@media queries added

First attempt with @media queries after being inspired at this year's Web Directions.

It's still pretty basic, but it works (mostly). You drag the width of your supported browser (Safari for example) until it's a bit less than the 960px grid used here, and the sidebar will drop down to below the content as the whole design takes on a fluid width.

Try it and see!

Migration Time

This blog formerly existed at waterfallweb.net - but it seemed a bit pointless to keep using that name when everywhere else online I'm "rockyshark".

So here's to the big migration!

You may be noticing the general ugliness of this theme. Believe it or not, it's that way on purpose.

Online mockups coming soon

Very excited/pleased to read this post from Balsamiq relating to their online mockups web app.



I've been a desktop Balsamiq user for some time now and am finding it more and more indispensable with each project. It's been replacing project specification docs to the point where I don't really have to write any other instructions. By linking pages together and viewing it in fullscreen mode, we can see how the home page, section pages, contact pages, and even modal popup windows and AJAX behaviours should work.

I can "knock together" a basic site in a few minutes - and an intranet in a few hours. In each case, the result is much clearer and easier that written briefs or specification docs. Clients can understand them just as easy as programmers and designers!

And when the client approves the mockups, we can refer back to them if there are any additional requests. "That wasn't in the mockups you approved. We can do it, but it will cost an additional $x..."

The webapp will make collaboration that much easier. Really looking forward to its release!

Microsoft should release IE6 as a single-site browser

Internet Explorer 6 is still out there. In large numbers.

Often the reason given is that the corporate sector is tied to it through intranets and other applications that rely on it.

So, why not release IE6 as a single-site browser (SSB), like Mozilla's Prism for example?

1. Corporates can run their intranets via the IE6 SSB


2. The general-use browser can then be updated to the latest version (IE8), which has to make security easier for their IT department


3. Microsoft can then officially drop support for IE6, and only need to support the SSB in its corporate environment


4. The rest of us can breathe a sigh of relief as we watch IE6 usage fall rapidly!

It seems like a simple solution to me, but perhaps it's not that simple. Otherwise Microsoft would have done it already. Yes?

Snow Leopard Exchange Support

I'm holding my breath regarding Microsoft Exchange support in Apple's new OS10.6 Snow Leopard.

You see, I dropped using my PC altogether about a week ago. Well, almost. I still have to remote into my server and use Outlook that's installed there, as we rely on Exchange for our email and calendar.

Which is a bit of a nuisance, as any links clicked in the mail open up in IE on the server inside the Remote Desktop window. And saving attachments? Sheesh.

So apparently my copy of Exchange-supporting Appleness is being shipped on Friday.

I really hope it "cuts the mustard". I'll post my thoughts here once I've installed it!

Displaying a gallery description using NextGen Gallery for Wordpress

Been battling with the excellent NextGen gallery plugin for Wordpress this afternoon.

I had created an Album, which is a container for mutiple Galleries. Simple enough. But then, once you had selected a Gallery, I wanted to display the Gallery description on the Gallery page above the thumbnails.

In the Manage gallery section you can type a description, but it didn't seem there was any way to display that on the actual website.

So if you need to, open the file gallery.php which is inside the plugins directory, nextgen-gallery/view/gallery.php

Next, above the line
<div class="ngg-galleryoverview" id="ngg-gallery-<?php echo $gallery->ID ?>">
add this:
<h2><?php echo $gallery->title; ?></h2>
<p class="gallery-desc"><?php echo nl2br($gallery->description); ?></p>

This will give you an H2 with the Gallery Title, and then the description below it.

EasyPHP 3 and mod_rewrite gotchas

Just got a new server in the office so updated to the latest EasyPHP - version 3. However, all was not smooth:

1. At first I kept getting a "permission denied" error - you'll need to search the httpd.conf file for the <Directory /> container and get rid of Deny from all. (Or at least comment it out, anyway.)


2. The mod-rewrite wouldn't work. Two steps to fix this:
   
   
   
   1. Search httpd.conf for mod_rewrite and uncomment the LoadModule line.
   
   
   2. Search for AllowOverride. There should be two instances where you need to change None to All. (Source)
   
   
   
   

Now I can get back to work!