Three things I’ve never mentioned before
This entry was posted on October 30, 2007
Personal blogs are just that: personal. I have a personal blog, yet it’s not often I sit down and describe myself in detail. Let’s do that now! Here are three things about me I’ve never mentioned before in my blog.
1. I’m extremely musical.
I play the clarinet primarily (even passed my ABRSM Grade 8 with Merit) and the alto saxophone second. I’m probably better at the saxophone than I’d have everyone believe, but given the choice between the two, I’d pick the clarinet every time. For me, the saxophone is a lot less “refined” than the clarinet and I like precision. I’m currently teaching myself to play bass and I can string along a tune on the piano. On occasion I’ve been known to play the base clarinet, the tenor saxophone, recorder, guitar, and even a duck call and cuckoo! I regularly play in a saxophone septet and a woodwind group, members of which may or may not be reading this. *waves*
2. I’m an MSA-registered Kart Timekeeper.
This probably won’t mean much if you’re not interested in motorsport, so let’s break it down into an example you might recognise. When you watch motorsport on television you’ll often see graphics pop up on screen telling you who’s in which position, how long their laps are, how many laps are in the race, and how many laps are left, and so forth. In Karting, that’s my job! I work the computer that gathers all of that information. I also help out and write down people’s positions by hand, which is a lot harder than it looks!
3. I have a motorcycle license.
Yes, that’s right. I can legally ride a motorcycle on the roads in the UK without the need of L plates. That automatically makes me cooler than all the 17-year-old boys that ride past on their 50cc hairdryers trying to impress me. Oh if only they knew. I currently don’t own a motorcyle, but that doesn’t mean I can’t ride one. And because it’s been two years since I got my license (time flies!) I’m not restricted to the engine size / power anymore. However, I’m only little and not very strong, so I highly doubt I’ll be getting my dream bike anytime soon.
So there we have it: three things you probably didn’t know about me but now do! Feel free to borrow this idea for your own blog and share with your readers three things they didn’t know about you.
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My 3 laws of blogging
This entry was posted on October 29, 2007
1. Encourage discussion.
I try and talk to my visitors, rather than at my visitors. I think this helps encourage discussion, which is one of my favourite things about the Internet. I always try and write entries that you’ll probably have an opinion on and might want to discuss. I love hearing from people, and I try to encourage this with my blog entries.
2. Be interesting.
No one cares that I got up at half eight this morning, skipped the shower because I was in a rush and almost ran over a pheasant on my way into the office. It’s pointless drivel and no one needs or wants to hear about it. People would much rather read about topics they can relate to, such as how to make websites (especially for free!). I know I’m not the most interesting person in the world, but equally I don’t think I’m entirely dull either.
3. Never mention anything you wouldn’t want your Mother to know.
My Mother knows how to use google, and calmbanana.co.uk is top of the list when you search for my name. This means there’s a high chance my Mother could find and read my blog! If she read something on here, she’d no doubt mention it to me, and I’m not old enough to die of embarrassment / shame! That’s why I never mention anything in my blog that I would have a problem discussing with my Mother.
What are your blogging laws? Do you talk about topics that you’d never mention to your Mother?
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Top tips for organising your stylesheet
This entry was posted on October 28, 2007
If you take a look at my stylesheet, you will see that it is a complete mess! Aisling may like to be taken on an adventure when she’s looking through her stylesheet, but I do not! I like to be able to scroll through and find exactly what I’m looking for. I want to be able to see with a glance the padding that makes my layout mess up in Internet Explorer, or the typo that means my layout fails in Firefox.
Group your CSS rules
Grouping is good! So, have all your header rules in one place, all your link rules in another place, all your table rules together. Keep like things together, and unlike things apart.
Comment your stylesheet
/* Comments in stylesheets are enclosed with a forward slash and an asterisk. You can use comments to provide headers for each section of your stylesheet, as well as to leave notes on what each part is for, so that you (or anyone else working on your stylesheet) will know what each part does. */
Shorten your declarations
body { margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-right:0px; margin-left:0px;} can be shortened to body {margin:0;} - much less text, don’t you agree? Anything that has a value of 0 can have the units removed. 0 is 0 whichever way you look at it. 0px = 0em = 0% = 0. Properties such as margin, padding, border, and font (amongst others) can all be shortened to one declaration rather than four.
Name your classes and id’s logically
CSS is used to control the aesthetics of your website, and id’s and classes should be semantic - ie, they should make sense away from your stylesheet. What happens if you later decide to change your layout? Some of your classes won’t make sense. Let’s say, for example, you currently have an id of “pink” for your header div. This could make perfect sense for your current layout because you want your header to be pink. But let’s say for your next layout you want your header to be blue. Where’s the logic in having #pink { background:blue; } in your stylesheet?
What are your top tips for organising your stylesheet? Are you a fan of shortened declarations, or do you prefer to write everything long-hand? Do you leave yourself comments, or do you automatically know which part does which job?
