Using CSS Inline Style
Float Right

"For ages now, I've been meaning to find out why George Bush Jr is referred to as Dubya. "
~Daisy

What does Dubya mean and why do they call our President Dubya? The short answer is that it means "W".

"The origin of 'Dubya' from usaweekend.com says that the columnist Molly Ivins coined it in 1995; it's the spelled-out Texas-drawl version of Bush's middle initial (for "Walker"). Her editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram tells us Ivins "owned 'Dubya' from the mid-'90s to 1999, then it caught on with everyone else." Well, not really everyone. Close friends call Bush "George W." His dad sometimes calls him "Quincy," a reference to John Quincy Adams, the only son of a president to become president. And almost everybody else calls him "Mr. President." "

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

It will look like this.

"The origin of 'Dubya' from usaweekend.com says that the columnist Molly Ivins coined it in 1995; it's the spelled-out Texas-drawl version of Bush's middle initial (for "Walker"). Her editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram tells us Ivins "owned 'Dubya' from the mid-'90s to 1999, then it caught on with everyone else." Well, not really everyone. Close friends call Bush "George W." His dad sometimes calls him "Quincy," a reference to John Quincy Adams, the only son of a president to become president. And almost everybody else calls him "Mr. President." "

Steal these Squares
Free Images for Your Blog

What's fun on a Friday? Making little squares. Take some squares with you and arrange them to suit your style.

Copy and paste this in your Blog or Web page.

It will look like this.

Take them one at a time or make your own squares to shake it up. Full instructions for bordering, shadowing, and more are in the Gallery of groovy squares.

IN THE BLOGS

Orkut Spam Alert
Frank Paynter posted an Orkut Spam Alert.

"Here's the bummer. If I sent you an invitation before, and you didn't sign up, then Orkut has taken it upon itself to resend the invitation now."

If you get any Orkut spam we didn't send it. Read more about Orkut spamming in your name.

Diane posted a fresh copy of the Deaf Blogger Sign-In Quilt. We talked on the phone for over an hour last week about her upcoming courses including JAVA, Visual C++, and Visual Basic. We talked about Web Application development as a career and while I never recommend it to anyone I think Diane understands what she's getting into.

Cassie's son complimented her cooking.

"You’re really a good cook. You’re almost as good as the lunchroom ladies."

We've been reading David Fletcher's Government and Technology Weblog and found a few more subscriptions to add to our reading list. Utah is progressive in the use of the Web. David includes links to government computer news and eGovernment sites that are useful for those of us who work in federal, state, or local Government. There are more tidbits like the State Livability Ratings that ranks each state. California in not in the top ten, we aren't even in the top 25.

Sum up your opinion in one word.

If you had one word... Sum up your opinion or impression of me in one word, leave it as a comment in this posting, and then post this sentence in your own journal/blog.

Found at Shirl's Other_Side who found it at Susan's Blog, who found it at Nicole's place.

Copy and paste this in your Blog or Web page.

It will look something like this.

If you had one word... Sum up your opinion or impression of me in one word, leave it as a comment in this posting, and then post this sentence in your own journal/blog.

Found at Mandarin who found it at Shirl's Other_Side who found it at Susan's Blog who found it at Nicole's place.

Calibrating Your Monitor

Jen pointed us to Calibrating Your Monitor where the Monitor Gamma Estimator has you stand facing the screen and estimate which square merges with the background. The square will tell you your monitor gamma.

The other site Jen referred to helped us identify the Sunglass Syndrome.

Dell XPS

Dell XPS Performance

We are testing a brand new straight out of the package Dell XPS upgraded with an ATI RADEON™ graphics card, 1 gig of RAM, a 19" LCD and more. It's loaded.

Printer

The fancy space looking Dell printer/fax/scanner was shipped back to Dell this morning. Didn't work.

Graphics

The new ATI RADEON™ graphics card the tech installed today didn't correct the blue display problem so Dell is sending out a new Monitor. We're a few thousand dollars and many hours into the "setup".

Installation

Luckily we ordered the Dell XPS with installation (not much extra, $100-ish) so the install tech identified the broken printer right away. The install failed.

Monitor Calibration

The Calibrating Your Monitor page was a good reference point for the Tech here onsite and the Tech on the line at Dell where here the tech could see lavender/blue while Dell sees gray. Black and White images are still displayed in blue scale rather than greyscale.

