DON'T TRYTHIS FROM HOME

Even though it works in most browsers the code for the fade is too quirky to use. We removed it. But we did see that Shirl, and Gary and (a couple of others that we can't find now) got the code working just fine.

We will post the code again when we are sure that it will not confuse your browser. Usually if a filter doesn't work in a particular browser it still renders the font, you just have to know that it will not render the same in all browsers. There isn't much that does look exactly the same in every browser.

Choosing a DOCTYPE

Have you tried to validate your HTML only to have W3C.ORG say that you don't have a valid DOCTYPE? Try the Netmechanic free validator.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Shadows Again?

Dude, you don't need an image. The shadow filter frees you from the load time of a graphic image. For this effect we added float:left; and padding:10px; to a table. The result is that the text after the shadow filtered text will wrap around the word or title that we want to stand out.

Copy and paste (or type) this code in your Blog or Web page.

<table width="100" 
style="filter:shadow(color:black);
float:left;"><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;
font-size:16pt;font-family:georgia;
color:mediumpurple;
padding:10px;">

YOUR SHADOW TEXT GOES HERE

</td></tr></table>

The text we want to wrap 
around the shadow filter 
goes here.

Blogs we are reading today...

Do you have a blog we haven't visited?

We want to shake it up here and read a few new blogs. Do you have a blog?

Do you know of a good blog that we aren't reading? Thanks!

Oh Yea, that's what we wanted...

Anita, the Queen of Links (QOL), quickly steps in with four great blogs. While we are up we add the new blogs mentioned by Liz.

Tomorrow is a Holiday in California!

Cesar Chavez Day

Tomorrow is a holiday for California state workers and an optional day of learning and service projects in public schools.

Who was Cesar Chavez?

Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. He is credited with improving wages and working conditions for thousands of California Latinos. Chavez died in April of 1993.

The Farm

Our cousin, Al Rojas, is a former top aide to Cesar Chavez and speaks at commemorations of the life of the United Farm Workers leader (says Yahoo!). Along with Chavez he helped the Latino and immigrant people who work in the nation's fields and orchards.

We are proud of you Al. I wonder if you ever knew that. And, thanks for the Holiday. We know you helped in getting this one signed by Governor Davis.

Tomato

To honor Cesar Chavez we are using the color

Tomato

and the nice, but not always rendered, Papyrus font.

How do you do that?

YOUR TEXT HERE

Copy and paste (or type) this in your Blog or Web page.

<p style="font-family:papyrus;
font-weight:bold; 
font-size:22px; 
color:tomato;"> 

YOUR TEXT GOES HERE

</p> 

Is Cesar Chavez Day observed in your state?

It's nearly Sunday. Nearly. In fifteen minutes it will be Sunday. After midnight? Nope, 4 minutes left. It is now Sunday. Let's rest. Let's party! Party! Sleep?

Copy and Paste

WANT CODE THE EASY WAY?

More code served copy-and-paste style is here and here.

Steal This Code!

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

Right-click and take this sorry girl. Link back to the site you took it from. Leave a message in the comments if you use it so we can all see where it goes. We got we got it from ggth, who borrowed it from somebody else, who borrowed it from another blog.

Can't store images? Copy and paste (or type) this code in your Blog or Web page.

<img src="http://www.mandarindesign.com/sorry.gif" >

Why are we sorry? For taking the image. Love your blog ggth!

How to Float a Boat

Float Image Left

1. Span Without Padding

2. IMG without HSPACE

wait...there's more

3. IMG With HSPACE

4. SPAN With Padding

Which one works best in your browser?
Do you see a difference?

hmmm...

Happy Friday

Looking for copy-and-paste code? Look here and here.

Are we having fun yet?

Did you find what you were looking for? Just browsing? Are comments up or down?

Welcome

Liz is welcoming two new blogs today - Got Game? and Memeweaver

Judging a Book by its Cover

Do you know anything about this book?

Click on the thumbnails for more samples of what we saw when we opened the book. Do you know anything about this book?

Title?
Author?
Illustrator?
Story?

The Sacramento Library is selling the book but none of us know anything about it, except that we are going to buy it.

Note added October 5, 2003: Jonathan Delacour may be able to translate the title of this book as shown in the picture. The Sacramento Library was not able to identify it.

How did you land here?

Do you want something to take with you before you leave? Click Here or here.

Orange Box

Copy and paste (or type) this code in your Blog or Web page.

