Splash of Style...Macs, Photography, Design, and other Passions

New Beta Version Sandvox Released

February 15, 2006 by debbie T | Mac Software • Web Design

I know I have tried this software before, and I just can’t get into using WYSIWYG editors (except for Dreamweaver of course) but I will have to download the newest beta version of Sandvox.

I received their latest email update, and I am a sucker for new software, so I will give it one more try. Maybe in between all my many other unfinished projects. sigh.

Update: Sandvox vs iWeb comparison/review

Search Marketing Standard

February 2, 2006 by debbie T | Internet • Web Design

New magazine dedicated to Search Marketing - ie SEO, per click ads, etc. First issue is due to arrive for June 2006, and for a limited time (Feb 28th,) the first year’s subscription (4 issues) is free to US residents. Otherwise, it is $20 for International subsribers.

I am looking forward to it.

They also offer a Search Marketing blog too.

Dark Backgrounds on Web pages

February 2, 2006 by debbie T | Web Design

Is it just me, or does anyone else dislike dark/black web page background colors? Maybe it is the bright display on my PowerBook, but whenever I visit a web page with a dark background and light text color, my eyes go bleary after I leave that page and visit a page with white/light background.

I guess I am getting old.

More on iWeb Generated Code

January 16, 2006 by debbie T | Mac Software • Web Design

Finally! People are starting to talk about the generated html from Apple’s new iWeb application. I am not the only one who thinks it is horrible and shameful!

I found some links while searching on google tonight.

Apple’s Web site Through the Years

January 12, 2006 by debbie T | Firefox Browser • Mac Corner • Web Design

What a cool page - Apple’s web site through the years. Check it out in slide-show mode.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kernelpanic/sets/283374/

Also, check out http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.apple.com for their archive. (Some of the image files are missing though.)

And speaking of Apple’s web site, I have always loved their web site, but since this last re-design, they are embedding Quicktime, and Firefox 1.5 is having a terrible time with it. In fact, FF 1.5 has a problem with any web page with embedded Quicktime lately. Don’t know if it is just on the Mac, or if Windows users are having a problem too.

Initial Thoughts on new iWeb

January 10, 2006 by debbie T | Mac Software • Web Design

iWeb is the new web design application included in the iLife ‘06 suite - I heard about this app a few days ago, when the rumor sites were reporting on it, and it did sound intriguing. But after I saw the demo, I wondered if this application will add to the growing list of bloated web pages that are already online?

Update: I did some digging today, and found an example of a generated iWeb web site. It is horrible. Just as I thought, the coding has the worst case of bloat I have seen in a long time; I imagine it is worst than FrontPage bloat.

There are empty <div> tags galore, with tons of inline CSS. It has to be a nightmare for accessibility and search engine optimization.

If you want to see the example yourself, check http://www.eggdropper.com/iwebtest/Site/Welcome.html

From what I gathered from other sources, it looks like you do not need a .Mac account to publish your own web page, but for one-click publishing, I guess .Mac is required.

Besides iWeb from Apple, there is the established Rapidweaver by RealMac software and now a new offering called Sandvox, by Karelia.

Personally, I really don’t have much use for programs such as these. I find hand-coding the most efficient way to create web pages, but for those that want a simple and cheap alternative to high-end applications such as Dreamweaver, then this kind of program might be the answer. I do recommend that anyone using these editors, also take the time and learn (x)html and CSS.

Between the three applications, Rapidweaver seems to be the clear winner over all. I have only worked very briefly with the app, but it looks to be a high quality feature rich program. They have a busy discussion forum, and it looks like very good support.

From the examples of generated web pages I have viewed, Rapidweaver does create some bloat, but the coding can be edited by hand (to a certain point). There is an excessive use of nested <div> tags and multiple
tags for spacing, but at least they are utilizing lists for links menus.

There is a terrific two-part video tutorial for Rapidweaver from the ScreenCastsOnline video podcast.

As for Sandvox, it needs work, but in their defense, it is beta at this point. Publishing and configuring the host information can be a nightmare for a newbie. No surprise, the generated code is bloated in the same way as Rapidweaver (but not nearly as bad as iWeb,) and there is excessive tabbed spacing that makes the code almost unreadable. Rapidweaver appears to keep tidier code.

One good point for Sandvox is that there are a ton of pre-designed templates, and once it is configured properly, it appears to be easy to accomplish one-click publishing.

But don’t take my word, sign up for the free Sandvox public beta and check it out for yourself. (Sign up for the beta, and you will also get an opportunity for referral points towards a future purchase of Sandvox.)

Bottom line, Rapidweaver has a lot of happy customers, Sandvox has potential, and lastly iWeb is a bloated horror show.

Blind Access Journal

December 2, 2005 by debbie T | Podcasting • Web Design

The other day, I was reminded to take the time to listen to The Blind Access Journal podcast. I was meaning to check into this web site, ever since I heard him on the TWIT podcast a couple of weeks ago.

Colorcell.org

November 20, 2005 by debbie T | Art and Graphics • Web Design

I heard about this cool web site called Colorcell - http://colorcell.org

Vote (once a day) for your favorite color combinations, create your own combinations, and browse through the most popular & least popular combos.

A great place to find inspiration I think.

Subscribe to Bloglines Link

November 13, 2005 by debbie T | Content Management • Web Design

Add a “Subscribe to Bloglines” button or link to your web site: [Note: Bloglines is a free web-based blog subscription service. ]

http://www.bloglines.com/about/subscribe?tip=5

Subscribe with Bloglines

Because I am using a strict Doctype, I removed the border attribute and added the css class I use for img tags. I also added the title attribute.

Subscribe with Bloglines

UPDATE 12/17/2005:

There is a WordPress plugin called “Subscribe Me” that automatically displays Syndication buttons for your feed, but the generated coding did not validate “strict” so I searched on my own for information to display buttons for others.

To display an “Add to Google” button on your site: http://www.google.com/webmasters/addfeed.html

Add to Google

To display an “Add to Yahoo” button on your site: http://my.yahoo.com/s/button.html

Add to My Yahoo!

I also found a fantastic site that creates feed buttons for your site:

http://www.twistermc.com/shake/RSS-index.php

Redesigning Splash of Style

November 12, 2005 by debbie T | CSS • Web Design

I have been working for the past two days on the site redesign. I have most of it finished, but there is a big snafu on the single pages, where the side bar is not contained in the main division tag.

Oh well, back to the drawing board tomorrow.

UPDATE: After some research I found a web page that helped solve the problem I was having with containing floats within my division.

http://www.quirksmode.org/css/clearing.html

I chose to add the “clear: all” declaration to the footer id selector. It seems to work.