Babble v1 181

babble-digest Tuesday, February 3 1998 Volume 01 : Number 181

In this issue:
Re: Trademarking
Re: CSS Paragraphs
Flames/Juha
Re: drop down menu for AOL?
RE: babble-digest V1 #179
Re: not good enough
Re: not good enough
Re: GRAPHICS: good 3D apps for Mac?
Re: not good enough
Re: A "Refreshing" Post
trademarking
Re: Stability of flash + banner advertising?
Hooray! I coined a phrase!
Re: A "Refreshing" Post
Re: Link to different stylesheets

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 11:58:35 -0500
From: Porter Glendinning <pglendinning@cen.com>
Subject: Re: Trademarking

I will preface this by saying that I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant,
and if anyone else on the list has more knowledge in this area I would be
interested to hear from him/her.

A partnership with an adult is a good idea from a contractual point of
view, but this may raise more complicated income tax issues. For example,
when I claim income from my freelance Web design and programming business
it's a simple matter of balancing revenue and expenditures, since I am the
sole proprietor. However, in the case of a partnership this could,
potentially, become more complex.

As I said, I'm not too well versed in this area, and would love to hear if
anyone else out there has experience with this sort of thing.

- - Porter

At 07:21 AM 2/3/98 -0500, Max Gasner wrote:
>Porter Glendinning wrote:
[snip]
>> I can think of one large one right off the top of my head: A 14-year
>> old
>> cannot sign a legally binding contract. This is going to be a big one
>> to
>> overcome as far as the business aspect is concerned.
>
>This is technically true. A simple solution is to form a partnership
>with a guardian, something I am currently in the process of doing.
>Having once before been ripped off for $100 worth of design work (a lot
>of money at this age for all you jaded $5000 designers out there!), I
>have become wary enough that I will use legally binding contracts now
[snip]

- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Porter Glendinning pglendinning@cen.com
WWW Developer http://www.serve.com/apg/
- ---------------------------------------------------
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Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 09:06:36 -0800
From: Todd Fahrner <fahrner@pobox.com>
Subject: Re: CSS Paragraphs

Thus spake Joe Gillespie:

> The style that I want has NO indent on the first paragraph and 3 em
> indents on all others and no extra paragraph space. This seems a fairly
> basic typographic style that I, and many others, have used for many
> years. If we had a catalogue of typographic styles, surely this would be
> in the top ten. But the CSS provisions still seem to be aimed at typists
> and not typographers.

Foul! CSS2 will let you do this straightforwardly, with "sequential
selection." Meanwhile CSS1 will let you do it if you set up a class for
either the initial or successive paragraphs, and define these as exceptions
to the general rule, modulo:

p { text-indent: 3em; margin: 0 }
.initial { text-indent: 0 }

<p class="initial">I'm an initial paragraph, and not indented.</p>
<p>I'm a normal paragraph, indented 3em.</p>

or, alternatively:

p { margin: 0 }
.successive { text-indent: 3em }

<p>I'm a normal paragraph, and not indented.</p>
<p class="successive">I'm a successive paragraph, indented 3em. Neither
I nor my
brother above have any "margin".</p>

> But you bring up another interesting point. With Netscape making their
> code freely available and the great rolling snowball of OpenScape gaining
> momentum daily, are not standards going to become even more diverse?

You may well be right. I suspect, though, that the importance of standards
for HTML rendering will become all the more clear in sane peoples' minds,
and CSS is pretty hard to miss as the target. So I think, on the whole,
that there will be more and more earnest attempts to hit it, many of which
will likely continue to fail. Probably the best we can hope for is that the
best Openscape mutations will indeed be improvements, and that Netscape
will incorporate them into its mainstream releases. I'll expect plenty of
terrible "innovation" too, but that's no different than what we've got now.
There'll just be more of it!

