• Grid (page layout) – Wikipedia entry that was referenced.
• Die neue Typographie – influenced Swiss style, grid-based designs. (I used a Google link here simply because it showed scans of pages from the book + links for additional information on the book.)
• “By the time it was translated, Tschichold had largely abandoned the modernist principles he helped create.”
• “Grids = Order. Structure. Hierarchy. Organization.”
• “Design is about communication. To communicate well, we must bring order to the data we’re trying to represent.”
• BOOK: “Thinking with Type” by Ellen Lupton
• There are 3 different types of grids: Single column, Multi-column, and Modular.
• Some examples of grid-based design:
  • China8 Project. (Now offline.) Uses a modular grid.
  • SeedMagazine uses a modular grid.
  • The New York  Review of Books
• “Grids can always be sub-divided. Don’t feel like you have to stick to a low number of columns in a design.”
• Now chatting about BlueFlavor.com and how it uses a multi-column grid. Most people wouldn’t notice it, but the site actually uses a 24-column grid. A redesign is underway.
• Typographic baseline grids.
  • from A List Apart: “Setting Type on the Web” by Wilson Miner
  • “Incremental Leading” by Mark Boulton
  • Syncotype (your baselines) – bookmarklet from Rob Goodlatte
• “Grids are systems. Not just for any one page. Most effective when thought of as a system for use over entire site.”
• CSS Frameworks:
  • Blueprint CSS – “was created on accident” ;)
  • 960.gs – when he can, Jeff prefers using this framework.
  • Yahoo UI
  • YAML
• from A List Apart: “Frameworks for Designers” by Jeff Croft
• If you’re interested in 960.gs, follow @nathansmith
• CSS Generators:
  • Less (Ruby) – extends CSS by adding variables, mixing, operations and nested rules. Requires Ruby 1.9.
  • Sass (Ruby) – meta-language on top of CSS used to cleanly describe style and structure of a document.  Available as plugin for Ruby on Rails, standalone Ruby module and a command-line tool.
  • CleverCSS (Python) – small markup language inspired by Python. Uses indentation-based syntax (rather than flat) for setting rules. Requires Python.
• BOOK: “Making and Breaking the Grid” by Timothy Samara
• “Do you validate other people’s markup? Yes? You’re an asshole.” – Jeff Croft
• Validators are a debugging tool. You should validate your own code.

After Jeff’s presentation, J. Cornelius and Jeff Croft critiqued a few people’s websites:

• Mills Interactive Design – was looking for general feedback.
• PM Sherpa – Mike was unsure of what to do on the homepage.
• Dave Stanton – Dave said it was a work in progress, but was looking for feedback.

What’s the big deal?

Outlook 2003 used Internet Explorer to render emails. While it wasn’t perfect, it actually handled HTML emails pretty well. With the introduction of Outlook 2007, Microsoft announced it was switching to Microsoft Word to author and view emails within the application. Word writes atrocious markup. It renders horribly. Basic CSS support for floats, background-images, etc. are not supported.

For a company that has shown its support of standards in improving Internet Explorer, their blatant disregard for them with Outlook 2010 is unacceptable.

Legitimacy of the Email Standards Project?

To make matters worse, Microsoft’s Office division refuses to accept the legitimacy of the Email Standards Project, especially since Freshview – the company behind CampaignMonitor – is the reason it exists in the first place. Yes, Freshview is an email marketing provider. They have an interest in it being easier for their customers to create campaigns through their service that work in every email client. Web standards has had very vocal support over the years. Freshview saw the absence of a vocal proponent for email standards, and stepped up to the plate.

AOL, Yahoo, Google and IBM are already working with the Email Standards Project. Microsoft, we all know you’re going to do whatever the hell you please, but we’re not going away. We’re not giving up.

Fix Outlook Now.

Wordpress 2.8 beta1 was just released.

If you’re using Wordpress 2.7.1 and want to upgrade using Tools > Upgrade all you have to do is open /wp-includes/version.php and change the version number from 2.7.1 to 2.8. Then run Tools > Upgrade. The latest development version will be installed when you upgrade.

Note, before upgrading it’s usually a good idea to backup your files and database. Development versions of Wordpress may have problems.

