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Quote of the Week:

"nl" does not stand for the Netherlands

I am currently working on a client website's information architecture. They have a lot of info, and much of it is topics nested within broader topical areas, e.g. "About Us: People:Stakeholders."

In the good old days of using rollovers and other JavaScripted menu handlers, creating a tiered navigation structure would be fairly straightforward. But I want to keep this site lean and mean, and make it as accessible as possible. So I am trying to limit my dependence on JS, and avoiding rollovers altogether (to say nothing of tabular layout). Currently, you would just create a list within a list, using the

<ul>
 <li>Topic Here
  <li>Subtopic Here
  </li>
 </li>
</ul>

structure.


The current XHTML 2.0 working specification takes note of this list within a list usage, specifically devoted to navigation, and has a nifty little tag, specified as the "nl" tag. Referring to a Nested List, the nl tag will allow a developer to create a nested list, or, indeed, series of nested lists, that would let one have an extremely dense navigation area. One could imagine a scenario where you could create a nested list that would show you a direct path from the home page to a specific page buried five levels down in the navigation. Not for the faint of heart, but it would allow for some very compact information presentation. Worth considering.

Now only if nl was enabled now, I could develop this hierarchy easily, and head off to the pub. Alas, I guess I'll be cracking at it for a bit longer. Have one for me, will you.

posted at 7:42 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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1.24.2007

Photographer of the Day: Phillip Toledano

I ran across Mr. Toledano's site tonight, courtesy of stumbleupon, a lovely Firefox associative linking tool.

Toledano spent a decade as an art director at the higher end of the agency atmosphere, and is now back to making images. He does it full time. Which is lovely inspiration for a creative business owner who has a BFA in Photography. The collections that caught my eye tonight were his video gamers portrait series, and his work up above the arctic circle. Lovely, inventive, and playful. The portrait above is from his video game portrait work. Go and have a look.

Labels: photography

posted at 10:01 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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1.17.2007

Cause I'm the Taxman

I hate January. Not because it's bejeezus cold, or because all those new year's resolutioneers are out hogging my bike lane, but because of January 15th.

Or, more accurately this year, January 16th: Tax Day. The deadline to file your Q4 estimated tax payments to Uncle Sam. And only four days until you have to fork over a chunk to the city and state for sales tax revenue, too. Now I've been a good little business owner this year, and squirreled away (almost) enough dough for all three of these payments, but more than paying the taxes, it's the figuring out how much you owe in taxes that I really hate. I've got a good CPA, but even he tells me to hand over "about 18 percent" to the feds every quarter, to cover my back. And the sales tax forms require me to figure out if a particular print job originated in the same county as my client, and me, and so on...for a guy with somewhere north of 70 invoices to go through for the year, that's a lot of going-over. And it makes my eyes hurt.

And that's January: the month that makes your eyes hurt. enjoy!

posted at 8:52 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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1.06.2007

Sillyness.

Sillyness.
Originally uploaded by Fovea Photography.

Another little-seen snapshot of life on flickr.

Look carefully at this image. Note the tension between the woman on the left and the woman and her duaghter on the right. This, combined with the festive background, makes for an interesting photograph. The open space at the bottom allows us to propose our own interpretation, as well.

posted at 10:20 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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Fresh Start

Fresh Start
Originally uploaded by notchcode.

Time to start off with a blank inspirational slate.

This is the view above my computer monitor. Note the sliver of light coming from the small window in the upper left of the frame. Other than that slim view of the outside, I rely on what gets up on this board for visual stimulation. And each new year's day, all of it comes down.

At SCAD, we had a similar wall, the Photo Wall, which was about 14 x 14 feet in size, and almost everyone put something up there, either to be criticized, analyzed, or just for fun. It was a vital part of our creative days; to see what everyone was up to and react (either internally externally) to it.

At EBD, Ellen kept 25% of her entire office wallspace covered with stuff that she liked. The sheer scale of it was amazing. And there was a lot for the eyes to consider.

I'm not sure if either of those walls are still around. I hope they are; they made my day every time I saw them. This little wallspace, then, is my nascent Wall, in recognition of Proust's statement that the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

posted at 3:48 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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1.04.2007

Bright and Shiny

It's another spin around the sun, folks. Here are some things that will make it a more productive and enjoyable one:


OmniGraffle. This graphical diagramming tool is a real boon to anyone who needs to visualize a complex process, system, or flow of information. Say, a website, for example. And not only that, you can create wireframe prototypes (that actually work) with them, courtesy of Michael Angeles of urlgreyhot (which is one of the most inventive web development names I've come across in the last 12 months).

Lists. Yeah, baby. As sexy as ever, make some lists. Get it off your mind, onto paper, and then look at the damn things on a regular basis. The bonus: when you cross stuff off of a list, you feel good...sort of like laughing at a good joke. Or imbibing rare Tortolan rum. Or, whatever makes you feel good. If you really need help making a list, go get one of David Allen's books, or just buy a stack of index cards and a binder clip, and get going.

Personal Days. Use them or lose your soul, bit by bit. I would recommend a day spent with the phone and computer off, perhaps waiting until everyone else has left the house to get out of bed, followed by an hour or so at the coffeehouse, with another hour in a bookstore. Then lunch, a hike, and happy hour with some friends, who will undoubtedly pour your beer all over your head when you tell them what you were doing while they were working on their TPS reports.

Smile. Corny, I know. But it makes you feel good, and makes others around you feel good, too.

That's all the advice I am willing to give, in the context of starting a new year. Let me know how it works out. As for me, I am going to go take a nap. And then get back to work on those TPS reports.

Labels: 2007, advice, new year, omnigraffle, productivity, work

posted at 9:29 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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