__________________
Todd Fahrner
mailto:fahrner@pobox.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 11:19:16 -0600
From: "M. Howard" <dogbird@gte.net>
Subject: Flames/Juha

For Juha,

You know, there is always somebody who is so insecure that they have to dis somebody else to make themselves feel alright. Whoever flamed you obviously has a small mind and an even smaller spirit. Just be glad you're not him.

Personally, I think your site kicks very nicely. You have an great sense of color and space, and the design is uncluttered, not show-offish, but technically impressive. I loved the quote of the week, by the way, and what you have to say about it.

I'm glad you're on this list. Please stay.

For Flamers:

You embarrass me.

_________________________________________________________________________
"Don't worry! Without a monster or two, it's not a Quest at all-- merely a gaggle of friends wandering about."
-- Owl, Pooh's friend.

Margaret Howard
Director/Designer
Dogbird Graphics, Poetics, & Sound
http://www.nmc.siu.edu/~mhoward
_________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 09:30:00 -0000
From: PaulM@mhie.ac.uk (Paul Milne)
Subject: Re: drop down menu for AOL?

Caroline wrote to babble on Mon, 02 Feb 1998:

>I'm having trouble with a javascript drop down menu on my site
>which AOL people cannot seem to use.
>Anyone know a cross-platform & ISP drop down menu javascript,
>or can help me change the one I have?

Caroline, feel free to have a look at, and use, the drop down I use on
my pages <http://corrieneuchin.mhie.ac.uk/~Paul_Milne/>.

>From the home page, go the "On-Line Newspapers" section.

The drop down menu takes you automatically to the selection without
having to use the "go" button except on older browsers.

It also loads the selection into a new window, except for older
browsers. Obviously you could tweak this to suit your own needs.

It has code to take account of various flavors of browser, but whether
it will work for AOL???

HTH

Paul M.
- -------------------------------------------
http://corrieneuchin.mhie.ac.uk/~Paul_Milne/
"I learn by going where I have to go."
- --Theodore Roethke
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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:50:02 -0500
From: "Cram, Matt S." <CRAMM@somcfw1.somc.org>
Subject: RE: babble-digest V1 #179

Dear gentle babblers

I was recently contracted to design a website for a hospital in my town.
This is my first site and I would greatly appreciate some reviews.
www.somc.org

Thanks
Matt Cram
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Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 11:13:46 -0700
From: "John P. Mays" <dojpaul@coffey.com>
Subject: Re: not good enough

I wouldn't worry about what anybody said... most of these individuals are
self-centered anal-retentive egomaniacs.

I did review your site, and found it rather refreshingly simple! One tends
to get rather bored viewing sites that are loaded down with Javascript,
graphics, and/or Java Applets! These are nice bells & whistles, but with
most people connecting over old, outdated, analog telephone lines, it's not
feasible and/or economical to utilize these technologies.

Keep it sure and simple is my motto... and it the customer is happy...
that's all that matters... not with how much one knows about Javascript,
Java, SQL, etc. etc. etc.

Keep up the good work!

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
john p. mays dojpaul@coffey.com :
///level 2 member, site builder network\\\///member, h.w.g.
"Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has
genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now." -Goethe
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- ----------
: From: Juha Rudanko <Juha.Bona@sci.fi>
: To: Babble List <babble@highfive.com>
: Subject: not good enough
: Date: Tuesday, February 03, 1998 7:35 a.m.
:
: After asking people to review my site, I received an unencouraging
: flame. Everyone seems to think I don't belong to this list because I'm
: not a designer. I'm here to learn, but you perfect folk might not
: understand that. I'm just trying to be a better web designer, ok??!
: Maybe I'm not "advanced" enough for this list, as I'm 14 years old. At
: least I just got my first client.
:
: Juha Rudanko
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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:42:42 -0600 (CST)
From: Victor Erwin <itsvic@unix1.sncc.lsu.edu>
Subject: Re: not good enough

> After asking people to review my site, I received an unencouraging
> flame. Everyone seems to think I don't belong to this list because I'm
> not a designer. I'm here to learn, but you perfect folk might not
> understand that. I'm just trying to be a better web designer, ok??!
> Maybe I'm not "advanced" enough for this list, as I'm 14 years old. At
> least I just got my first client.
>

critique - A critical review or commentary

At least that's what my dictionary reads. Don't get discouraged. You asked
for a site critique and you got it. Usually, when people critique sites,
they're quick to volunteer what you're doing wrong, but not what you're
doing right (remember they're being critical). A safe assumption would be
everything not wrong with your site is right - or something like that.