<div style="width:200px;text-align:left;
padding:5px;background-color: #FF9700;
border:1px solid black;font-size:12px;">
YOUR TEXT GOES HERE 
</div>

It will look like this.

If it doesn't work on the first try, you can put the code all on one line.

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

R. Buckminster Fuller

It was there in the bookshelf, loaned to us years ago, and finally the insomnia welcomed the dusty book from its place on the shelf. In 1969, R. Buckminster Fuller was considered to be the genius-talker of the universe, teaching everything to everyone everywhere.

In the late sixties Fuller predicted that the way we would resolve the "ever-acceleratingly dangerous impasse of world-opposed politicians and idealogical dogmas" would be through the computer.

Why the computer?

Because we have ever-increasing confidence in the computer. Especially then, but even now ,we rely on the safety and neutrality of the computer. The lack of opinions by the computer allows for submissive trust (and blame when it fails us).

Rewind to '69

In 1969 Fuller concluded that

"While no politians or political systems can ever afford to yield enthusiastically to their adversaries and opposers, all politicians can and will yield enthusiastically to the computer's safe flight-controlling capabilites in bringing all of humanity in for a happy landing."

Do you think so?

Spring

LillyAnne is making spring colored boxes with CSS Style, while Fred picked a wildflower just for me (and you).

Haloscan Comments are Down Up
Do you use Haloscan?

The Haloscan commenting system is free. Free is good.

But, the JavaScripts that we run here (like Haloscan) make our site dependent upon the server at Haloscan.

Solution?

When the Haloscan server is overloaded or not working we comment out the Haloscan script in the HEAD section of our template, and in the BODY.

RTFM

Does anyone have a better idea? We aren't sure if we are really commenting out the script. We'll go RTFM.

CSS Graphics:Text Only

All Code, No Image

LooWho made a peace image that is done with text only.

PEACE

PEACE

There are no graphic .gifs or .jpgs. You can customize the colors, word, and more.

The code uses filters and a vertical flip
filter:flipv() to make it look like an image.

Cindy always shares her crayons. We added the copy-and-paste code to the Text Tricks page.

Stars in Honor

We made this one for Ryan.

� Ryan

One star is displayed for one family member in the troops. Two stars for two family members, and three stars for three family members. Ryan is our nephew.

We will visit Nancy today to lift the three star images she made that inspired the Stars in Honor page, and Gary who named it by sending us the "star in honor" of his son.

Colin comments "Hi ya, Meg. This is right outta a page from WWII when families used to put star banners in their windows indicating how many family members were in the service.... "

Stupid Web Tricks

Filters: Flip Vertical
filter:flipv()

Flip an Image

Peace, No Flip

Copy and paste (or type) this in your Blog or Web page.

<SPAN STYLE="width:150;height:150;"> <img src="http://www.mandarindesign.com/banner2.gif" width="150" height="150" alt="image of Annie Peace flipped vertically"> </SPAN>

Peace, with Vertical Flip

Copy and paste (or type) this in your Blog or Web page.

<SPAN STYLE="width:150;height:150;filter:flipv();"> <img src="http://www.mandarindesign.com/banner2.gif" width="150" height="150" alt="image of Annie Peace flipped vertically"> </SPAN>

The filter:flipv() can be applied to text or images. It feels like Monday. It is Monday. It is still Monday. Very Monday. Still Monday. Still Monday. Still Monday. Monday Monday.
Gary sent this quote.

"Have no friends not equal to yourself. -- Confucius "

h2>It's Wednesday now...

Out of the blue we see BlueSkyDay coming in for a landing. We visit now and then.

We are getting what we call the "Sam Spam". Scammers trying to cash in on the event like they did September 11th. They basically reword the Nigerian Fee Scam or use other disquises to collect money "for the troops". Polished or unpolished site. Keep in mind that these folks are not easily tracked.

Did we mention how much we are enjoying Gnome-girl or Dan? ' Lost our place.

TroopTrax stops in to visit. We are waiting for the non-profit ID# just to make sure...

And we still find time to visit Dwitchy. Geodog has two blogs now? Or is one a work in progress...and surely we mentioned Goalie Girl with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Heather has some Monterey links that work for us. We like the horizontal layout of this site, and the name of this one
And his mother called him No-sword.

GREENBLOGS

And this very green place is a new read for us brykmantra. GiggleChick went green too.

Susan made a dotted box.

fp has been a prolific poster this week.

love those blogs

Angie has four more cuss words than J-mo this week. They are both charming and use the words effectively.

love those blogs

Gary Turner is as creative and interesting as ever. Shirl, the spiritual cheerleader of the blog world, is always an interesting read.

love those blogs

LillyAnne is perfecting perfection getting her design very tight using colors that are soothing.

