Archive for June, 2009

Safari 4.0 – so pretty, but meh, for web developers

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 posted by dzbiz 1:06 am

Have any of you used Safari 4.0? Have you activated the Develop menu? Have you seen the list of user agents you can view a page in, including PC versions? If so, how accurately does the “user agent” reflect what is truly displayed in that agent on a real PC?

Still looking for something that will automatically run the page through the W3C validator.

There is a web inspector, which does some kinda funky stuff and looks like it’s trying to be a validator. However, it doesn’t always give you the line numbers for the errors, and even if it does give the line number, when you view the source code, there are no line numbers there…then again, Firefox doesn’t have line numbers either. OTOH, in FF’s web developer extension, I can validate the code via the W3C interface and show source, which does give me line numbers. I also like that I can validate my CSS and my 508 in FF’s web developer extension, and I’m not seeing that in the Web Inspector – which is kind of confusing, anyway. More digging…nah, I’m becoming disenchanted…web inspector has the form of something cool, but not enough substance, and surprisingly, makes less sense than the W3C output.

Plus, I don’t want to have to mouse all the way up to my menu bar on my 30″ display just so I can see the source code. I like the source link in my browser window, thankyouverymuch. Yeah, I could do the shortcut (option-command-U – I can never remember what the symbols for shift, control and option are, and which is which), but I already have to remember all those shortcuts for Adobe CS3. And it’s getting harder and harder for my fingers to do all these 3+ key shortcuts.

I still love the way FF handles the bookmarks, which lets me view the list in a dropdown menu over the page I’m still looking at, instead of booting me out of my page and into the bookmarks page. Who likes it better that way? No, FF’s way is not as elegant as Safari’s, but elegant doesn’t necessarily mean more user-friendly.

Do love the cinema display of web pages most looked at.
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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Monday, June 15, 2009 posted by dzbiz 12:59 pm

If you’re in business for any amount of time, you’re going to make mistakes. Customers are going to get upset at you, or they’re going to tire of you.

What if they just slip gently into the night? You have no idea why they went away. “Was it something I said? Can we just talk about it?” In this biz, doing one-hit wonder work isn’t unusual. In this economy, maybe their own finances went south and they decided to try to do their business cards or website on their own.

On the other hand…are you brave enough to find out why? And if you are, how do you do it?

I’m thinking a survey…but I want clients to feel comfortable about answering, so something that is hosted privately. SuperSurvey’s Knowledgebase gives some thoughts on customer service surveys.

I’m checking out some places that have online surveys. I wonder how much it will cost?

How about you? Can you look in the mirror of your client’s opinions of you so you can become better? Because you CAN be better. We all can.

I’ll keep you posted…
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Bring the color fan…or die

Saturday, June 6, 2009 posted by dzbiz 2:06 pm

NEVER discuss color with a client without having both versions of the Pantone Color Bridge in front of you. Maybe you won’t lose the client on top of that, even if you do the right thing and pay to have the whole job reprinted and still on deadline.
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Always learning – sometimes compromising

Friday, June 5, 2009 posted by dzbiz 9:24 am

Doesn’t matter how long you’ve been doing something – there’s always something else to learn. There’s always something else to add to the ever-growing list of things to learn. For me, it’s learning how to design and create templates for WordPress and ZenCart.

What’s on your list?

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