Babble v1 148

babble-digest Monday, January 19 1998 Volume 01 : Number 148

In this issue:
Re: Quality of H5 (was: Rant On)
Re: let's talk some (photo)shop
Re: Bill Gates site (or: What matters)
Re: what direction - step back?
My Workshop
Re: Interface Design...some paths
Re: Netscape 2 - where to d/load it from?
the "duel part deux" .. cause we can ...
Re: Pre-caching HTML
Re: babble-digest V1 #147
Metallic Paint Effects
cookies via CGI
Re: Page Creation Tools
Re: let's talk some (photo)shop
Photoshop tips/tricks... where?
Re: david siegel

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 09:47:36 -0800
From: "molly w. steenson" <molly@girlwonder.com>
Subject: Re: Quality of H5 (was: Rant On)

Hi, everyone. I'm Molly, and I'm writing the High Five reviews.

At 03:06 AM 1/17/98 -0500, Brian Dame wrote:
>As a former Verso employee I can attest to how hard it is to find sites that
>deserve the award. Part of my job duty was to spend time searching for
>worthy sites and I was lucky to find one a month. Most of the time we
>compromised our standards. Movado is a perfect example. I don't know about
>you guys, but it seems to me the reviewer spent more time picking apart the
>site than praising it (and it deserved to be picked apart - horrible site).
>I'm sure this is due to the recent personnel changes at the H5. It's funny
>how reviewers think they will perceived as more knowledgeable if they
>criticize rather than praise (read any movie review).

With the Movado site, I found some things that were done right and other
things that seemed gratuitous and poorly executed. However, my goals wasn't
to make the site visitors view me as "more knowledgeable if they criticize
rather than praise." I wanted to bring design and execution issues to light
and discuss them. And yet, by choosing to cover the Movado site, I don't
feel like we chose it just so we could slam it. As I said in the review,
the animations are rich and useful (check out A History of Innovation), and
the tone and mood is creative and innovative.

>I agree that execution is sorely lacking in most H5 sites. I'm happy to see
>that bandwidth issues are being taken much more seriously nowadays, but I
>haven't seen many H5 sites that are good examples. I'll start reading the
>reviews again when they stop praising all the pretty graphics and start
>paying attention to the site as a whole. I'd much rather read about well
>thought out, usable sites than the garbage they've been reviewing lately.

Brian, you've indicated yourself that it's hard to find sites that max out
the High Five counters. But I'd love to hear your suggestions. I too would
love to review something that I can only say is terrific in every sense of
its execution, aesthetic and degree of difficulty. But since such sites
(and for that matter movies, albums, and vacation spots) are rare, I'd
rather do a good job of analyzing a site until I find one that stuns me
with its perfection.

molly

........................................
molly wright steenson
writer. editor. producer. girl wonder.
molly@girlwonder.com

pro woman. post grrl. maxi.
http://www.maximag.com/

estrogen-powered web network.
http://www.estronet.com/

"If I were on my knees, you'd have a good view of my skull. And I happen to
know you're carrying a chisel."
- --Robyn Hitchcock
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 18:05:09 +0000
From: Paul Frost <paul@hpromo.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: let's talk some (photo)shop

In message <Pine.BSF.3.96.980119080442.26106A-100000@ns.qnis.net>, Matt
Newell <matt@ns.qnis.net> writes
>
>greets all,
>
>in a nutshell, have any of you come up with a good technique for creating
>a "metallic" paint effect..?
>
>im talking like the lowrider special type paint job style of
>metallic/irridescent (sp?)
>
yeah i know what you mean (well, i think so). try this:
1. apply a chrome filter (get eyecandy: the prebundled version is
rubbish) and mess about with the settings until you get a feel you like
(i prefer fairly light wide banding, but that's just me). ok, it now
looks like chrome (or get cooler filters: i hear furbo filters have a
filter called organic edges which will do a better job: yet again,
another free plug for mr zeldman: which is what he deserves...).