Liz has links from sites that are not in English. That always feels strange because you aren't sure what they are saying. It went something like this �إ��

Armafair whose browser will only load our page (a trick we do) has new jokes.

Rieke posts artistically.

Farrago has new interesting photos...and there's more...

Regina asks why her alt img tags aren't working. They appears to be working from here.

love those blogs

And there's more..Ephemeron::The Blog has a layout that matches her face and hair (scroll down below the images). See?

LooWho made a peace image that is done with text only. We will be borrowing that one. She always shares her crayons.

Mel was here checking out the border code. Cool blog Mel! Where is Daniel?

love those blogs

We eventually landed at Joi and stayed for quite a while. Interesting use of CSS. I'm sure the blog was interesting too, it is the style we remember most.

love those blogs

Kevin Sites blog was suspended Friday, March 21, 2003. It sits frozen in time.

Michelle says "...now I realize in the big picture, that aligning a photo properly on a website figures in right next to putting toilet paper in the roll. But there isn't a whole lot going on in my life right now, so pardon me while I do a little dance!"

This site is a slow load for us, but you might enjoy the layout.

Did we mention how much we like the use of the shadow filter on this page?

May they rest in peace.

Stars in Honor

Malaysian Grand Prix

The F1 Malaysian Grand Prix is starting in 5 minutes. Alonso, a rookie, is on poll. Trulli is second. The German ballerina of racing is third. Rob's for Montoya or Button. The real question is will McLaren do it again.

Derek DalyDriving Academy

Rob likes this picture because he's in front. I'm actually getting ready to lap him. That's me in his rearview.

Let's border Rob's photograph.

To border the image we will add CSS Border properties to the IMG tag.

Other border-style values to try:

dashed
dotted
double
groove
ridge
solid
inset
outset

Huh?

Shock::18,000 Links Coming In?

We took this Site Popularity for a spin. It said that over 18,000 pages link to us here at MandarinDesign.com Yea, right. So we followed the listed links. The links look real. Huh? How?

We've seen Technorati and other reports that list a handful of blogs that link to this specific page (blogger.html). But we had no idea that our domain www.mandarindesign.com (without the blogger.html) had so many references.

Site Popularity

Try it out. Is it wacky or real?

It's too quiet. Say something.

Kings vs. Lakers: The news reported that the Lakers lost last night. We were at that game. We would have reported that the Kings won. Different perspectives.

Peace Dude

Saying PEACE in rainbow colors.

PEACE

Copy and paste (or type) this code in your Blog or Web page.

<span style="color:red;">P</span>
<span style="color:orange;">E</span>
<span style="color:green;">A</span>
<span style="color:blue;">C</span>
<span style="color:indigo;">E</span>

It will look like this.

P E A C E

You can put the code all on one line. Otherwise, it may look like this.

P
E
A
C
E

No Graphics Needed

Loo Who   did this with Text

U � � U

We added four new honors to the Stars in Honor copy and paste code page, including this one.

Spring is Here!

The sun is shining and the birds are singing. We are going outside to play. Oh, you came here for a box?

Copy and paste (or type) this in your Blog or Web page.

<div style="width:200px;text-align:left;
padding:15px;background-color:white;
border:1px dotted black;font-size:12px;">
Your text goes here.
</div> 

The FAQ page has more box cheats.

Are you doing anything fun today?

Confessions of a Seed Freak

Notice the price. Ten cents. We do everything the free, cheap, and easy way. This year, with limited mobility, we found new ways to garden.

A conversation at work...

But you can't garden.
Ah, yes we can. We use seeds. With bargain-priced grass seed and plenty of flower seeds our garden is glowing in color today (we will step outside in a minute to get a picture).

How do you garden? You can't walk.
Easy. Empty the seed onto the ground and push the seeds down with my cane or a stick.

You can't plant seeds all year.
We did.

Step outside and take a picture.
It's fun to break the rules. We already have a yard full of flowers.

Our Garden

If we had followed the seed packet instructions we wouldn't even be planting the seeds yet. Today is Friday and we sprinkle seeds just about every Friday and some days in between. Today we are planting the 10 cent packet.

Nancy's Image
Nancy's Challenge

Nancy's Image: A Star for Each Family Member

Nancy made graphical .jpg boxes that can be used to honor your family members in the troops. A one star image is used to honor one family member. We are honoring Ryan here with one star. The two-star image can be used to honor two family members.

