CSSDOC. A little approach to help individuals and teams to improve writing/coding/styling/managing CSS files.

I’ve never given away textures before, but if everyone likes them, I’ll start making more. (I actually get quite a few requests for textures via email) The first set just happens to be rock, but let me know if you crave more. I’m still getting the hang of the photography thing, but I’m trying because I want to give away more images in the future.

Click on the images to get to the goodies ;)

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jlwDesign has released some killer vector freebies into the wild, and I mean killer. Definitely going in my file vault, these vectors kick ass. (and I think some of them were made with a few BittBox Brushes). Awesome job jlw! and Thanks!

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I open my email this morning and there’s a long message from a vaguely familiar name. It’s dozen paragraphs long but I start to read it.

The first couple paragraphs explain that I’ve connected with this person in the past either through some hipster activities in the DC area or through blogging, and the author was going through their gmail address book and writing to everyone. It sounds extremely important; they sound honest and this sounds urgent, so I read on.

They apologize for the mass mail, but explain further that even though the author knows not everyone is politically involved, there’s a bit of a crisis in Washington that they felt was important to share at this tumultuous time. The anxiety in the author’s voice is palpable and I’m right there with him. “What is it he needs us to do? How can we help?” I ask myself as I continue reading.

The call to action comes in the last paragraph. The culmination of the email is that we friends of the author should check out a few youtube videos that will explain everything. I’m dying to know what they are about.

Genital Mutilation story from Africa?

Doctors Without Borders plea?!

Environmental disasters in China?!

I push play on the first video.

Ron Paul campaign ad. It’s fucking Ron Paul. 12 paragraphs to spam every single person the author knows, all for a fucking Ron Paul ad. I look up at the To: line and see about 100 names, all starting with M, like mine. This douchebag sat here and did this by hand all day with his stupid Gmail address book. I’ve heard Ron Paul fans described as “crazies” and now I know why.

The technique of using CSS to replace normal HTML text, mostly for headings, with a background image in order to achieve a particular look has been talked about many, many times since early 2003.

Several different image replacement methods have been proposed, each with their pros and cons. Some methods create accessibility problems, while others place restrictions on the type of image you can use or force you to use extraneous markup. No method that I am aware of is perfect.

What surprises me a little is that I still see people using image-based techniques that do not work at all for people browsing with images off. One of the tests I perform when checking sites for accessibility and universality is to simply turn off images in my web browser. In some cases that makes text disappear because an image replacement has been used that does not account for people with CSS on and images off.

In most cases you can and should use an image replacement method that avoids that problem. On the few occasions when I need image replacement I turn to either the Gilder/Levin Method as described by Dave Shea or, if the replaced text is linked and CSS support for IE/Mac is required, the Gilder Levin Ryznar Jacoubsen IR method.

A drawback that both methods share is that they require adding an empty inline element to the markup, but that's a small price to pay for making the text available to everybody. Another drawback they have in common is that they don't work well with partially transparent images, so if you have to use transparency you'll need to decide whether to adjust the design or hide the replaced text from people with images off.

In the end it's your call, but I hope this has at least made you aware of one problem image replacement can cause as well as a couple of methods that eliminate it.

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Posted in CSS.

I wouldn’t hire them to do my typesetting.

Full-time (International)

• Amsterdam Web Designer (Amsterdam) at Mediamatic Lab
• London or Leamington Spa Front-end Web Developer at Scholastic
• London AJAX Lead at Airlock
• Stockholm, Sweden Standards-aware ASP.NET developer at NetRelations

Full-time (U.S.)

• Palo Alto, CA Ruby on Rails & Flex Designer/Developers at Manhattan Project
• San Diego, CA Senior Web Designer at Positive Digital Solutions
• San Francisco, CA Web Designer at EDAW Inc.
• Boulder, CO / San Francisco, CA front-end designer/developer at DCI
• Boston Web Developers at WGBH
• Boston, MA Online Communications Manager at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
• Bethesda, MD Interactive Designer at BrowserMedia
• New York, NY Interaction Designer / Developer at Boliven, LLC
• New York, NY Online News Designer at NYTimes.com
• New York, NY Web Designer with Aspirations at The Open Planning Project
• Okemos, MI Web Designer - Senior Level at TechSmith
• Provo, UT Manager of Web Development at Brigham Young University

Freelance

• Part-time User Interface/Web Designer at OutDash Development
• Front-End Web Designer/Developer at ZoeCity
• E-Commerce Developer - PHP/CakePHP/MySQL at English360

Michelle Robbins, Director of Technology at Third Door Media, Inc., posted a freelance listing at Authentic Jobs only to request it be pulled just three days later:

I have to tell you how pleasantly surprised I am at the sheer volume of extremely qualified candidates that have responded to the listing. I'm getting buried :-) I've already sorted through and have a list of more than 10 candidates I want to follow up with.

Post a job or find one at Authentic Jobs.

They offer a whole range of services, right from custom Facebook application development all the way to Oracle Middleware. Give them a shout if you like what you see.

Nice work guys!

Whenever I miss London I like to look at the photographs at Curiously Incongruous. For the past few year’s Eric Perlberg has walked thousands of kilometres of every part of the city and taken over 3,500 photos. Eric doesn’t capture the tourist’s London, but the city that Londoners know - defaced road signs, gaps between pebble-dashed houses, brutal advertising hoardings and abandoned cars. You’ll rarely see people in his photos, something that lends them a feeling of isolation, but occasionally Eric appears as a reflection in a shop window or a shadow against concrete, wielding his camera. It’s a fascinating document and a real treat for any ex-Londoner.