Tag: Work

CSS gurus that is.

Have a gander at this page and then tell me why I can’t get the navigation (Home, Gallery, Links) to center align in that DIV?!

To break it down a little, the DIV under the banner is TOPNAV, within that is an unordered list with an id of NAVLIST. I’ve tried applying a text-align: center; to the NAVLIST and to the TOPNAV div to no avail. Totally baffled.

Maybe there’s an easier way to do it? Should I ditch the idea of using a list altogether?

Ohh and Keith, mate, have a gander as well, it’s your site that’s causing me all these hassles!!!

UPDATE: Sorted. 30 mins. That’s impressive. Of course if I’d actually applied the rules had I’d previously on another DIV that I’ve since deleted… width and auto margins.. then it’d work as expected. As ever, having someone else look at the code you’ve had your head buried in for hours is the easiest way to get these things sorted out.

Parents are coming over tonight, primarily because we are selling our bikes and need to get them to the buyer and (buy-ess?) and I guess, possibly, because it’s my sisters birthday tomorrow. Guess we’d better get her a pressie..

So Thursday is an important day, not only is it the birthday of my little sister but it is the day you wander into the local school/townhall and make a mark on an important piece of paper.

Friday is… hang on, what’s this NO PLANS on Friday! That can’t be right… hmmm guess we’ll have to hit the cinema.

Saturday is my sister-in-laws birthday so we’ll be through in Dumbarton for a few drinks somewhere. Sunday is, as yet, unscheduled.

In the midst of all this I’ve got more deadlines at work this week (hopefully the last for a while), and I need to get the final push on two website designs and that feckin HaloScan Wiki which is beginning to haunt me!

Actually, for those that use HaloScan for their comments, it should be an interesting few months. The service itself has been a bit spotty recently as Jeevan codes in and tests the new features (Comment Moderation is now available for Premium members!), and the site is being redesigned, a development blog added and hopefully the level of information will improve dramatically. It’s not my site of course but I’m hoping that the “information side” of the service will be complete and released by the end of the month. Plenty to do still, and quite tricky to co-ordinate as Jeevan is in a different time zone and I only have access to certain things. He’s a good guy though and how he manages to juggle maintaining and developing HaloScan whilst completing college is both beyond me, and slightly intimidating!

Well apples actually… ohh ok Apple – the people who make all those lovely laptops, widescreen displays and the little white music boxes.

I hate them you see. Every where I turn I seem to be reading more and more about their latest little white box (and boy, is it tasty).

And now I really REALLY want one. And before you start pointing fingers (especially THERE, this is a family blog you know…) it’s not JUST because I’m materialistic and love their adverts. No no, there is a very good reason for this. Two in fact.

Reason One
The thought of simplifying the music choice for my commute to work appeals. Frequently you can find me standing at the platform at 7.50 am running my finger round and round the scroll of my iPod. Round and round and round I go, pausing, changing my mind, pausing, changing my mind. At 8am the train pulls into the station and I just randomly pick whatever track I’m on. Within seconds I’m wondering if maybe I should change it for something else… and I’m off again. Usually takes a good ten minutes to finally make a decision.

So an iPod shuffle would ease my problems. Every morning, plug it in, let it grab some random tracks, and just push play. Simple.

Reason Two
I don’t actually have an iPod. LOUISE has an iPod, I just use it more than she does. I’m fed up of her reminding me of this fact. I’m also fed up having to have a playlist of her music on … er.. her iPod. Don’t get me wrong I’ve nothing against the entire catalogue of crap 80s pop, honest, it’s just that… well… it’s crap and there is a danger that someone I know might see that I have “I think we’re alone now” by Tiffany on my iPod.

So if I had my own iPod Shuffle this wouldn’t be an issue. I could put MY music on it exclusively. You’d be saving my marriage. Think of it as an act of charitable goodwill.

So if you have a spare £100 lying around, I’ll have the 1GB model please. Thanks! (awfully generous of you, you shouldn’t have bothered, no really.. ohh it IS lovely, isn’t it…)

What? You want an incentive!? Aren’t saving my marriage and solving my “what music do I want to hear this morning?” issues enough for you?

Well, tell you what, how about I throw in a Flickr Pro account for ya, sweeten the deal? Ehh.. what else? A signed photo? Of course! Least I can do. Hmmmm what else? Go on, what would it take for me to get YOU to buy ME an iPod.

What can I do for you?

(You know this makes me feel cheap, and possibly even a little slutty, but I really don’t care…)

Or “The advantage of tabbed browsing”.

Before I start this is NOT a pro-Firefox post but I will be mentioning it as it’s my browser of choice. There are other browser that offer tabbed browsing.

Anyway, I was just randomly surfing when a post on Caterina’s site caught my eye. It’s about the book “Getting Things Done” which I’ve seen mentioned at 43 Folders and have on my Amazon wishlist, she links to a particular post on the 43 Folders website that itself contains several related links: a summary of the GTD methodology, a PDF of an annotated workflow of the method, another site with a more Windows based slant on some of the productivity solutions and the website for the man who wrote the book and started the cult of GTD (to uses Caterina’s phrase).

Caterina also mentions her new love for a certain brand of notebook, and offers a link to another blog post about them from where I find a link to a reseller of Caterina’s notebooks of choice and to the oft mentioned moleskin notepads.

Phew.

So why is this particular to tabbed browsing? Because I no longer need to move back and forward (or between open windows) to see the links between these sites as I used to do when attempting something like this using a single browser window (and you techies can keep your semantic definitions of windows to yourself, thank you very much). Maybe a quick screenshot will be better than my attempts to describe this.

It may LOOK confusing but you can follow my surfing thread from left to right, from Caterina through 43 Folders, GTD specific sites, on through David Allen’s site and to the moleskin notebooks.

And THAT, ladies and gentlepeeps (and everyone else inbetween) is why tabbed browsing is a good thing.

Now I just need to find a Firefox extension that will let me produce a list of all open tabs, and their URLs, and I’m a happy, although still knackered, bunny.

(And yes I’m aware of Session Saver but it doesn’t let you generate a list of the tabs stored)

This is all very much an excellent example of how a technology has been mapped to the way people work. Information design, if you will.

Right, I’m pretty sure one of you clever types will be able to point me in the direction of a solution, preferably PHP or Javascript based.

What I’m trying to do is treat an image, and an associated block of HTML (text) as one block. I’d like to be able to swap blocks depending on a mouse click on a navigation link.

Clear as mud? Maybe a visual aid is needed:

The orange and yellow bits are the “block”, and the “block” should change when I click one of the links. Sounds simple enough, right? Well I’ve been at this since 10pm to no avail. I’ve had enough. I’m off to bed.

When I check back tomorrow night there had better be some answers!! Or else I’ll … errrr… I’ll? … I’ll be left very very much where I am at the moment, stumped.