Aja Lapus

Category: Design

  • Those Little Interconnected Things

    Ok. Now I’ve had my six days of fame.[1] Better get back to the regular blogging programming and routine. 😛 But, let me ask you first: How does a Web event, an impending increase in domain name prices, browser incompatibilities, and advertising limitations result to me having to think of making a new WordPress theme for my site?

    During the time before the 2nd CSS Naked Day, I decided to make a plugin for WordPress that would strip every piece of stylesheet information from a Web page. It was somehow successful given that I was only receiving 50–100 unique visitors a day prior to the creation of that plugin, which in turn made my statistics plugin jump to receiving 200–300 unique visitors a day. In addition to the plugin, Dustin‘s pun resulted to a lot more SERP referrals. More visitors equal higher rankings; my Alexa rank turned from above 3 Million to just above 700 thousand in 10 days.

    Since Text Link Ads consider Alexa as one basis for accepting ad publishers, I thought it would be better for me. And with the impending increase in .com domain name prices, I’m starting to think I really need the money. But, still, I haven’t had ad placements since I’ve reinstalled TLA on my theme,[2] so I think it would be better to go back to [or at least serve it at the same time with] Google AdSense which I have used even before TLA. I was just frustrated that AdSense won’t serve XML-compatible scripts or at least a <noscript> fallback for those who don’t want to or cannot display scripts of document.write nature.

    Since it’s equally hard to modify a theme to contain ad spaces than to make one from scratch, I thought it was better to move to a Version 4 for the site. And because WordPress have deprecated some functions since 2.1, and WordPress 2.2 is just around the corner, I think I’m better off making a new one.

    I then thought of the need to create a theme served only with Content-Type: text/html, since Windows Internet Explorer 7 also has no intention of accepting true XHTML. But, I’m having doubts of doing so since I’ve been a fan of XML rules[3] imposed on HTML since the time I’ve learned them. I’ve also read articles on how to use AdSense with true XHTML pages.[4] So, I would most probably stick to my current content negotiation scheme.

    I’ve actually started making a template with a Web 2.0-ish theme a week ago based on some tutorials I found on the Web. Although, upon showing it to Shari, she told me it was a bit too bright. So, I guess it would have to be redesigned since I don’t want my handful of regular readers straining their eyes, and to be looking at [or rather getting distracted by] the design more than they do at the content of my articles.

    So, I guess you just have to wait for the next version of this site. I am finally going to a pool to swim tomorrow, so don’t expect it to be that soon. *excited* 😛

    Footnotes:

    1. ^ April 1–6 recorded ~2500 hits from human visitors only—more than half of what each previous month’s worth of page views even without Bad Behavior blocking robots.
    2. ^ Maybe because of the irrelevant keywords? IDK. I just hope not.
    3. ^ Must be well-formed, lowercase, etc. Therefore, cleaner and more readable.
    4. ^ One from Keystone Websites, and another from CSSplay thanks to Sir Regnard.

  • I’m Getting Naked

    It’s already summertime and most people are stripping down to their trunks and bikinis to get wet with friends or their families on the beach or on a pool. Me? I’m here stuck inside my room stripping … and this is not an April Fool’s joke … stripping my website buck naked off of its stylesheets. *tee-hee* Well, anyway, I’ve done this before and I’m doing it again. Last year was good, and I hope this time is better. Dustin Diaz is finally proving the annual in Annual CSS Naked Day.[1]

    To anyone who isn’t familiar, CSS Naked Day was made to promote standards. During the 1990s, HTML has grown to become a more presentational language than what it was really meant to be. With browser implementations varying from each other,[2] and the bulk of maintenance work that HTML has become to present aesthetics, proposals were made to have a presentational language that later became what is now CSS. CSS has already replaced every presentational bit of HTML 3.2 and has even added more, and with the advent of better support to the standard since late last year, it is really worth advocating for better and wider Web designer adoption.

    The reason for stripping CSS off for a day has been acknowledged by the creator of CSS himself, Håkon Wium Lie—saving HTML from becoming a presentational language. I’ve seen many sites that produce good aesthetics, but the perceived quality just stops there. As I turn off the styles on my browser,[3] the layout remains the same, but now with garbled images and incomprehensible text. And they say they’re standardistas.[4]

    I hope everyone who have read this participates in the upcoming second year of the celebration of semantic markup. It’s very nice to see that two, Shari and Mr. J, out of currently four links from the official page that are talking about the event are of Filipino blogs. If you think your site doesn’t qualify to having semantic markup, you still have four days to this year’s deadline. Registration is now open [and automated] at the Official CSS Naked Day site.

    Oh, and for those WordPress users that are too lazy to edit themes, I’ve made a plugin that strips every piece of stylesheet in your pages without a single tweak on your templates—configurable to follow the recommended 48-hour period or just your local 24-hour April 5.

