Play Elvis Medley
Play Elvis Music
Copy and paste (or type) this in your Blog or Web Page.
It will look like this.
Click to play.
Click to Play Elvis Medley
Blogs
Blogs we are reading today
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts, ..."
As You Like It, II.vii.
Talk and Drink Pepsi
What do you do?
Just got back from PH8 where the talk is about that dreaded question,
"what do you do?",
and why it is so hard to answer. A good answer the blogger decides is
"I talk and drink coffee".
I assume we are in the same field and read more...yes indeed we are.
What do you do?
My boss nearly knows
My friend, the genius is starting to know
My husband has a vague idea
My family doesn't have a clue
My coworkers don't know
University Instructors rarely know
Some days I don't know
Mostly
I talk and drink Diet Pepsi
It's the nature of the IT world.
If one is a rogue that swims alone then nobody ever knows what you do.
Compare and Contrast
Lisa Guernsey's Weblog-author of the NY Times article
FP's Weblog-commentary on the NY Times article
GoogleFight
Did you like the New York Times article?Click here to GoogleFight Lisa
Hey, let's go G o o g l e a gobble
- Ron sent us a turkey but we lost him already.
- Susan lets us all know that Jimi Hendrix birthday is today. He would have been 60.
- And thanks for turning us on to You Live Life as if its Real.
- Some time ago Anita Rowland told us about this ColorPicker for your blog or Web page.
Holidays
Thanksgiving
Thankful for all of it, but tonight thankful to Mom. Thanks Mom, you gave us Shakespeare. You gave them all Shakespeare. Sometimes I wonder if they look for you.
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts, ..."
As You Like It, II.vii.
Thanks for letting me be the man that I am. Gotta run, there's a guitar waiting in the corner.
No Stairway to Heaven
Does anyone remember the "No Stairway" signs?
Blogs we read
BurningBird found at
Farrago
Blogs we are reading today
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Elvis and California
ELVIS DID EVERYTHING
Listen to Elvis Presley while you read
You know you want it
The Elvis box has a change of color inside the box. Copy and paste (or type) this code in your Blog or Web page.
<div style="width:250px; font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: bold; text-transform: capitalize; text-align: center; padding: 4pt; border: 2pt; border-style: double; border-color: black; padding:10px;background-color:gold; border:1px solid black;"> BEFORE ANYONE DID ANYTHING, <span style="color:white;font-weight: bolder;"> <br>ELVIS </span> DID EVERYTHING </DIV>
If it doesn't work on the first try make sure your blogging tool didn't insert stray line break <br> tags.
You may not be able to see the line breaks. Use the delete key to make sure each tag is on one line.
Life, California Style
WEST SACRAMENTOWe do not have Cable Modem.
We do not have DSL.
We do have Coyotes.
We do have Racoons.
We do have wild Turkeys.
We do have Turkey hunting season.
We do have possums.
We do have Egrets, too many to count.
We do have Doves.
We do have Turkey Vultures
We do have Hawks.
We do have neighbors with horses.
We do have neighbors with tractors.
We do not have a tractor.
We do have Persimmon trees.
We do have Avacado trees
We do grow rosemary and grapes.
We do have a Palm tree.
We do not have a beach.
We do have a River.
We do have cold foggy weather.
We do have an inland Port.
Different Image for Each Day of the Week
Subj: hello: html question Date: 11/24/02 5:53:07 PM Pacific Standard Time From: removed@hotmail.com To: webmaster@mandarindesign.com Sent from the Internet (Details) Hi. I'm sorry, you must get these all the time... Okay, now to my question: Let's say, hypothetically, that I have a typical blogspot blog, and after each entry, it automatically puts in "posted by Patricia at 00:00" etc., and I have a little animated gif icon next to it. How would I go about making it a different icon for every day of the week?
Question: How would I go about making it a different icon for every day of the week?
Patricia, we love answering questions. That's what we do. And, your timing is perfect. We just played with this one last week. Here's the link that you want.
Week Day Image
It's a short copy and paste JavaScript. They use a .jpg image in the JavaScript example but we tried it with a .gif a while back and it works just fine. If you have more questions or need some tweaking contact us.Large Print Technical Books
Has anyone found the large print editions of any of the accessibility books? We would like a hard copy of any technical large print book.The subjects we are interested in include accessibility, ColdFusion, PHP and MySQL, JAVA, JavaScript, Oracle, HTML, XML, and Perl.
Blogs we are reading today
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Simplicity
" ...As particle physics gives way to a unified theory, as poly-dimensionality has us slapping ourselves in the foreheads like a bunch of flatlanders encountering a sphere, there's an opening for a profound new "meta-physics" that can be accessed in a simple and clear manner... "Do you think that some people just think way too hard?
-fp
We might be a tad too late but Mike needs to be famous... and fast.
