August 21st, 2008
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Following the update to the X-Ray extension is the new version of Professor X for Firefox. While X-Ray lets you see ‘through’ a webpage to the HTML tags inside the body, Professor X lets you see inside the head tag without viewing the sourcecode.
I’ve submitted the update to Mozilla Addons, but I’m not sure how long it will take for that to make its way through the approval process and be made available for download. For anyone who wants to get the extension from Design Meme, here’s the link:
Install Professor X version 0.5
What was interesting with this update was that Firefox 3 now prevents the a webpage from accessing any of stylesheets or icons packaged with the extension through the chrome:// url. This meant changing the approach to how Professor X worked, making all of the CSS part of the javascript file and encoding all of the icons in Base64.
It’s good to finally have both of these extensions working with Firefox 3 (I’d missed having them for my own use!).
August 19th, 2008
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A new version of Twitterbook is now available – the mashup that lets you use your Facebook status to update your Twitter account. For this update, a special thanks goes out to Ryan for his suggestions on handling long Facebook status updates when submitting them to Twitter.
Download Twitterbook v3 (4KB)
Just like the previous versions of Twitterbook, you’ll need to edit the .php file with your personal information before uploading it to your server. On the new Facebook layout, you can find the link for the RSS feed for your status updates here:
http://www.new.facebook.com/minifeed.php?filter=11
You’ll need the actual URL of your feed (found at the link above) to properly setup the twitterbook.php file, along with the URL for your Twitter Feed, your Facebook Name (eg. ‘Stuart’), as well as your Twitter username and password.
Once you’ve edited and saved the twitterbook file and posted it on a web server running PHP, just go to the URL for the script (or call it using an automated Chron task) anytime you want to update your Twitter account with your Facebook status.
Thanks again for the feedback and suggestions! Post a comment, or connect with me on Twitter: twitter.com/designmeme
August 14th, 2008
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The X-Ray extension has been updated to work with Firefox 3. Actually, it’s been updated for quite a while but it’s still waiting on someone to approve it on the addons.mozilla site.
Since so many people have been asking me when the new version is going to be posted I’ve decided to start making it available directly from Design Meme again. This will go along with a number of updates and an all around increase in the amount of content and activity you see here on the site. If you only stop by once in a while, why not subscribe to our feed so you’ll know when we’ve got more new stuff to share.
If this is your first time using X-Ray, it lets you “see through” a webpage to the HTML tags underneath. Right-click on a page and select ‘x-ray’ to view the various elements on the page, without switching back and forth between the sourcecode.
The companion extension, Professor X, is also being updated and should be ready for download in the next few days.
Install X-Ray version 0.9
April 16th, 2008
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In addition to working in web design and development, I also teach a few different web design courses. I usually refer my students to intermediate to advanced resources like A List Apart, or Think Vitamin. To help people get to the point where they’ll find those sites helpful, I’m going to start posting some short articles on more basic, but still helpful, techniques you can use if you’re just getting started.
The first of these new articles to help you learn web design is about a important and frequently requested technique: Rollover Images with Cascading Style Sheets
...continue reading
April 16th, 2008
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One of my websites has won an award. The University of Guelph website has been awarded the Gold medal from the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education (CCAE) in their annual Prix D’Excellence awards program. The CCAE competition recognizes outstanding achievements in alumni affairs, public affairs, development, student recruitment and overall institutional Advancement. Our last CCAE award for the website was back in 2001 when we won a Gold medal with the introduction of the previous design.
The site was assessed by advancement colleagues and external professional judges on the overall effectiveness of the homepage with regard to institutional identity; availability of appropriate and desirable links; ease of use; consideration of the institution’s audiences; and quality of multi-media presentations linked to the homepage. The Judges noted the overall strengths of the site included modern design, Web 2.0 principles, and a focus on useful, well-presented content. “The navigation is clear, the code is strong, and the writing is crisp and concise.”
...continue reading
April 11th, 2008
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I’ve decided that the long dark night of the previous template needed to change with the season, and I’m the process of putting a new theme on the blog, and doing a lot of much needed behind the scenes upgrades and maintenance. Things will probably take a day or two to get sorted out, and some pages may not display properly during that time. Please be patient, and everything will be sorted out soon.
Meanwhile, feel free to watch the video screencast—something I’m planning on doing more often with the revamped site.
Stuart Robertson
