345
720146348968547169082354
737835661972186224969431
622716663939055430241564
732924855248991225739466
548627140482117138124388
217717602984125524464744
505583462814488335631902
725319590439283873764073
916891257924055015620889
787163375999107887084908
159097548019285768451988
596305323823490558092032
999603234471140776019847
163531161713078576084862
236370283570104961259568
184678596533310077017991
614674472549272833486916
000647585917462781212690
073518309241530106302893
295665843662000800476778
967984382090797619859493
646309380586336721469695
975027968771205724996666
980561453382074120315933
770309949152746918356593
762102220068126798273445
760938020304479122774980
917955938387121000588766
689258448700470772552497
060444652127130404321182
610103591186476662963858
495087448497373476861420
880529443

 

the grave dangers of not having a car stereo (and owning a Moxy Früvous cassette)

by Steven Garrity

It happened quite innocently. I think someone mentioned an author’s name, or said something that sounded like W.P. Kinsella as we got into my car. Bargainville Naturally (or so it seemed at the time), this caused my three tone-deaf friends and I (also tone-deaf) to try to impress each other with our knowledge of the lyrics of Moxy Früvous’ Bargainville album (“W.P. Kinsella” being a lyric from the tune My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors). If you have never heard of this group or song, you might think that I was making it up. I am not.

As it turns out, our ability to recall the lyrics from the album was indeed impressive. So, here we were, four heterosexual men, driving and singing loudly and poorly. After My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors, we segue into The Gulf War Song, The Drinking Song, Fell In Love. It’s important to note that of all music to sing badly, harmony-laden a cappella is particularly bad.

Let me clarify something. If you don’t know me, you may be thinking, ‘well, I’m sure he and his jolly friends enjoy singing to each other all the time’. This is not at all the case. Like you, we don’t often break into song with a group of friends. I’m sure, on occasion, we each sing out loud when alone in our respective vehicles, but never when together. That would be weird.

Anyhow, that’s exactly what we did in this case. We broke into song. And not just any song. Practically the whole Bargainville album (or at least 30 second samples of each track). It got me thinking, the odd event that it was. Moxy Früvous rules.

Moxy Früvous. You have to at least give them credit for the ‘u’ with the dots on it. That’s not easy to pull off. Think of Montley Crüe. They deserve more credit than that. If all that comes to mind when you think of Moxy Früvous is King of Spain, then I hereby call into question your Canadian citizenship and loyalty to the Queen.

Bargainville is a fantastic album. It is Moxy Früvous at their best. Self-aware, goofy, smart, and good. Oozing with Canadian-ness. Fell In Love is a good a Canadian song as any penned by Bruce Cockburn or Leonard Cohen. If you know the album, revisit it. If not, keep an open mind, get a copy of it on cassette, leave it in your car for two years, and I assure you that you will not be disappointed.