DiveIntoMark.org is our read for tommorow. We are looking for a site, any site that doesn't just talk the talk of accessibility, but actually implements it so that we can read it from here. dgsblog, the most successful implementation that we have found so far, says they learned most of it from DiveIntoMark.org and another site.
Large Print Technical Books
Has anyone found the large print editions of any of the accessibility books? We would like a hard copy of any technical large print book.Hey, how do you type G o o g l e in the Google colors?
G o o g l e
Here's how Google does it. Copy and paste (or type) this in your Blog or Web page.
<b> <font color=#0039b6>G</font> <font color=#c41200>o</font> <font color=#f3c518>o</font> <font color=#0039b6>g</font> <font color=#30a72f>l</font> <font color=#c41200>e</font> </b>You may want to put the code on one line. Either way, it will look like this -
G o o g l e
Cultural Literacy
Top 10 Gaining Queries
Week Ending Nov. 18, 2002 No big surprises this week. 1. michael jackson 2. meteor shower 3. route du rhum 4. steuersong 5. halle berry 6. robbie williams 7. london underground 8. Harry Potter 9. atkins diet 10. domino day
We don't understand the search for domino day. We'll look that one up and be right back.
GoogleFight Fun
For a quick gauge of what some think is relative popularity try GoogleFight.
KaZaA
The kid just corrected our prounounciation of KaZaA. He says it's Ka Zaaaah and that we should be using Limewire where there aren't as many virus's and worms.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Tables for Dummies
As requested, here is the "For Dummies" table template code.
|
SURGERY for Dummies |
Copy and paste (or type) this code into your Web page or Blog.
<table width="100" cellpadding="10"
cellspacing="10"
border="3" bordercolor="black"
bgcolor="yellow">
<tr><td bgcolor="black">
<span style="color: yellow;">
<big>
SURGERY<br><br>
for <br><br>
Dummies<br>
</big>
</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Fill in your own title.
We've seen so many implementations of the Dummies code that we have to rerun it one more time.
Colin's version is too cool and spiffed up quite a bit, while
Maggie changes hers with her mood.
It's a fun table toy.
Guest Book
We noticed a particularly nice image posted in the guest book.yanks The dictionary reference to Yankee is somewhat confusing and seems to take on a unique definition when used by folks in the UK. The reference to Redcoat is short and simple. If you are here to learn how to float text to the left you can find the copy and paste code here in our archives.
Yanks
and Redcoats
We are noticing that some UK sites and blogs refer to us as yanks (just like that, no capitalization of the word). We are trying to understand their use of the word.
Yankee?
Our differences are as many as our likenesses. The Web is bringing us all closer every day. They will stop calling us yanks when we stop referring to them as Redcoats or Brits? Is it okay to call them "Brits"? We don't know the answer, and we don't know if the word "yanks" has any negative connotation.
Americans, are you comfortable with being called a "yank"?
Yankee?
What does that word -- yank -- mean to you?Does "yank" mean anything to you?
Do you use the word "yank"?
|
Happy Birthday |
Have you ever thought about leaving a comment but you don't do it? Shy? Today is your opportunity to be clever, witty, sarcastic, nice, or a simple Happy Birthday.
Thursday, November 21stThursday, November 21st, is Mandarin Meg's birthday. C'mon let's all say Happy Birthday.
Blogs we are reading today
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks to all of you who took the time to post a birthday message. It was fun to reveal that the man behind the curtain is not always who you think it is. We will not forget who our friends really are, those of you who took the few extra minutes to leave a comment. Smiles to all of you, our cyberfriends. And, if you were a bit too shy to leave a comment that is fine too. We will continue to visit sites and find new ideas to share. Have a great weekend!
Thus spake the master programmer:
"Let the programmers be many and the managers few -- then all will be productive." Geoffrey James, The Tao of Programming
Life in the IT Trenches
Attack the email first.so you want my job, eh?
Nah, I'll read blogs to relax. Somebody turned us on to BrianHughes. What a blast. Uh, somebody walking by. Quickly ALT+TAB over to the SQL/99's Impact on Database Applications. Look intense and puzzled.Whew, inbox is only 45. Smoke and Pepsi break.
it's showtime folks
Maggie, if you could just put some clothes on the Diva I could read here at work. Maybe a "clothes on/off" toggle? Geez, a visit to RageBoy nearly got me fired, how could I know that he would...well, he just does.lunch
Smoke and drink Pepsi while searching for blog tips, tricks, treats, and cheats.Interrupt: Where did the Remedy specs print?
Interrupt: Assistant Shane - what did you want us to do? Hits me with the newspaper when we both realize that it didn't make sense, request was backwards.
so you want my job, eh?