Dell XPS Performance?

The mouse works and the screen is readable but we don't have enough of a system to begin installing software. It didn't come with Microsoft Word or any other fluffy software so we don't have access to some of the fonts we would like to see while browsing. And browsing in blue is boring. Overall it's been a good learning experience. Dell's customer service is excellent but I didn't expect to get to know them so well. We are hoping that the Dell XPS, once all the pieces and parts are replaced, will live up to what it is touted to be. We'll let you know.

Didn't you think this stuff would just work straight out of the box?

Your Assistance Please...

What colors do you see on your monitor?

000000

333333

666666

999999

CCCCCC

FFFFFF

000000

333333

666666

999999

CCCCCC

FFFFFF

For example, on this monitor I would describe the above colors as follows:

000000 = Black
333333 = Light Black/Dark Gray
666666 = Dark Medium Gray
999999 = Gray
CCCCCC = Light Gray
FFFFFF = White

Transparent Images

Transparent images are fun to work with. We only have a few in the Gallery since the subject of the photo rarely poses against a one color background that makes it easy to click the magic wand and remove the background of the transparent .gif image.

The Baloney Dude sent us a link to an automagic glow filter site FontFilters. The tool lets you set text colors and select from a div or a span and more. Transparent images can also be glowed or shadowed and displayed with different background colors.

Transparent Images: Over a Box

We can put Sammy (samtrans1.gif) over a colored rectangular box like this.

The rest of the text goes here. This is an image aligned to the left with horizontal space of 15 and vertical space of 0 followed by a div to make the box. This was actually a mistake but it looks like something we can use. It works in IE and Mozilla.

Copy and paste this in your Blog or Web page.

It will look like this (image included).

The rest of the text goes here. This is an image aligned to the left with horizontal space of 15 and vertical space of 0 followed by a div to make the box. This was actually a mistake but it looks like something we can use. It works in IE and Mozilla.

Transparent Images: Add a Glow Filter

We can add a glow filter to Sammy like this.

Copy and paste this in your Blog or Web page.

It will look like this (image included).

Note: We updated the Deaf Blogger Sign In today. There are still a few empty spots left on the quilt.

Steal this Code!

Someone recently wrote to tell us that they didn't approve of Mandarin lifting material from other sites, including code, without permission. Ouch. There was also some verbiage about our "lifting" articles without permission. Huh?

We don't lift code. We don't plagiarize. But we don't care if you do. We share with our friends and they share with us (Farrago, Dipta, Shirl, Gary, and FridayFishWrap, don't bust us here).

" We don't lift code. We don't plagiarize. But we don't care if you do."
Mandarin Design

The email halted our creative juices for a few days while we pondered the bloggers perception. We had put his photo in the Quija Board. Maybe we stepped over the line? Netiquette isn't always easy. We try to play fair.

Then we found a stolen photo. Still wondering about the email we spent several days checking all four-hundred plus pages of Mandarin and at last found a stolen photograph.

We use the photograph in Technorati so it's rendered a few times each day. We lifted the photo after stumbling upon it by accident one day. Our not-very-sincere apologies to Computerworld and to the photographer Seth Affoumado.

We didn't think they would mind, I still don't think they would mind. And with that in mind, note that all Mandarin materials may be copied and reprinted without our permission.

To make a gold centered box copy and paste this in your Blog or Web page.

It will look like this.

The WAWWA Guest Book is here.
The forum is here here.

Spare Squares
Insert an Image in a Blog or Web Page

Want a square? Copy and paste (or type) this in your Blog or Web page.

That's colorsquare3.gif. It will look like this.

Fake Quiz

Copy and paste this in your Blog or Web page.

It will look like this.

Prefer pink?

Copy and paste this in your Blog or Web page.

It will look like this.

You are...

Fake Quiz Results posts we've noticed Daisy, a rebel without a clue , the one who thinks backwards, the Queen of the Futile Gesture, Intellectual Bit..h,
one who knows he knows not , loowho ...

Using CSS Inline Style
Float a Quote

"Because she knows me like no one else in this world, she knew that the silence had meaning. It took only a few seconds before she answered with her own silence."
~Angie

Angie is famous for the "f" word but her writings are filled with gut emotion. She's worth quoting and floating. Floating text or images is done with the float:left or float:right.

