My web-based minidump analyzer tool, kdbg, was in need of some TLC.  The ad revenue is OK, but I wanted to improve ad placement and overall site performance, as well as change some of the workflow so I set to work creating my masterpiece.  I took the blank Index.html file from Boilerplate and ripped out the mobile and jQuery stuff because I just didn’t need it.  Then I opened up style.css and piled in my usual 960.gs and started adding content and markup to index.html.  In a few minutes I had a working HTML document and in about 10 I had all of the text and controls on the page and it was just down to formatting them.  It took about 20 minutes to tweak all of the 10 lines of CSS I had to write, and about 30 minutes to create the images I needed, so in less than an hour the new theme was almost complete.

The other two pages took about 30 minutes each to complete since they actually had the meat of the application in them.  Gotta love PHP and how logic gets sprinkled in with design so much, but in this app that’s perfectly acceptable.  So what did I get out of a few hour’s work?  Well, the website is fully html5, and I could even replace the YouTube video with an HTML5 / Flash hybrid player if I wanted.  I’m using a header font from the Google Font Libray (Droid Sans), Google Analytics via delayed loading, and everything is highly optimized for speed.  I honestly can’t tell much of a difference in performance, but pingdom tools shows page loads in about 2 seconds which is a significant improvement over the old site, and I haven’t even minified and compressed the js and css files!

Anyway, here’s the final result.  I’m quite proud of my work, including the updated demo video

So what are the openings? Well, there is Solutions Center Engineer – what I do…
Are you the person that everyone goes to when something is wrong with their computers? Do you fix their problems so fast that everyone considers you to be a wizard? Are you the kind of person who loves to understand how things really work? Then, this position may be for you… For more information visit:
https://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?m=nIc0ZgwE&j=o61aVfwW

We also have a Sales Operations Sr. Manager position open.
The Sales Operations Sr. Manager will be responsible for the development and performance of all sales activities for Support.com. This individual will staff and direct a sales team and provide leadership towards the achievement of maximum profitability and growth in line with company vision and values. Develop the sales team from goal setting to establishing motivational strategies and compensation plans. For more information visit:
https://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?m=nBc0Zgwx&j=o4EmVfwJ

So, what makes a good HTML message? Well, it’s cool to be able to make
stuff bold and itallic, put data in a table and inline images when it’s
helpful to include them. But, at the same time, there are things you
can do that make the email harder to process on the recieving end. For
example, inlining images means they are not attached and therefore will
be less intuitive if possible for the reciever to understand how to
download or save these images. Additionally, since the images are
embedded into the HTML, users with a small mailbox won’t be able to
detach the image.

Another thing that is undesirable is to use absolute font sizes. It’s a
bad idea in regular web development because it hurts the end user’s
ability to control how things are displayed. Instead, your fonts should
be set using relative sizes, (small, medium, large, em’s or
percentages). For example, my new email signature no longer breaks this
rule (it used to be 10px). Now, my signatures are .8em (ie, 80% of your
email client’s default font). So, if your client’s font size is set to
16pt, the signature is displayed much larger than the previous 10px at
12.8px.

Lastly, something to avoid is using a lot of HTML. Unless you’re
sending out a newsletter there isn’t a lot of reason to use a ton of
HTML. Just some minor formatting, stay away from setting font colors
because again, this goes away from the user’s preferences.

I do still set a font, though (Verdana) because gMail and a few other
clients most of my friends use likes to use Times for email if a font
isn’t set and I think that’s just a horrid font for email.

Anyway; when you run into a blue screen / STOP error on Windows, give http://kdbg.skilia.info a try!  It’s super quick and easy to use.  The more people that use it, the closer I get to AdBrite ads paying the hosting costs.  They’re not super high, but it’s a lot more than I’d like to have as an expense.