Zooiblog

Smashing Bupkis

• My old-time readers (hello, how have you been, care for a drink) may recall an article I wrote about something I called Scrolling Drop Shadows. The only real complaint I got was that it didn’t work in IE (”duh”), but after a whopping 28 months, even IE can be fed with the sexy shadows. Kudos to Stefan for tackling it using just (slightly treif) CSS.
• For those of you who haven’t yet, go read Isaac Asimov’s The Last Question. It deals with entropy and AI and the limits of the philosophy behind all of that. Surprise ending as well; an obligatory read.
• Several things are brooding, and among the several are my birthday (Thursday, everybody; don’t send cake if you live more than a day away!) and something with music (hm, where to look for music, things with music, musical tastes; I wonder). I might release an EP of it, if my friends like it enough. (Whack me in the head if I fail to keep you updated.)
• As always, I made some slight modifications to the stylesheets that keep this site together. I think it would be cool if we could democratise this process a little, though. So hereby I state: if you have any suggestions that could improve this site—readability, usability, layout, anything—do tell me. The comment field is fine (I have no ego issues), but the more discreet among you may contact me personally. It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone.¹

1. Though maybe it is time for, I dunno, Zooiblog Readers Anonymous. Those’ll be lonely meetings. ←

Posted on 2007-03-11 at tea time!

Home with the girls in the morning

This weblog is as eventful as a tanning bed salon during a heatwave, but that won’t stop me from updating it every once in a while! I’ll start off with pointing at super hero artist illustrator Ray Frenden. He started the webcomic with probably the best name on the block: Voorhees a Jolly Good Fellow. I like it a lot!

I tweaked this site a little, too. I added a voting box to the bottom of the page. If you happen to like this photo of my cousin and his lovely daughter enough for it to be published, please vote for it. There will be a voting link at the bottom of this site every time I consider that necessary. I also updated my hCard to actually look somewhat good. Visit my about-page for that.

Lastly, some work I did should be launching this week. I’ve been playing with the cool kids of iusethis and there’s a pretty cool application coming up (and here it is!) that will complement the site perfectly. I designed the icon and am finishing the DMG design. For those of you who actually read my blog, here’s a preview of the icon.

Posted on 2006-11-26 while enjoying evening coffee.

Weblog design sense in three steps

I’m gonna walk through some blog design tips to show that we can turn it into a product that makes sense, without me doing any design work at all. I’m lazy like that. We’ll start off by getting some data together.

It’s an easy trick to consider your weblog a product. If you think “man, I do this for myself,” then ask yourself what you would like to use of the weblog. If you do it with at least an audience in mind, think of what they want to see. Rather, what do you want to show, why do you want to show that, and what should they see first? Write down what you want to show. Having a physical list helps, because writing things down takes a little more of your focus and it could help you consider things better.

Continue reading this post.

Posted on 2006-05-05 during breakfast.