2. (the bit you may not have tried). select airbrush, set it to colour
burn (using the options tab in the navigator menu) and pick the colour
of your choice. now paint the image using the airbrush to get that truly
metallic feel.

i've used it, it works so.... if anyone has other suggestions, i'd be
interested to hear 'em

best of luck my wayward peers

"don't know about you but i am un chien andalusia"
Paul Frost Web Development
www.phw.co.uk Priority Healthcare Wearside
paul@hpromo.demon.co.uk Sunderland, UK
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 12:43:15 -0600
From: Darrel Austin <daustin@isd.net>
Subject: Re: Bill Gates site (or: What matters)

Pat said:

>Her visitors don't give a crack whether or not her site has a <P> tag in
>it, or if it uses CSS. They get the info they need, easily. It accomplishes
>the client's goals. At the end of the day, isn't THAT what counts?

You are right, people don't conciously care whether something is designed
well or not...they just want the information.

Designers don not design things to "look cool". Designers design things to
facilitate the retrieval of information, make products physically useful,
etc...

As you said, her visitors don't care if the site if it looks cool, but they
DO care if it isn't designed well.

Most people have no idea what good design is...they couldn't describe what
makes something well designed. BUT they can always tell you when something
is designed better than the other. They may not conciously know why it is
better, but subconciously they will find it easier to use and more
aesthetically pleasing.

As a designer, if you feel there are improvements that can be made to her
site, then there probably are. She doesn't think it can be better because
she hasn't SEEN a better version. Most clients think at the "good enough"
level. If you produce something that is "good enough" chances are it will
stay that way for quite awhile. You need to keep showing clients "better"
as they develop as a client.

- -Darrel

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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 20:57:15 +1100
From: daniel keating <keeto@netinfo.com.au>
Subject: Re: what direction - step back?

Erik 240 wrote:

> Now there may be a lot of things I don't know, but archival ability is
> one of them. I have a wonderful piece of paper which hangs on the wall in
> my apartment -- it's a little over 600 years old. Any true archival paper
> (acid-free paper) taken care of properly will last this long. You can
> still see all the lines in thier crispness, and the text at the bottem is
> quite readable. Will we ever be able to say we have a digital storage
> method that lasts six hundred years? Maybe, but not yet I think.
>

Yes we do, it's called a CD-Rom. For a plastic CD that has been pressed,
and not burnt, your only limit is the life of the plastic which has a
half life of about five hundred years in which time there is no loss of
data (ie: if it were paper it would be as sharp as the day it was
printed and would still be white) and after this it could last for two
to three times its half life. However to increase this you could use a
gold record (after all digital information is the same as sound) similar
to what they put on the voyager space probe where more permanent
materials than plastic and silver paint are used which would essentially
last forever (entropy notwithstanding).

But I thought that my orignal point was that paper, CD, or stone the
biggest problem when you are talking about records is that the means to
decipher the information is lost. The change in language and software is
what makes records useless (or very expensive to access) not the
permanency of the materials.

I believe that I also stressed that any reliable record (such as the
bible, koran, etc) has teams of people updating and copying the
information continously. This is of course comparitively easy to do
using digital media.

daniel keating:)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 18:00:02 -0500
From: Porter Glendinning <pglendinning@cen.com>
Subject: My Workshop

I've finally gotten off my butt and put together something of a listing of
the things in my Workshop, including most of the demos I've posted to the
list, and I'm now making it available to the public. Feel free to pop in
and look around:
http://www.serve.com/apg/workshop/

I'll keep this page updated (No really, I will!) with links to any future
Babble Demos and things I'm experimenting with.

- - Porter

- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Porter Glendinning pglendinning@cen.com
WWW Developer http://www.serve.com/apg/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 15:29:13 -0800
From: Brad Westgaard <alutha@gaiaone.com>
Subject: Re: Interface Design...some paths

Andrew Zimmerman wrote:
> <elitist rant>
>
> Maybe I am being elitist here, but there has to be some level where the interface
> cannot be dumbed down anymore. Don't get me wrong I have seen beautiful interfaces
> that are just darn right confusing, but does one need to consider every single
> eventuality when doing a site navigation system?
>
> I realize the site's purpose and content will actually determine in large part how
> simple the navigation must be. A commercial site will necessitate a simple
> interface in order to accommodate the LCD. However, a personal site or a site
> dedicated to entertainment can be a bit more experimental.