I've not posted anything for critique, because I know my design skills are
much below par, or at least where they should be. But I'm here to learn.
If everyone's work was right on the money the first go around, then we
wouldn't need any critiques.

My advice is to stick around, visit the sites that are asked to be
critiqued, read the critiques, then go back and notice what people are
talking about, and formulate your own opinions. You don't have to agree
with anyone as long as your decisions are based rationally (no lame
excuses). Before long you'll be able to appreciate the good stuff as soon
as you see it, as well as seeing the faults in others work and your
own, and you'll be able to not make these mistakes during development.

Vic
itsvic@unix1.sncc.lsu.edu

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Feb 98 19:35:22 +0000
From: Joe Gillespie <pixelp@dial.pipex.com>
Subject: Re: GRAPHICS: good 3D apps for Mac?

I said ...

>>The rendering quality IS
>>excellent.

and Egan Jones asked...

>Is SSP good for animation? I've been playing with FormZ (work copy), but
>haven't sunk too many hours into learning it's interface. It's not the
>RenderZone version, and mostly just a modeling environment. At work we use
>it mainly for translation between different formats.

Yes, the animation is excellent. I have done major fly throughs of
buildings, flying logos, and a spoof 'Blade Runner' sequence for Canon.
Others have done - all of MYST and parts of RIVEN. FormZ is excellent
too, especially in conjunction with Electric Image.

>What formats can you input/output with SSP?

It will import most of the standard 3D formats as well as PostScript
objects. It will output PICTs, PICS and QuickTime. One great feature is
the ablity to use a QuickTime movie as a texture and to map it on to
objects just like still surface maps.

>
>>The new high end G3 Powermacs with 6 slots and the Philips 3D chip that
>>were due shortly, seem to have been 'Steved' but I was reading yesterday
>>about tests of the G4 803 chip running at 750 Mhz and out-performing the
>>current top of the line by a factor of 800%. That I *am* looking forward
>>to.
>
>Zoiks Shaggy! Me too! Could you please post the URL where you read that?

It has been bettered today by news of a 1000 MHz PPC chip from IBM
<http://www.news.com:80/News/Item/0,4,18748,00.html?owv>

Joe

W e b P a g e D e s i g n f o r D e s i g n e r s
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Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 17:32:16 +0000
From: Paul Frost <paul@hpromo.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: not good enough

In message <34D72B23.D8529490@sci.fi>, Juha Rudanko <Juha.Bona@sci.fi>
writes
>After asking people to review my site, I received an unencouraging
>flame. Everyone seems to think I don't belong to this list because I'm
>not a designer. I'm here to learn, but you perfect folk might not
>understand that. I'm just trying to be a better web designer, ok??!
>Maybe I'm not "advanced" enough for this list, as I'm 14 years old. At
>least I just got my first client.

unecouraging may be constructive. certainly, when i had a brief look at
your work yesterday evening, my initial thoughts were needs more work.
that's not to say you're a lesser person, or anything else. just that
your site could be improved. i think that goes for most of us (i've said
the same previously about the highfive for crying out loud).

i think you touch on an important subject when you mention advanced:
exactly what are the qualifications for being here? are there
effectively two discussion lists, one between the philosophy artwank
kids and the other between everyone else? if this is the case (i'm not
sure that it is actually, but hey, imagine the scenario) would that be
bad?

either way juha, the last sentence wasn't really needed.
pkf
paul@hpromo.demon.co.uk
[insert witty sig here]
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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 11:52:01 -0800
From: Phil Scimone <scimone@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: A "Refreshing" Post

Seems to me that anyone linking to an external site should use "target=_top". Since

you don't know if the site to which you're linking uses frames. Someone who does
not use "target=_top" is simply inconsiderate.