Prep for afternoon coding for a data load into a proprietary product. Comfy clothes. Mark Cohn on headphones. Red Vines. We'll do the routers first.so you want my job, eh?
Mental switch, the first portion is FoxPro 2.6 and FoxPro 6.0
What a fun little quirky script. Good for something, somewhere? You know you want it
Right-click to View Source, then copy and paste the Referrer script code in your blog. It's only one line of JavaScript and it should run anywhere.
Blogs we are reading today
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"No two languages are exactly alike... and that sucks. I suppose that's what makes them different. "
Mike
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Bordered Box
I like that box border with the dots. How do you do that?With inline style. The DIV tag.
Copy and paste (or type) this code in your blog or HTML page.
<div style="width:200px;text-align:left; padding:5px;background-color:yellow; border:1px dotted black;font-size:12px;"> YOUR TEXT GOES HERE </div>We like using style because it's free. No graphics to load.
So, let's play with some colors using color names like we did with YELLOW.
Replace the YELLOW with any named color from the color chart.
Oh, here's a nice color - LAWNGREEN.
Uh, my lawn is not that color. Is yours? More FAQs... Crusin' the blogs...
AKMA has some interesting University staff titles.
That's the job title I want.
Provost and Vice Chancellor of Imaginary Affairs
Frank Paynter
The title summarizes what I do here at the day job (it's lunch time so I can blog). I explain imaginary solutions to imaginary problems. Imaginary in that I explain the simple solution (the same solution to different people at different points in time) and then when prompted say
...all you need to do is bring on a half-dozen Consultants ($200+ per hour) and with our existing staff we can easily have that done in under a yearand they leave me alone for a while.
The IT World
so you want my job, eh?
Leaving for a meeting with the clueless who will try to beat me up. I stopped caring about what they do about $2 million dollars ago. They can't illicit any emotion or contributions from here.so you want my job, eh?
It's showtime folks.the result
We all agreed. That never happens. The clueless had a clue. They understand the $ million dollar dilema and we all agreed. Go figure.so you want my job, eh?
Interrupt: NOC (HelpDesk) calls. A customer problem. Done.so you want my job, eh?
Interrupt:Internal group calls for how to add a person to an application. Done.so you want my job, eh?
Interrupt:Internal customer reports problem via email, urgent.so you want my job, eh?
Kid emails - we will meet tomorrow. Talk him into putting instructions on both Internet and Intranet site. External Customers are looking on our InTRAnet site, not the InTERnet.so you want my job, eh?
Print manual as a resource for the Kid's article. Don't know if the Kid is actually a kid, yust assuming since he's still in college. Lunch. Smoke and a Pepsi.Acknowledge the genius who just walked by and reminded me that it's lunch time. Others come by at night and tell me to go home. What? It's dark outside...oh not again.
Mindless Way to Kill Time
G o o g l e R e l a t e d F u n
GooglePeople is where you can ask " who is?" questions and get interesting answers. We askedWho is Mandarin Design?
GooglePeople thinks many of *you* are Mandarin Design.It's Sunday. Let's rest.
We landed at AKMA and then
At Anita's site we find the Harry Potter Lexicon page that lists all of the
text differences between British and American editions.
Does anyone know of a list of differences between Northern and Southern US? I know a few like
- Y'all for You all
- Yonder for Over there
- Carry me for Take me
- Miss Meg for Meg
Fast Load?
Text is fast
Text is free or cheap. The following is text, not a graphic.| Pumpkin |
The word Pumpkin is HTML text with the CSS Shadow filter applied.
Copy and paste (or type) this code in your Blog or Web page.
<table width="200" style="filter:SHADOW">
<t><td>
<span
style="font-family: Arial Black;
font-size:32px;
color: #ff6600;">
YOUR TEXT GOES HERE
</span>
</td></tr></table>
If it doesn't work on the first try make sure your blogging tool didn't insert stray line break <br> tags.
You may not be able to see the line breaks. Use the delete key to make sure each tag is on one line.
Images are slow
The picture of Pumpkin costs us 6736 bytes.
Blogs we are reading today
|
Did you email us?
The power of the delete key
Today while deleting spam we nearly deleted one from Kev, a new visitor who had some interesting thoughts about accessibility. Another that we didn't hit the delete key on was from a fellow who tells us that the Mandarin Daily Blog is doing wacky things on his browser. We hope he tells us more so we can fix it.If you emailed us and didn't get a reply it's because we thought it was more spam. We reply to every question and acknowledge every email we read. And Mel, please send the icon again. We must have hit the delete key on that one too.
so you want my job, eh?
Emails from the day job forward here so that I can take quick action on my day off (today) and on weekends. Here's one today:From the kid
addressed to my real name, I was wondering if you had sometime early next week to meet and discuss some general points for the quick change article? Let me know if this works for you and then what day works well for you? I have class every afternoon, but on Monday and Wednesday I return to employer name removed around 1:00. So any morning, except Wednesday, works for me. Let me know. Thank you, removed
Why is this one worth mentioning?