As with maps in the *real world,* people will use different strategies to
figure out their path(s)/destination(s) set(s). Most designers will weight
their design towards their personal strategies. I favor the theory that 70% of
the people will be found to use a handful of strategies (3-7). Following this
train of thought, for a target site a designer might try to identify the top 1
(or 2 or 3...) navigation strategies used or preferred by its target group,
and design with that in mind. Where the need is warranted, it would make sense
to layer the navigation schemes 3 or 4 deep...separate doors to the same
virtual building, separate hallways for different folks.

In my experience, one strategy (or navigation scheme) only *fits* all, if it
is wired into a *mandatory* education scheme. (e.g., grade school or drivers education).

In the meantime, who out there is doing the oh-so-profitable research into
surf, browsing, and nav strategies? And what have they found?

Take care,
Brad Westgaard
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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 11:51:50 +1100
From: Jesse Sweeney <jsweeney@mail.usyd.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Netscape 2 - where to d/load it from?

those lovely folks over at netscape have kindly
provided navigator 3.01 and 2.02 for you to download.
unfortunatley, you can't get there from the download
site, because someone has mistyped the url. get them
straight from:

ftp://archive.netscape.com/archive/index.html

the lovely jason kottke has also posted some 'olde
tyme' browsers to his site (pre-netscape 1.0 and some
versions of mosaic) at:

http://web.0sil8.com/remixes/oldschool/index.html

HTH,

cheers, jesse

Howard Shaw wrote:
>
> I remember somebody mentioned recently a URL where you could download a copy
> of Navigator v2 but I can't find that post. Can anybody remind me?
>
> Thanks
> Howard
> Email: hjs@hetleys.co.uk
>
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*
Jesse Sweeney
ICQ UIN: 1802389
jsweeney@mail.usyd.edu.au
http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~jsweeney
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 17:48:28 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt Newell <matt@ns.qnis.net>
Subject: the "duel part deux" .. cause we can ...

(if you dont care, dont read, and dont reply)

hello all,

this is more of something of a totally off the subject of anything
possible to do with design.

but.

here goes :D

ive always wondered where on earth *directly* directly below my feet were.

for ex. if i stood in the middle of dallas texas.. what would be on the
exact other side of the world. what town, state, country, etc?

why do i care about such a thing... well. i like to amuse people with
things like this, and it would be hella cool to come up with a javascript
to pick any (or almost any) coordinates/towns/etc and find out what was on
the other side of the planet from that given place.

i dont know if this is even possible to truely do, but that is why its a
duel... ;)

ps. i am considering a position in which i would make up questions that
would have no real reason to be answered, but simply to ask them.

please find the humor in such a task if you are peeved at this post.

thanx (and good luck?) to all of you.

-- jEsTeR

www.sweetillusions.org
== ================================= === ==
jester@sweetillusions.org
== ================================= === ==
whatever is not nailed down is mine;
what i can pry loose, is not nailed down

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 17:51:00 -0800
From: Ben Curtis <quixote@wenet.net>
Subject: Re: Pre-caching HTML

> We want to speed up the browsing experience by
> pre-cacheing HTML pages so that while the user is reading the current
> page any pages that are linked from the current page are downloading to
> the browser cache in the background and can be displayed very rapidly
> when the link is clicked.

Andy-

How are you at JavaScript? I have two solutions to your dilema, both of which
make use of Netscape-certified grade A JS.

