Tag: CSS Naked Day

Categories
Design Standards Thoughts

Lots’u-pdates~a

OK. So, I’m craving for pizza.[1] Well, it’s actually Yellow Cab I’m looking for if you’re really interested in sending me some. LOL

Anyhow, I’ve managed to update my WordPress installation from 2.2.2 to 2.5 yesterday evening, fixed a little about the tag cloud in my templates that will now use the system native to WordPress, fixed some tags whose display contained spaces and/or hyphens, and updated some plugins I am using.

I was actually watching the CSS Naked Day website around that time along with the UST Online Grades page. Unfortunately, they both weren’t updated even if I try to reload them pages once in about every 5 to 10 minutes. 😛 So, I just slept.

I really thought there would be no CSS Naked Day this year. Made me sad, really. Dustin’s blog was updated March 9 when I last checked it before today. However, a good morning dawned upon me when I woke up. Someone commented on my plugin page asking me to update it, telling me Dustin moved the CSS Naked Day to the 9th. So, there, I updated it already!

I have just one problem though. My site coughs up HTTP header errors whenever I try to respond to comments on my blog entries. The comments get posted still, but the errors are still annoying. Is there anyone else out there producing similar errors after updating to WordPress 2.5? Tell me please, and maybe how to eliminate it as well. Thank you!

Update: Apparently it was the Extended Live Archives plugin I was using that causes the error. I have just tested it using my own comment below. It seems that the problem was already existent even months ago with the 2.3 release because of the database changes, but I already admitted I haven’t been fully aware of blogging news lately. The plugin remains disabled, so you might notice a little barer homepage than before. There seems to be a fix, though I guess I have to do it a little later as I am already tired after a full half day of tweaking with my installation.

Footnote:

  1. ^ I’m always craving actually. OMG! I have to go on a diet. LOL
Categories
Design Markup Thoughts WWW

Those Little Interconnected Things

Ok. Now I’ve had my six days of fame.[1] Better get back to the regular blogging programming and routine. 😛 But, let me ask you first: How does a Web event, an impending increase in domain name prices, browser incompatibilities, and advertising limitations result to me having to think of making a new WordPress theme for my site?

During the time before the 2nd CSS Naked Day, I decided to make a plugin for WordPress that would strip every piece of stylesheet information from a Web page. It was somehow successful given that I was only receiving 50–100 unique visitors a day prior to the creation of that plugin, which in turn made my statistics plugin jump to receiving 200–300 unique visitors a day. In addition to the plugin, Dustin‘s pun resulted to a lot more SERP referrals. More visitors equal higher rankings; my Alexa rank turned from above 3 Million to just above 700 thousand in 10 days.

Since Text Link Ads consider Alexa as one basis for accepting ad publishers, I thought it would be better for me. And with the impending increase in .com domain name prices, I’m starting to think I really need the money. But, still, I haven’t had ad placements since I’ve reinstalled TLA on my theme,[2] so I think it would be better to go back to [or at least serve it at the same time with] Google AdSense which I have used even before TLA. I was just frustrated that AdSense won’t serve XML-compatible scripts or at least a <noscript> fallback for those who don’t want to or cannot display scripts of document.write nature.

Since it’s equally hard to modify a theme to contain ad spaces than to make one from scratch, I thought it was better to move to a Version 4 for the site. And because WordPress have deprecated some functions since 2.1, and WordPress 2.2 is just around the corner, I think I’m better off making a new one.

I then thought of the need to create a theme served only with Content-Type: text/html, since Windows Internet Explorer 7 also has no intention of accepting true XHTML. But, I’m having doubts of doing so since I’ve been a fan of XML rules[3] imposed on HTML since the time I’ve learned them. I’ve also read articles on how to use AdSense with true XHTML pages.[4] So, I would most probably stick to my current content negotiation scheme.

I’ve actually started making a template with a Web 2.0-ish theme a week ago based on some tutorials I found on the Web. Although, upon showing it to Shari, she told me it was a bit too bright. So, I guess it would have to be redesigned since I don’t want my handful of regular readers straining their eyes, and to be looking at [or rather getting distracted by] the design more than they do at the content of my articles.

So, I guess you just have to wait for the next version of this site. I am finally going to a pool to swim tomorrow, so don’t expect it to be that soon. *excited* 😛

Footnotes:

  1. ^ April 1–6 recorded ~2500 hits from human visitors only—more than half of what each previous month’s worth of page views even without Bad Behavior blocking robots.
  2. ^ Maybe because of the irrelevant keywords? IDK. I just hope not.
  3. ^ Must be well-formed, lowercase, etc. Therefore, cleaner and more readable.
  4. ^ One from Keystone Websites, and another from CSSplay thanks to Sir Regnard.
Categories
Humor Social Issues Thoughts WWW

Now Showing: Naked <body>

As you may notice, this site has been stripped off of its stylesheets. Don’t worry, nothing is broken—and it will last only until the end of the 5th of April 2007 in the whole world.[1] I’m just participating in this year’s CSS Naked Day like what I did last year. Cheers to Dustin Diaz—More than 1200 sites are currently signed up! I never actually thought it’d pass the 763 sites signed up last year as it was only 500+ or so when I last checked the list before my site got naked.

Now, onto the topic …

I’m somehow surprised to have been getting a lot more visitors this April compared to any other month since this site has started tracking hits. The first and obvious reason is that my CSS Naked Day WordPress plugin has been featured on the Official event page—that I’m not surprised about. The second, more surprising reason? Keywords. Dustin sure has a knack for naming something—in his case, the event he founded—as he’s also famous for the Topless Cameron Diaz photo. 😛

SERPs referring to this site indicate more searches with the keywords naked and some about stripping getting to my site lately. No wonder Shari‘s been getting thousands of unique visitors a month![2] All she talks about is sex, and even more of it—oh, and sex toys [she dubs them acsexsories], as well—even if the blog awards[3] was the topic.

