Cool tools

The place to discuss anything to do with computers, software, hardware, no matter how basic or technical. We all use this stuff, but we don't always understand it!
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Hanorah
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Post by Hanorah »

[quote="I really, (really!) don't want to get dragged into the old css/standards debate again ..... but things do progress forward. There was a time when a 'website' was just typed text on a page, then 'tables', now css .... things do change and it's 'sometimes' for the better.[/quote]

Hi Tony I have had a look at my code tonight and done a bit of fiddling and I think it is actually the two top tables causing problems with my website in firefox rather than CSS or the layers. In firefox the top table displays much larger than in IE explorer and also not directly from the top of the page. This is causing the overlapping on to the layers below I think. I won't give up on layers and CSS and layers yet but will continue to fiddle for another day.
Always Learning
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livinginitaly
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Post by livinginitaly »

Hi Hanorah,

Thanks for convincing me I'm not alone ;)

I've checked your code, and it looks like the problem is caused by how mozilla browsers and IE interpret 'height'. Because 'style 10' hasn't got any margin or padding set, it's causing the display difference.

If you amend the css and set both to zero, it should even things out. Better still, set the 'bottom' 'padding' to 10 to give space between the two lines of text.

Hope this helps :)
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

For downloadable cool tools this might be the place:-

http://www.tucows.com/

Give it a try.

Alan
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rich_sipe
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Post by rich_sipe »

tucows is a great site. Funny storry, though, back when I was in college tucows was started by some hackers offering "tools" of the trade. They go SO much traffic that they turned it into a "legal" site and it offers great stuff. I also use download.com
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

Dear Googlers.

Have you noticed that satellite photographs have recently been added to Google's mapping site?

http://maps.google.com/ will take you there.

Find your location and click the "Satellite" link at the top right of the page. I think it is only for the USA and Canada at the moment but it could develop into a "cool tool".

Alan
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vrooje
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Location: Burgundy, France

Post by vrooje »

Ah yes, I wasted an entire morning looking at satellite photos of my childhood home, my parents' home, my high school, my apartment, my office, scrolling up the coast of California from San Diego to San Francisco, etc. The Golden Gate Bridge looks really neat and there are some cool off-shore formations.

The funny thing is, it's kind of hard to find cities because you can't see skyscrapers unless they're casting a shadow on the other buildings. Manhattan looks really odd. And hills don't show up well at all, so it's hard to get a handle on elevation.

But it's extremely cool. Google must have some great solutions for storing massive quantities of data; let's hope they never lose their backups!

I am eagerly awaiting the day when this becomes available for Europe.

Cheers!
Brooke
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rich_sipe
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Post by rich_sipe »

I like it! As with it seems anything google trys they do a good and very simple job which I appreciate. I wonder how mapquest feels about this :shock: ?
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

If you want to check how your site looks in different screen resolutions, you can either change the resolution of your screen, which is a little annoying, or use this tool to show you how it would look:

http://www.webconfs.com/web-page-screen-resolution.php
Paolo
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

If you are looking for free fonts, this is a great resource:

http://www.1001fonts.com/index.html
Paolo
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

Paolo,

That's a great resource but I am still puzzled about fonts on Websites.

The question may have been answered already, I don't remember so I will repeat it. Can one embed a font file, not link to a font file, into a web page in the same way that one can embed a font file into a PDF file?

For dedicated web page designers to say it is not good practice to use non-standard fonts is, from my point of view, making a virtue out of a necessity. Their argument is based on what fonts are supported by browsers but, if one can embed fonts, the problem simply doesn’t exist; any font can be rendered because its file is supplied within the web page.

With the availability of free fonts there is no problem with copyright so the question remains – can one embed a font file into a web page?

Regards

Alan
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

Alan,

I don't know the answer to that, but I am looking for a good font for a big heading to grab the eye and go across the whole page. I will render it as a gif image in Photoshop, using one of those free fonts.

You can of course do this for all the text on a site, and some do, but it will mean your site looks blank to a search engine spider.

And here is perhaps a better font site:

http://www.dafont.com/en/

Over 5,000 fonts, categorised, and you can type in your text and scroll through each of the typefaces showing that text.
Paolo
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Alan, as far as I'm aware you can't embed fonts in the way you suggest on web pages but there is one technique right now which is becoming increasingly popular, it's called sIFR (bad acronym, it stands for Scalable Inman Flash Replacement)

mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2004/08/sifr

How this works, as I understand it, is by using Flash to render the special typography that you want to use but this is substituted by a regular font for users who do not have the Flash player.

With the new wave of Javascript under the guise of AJAX, we should start to see the issue of typographically rich web sites resolved at some point.

I was researching some examples of how CSS used skillfullly can render ordinary fonts spectacularly and found this site by Coudal Partners: coudal.com

Look at the headings. By using some CSS attributes to H2, good old Times Roman looks great rendered in this way. Key points here to make this tired font come alive:

line-height: 46px;
letter-spacing: -2px;


When using free fonts I almost always have to doctor them using Illustrator in some way and then them turn them into outlines (images) before exporting them as gifs.

Here's an example of some of my 'work'. Most of the fonts used are free fonts but they've all been heavily maniuplated in Illustrator because if I used them as they were everything would look awful, even the Star Wars one had to undergo some doctoring.

shtstr.co.uk

By the way Alan, I bought a copy of Style Master yesterday as my demo ran out. It's a fantastic tool but it's not free I'm afraid.
Last edited by Garri on Thu Aug 25, 2005 1:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

Paolo & Garri,

Thank you both for the information and links, which I will follow up on.

I have a paid-for version of Style Master and am working my way the tutorials. My first impressions are very favourable. It is extremely rich in tutorials, help, information and links to lots of other very useful sites. For what it is, I think it is extremely good value for money.

Regards

Alan
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

I wouldn't touch those techniques with a barge pole! They look too flaky. The sIFR technique is a better compromise although that too has its limitations e.g. people who don't have the Flash player only see default fonts as nominated by the css file.

In my opinion, be creative with existing fonts by applying some typographic rules in the css - you're only limited by your imagination. By doing this, at least we all get to see the same results, and you don't have to bloat your pages with loads of gif files and transparent spacers, although web sites do generally look miles better in OSX, it's a well known fact :wink:

Edit: This post was in response to a post by Chalky, which has since mysteriously disappeared! I'm leaving my response here anyway.
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

Garri,

What a shame embedded fonts are not an everyday feature of HTML/CSS. If they were, everyone would see the original in its full glory. System fonts are all very well but...........

Chalky is still here, just not on this thread. On the other hand, Sticky and Renault seem to have come and gone. Maybe they are on holiday.

Alan
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