The first works along Porter's solution. Load the pre-defined HTML pages
into invisible framesets. But who wants to create (and keep track of!) two
documents for every one that is viewed? Not to mention that using a frameset
creates a second server call per document which over 9600 could be several
seconds of nice grey default background. Thus, with a slight tweaking,
Porter's preloader becomes:

http://www.wenet.net/~quixote/babble/reloader.html

The idea is to use JavaScript to carry the frameset within the document,
which then calls itself (from cache) into one of the frames. Once the
document is safely within the frameset, the real document is rendered since
the framing code fails to write, thus preventing an infinite loop. By
targetting "_top" I am assuming that each page would have this pre-cache
mechanism built-in, and so would carry it's own frameset instead of residing
within a larger one. This page is optimized for Netscape: if you are
interested in making it handle IE, lemme know offlist. IE3 can't handle it no
matter what I try.

One should note that, as web designers, many of us will have our browsers
set to check the document "Every Time" and so we won't get rid of that pesky
second server call, but the page will still be called from cache.

This code is a derivative of some stuff I recently put on a commercial site.
I bug tested it as best I could, but would love to hear input -- especially
if it breaks browsers or sends them spiralling into an endless loop.

The second method is more flexible and requires less upkeep and a
centralized code base, but would take a while to write. The goal would be to
create a root frameset with five invisible frames. In one of these
invisframes resides code that reads from the primary page's document.links
array, and then promptly sets the location.href of the other four invisiframes
to the first four non-duplicated links found. The code checks to see when
these pages have finished loading (lotsa methods for this), and then resets
the location.href to the next link, until it's out of links.

The trouble with this is that all pages are in the same frameset, and thus
hard to bookmark, navigate to, etc. Also, say the most common click was on
link five, which never quite gets a chance to preload?

I like method 1 better, if only for the bookmarking and navigation. But
hey, it's your client -- you know what'll work.

~~
__________qp_______________________________________________________

Ben Curtis "A thought
once put to words,
mailto:quixote@wenet.net loses its true essence.
http://www.wenet.net/~quixote But what else can we do?"
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 21:14:47 -0500
From: "Lori G. Alten" <lalten@pmx.com>
Subject: Re: babble-digest V1 #147

>Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 19:08:22 EET
>From: "Kimba #." <kgranlun@yrkes.syi.fi>
>Subject: Re: let's talk some (photo)shop
>
>> greets all,
>> in a nutshell, have any of you come up with a good technique for creating
>> a "metallic" paint effect..?
>> im talking like the lowrider special type paint job style of
>> metallic/irridescent (sp?)
>> it seems with all of the beveling, and the like, i havent seen anything
>> like this.
>> thanx in advance if this has already been talked about, otherwise i look
>> forward to possible ideas and methods.
>
>Hi Matt!
>
>You'll find a similar effect in the November issue of "Computer ATRS"
>, they have an ongoing 'Photoshop School', and I think this was
>mentioned in the November issue yes..
>
>( Kimba.
>..H5 Babble Design List Info: http://www.highfive.com/h5/babble.html
>..To unsubscribe, send the following one line to majordomo@highfive.com:
>.."unsubscribe (babble or babble-digest) (e-mail address)"

hi!

there's a shareware plug-in names "blade-pro" that may do what you're
looking for.
it can be found at: http://ccn.cs.dal.ca/~aa731/blade.html

good luck!

_____________________

Lori G. Alten
Producer
Paramax Productions

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:36:22 +1000
From: Caleb Fuller <email@calebfuller.com>
Subject: Metallic Paint Effects

>in a nutshell, have any of you come up with a good technique for creating
>a "metallic" paint effect..?

Try Filter-Render-Lighting Effect and experiment with different lights and
angles and colors. There is a slider which sets the material to 'metallic' -
seems to give the thing a more contrasted shading of light and dark. I made a
gray menu bar appear rather metallic in this way. Applying some noise and then
brush angles to create a bit of variation looks somewhat metallic as well, but
not the iridescent effect you're after - more 'high-tech gone to ruin' grunge
in its effect.
It can be a hard effect to achieve - I once scanned a shiny iridescent logo
and the effect disappeared completely. (I was hoping the machine would do all
the hard work for me there and show me how it could be done...)