Where to start? We float the quote to the left by adding style to the paragraph tag float:left. We need to tell the browser how wide to make the quote so we guess 150px (150 pixels wide). And we could stop there but instead we tweak the code to suit our style.

Text justify We don't have to justify the quoted text but we like the way it looks so we add text-align:justify to make the text align on both sides like a newspaper column. We added some padding to the right and the bottom for visual whitespace.

Simple Float Code
The float code looks long but it's one paragraph that floats to the left. The extra text in the copy-and-paste code for demonstration.

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

It will look like this

"YOUR QUOTE GOES HERE. The text you want to float to the left goes here. We made ours brown. You can adjust the color. "

The rest of your text goes here. You can adjust the color, change the normal to bold and adjust the padding to suit your style. We used a width of 150 pixels on the quote but you can increase or decrease the width. Once you have the style in place you might want to try using a different font for the quote. Notice that we added padding to the right. If we float the quote to the right the padding would be on the left.

A Few Good Blogs

The words are sitting on top of the image. Copy and paste this code to render the text only.

It will look like this.

Have a peaceful weekend. The instructions for the text overlay are here .

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE
MUSICAL THEATRE COMPANY
CWMBRAN. TORFAEN. SOuTH WALES

Do you remember your first online friend? I remember my first landing at WAWWA (turn your sound on) some years ago, and my friend Fred. He was my first friend in another country and I was his. On September 11th he sent comforting words that helped me get through that week of waiting for Rob to make it home to California.

While most of Fred's site is about his Musical Theatre in South Wales, he also includes a collection of his poetry. This is one that I particularly enjoy.

There was a fire at Fred's house last week with all of the drama of the fire fighters and a trip to the hospital for Fred and his wife Jill. They are both fine. No smoke inhalation. Fred closes his email with "be healthy happy and wealthy (in that order)". That is so Fred. You can sign Fred's Guest Book here.

The font Fred uses is Algerian. It may or may not render in your browser. If you like it here's the code.

It will look like this.

This font is Algerian

Do you remember your first online cyberspace friend?

The Color Purple

A Purple CSS Centered Box
How do I make a Purple Box?

Let the browser automatically calculate the left margin and the right margin with margin:0px auto; to center your box. That works in most browsers (but not in our IE 5.5 browser). Select from hexadecimal colors or color names.

Purple Box 1: Hexadecimal Color

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

It will look like this.

Replace the color #9966FF with the color that looks purple in your browser.

Purple Box 2: Color Name

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

It will look like this.

Replace the color lavender with the color that looks purple in your browser.

Would the Deaf Bloggers
Please Sign In

• Where are you from?
• What do you do?
• Why do you blog?
• Have you noticed that little symbol on some sites that make you know there is audio? Do you think you are missing anything?
• Does your work present any challenges related to IT (or other)
• Are job interviews any more or less difficult using interpreters?
• Do you love your work?
• Do you work in an environment where you have deaf coworkers?

Spill it in the comments. Tell us about your work or school (or tell us that we are being nosy).

Thanks to all who have already signed in.

Here's the copy and paste code (including images) if you would like to use it to start a quilt of your favorite bloggers.

It will look like this.

Updated April 24, 2004

April   Fool?

I read one today that I hope is a joke. Did Stu really get the pink slip? Are pink slips blue in Germany? Stu says:

I'm looking for a job as a CIO, CTO, IT-consultant, project manager, quality geek (ISO 9000ff), writer, flying instructor, cryptographer, loose cannon or whatever, beginning 1st July 2004. Preferably within an hour's commuting time of Paderborn Germany (i.e. a circle including Dortmund, Bielefeld, Kassel, Winterberg). I'll be grateful for your tips and hints. This is not an April Fools' joke, would that it were, for the economy is crappy and still headed downhill.

Did you fall for one today?

No joke. Can't get to EasyBakeCoven. What's up with that?

Testing. Susan said some couldn't get in because of the www missing but we still can't get in. Can you?
http://easybakecoven.net
http://www.easybakecoven.net
Note: Problem resolved. We can all get in now!

Found some good links at IsabellasInspiration including BusyMom who lead us to some fun and games with the make your own marquee and deface your own bridge.

About that Bryk thing. He ends each month with a graphic so the archive looks good. Duh. We had that one backwards, unless we change the blog to reverse chronological. Did it again. Well, let's see if we can help Stu get a job. After that he may not want our help.