Staticfree Blog

I've got a new site theme. I got tired of the old clashing blue-and-brown and decided to make it a bit lighter. I think this better represents me as I am now: bolder, a bit more refined, and a bit more cheerful. It's still lacking a certain something, but I don't know what just yet. Perhaps another color to compliment all the blue.

Additionally, I wanted to try out a new technique for theming the site: I have basic XHTML documents that live on the server and are transformed using AXKit and an XSLT stylesheet to add in the necessary content for navigation bars and hooks for the CSS. Then I've got CSS for all the actual themey bits. This should give me much more flexibility in content creation. I don't need any hooks whatsoever in the XHTML documents now (before, I used server-side includes to add in navigation) and can mungle/merge content. This makes things like my new javascript color clock work in the theme, as well as stand-alone without any extra effort.

I'm back in Newton for the summer and will be living in my dad's new place. Tina and I will be living in our own little room in the basement (much bigger than my room in Rochester) for the summer. We'll be working at our jobs at Charlesbridge Publishing and France Telecom R&D, respectively.

The new place is in Chestnut Hill and has quite a bit of old-house character to it - aka. "quirk". The main source of quirk in the house is its seemingly excessive amount of cupboards and assorted small-panels-embedded-in-walls. These panels cover anything from electrical panels to absolutely nothing (see inset). Most of them make sense though, like the ones that cover ugly technology that may need to be serviced. There are just a great deal of them overall. Many years back, a hinge salesman was smiling gleefully.

David and I have discovered a few entropy switches - that is, switches whose sole purpose appears to simply increase the universe's entropy; any other function of such a switch has been lost to time and poor rewiring. I'm hoping to acquire one of those little electrical things that beep obnoxiously in order to trace them someday.

So, again, I'm back for the summer. There will be much much hanging out going on. If you're reading this, are in Boston, and aren't some creepy stalker person, then I want to hang out with you. Tina and I will be working day jobs, so that leaves plenty of nights and weekends to engage in various recreational activities. Don't just leave messages here (even though I get them) contact me or I'll have to contact you.

If you've ever wondered, "Gee whiz, what is that Steve fella running on his tiny laptop? Shucks, it sure doesn't look like my computer back at home." then you may wish to check out my new section of software that I use. It has some descriptions of my favorite open source applications and why I'm so fond of them.

Today I discovered NeuroCam. I'm still not entirely sure what it is, but it's based out of Melbourne, AU. It appears to be some sort of demi-secret international organization; only "demi" as many of the operatives have blogs. The weirdest bit yet: I've already met one two of their operatives, although I didn't know it at the time. I think this requires further investigation...

Many people have websites that have poorly-chosen font sizes and they don't even realize it. They use the unit of measurement known as "pt", thinking that it will make font sizes more consistent. This is akin to the people who make a website design and change the foreground color, but leave the background color to be the default. In both cases, the designer made bad assumptions about the reader's configuration.

To the point

Shown here is a popular website as seen on my small laptop screen. The text on the left window is much too large for the design. Compare to the window on the right that respects the browser's default font size.

You should not use point sizes for screen font sizes. Instead, you should use pixels, as no doubt the rest of your website is designed based on pixels. If it's not pixel-based and it's relative (yay!) then let the user choose (by using the default font size and relative sizes from that). This is because screen resolutions are not all the same and users generally know best when it comes to what font size they prefer reading.

In your site's CSS, instead of font-size: 12pt use font-size: 14px. These should look roughly the same on a normal, 85 DPI screen (see below for talk on DPI) but on a high-res screen (say, 141 DPI) 12pt text is 23 pixels high! If your site design is done in pixels - that's going to be a problem.

Nifty! Google's calculator can convert from pt to px at any given DPI. Just enter "12 points in inch / 85" (try it) in the search box and it'll give you "14.1666667 inch / 85" aka "14 pixels". You can do the same thing using the *NIX units program. If you know your DPI, you can just replace "85" with the appropriate DPI.

See more ...

Updated: Claimed! Good sir Faboo will be living with us next year.

Are you looking for a place to live in Rochester, NY next Fall? Does the notion of housemates who brew beer (as black as coffee), stay up until dawn (not partying), and enjoy the finer points of Linux sound appealing?

Well, we (Tina, Ryan, and myself) are looking for one or two someones who fit the bill. Rent is cheap, the people are swell, and the location is fairly near RIT.

Want to know more? Contact me if you are interested.

Specs

price

$850/month rent + heat + utilities, total. About $300/mo./ea. for 4 people; $240/mo./ea. for 5.

time

Starting in the fall, but perhaps summer as well.

location

81 Barton St. Five miles north of RIT across the river from U of R. Very near an excellent park with a nice view of the river. Across the street from river trails that lead up to the city.

room

2x 10.5'x9.5' rooms, carpeted. One with a closet, the other with a dedicated 20A wall outlet. 1x window each room.

Internet

Cable (extra-fast) and DSL for redundancy. Secured WiFi access point in the center of the house. A household server with plenty of space for storing files and hosting websites.

misc. house stuff

Kitchen, 1x bath, dining room, living room, furnished attic, washer/dryer, decent-sized back yard.

people

Two geeks and a lady: Ryan, Steve, and Tina. We're reasonably clean, stay up late, and occasionally listen to loud music. We generally don't have parties, we drink responsibly and eat well.