May 17, 2005. As an avid Mac user for 18 years and counting, I figure it’s time I added a Mac OS X section to my journal. I’ve also added a Mac Goodies area to the site, featuring some Automator actions I’ve just created. For the unfamiliar, Automator is a new tool in Mac OS X 10.4, also known as Tiger. Automator is similar to the much older AppleScript technology in that it makes repetitive tasks easier…. Read more »
April 27, 2005. With the recent design of Holly Tickner’s Tiny Forest, one of the biggest changes was largely unseen. Gone was the bloated, Dreamweaver-generated code, and in its place was streamlined, valid XHTML markup, using CSS for all of the layout (all hand-coded in BBEdit). It’s fairly common knowledge that good markup can improve search engine rankings, but this was a great opportunity to see it first… Read more »
April 22, 2005. I’ve just finished a complete redesign of Tiny Forest, the personal portfolio of cartoonist and illustrator Holly Tickner. The site has quite a bit in common with the original design, which she created herself. The spot illustrations, typeface, and colors are all lifted directly from her design, which you can see here: For the new site I started with the same basic elements and simply… Read more »
March 31, 2005. In February I made some changes to Tense Radio, a Flash-based MP3 player for Tense Forms (a label and publisher I co-founded). The new player had a variety of subtle changes. Previously it used a default buffering time of 15 seconds, adding to that as necessary. That’s about all Flash provides for on its own. The result is that users with fast connections had to wait longer than they should… Read more »
March 29, 2005. RSS is a very cool technology that’s quickly gaining in popularity. It’s like having your own newspaper, with only the news you care about. And instead of having to wait for the next day, it’s updated continually. While it’s quite popular already, it’s a long way from mainstream use. One of the biggest stumbling blocks is that it’s rarely presented well. Many web sites have an “RSS”, “XML”,… Read more »