Another thing more surprising is that, according to Pinoy Money Talk, Filipinos are more interested in sex than money.[4] Now I really think poverty and overpopulation are not because of lack of good governance—but that would be better for another entry.

Oh—just so you guys know—I will never, and I mean never, be turning this blog to be about sex just as Shari did to hers. 😆

Footnotes:

  1. ^ 6 April 2007, 00:00 GMT-12 or 20:00 PhT
  2. ^ As disclosed in her recent article.
  3. ^ Or anything else unrelated.
  4. ^ As reported by Google Trends.
Categories
Design Rants Standards

I’m Getting Naked

It’s already summertime and most people are stripping down to their trunks and bikinis to get wet with friends or their families on the beach or on a pool. Me? I’m here stuck inside my room stripping … and this is not an April Fool’s joke … stripping my website buck naked off of its stylesheets. *tee-hee* Well, anyway, I’ve done this before and I’m doing it again. Last year was good, and I hope this time is better. Dustin Diaz is finally proving the annual in Annual CSS Naked Day.[1]

To anyone who isn’t familiar, CSS Naked Day was made to promote standards. During the 1990s, HTML has grown to become a more presentational language than what it was really meant to be. With browser implementations varying from each other,[2] and the bulk of maintenance work that HTML has become to present aesthetics, proposals were made to have a presentational language that later became what is now CSS. CSS has already replaced every presentational bit of HTML 3.2 and has even added more, and with the advent of better support to the standard since late last year, it is really worth advocating for better and wider Web designer adoption.

The reason for stripping CSS off for a day has been acknowledged by the creator of CSS himself, Håkon Wium Lie—saving HTML from becoming a presentational language. I’ve seen many sites that produce good aesthetics, but the perceived quality just stops there. As I turn off the styles on my browser,[3] the layout remains the same, but now with garbled images and incomprehensible text. And they say they’re standardistas.[4]

I hope everyone who have read this participates in the upcoming second year of the celebration of semantic markup. It’s very nice to see that two, Shari and Mr. J, out of currently four links from the official page that are talking about the event are of Filipino blogs. If you think your site doesn’t qualify to having semantic markup, you still have four days to this year’s deadline. Registration is now open [and automated] at the Official CSS Naked Day site.

Oh, and for those WordPress users that are too lazy to edit themes, I’ve made a plugin that strips every piece of stylesheet in your pages without a single tweak on your templates—configurable to follow the recommended 48-hour period or just your local 24-hour April 5.

Footnotes:

  1. ^ I really do not know why they call the first time, annual, already.
  2. ^ As a result of the first browser war.
  3. ^ The way everyone, humans and bots alike, are to understand the page.
  4. ^ I would have told them privately that all but one of the sites in their gallery wasn’t compliant, but it seems that their feedback link isn’t operational. So, just consider this as feedback. Oh, I do hope the site submissions be screened better as it would be a good starting point for showcasing great Pinoy designs.
Categories
Design Markup School

The long wait is finally over

I anxiously went to UST early this morning for our clearance report. It wasn’t easy especially that I was expecting a failing grade in Phys 205 as I have told in my earlier entries. Fortunately, though my head is aching [with fear, anxiety and because of the heat of the sun], I arrived there early because of vacation-induced lightness of traffic. 😛

The fifth year students and the ESC were the ones who distributed the clearance reports. But classrooms were still closed even when hundreds of students are waiting outside in the corridors. Fortunately, we were first in line when they actually came to start the distribution.

My clearance report Then the moment finally came. Like both of the paragraphs before this, this paragraph’s last sentence would start with “fortunately”. Fortunately, I passed all of my subjects!

Well … Let’s go to a side-story after being blissful for ten minutes when I’ve received my clearance report. The fifth year distributor of the reports owned a Pilot ball-point pen but she lost it due to some students feeling it was theirs—or at least because someone forgot they were still holding it. 😛 Being the happiest person in the room, I gave her my Panda pen, which is much cheaper than a Pilot, telling her that she should be using those [Panda and the likes] kinds because those events really happen especially when students could be extremely happy or extremely sad that they forgot what they’re holding. 😆

Now, leaving the room, I bumped into and talked to Kuya Bert—the ESC President. He asked me why I didn’t go to the last meeting of the committee applicants. Well, I just told him the truth that I haven’t received a memo from one of the officers. After he asked that, I expected that I was not the one they picked, but I, being the inquisitive being that I am, asked him if I was chosen. Well this is really a post of “fortunately’s”. Fortunately, he said I was.

I went to the Main Building with my classmates to get to see my grades. There were so many people lined up, and again, fortunately, the line wasn’t to long when we lined up—it was doubled when we finally got our turn for the computer.

It wasn’t good but I still am happy. I got home and computed for my weighted average. It is, fortunately :lol:, higher than the one I’ve had last semester though I haven’t got a 3.0 then and I have 2 of it now.

Happy? Not really … I’ve got no money for summer! LOLx

CSS Naked Day

Btw, you may ask what is this CSS Naked Day. It is a celebration of semantic and purely structural markup that signifies the separation of style from content—the separation of presentational markup [e.g., <b>, <i>, <u>] from XHTML to make way for CSS as the presentational element in a web page. It showcases a bunch of web sites [including my web site] that participates in showing a page that is clear and not confusing even without stylesheets included. Please go to Dustin Diaz’s original entry for comments about the CSS Naked Day.