    Footnotes:

    1. ^ I really do not know why they call the first time, annual, already.
    2. ^ As a result of the first browser war.
    3. ^ The way everyone, humans and bots alike, are to understand the page.
    4. ^ I would have told them privately that all but one of the sites in their gallery wasn’t compliant, but it seems that their feedback link isn’t operational. So, just consider this as feedback. Oh, I do hope the site submissions be screened better as it would be a good starting point for showcasing great Pinoy designs.

  • Fast Pace in Slow Motion

    I have a new layout, everybody. Obviously. I hope this one wouldn’t turn out dull like the second version. I have a reason for that static title, maybe I’ll tell you a little later. I’ve done this for four weeks. Yes, four weeks! I got so busy with many things but fortunately, one [this] is finished. Now, I have more time for the others.

    This is somehow broken in Internet Explorer. And, I am in no mood for hacking CSS yet again for that pesky browser. Get Firefox! I’ve been telling you for years! The upcoming Windows IE7, which is already downloadable in Beta, is still no match for it—at least for me.

    There are a few somethings still lacking from this Web site. Just as a checklist, it includes:

    Maybe I’d just post the story behind the title in the Site Information page. I really can’t think right and write right right now. See? 😆

  • On Freelancing

    Everyone has to start somewhere, right? I know I started markup programming since I was 14 years old. Now, I think I have the skills and knowledge to make money from it. Well, actually, I knew months back that I could start making money with my work but I really do not know where to start. One major thing that stopped me was my lack of skills in image manipulation and design — I just do my XHTML really good. And since I thought possible customers were more into design than markup, I stopped a while until I have the skills — the skills that I still do not have that much even right now.

    Then I have encountered XHTMLized. There I saw an opportunity that I could just make the XHTML out of the customers’ designs that they can’t turn into beautiful markup. I have done this for a volunteer work with TomWeb on the UST Nursing website and with my friends’ blogs, and now I know I could do this for a fee.

    XHTMLized starts their service at $149 — that is PhP7600 on the average! Wow! I can not make that money even with my 4 months’ allowance! Now I am definitely starting my career!

    Well, I still won’t stop volunteer work for my school [TomWeb] and for my college [ESC WebTeam] and for my close friends, but for other people that need me: I am going to think about how much it would cost first. 🙂

    I know I’ve done free service a lot in the past few years but please consider that I am in dire need of finances right now. And, if I am not going to start making this as a career, I may not be able to start making this as one in the future. I need support for this from you [my friends and readers], maybe you could refer me to anyone who wants to build a business out of a website [those are usually the ones willing to pay for good design and markup] or someone who has just a lot of money and wants a good XHTML+CSS design.

    Here are my specifications about my work that may be of interest to those who are thinking of availing my services:

    • I use XHTML 1.0 Strict, unless the design restricts me to do so then I’d use the Transitional DTD.
    • I use XHTML purely for content, using CSS for design.
    • I would accept designs in almost any image format [JPEG, GIF, PNG, preferably PSD for Adobe Photoshop].
    • I would also accept designs in HTML or XHTML that the owner wants to be cleaned up for better Search Engine Optimization and accessibility [for text-only browsers and screen readers].
    • I would make the XHTML look similar [there is no same in rendering between different browsers] in major browsers — Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Mozilla Suite, Netscape Browser; and if possible, Camino and Safari.

    I do not intend to compete with those people at XHTMLized. I just want to start my career. Besides, I’ve linked them twice already — my thank-you’s for giving me the idea.

    Here are my details if ever you wanted to contact me privately; or just post a comment below if you don’t mind telling it in public.

    Thank you!
    — Aja Lorenzo Lapus, freelance programmer.

  • Cross-browser testing, yet again

    I have read about Internet Explorer 7: Beta 2 Preview the day after it was released [20th of March]. The developers say it is rendering-behavior complete so I downloaded it to test my pages for rendering issues but it seemed to be having trouble detecting my Internet connection that I ditched it immediately hoping it to be better on the final release. Also, my father always had trouble dealing with new software, especially web browsers, so I really did not consider it staying installed in my PC because he still uses IE6 instead of the system’s default Firefox browser [which is also because of his lack of adaptive skills on browsers] that if IE7 was installed it will technically be a new browser to get used to.

    I have just discovered earlier this morning a way to use IE7 as a standalone browser. I was happy that I would not have to install it again to replace IE6, therefore, enabling me to cross-browser test with four different browsers — four different rendering engines [i.e., Firefox, Opera, IE6 and IE7].

    But, now that I have the new MSIE7 [prefixed for unambiguity] with improved native rendering features, testing it on my web site proved it still doesn’t come near to what Dean Edwards has done with JavaScript on his IE7 “plugin” for browsers prior to the real MSIE7. Needless to say, I still have to hack my CSS or at least get Dean’s IE7’s content-generating module to work on MSIE7 for this web site uses a lot of content-generation from CSS to improve readability especially with lists.

    *sigh* So much for a hack-free Web every standards advocate dreams to come very soon.

    elliptical trainer