The Challenge?

Do it all in CSS, no images

Think global. If we can do it in CSS the colors can be changed. Visitors from other countries can use the CSS template for their Web site or Blog. Hint: The Wingdings fonts look like graphics, maybe a star?

What are Wingdings?

Wingdings is a graphical font that can be useful when you want to include simple graphics without resorting to .gifs or .jpg images.

This site has a list of Wingdings. You don't need images for these effects, the Wingding font forms images. Wingdings are text.

Here are some Wingdings.

� � � �

A Sample CSS Box Using Wingdings

�

Copy and paste (or type) this in your blog.

<table border="3" bordercolor="navy" bgcolor="white" cellpadding="10"> <tr><td style="filter:shadow(color:gray);text-align:center;"> <span style="color:red; text-align:center; font-family:Wingdings; font-weight : bolder; font-size : 36pt;">� </span> </td></tr></table>

It will look like this.

�

Make Yours and Share it!

Let us all see what you make.

---

Response to Share It!

Stars in Honor

Pure text, no images

"My son Gary is running a network at an airbase in Saudi, so I did a circled-star (Air Force style). Thanks for the suggestion, it looks good! Be well and happy!"
Gary

�

We're starting a Stars in Honor page where we can post honor stars, notes, and graphics made for the troops.

A Sand Box

Copy and paste (or type) this in your Blog or Web page.

<DIV style="text-align: center">
<div style="width:200px;
text-align:left;
padding:5px;
background-color:cornsilk;
border:1px solid black;
font-size:12px;">
Your text goes here.
</div> 
</DIV>

It will look like this.

Background Color: Cornsilk
Border:1 pixel, solid black
Width: 200 pixels
Padding: 5

The FAQ page has more box cheats.

Blogging Around...

FridayFishWrap has a new look and a photo of the family, while Martie has a cool ZonkBoard.

Reflections in d minor is a private kind of place but it is beautiful what they can do with pink and pink (or bashful and blush). Want to see a pretty place? This is it.

Nancy uses colors we like. The writings are interesting but we are looking for ideas and get distracted at the pretty places. Then we find places like FallenSpirts where they have fallen angels.

Oh, there's the sad part ...

For those of you who have loved ones going into this or living there, I pray they remain safe and this ends quickly

And now it is our turn. I'll be brief.

Ryan Samuel Goodrich

You are in our thoughts and prayers.

I RAQ AND I ROLL

Angie isn't a country music fan but she posted the words to I RAQ AND I ROLL . She's on a roll today.

And then we find Paul Katcher who displays the American flag and at the same time doesn't want a political debate. He mentions "Saddam's atrrocities". We stold the flag. Thanks Paul.

We're with Paul. We're here to have fun.

In the IT Trenches

Six of these this morning.

"Your mailbox has exceeded one or more size limits set by your administrator."

Scripts that give us the creeps

About Your Environment

Note: A post that was supposed to go 
into another blog went here instead. 
We saw the error this morning and 
corrected it (deleted it). 

Blog and Web Page Tips,
Tricks and Cheats are here

Shut Her Up

Ramblings without reason. Shut her up!

We don't discuss or use extended hyper-linked references, conclusions, or investigations; not even for presenting simple Web-based code. We don't trust the information stored on the computer because we ourselves have contributed to the mass of data available without any authoritative examination.

There was a time when we contributed to the media, newspapers, libraries, and the general public. As Labor Market Analysts we provided what are presumed to be facts with narrative descriptions -- employment and unemployment rates and other occupational research.

Most of us don't think of the unemployment rate as a percentage derived based on the results on a twenty-something-year-old economic research analyst. Not that age is any predictor for accuracy. We choose computer-related careers based on our own projections of employment during that period.

Before the computer we stored information in books and writings that had withstood some test of time, and various theories were discussed in subject related books that we presume had had the author identified and classified as some expert in the field.

Now, it is not uncommon to find inaccuracies embellished and exaggerated by the writer either to gain trust in the predetermined conclusion or to enhance the writer's opinion.

Misquoting has become commonplace and ideas once rich in depth and breadth have been watered down to suit the masses. We all participate in this dilution of ideas, theories, and concepts. The watered down version is presented with ease as we try to maintain a low fog index.

We produce infinitely accommodative versions for dissemination to the masses assuming that Joe Six-pack is our only audience. Are you Joe Six-pack?

Blogs we are reading today...