I don’t consider myself a Trekkie, but I loved Star Trek growing up. I watched Star Trek, faithfully watched The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and I’ve seen nearly every movie, but I never identified with it like I did Star Wars. (I don’t think I’m alone in this.)

When I first started seeing previews of the new Star Trek movie, I was hopeful. But I thought that it would too easy to mess up. After hearing glowing reviews from friends – especially Kenny’s take on it – I had to go see Star Trek. I shouldn’t have doubted J.J. Abrams.

Star Trek was, in a word, awesome. The visuals were amazing. The story was well thought out. Newcomers to Star Trek can watch it and not feel lost. It was an incredible retelling and reimaging of the series. As far as continuity is concerned, I think the story handles deviating from the original series very well.

This is one movie I definitely want to see again. And, I’ll be getting it on DVD when it comes out. Yeah, it’s that good.

“All currently supported shipping versions of Adobe Reader and Acrobat (Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1, 8.1.4, and 7.1.1 and earlier versions) are vulnerable to this issue. Adobe plans to provide updates for all supported versions for all platforms (Windows, Macintosh and Unix) to resolve this issue.”

To protect yourself from possible exploits, disable JavaScript in Adobe Reader and Acrobat:

1. Launch Acrobat or Adobe Reader.
2. Select Edit>Preferences
3. Select the JavaScript Category
4. Uncheck the ‘Enable Acrobat JavaScript’ option
5. Click OK

There is often an expectation that if you have a website, people will find you, you’ll have more business, etc. Traffic (and additional business) may come eventually, but it will not happen overnight. In order for your website to get found, people need to know about it. Some of the ways you can make that happen include search engine submissions, social networking, and pay-per-click advertising.

So, you have a website? Great! Now what? Traffic won’t magically come to you. Search engines might eventually crawl your site if others link to it. Here are a few things you can do to make sure your site is found:

Submit your site to the major search engines:

• Add your URL to Google
• Yahoo! Site Explorer
• Microsoft Live Search URL Submission

While this is certainly not an exhaustive list, Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Live Search represent the “Big Three” search engines. Getting listed on these engines is your first, and arguably best, opportunity for search engine-based referral traffic.

Promote your site on social networks. If you use social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, make sure your friends know about your site (Don’t spam them, though!). Go to where your customers are. Engage them. Encourage them to visit your site; to use your services.

Google AdWords: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising. Spend money on targeted, keyword-based advertising when you’re first starting out. It could be a while before your site ranks highly in search engine results. PPC ads guarantee a higher-profile placement on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Let’s say you have an automotive repair business and you’re hoping to generate more traffic to your website. You’d like to buy some ads on Google Adwords to be displayed on SERPs. While getting things set up, you select some keywords that you think people might use to find your business. Generic keywords have greater competition; this is why you want to try and be as specific as you can with your keywords. Someone looking for “Automotive Repair Augusta GA” is more likely to be looking for your services versus someone who might be searching for “Automotive Repair.”

Some other things to consider with PPC:

• You’re only charged if someone actually clicks on your ad.
• You can set a maximum daily budget on Google AdWords. Once you’ve spent your budget for the day, your ad will no longer appear in SERPs. (This helps you budget for PPC more efficiently.)
• The more specific your keyword phrase, the less you’ll pay per click (usually).
• The more specific your keyword phrase, the more likely people seeing your ad might be interested in your services.

Traditional Advertising. Make sure your website address is included in all advertising, such as radio, TV commercials, billboards, business cards, newspaper and magazine ads, and even email signatures. Anytime you have the opportunity to tell someone about your site, do it.

Originally posted on PowerUp!, the PowerServe team blog.

One of the highlights of my first SXSW was meeting Gary Vaynerchuk and thumb wrestling him at the Hilton. This was taken after his panel later that day. Gary’s an amazing guy and I am absolutely a fan of his for life.

Photo taken by Jason Beaird

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />

OR, on a per-site basis, add the HTTP header: X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7

For more information, please see: Standards by Default: What Does it Mean?

If you’d like to learn more about what they’re trying to do, please check out: http://snook.ca/adoption/