Some time ago someone slipped and this group needed an article written that day. I whipped out a technically correct, brief article, certainly suitable for print. This kid (the email above) then wrote his own and used it instead. He thinks it offended me. No kid, your article had a high fog index and was not technically correct. You wasted our time. And something about the reference to our software being "home-grown" made me think Marijuana. On second thought, now it sounds better. I'm renaming the system Marijuana.so you want my job, eh?
Does the name matter?
Coming up with a name for an application is the part nobody ever talks about. Is the name important? Oh yes.
Quick Change
For example, it took quite a while to come up with the name Quick Change. This wasn't a no brainer.
How do we say "customers, come here...use this Internet form instead of emailing our company, vendors come here it's quick and easy, software staff welcome to the quick and easy world of documenting your changes to the network". A lot of our work is done with illusions and expectations.
OASIS
OASIS came to be one afternoon when we realized that the Gen Sheet System had changed enough over time that the name alone implied the wrong activity. We wanted a one-word name. We let the customers vote and they submitted names like da bomb and Viper and other clever names. On the way to the afternoon discussion a customer went to the water fountain and it said OASIS. It was the final name and is still in use today, many years later.
Earlier applications have names like Streambed Alteration Tracking System, Contract Tracking System, Personnel Tracking System, and the beat goes on. Now we know about illusions, expectations, the man behind the curtain, and the magician.
We haven't learned how to be nice to the kid yet. We'll work on it."The nice thing about reinventing the wheel is, there's so much prior art."
- Jeff Winkler Unfamous Quotes
Blogs we are reading today
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It depends...
A good answer to any question isit depends
It depends
So yesterday a coworker is showing off his "pretty" Web page. We are experimenting with PHP and MySQL and he is making some progress in the database design. During the conversation he confesses that he is actually showing me the lightest green one can achieve for a background. If any of you don't know, Web colors are in Red, Green, and Blue columns that you code in Hexidecimal. Orange looks like this #FF6600.my friend, the genius
And years ago we did have to do some Hex math, but he actually does the Hex math to create the colors for a Web page.my friend, the genius
I cheated years ago by creating my own Web safe color chart that is always a click away (it's even on this page).my friend, the genius
What is the best way to derive a color on the Web?it depends
If you are a genius or love math then do the math (in base 16). By the way, his code is cryptic and he takes delight in the beauty of a one-page program. In my production code the inline documentation alone will be one full page. What is the right way?it depends
The truth? The Web Color Chart was the first table I ever coded. I had seen a color chart once somewhere but needed an excuse to play with HTML. I coded the table using an algorithim and then clicked browse. It was unexpectedly stunning. I showed it to my friend, the genius.How do you customize your HTML Form?
Add some STYLE as in style=
CSS style is not complicated. You just have to know where to add it.
Here is the code for the simple form above.
Notice that fonts and colors are defined using the style=
<form> <input type="text" style="font-family: 'Lucida Console'; font-size:12px; color:black; background-color:FF0000;"> <select name="" style="font-family: 'Lucida Console'; font-size:12px; color:navy; background-color:FF6600;"> <option>Item 1</option> <option>Item 2</option> <option>Item 3</option> </select> <input type="submit" value="Submit" style="font-family: 'Lucida Console'; font-size:12px; color:black; background-color:FFFF66;"> </form>
Customizing With CSS Style
Add some STYLE as in style=
LINKS
To change the link color use the style attribute.
Mandarin Design
<a href="http://www.mandarindesign.com/" target="_new"
style="color: #ffff00">Mandarin Design </a>
Change the HTML Form
TEXT
Use <span> tag with the style attribute.
<span style="color: #ffff00">Name</span>
FORM TEXT and BACKGROUND
Use style.
<input name="tagname" maxlength="20" style="color: #ffff00; background-color: #00ffff;">
FORM Submit BUTTON
Use style.
<input type="submit" value="Submit" style="font-family: 'Lucida Console'; font-size:12px; color:black; background-color:FFFF66;"> </form>
Accessibility
It's a boring topic where we find humor.
According to Computerworld a U.S. District Court judge said the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to physical spaces, not virtual ones. Duh.
That ruling should take a load off a lot of us. It's especially difficult to design an accessible site when there are no accessible technical books. We tried to find large print books for ColdFusion, Perl, PHP, MySQL, FoxPro, JAVA, and more. No luck.
So tell me again how blind or low-vision developers learn how to design sites for low-vision or blind customers?
What's an EM?
Yesterday someone asks "what's an em?". We keep meaning to look it up. We use the em for typographic control.Can anyone help out with this one?
Happy Birthday to RageBoy.