If someone links to your page which actually belongs inside a frame, I believe
someone
on this list recently posted a JavaScript solution something like:

if self==top
then load frameset page (something like that!)

or maybe it was...
if self!=top

Anyway, I haven't tried it, but maybe the person who posted it can repost.

Phil

joel_tallent@miramax.com wrote:

> Dear Mr. Babble:
>
> I maintain a site that uses frames. I recently picked up a useful piece of Java
> script. If someone tries to load my site into one of their frames, this script
> will refresh the window and load my frames doc into the new window. Cool. Now,
> here's my question: If a page is accessed directly, when it should really be
> inside of a frame (which is quite easily done in IE), is there a way to detect
> this and load the main frames doc instead?
>
> I thought about a "refresh" META tag in each page, but wouldn't that cause an
> endless loop as the pages loaded into the frame?
>
> --Joel Tallent
> http://www.quakecafe.com/jvox
>
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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 13:54:49 -0800
From: Suzanne <Suzanne@KickassDesign.com>
Subject: trademarking

The responses below might lead to some confusion about the fact that
trademark and copyright are *entirely* different concepts. A business or
product name came be trademarked, but an illustration or photo can only be
copyrighted. See www.gag.org for info on the Graphic Artists Guild
handbook, a good source for clarification on the legal issues and info on
how to apply.

Suz

>the more things that have the copyright sign on it.. the better.
>
>but if you want to be legit.. talk to the patent/trademark authorities..
>that way you have the feds on your side.. :)
>
>i knew a company that only relied on using sign, and had the whole name
>ripped away about two years later by a company that had been using the
>name for years before...
>
>if your serious about going into "business" ... get your permits and all
>that squared away and youll be set to go.

Suzanne Stephens
_________________________________________________________
Stephens Design, 541-535-4699 http://www.KickassDesign.com
CyberCircus Grand Prize Winners http://www.thecybercircus.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 10:54:41 +1030
From: rwilliams <rwilliams@webmedia.com.au>
Subject: Re: Stability of flash + banner advertising?

Hi all,

> did anyone strike problems with their browser crashing while veiwing it.

Chris Kaminski wrote

> I've had the same trouble with IE4 on NT 4 SR3 until today. You might

> want to try it again. Perhaps the author has tweaked things a bit.

> Regardless, I was *much* more impressed this time.

thanks Chris

I just tried it, no glitches at all now, gave me a good chance to play

around in the gabbo site. I must say that despite his inexperience with

marketing for the real world he is certianly a master of Flash, the site

is impressive and I'm sure there are many other flash sites worthy of

attention.

I suspect Flash has a bright future, one, we as designers should not

ignore, it may not have a commercially viable role in many

corporate/goverment sites as most of these are rapidly becoming database

driven(has anyone used flash in a database environment yet?). I'm sure

it will will find its niche, game developers, portfolio pieces, etc.

Another question (I belive it has already been dicussed to some extent -

H5/webmonkey). Management here is pushing for UGLY banner(468x60!) ads

in one of our business directory sites, does anyone have site that use
them,

has anyone done so and noticed dramatic decrease in visitor stats.
The site is being redesigned from the ground up so I can incorporate the
space required into the design. I may have the option of no banners on
the first level, just 2nd, 3rd etc.... Any suggestions/advice would be
appreciated.

Regards
Richard Williams
WebMedia Australia

I'm dying for the return of Babylon 5 to local TV.
(i know... no flames please)
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Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 19:58:07 -0600
From: Pat Flanagan <pfpd@pfpd.com>
Subject: Hooray! I coined a phrase!