Caleb Fuller
Analog Creations
email@calebfuller.com
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 21:51:27 -0800
From: Christopher <chris@christopher.org>
Subject: cookies via CGI

Anyone know of any decent web sites that detail how to implement cookies via CGI? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Christopher Schmitt
new media designer
http://www.christopher.org/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:25:24 +1000
From: Caleb Fuller <email@calebfuller.com>
Subject: Re: Page Creation Tools

A few queries about page creation tools lately,

The major problem with these tools (Frontpage, Visual Page, etc) is that the
browsers themselves are so bug ridden and inconsistent, that to get the same
result across different platforms involves hand editing the code anyway, and
being aware of inconsistencies and glitches in the way browsers will display
different code. Thus you have to know HTML anyway, and have a fairly indepth
knowledge. Not to say they aren't useful, but it is important to be aware of
this limit, which is not in the product itself, but the viewer.
A few old pros have recommended GoLive CyberStudio. Dreamweaver also seems
to have some support among those in the know. I have recommended Symantec
VisualPage myself to a few non-professionals who just wanted something easy to
create pages with, (only after it became obvious they weren't going to hire me
to do it) and they have all been deliriously happy. Good for doing
straightforward stuff.
Me, I use BBEdit....

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 98 20:02:53 -0800
From: Craig Hockenberry <craigh@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: let's talk some (photo)shop

>greets all,
>
>in a nutshell, have any of you come up with a good technique for creating
>a "metallic" paint effect..?
>
>im talking like the lowrider special type paint job style of
>metallic/irridescent (sp?)
>
>it seems with all of the beveling, and the like, i havent seen anything
>like this.
>
>thanx in advance if this has already been talked about, otherwise i look
>forward to possible ideas and methods.
>
> -- jEsTeR

Hey Matt,

Take a look at some of my filters .. Deke McClelland at Macworld said
that they had some of the most realistic chrome effects he'd ever seen.
I've also written some Photoshop actions that automate the chrome making.
URL is in the signature below.

Filters are Mac-only at this point .. work is proceeding on Windows
versions (you can sign up for information about the PC versions at the
web site).

Later,

- -ch

_____.f.u.r.b.o.___.f.i.l.t.e.r.s._________________________

Photoshop plug-ins for Web & Graphic Design

______________________. http://www.furbo-filters.com ._____

Read about them in Macworld .. 3.5 stars .. Feb. 98

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 22:42:21 -0800
From: "Matt" <fergusons@codenet.net>
Subject: Photoshop tips/tricks... where?

Hey I was wondering if you guys/gals have any good photshop
tips/tricks/plugins/actions/ sites that are free...

If so please tell the list or me.

A good one: http://www.photoshop.org

Thanks,
Matt Ferguson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 00:51:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Jeffrey Zeldman <jeffrey@zeldman.com>
Subject: Re: david siegel

i need to clear up a piece of misinformation. would have done it sooner but
have been having difficulties with my mail server today.

in informal emails among friends i recently attached a joke sig to my url:

"Never in high five. No way. Not that piece of crap."
-- attributed to david siegel

to be absolutely clear, mr siegel never said any such thing.

this sig was not intended for publication; it was only to be used when
corresponding with peers who would know it was meant as a jest.

(frankly i was trying to deflate my own ego, since i've often attached
"rave reviews" to my own url.)

in my haste to finish compiling a list message (for a list other than
babble), i recently used the "joke" sig by mistake. several people noticed,
and the rumblings are now making their way to babble.

naturally, some people are taking it at face value, and today someone on
the babble list was critical of david siegel for making such a remark.

again, david siegel never said this.

david siegel has done more as an advocate of design on the web than anyone
else i could name. i have great respect for him, and would never knowingly
put words in his mouth. the error is mine, and i regret it.

jeffrey

______jeffrey zeldman presents__________________________

furbo filters for graphic and web designers:
http://www.furbo-filters.com

a list apart (one daily digest for people who make websites):
http://www.zeldman.com/advanced/

_________________________ http://www.zeldman.com _______

------------------------------

End of babble-digest V1 #148
****************************

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