FocusMinded.com

While running through my daily blog reading I found the sweetest tooltip that utilizes Javascript and CSS. There is no sense in me summarizing what I saw, as you will see at the link below, Dustin explains it very well. I thought I would pass on the link so everyone can benefit. It is available free to the public for use.

View Dustin’s Fading JavaScript Tooltip and let me know what you think !

Update: there might be a quick workaround fix coming as there is an IE positioning issue .

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Many of you know by now that I use Firefox for about 95% of my browsing, with the other 5% to check my designs for compatibility. I was thinking the other day, am I really using it to its fullest potential. Realizing the obvious answer to that was NO, I decided to take a more thorough look into the world of Firefox Extensions and I thought I would pass on some ways to help you make the most of your browser (assuming it is Firefox).

I first took note (mentally, but you could write them down) of all the programs I use that access the web. Here is a few I came up with:

1. FTP (FileZilla)
2. CSS Editor (Top Style)
3. RSS Aggregator (Sharp Reader)
4. E-Mail (Microsoft Outlook)
5. Print Screen (PrintKey) - I use for image measurements.

Those are just a few I use the most, your list is likely to be longer and mine will likely grow as soon as I publish this article. With my list in hand (or mind) I started sifting through the inordant amounts of extensions to see what ones I could replace those programs with. Not to my suprise I found one for all of them. So in the same order here are those extensions, and a few thoughts about them.

1. FireFTP - very clean, very fast, and a solid replacement of my current ftp program.
2. Web Developer Toolbar (Edit CSS feature) - can’t say enough about this for all my css editing, although I will still use Top Style at least for a while for my initial styling, I can easily see this edit CSS feature taking my full attention as I too learn all the styling options (or use my CSS Cheat Sheat).
3. Sage - This extension is now my sole RSS aggregator, I love it. From its fancy display to its simplicity. The best: its ability to search the site you are on currently for any RSS feeds it gives, the worst: you have to manually hit the refresh, to search for new feeds (but its worth it)
4. Thunderbird - although I have not actually tried this one out yet, I have researched it briefly and it appears that it is likely to be a fair replacement of Outlook. It isn’t really an extension, but another mozilla product. If you use it, please comment on it so we can all get an idea of its functionality in comparison to Outlook.
5. MeasureIt - a quick on the fly way of measuring anything on the page you see. It ‘freezes’ the screen and allows you to draw a rectangle around anything while telling you the dimensions. Once you have finished you can even drag that sized rectangle anywhere on the screen. Quite a handy tool for on the fly measuring. It hasn’t replaced my print screen, but it has made it a whole lot easier to measure.

These are just a few I use now practically everyday and I hope you can benefit from them. Everyone is different so you may not like the RSS aggregator I have selected and that is ok, it’s the beauty of custom extensions - - just pick the one you like! If there are any extensions you use and think I should try out, by all means post them for me and I will definately give them a shot.

Till Then…

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I have been self dubbed the king of tables. A title I can’t wait to shed. I think tables have their usefulness, can be funtional and I have nothing against them anymore. However, the power which can be found in CSS is far more of an attraction to me. Only one problem: my CSS ability is seriously lacking. Now your thinking, don’t go beating yourself up, and I appreciate the thoughts. Sure I can write some pretty good CSS and sure I can do a mean rewrite of someone elses, but the positioning in CSS is foreign to me.

So I have taken a vow, no more tables! In this quest I have many supporters and friends to lean on. Best of all I have Design Studio Magazine to learn about CSS. I have also found some great CSS websites that I thought I would share.

1. Stop Design’s Tableless Presentation - [the best presentation to date]
2. Tableless Form - [watch out for the BEE]
3. Max Design’s Colored Boxes - [another great full layout presentation]
4. W3 Schools CSS2 Reference - [the must have link for CSS Definitions]
5. Colly’s CSS Rollover Generator - [a handy tool]
6. Web Developers Handbook - [last but certainly not least is one of the best collection of web developers links I have ran across, guard it with your life!]

I hope you benefit from some of my secrets, links, and frustrations. With your help, my friends, and of course my stubbornness I will be 100% CSS in all my future designs!

Till then…

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I can’t tell you how much has been going on lately, as it would take far too long to write, not to mention you probably don’t want to hear it. So I will give you an over all update on everything, kind of like the readers digest version. So buckle your saftey belts and hang on because here we go…

Magazine:
The magazine has undergone quite a transformation in the past few days, from subscriber supported to advertiser supported. This change came about as a result of many factors, the most important and deciding factor is TIME. The time necessary to write, edit, and publish all the articles as well as do the graphics, and layout was going to take far longer than I had expected. To avoid this affecting my family as I know it would. I have decided to offer the magazine free of charge. Allowing everyone to benefit not just those who pay. I am really excited about this, more so than before, because this will definately increase traffic to the site, thus allowing multitudes to benefit and making it far more appealing to advertisers. Posting the content on the site, will also help with the search engine ranking so it will benefit things all around. This transformation is still not 100% complete, but nearly there, all that is left is a facelift to the site, I have built a custom design which is far more simple, professional, and it lends itself better to the new focus. Stay tuned for that…

Blog:
I was working on a custom design to replace this theme for Word Press, but I have a problem now. This theme has grown on me so much I have decided to keep it. I have made a few modifications and of course will continue to tweak it here and there to do what I want, but all in all I really like this theme. (The colors are actually the inspiration for the new magazine layout, so look for similarities). Also I have now added the new gallery to the menu on the right (called Photo Gallery). This is a really cool plugin for WP that uses the API from Flickr and styles it however you want. Head on over and take a look. After things calm down abit I will be looking to post more design related entries, maybe some resource links I have found and stuff like that. Let me know what you think about that.

Work (sales, web, and everything else):
This could take the largest amount of space, but for the sake of everyone, I will simply put one word to describe it: BUSY. Enough said.

Lets see, what else… well I think that is it for now (as if it were not enough already).

Till then… (if you haven’t noticed by now this is my new catch phrase and closing words, thanks to Grant for the idea!)

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