Said by someone, regarding the Honda site:

>Don't get me wrong. The site wasn't a garbageheap.
^^^^^^^^^^^
:D
____________________
PFPD -- newmedia marketing consulting
a limited liability company
PO Box 281, Granger, IN 46530-0281 v:616.663.2250
<mailto:pfpd@pfpd.com> -- <http://www.pfpd.com>
competitive business advantages through creative technology
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Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 09:28:09 +0800
From: Gary Sweeting <gary@neuronet.com.my>
Subject: Re: A "Refreshing" Post

If your site is not within frames, and you want to stop others putting your
site in their frame (since if you designed for 600x640 monitors for
example, you don't want it looking messed up in reduced space) then you can
insert the following in the header

==
don't forget to call the function in the body tag e.g. <BODY
onLoad="frameTest()">

If your site should be within a frameset, and if the frame name is say
"MyFrameName" then you can change if(top!=self) to if(top!=MyFrameName) -
though determined people, targetting just your site will obviously be able
to get around this by renaming their frame (doubtful).

HTHs,

At 11:52 AM 2/3/98 -0800, Phil Scimone wrote:
>Seems to me that anyone linking to an external site should use
"target=_top". Since
>
>you don't know if the site to which you're linking uses frames. Someone
who does
>not use "target=_top" is simply inconsiderate.
>
>If someone links to your page which actually belongs inside a frame, I
believe
>someone
>on this list recently posted a JavaScript solution something like:
>
>if self==top
> then load frameset page (something like that!)
>
>or maybe it was...
>if self!=top
>
>Anyway, I haven't tried it, but maybe the person who posted it can repost.
>
>Phil

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Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 09:38:07 +0800
From: Gary Sweeting <gary@neuronet.com.my>
Subject: Re: Link to different stylesheets

At 12:19 PM 2/3/98 +0100, Mona Malmstrvm wrote:

>Hi!

>Finally this question comes up all by itself, I=B4ve been thinking about

>it for quite a while but didn=B4t take the time to find any answers,

Well at least you're honest Mona,

to determine the browser type :

<<!--

browserName =3D navigator.appName;

browserVer=3D parseInt(navigator.appVersion);

if (browserName =3D=3D "Netscape" && browserVer >=3D 4) version =3D
"n4";

else

if (browserName =3D=3D "Microsoft Internet Explorer" && browserVer >=
=3D
4) version =3D "ie4";

else

if (browserName =3D=3D "Netscape" && browserVer =3D=3D 3) version =
=3D
"n3";

else

if (browserName =3D=3D "Microsoft Internet Explorer" && browserVer =
=3D=3D
3) version =3D "ie3";

else version =3D "x";

//-->

<</SCRIPT>

</bigger>

to determine platform :

<<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=3D"JavaScript">

<<!--

var name =3D navigator.appVersion;

if (name.indexOf('Win') !=3D -1)

document.write('<<LINK REL=3DStyleSheet
HREF=3D"../../style/pc.css" TYPE=3D"text/css" TITLE=3D"Style Sheet">');

else

document.write('<<LINK REL=3DStyleSheet
HREF=3D"../../style/mac.css" TYPE=3D"text/css" TITLE=3D"Style Sheet">');

// -->

<</SCRIPT> =20

Just mix'n match to get the right css for each party.=20

>Is there a way to link to different stylesheets depending on what

>platform is being used by the visitor. Like a java-script or something

>that does it all by itself? For example I don=B4t like when the fonts

>that are 10 points on my Mac turns out to be 18 or something on PC.

>And then this <<P>-problem...

>Greatful for any answers,

>Mona

>--

>Mona Malmstr=F6m

>mailto:mona@medicallink.se

>phone:+46 (0)8 632 36 67, +46 (0)70 310 80 86

>http://home7.swipnet.se/~w-71271/blommor/

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End of babble-digest V1 #181
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