Paul (Uncle)MiqMaq

where to start??hmmmm .. version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> - .. generator="wordpress/2.0.6" --> - .. ..If..Else Log.. ..>http://ifelse.co.uk..> ..Hand crafted geekery.. ..Sun, 14 Jan 2007 18:54:46 +0000.. ..http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.6.. ..en.. - .. ..CSSEdit 2 review.. ..>http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/11/19/cssedit-2-review/..> ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/11/19/cssedit-2-review/#comments.. ..Sun, 19 Nov 2006 15:40:14 +0000.. ..Phu.. ..General.. ..Design.. ..Web.. ..Reviews.. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/11/19/cssedit-2-review/.. - .. - ..[CDATA[ My review of the new version of MacRabbit's CSSEdit, a OSX CSS editor that makes life easy for web developers. ]]> .. - .. - ..[CDATA[

One of the characteristics of serious developers is the importance that they attach to their tools and working environment. When you're spending a significant amount of time each day developing, it's natural that you'll want that experience to be as comfortable as possible..1...

It's for this reason that it isn't surprising that we build up a large amount of brand loyalty to our favoured tools..2... The knowledge capital investment that goes into using these tools means that we're significantly more productive using them than without. To be more scientific, things just "feel right" when using our preferred tools..3...

That said, being serious about our jobs, we're willing to explore and take a look at what else is out there and occasionally we uncover gems that allow us to put down our own polished treasures. One such gem is MacRabbit's CSS Edit, a new version of which was released earlier this month.

Enter CSS Edit

The idea of a "CSS editor" is a strange one; surely, a general text editor ala Textmate or Editplus would be enough. But to apply such blanket dismissals would be to say that a hammer is the only tool that you'll need. Far from being a limiting or marketing feature, by focusing on a specific application, CSSEdit turns into a must-have tool in a developer's toolkit.

Live previews

1. Edit
2. Save
3. Upload
4. Refresh
5. Rinse
6. Repeat

This particular workflow is all too familiar to web developers. Automatic FTP uploads (cf. Transmit) or working on local files can help mitigate the process by getting rid of task 3, but a fair amount of a developers day does seem to be taken up by mechanical processing.

Hence, CSSEdit's live preview is a wonderful boon. If you've used the live-editing feature of Chris Pederick's excellent web developer FF extension, you'll have some idea of the usefulness of the feature.

Make a small change to the colour of hyperlinks in your css file..4..; this is instantly reflected in the preview window. The preview window uses Webkit as it's underlying rendering engine so you're seeing how the page will look in Safari.

Even better is that you can use your css file as an override for any file/url. This is easy to overlook so I'll say it again. You can override or edit the css for any page without making changes to that given page's markup.

Want to edit your WP theme's css but don't want to make a local/temp copy? All you have to do is click the "Add URL" and "Style Sheets" buttons. You can even pull down a copy of the active CSS stylesheets for that url into your workspace and start working off that. You can see how your CSS looks across all your pages (home page, comments page, blog posts, etc) without writing out markup for each of those pages.

Note that this isn't WYSIWYG but WYSIWYW. You're still in control as you're editing your css file by hand but some of the unnecessary roadblocks are removed.

X-Ray

Even if you use semantic classnames, and logical markup, there are times where you want to check how a particular element is marked up. Instead of viewing the source, you can just click on the X-Ray button and then click on the element that you want to inspect.

Once again, this isn't groundbreakingly new (for example, the FF users with the Firebug extension will be used to this feature as will Xylescope users) but it's refreshing to see it built in. It's yet another testament to the benefit of a focused app.

Rules pane

By focusing purely on editing CSS, CSSEdit is able to add organisational enhancement aimed at making life easier. One simple but important example of one is the styles pane. This provides a convenient grouped index of your CSS rules.

Rather handily, the items representing each of these rules visually represent what the rules look like (e.g. colour, background, type) making it easy to look for and access a particular definition. In addition, you can use the search-box as a filter to make looking for that elusive class that much easier.

Milestones

Every developer will know the benefit of versioning. The ability to "rollback" to a given stable version is an important life-saver to anyone working with code. CSSEdit introduces milestones, which you can use to represent saved states.

It's rather like Photoshop's snapshot system by giving you piece of mind unobtrusively and without difficulty. Now you can proceed to experiment without fear of breaking or losing that working version..5...

Closing off

Rather than go through all the features, I've just given a tour through some of the ones which I think are particularly handy. There's also your usual editor features such as code formatting and intellisense but what I like about the app is that it does one job, namely edit css, but does it extremely well. It's not perfect and there are some things that I miss (code folding is one) or have no need for (for example, the properties pane and css validation features are all but unused) but all in all, I love it.

The greatest praise that I have for it is that whilst I'd still use Textmate as my general purpose editor, CSS Edit is now my editor of choice when it comes to CSS. Now if only it would let me choose a dark background colour for the code pane…

On an aside

With the advent of "sponsored posts" that are cropping up all over the blogosphere, I will just point out that this post has no affiliation or connection with MacRabbit, CSSEdit or any other party. These are just the words of a happy customer; the fact that it seems so positive is because I like it. No hidden agenda here.

It's annoying and disappointing that I even have to consider writing such an anti-disclaimer; the most damaging aspect of these so-called paid reviews is that they add noise and doubt so as to harm legitimate reviews.

1. This, of course, isn't unique to developing but is common to any activity or job that you do frequently. Someone commuting daily or playing sports professionally has different demands from those who only do so sporadically or as part of their hobby. Comfort, reliability, familiarity are all concerns which you may be willing to sacrifice when you're only semi-serious but not when it's crucial to your working life. [back]
2. Which also helps to explain why "versus" threads/posts (cf. vi vs emacs, Mac vs PC, FF vs Safari etc…) are always cauldrons for fiery discussions. [back]
3. Flamebait notwithstanding, this is probably one of the significant factors behind the large fanbase that vi and emacs still command. [back]
4. By working of your css file and not a 'temporary css session' as found in the web developer extension, you remove the hackiness nature/temptation. [back]
5. This isn't an excuse however to not use a real source control system to manage your code. I personally recommend Subversion but anything that isn't the abomination that is MS Visual SourceSafe will do. [back]

]]> .. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/11/19/cssedit-2-review/feed/.. .. - .. ..Irregularity.. ..>http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/11/06/irregularity/..> ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/11/06/irregularity/#comments.. ..Mon, 06 Nov 2006 00:38:02 +0000.. ..Phu.. ..Personal.. ..blogging.. ..writing.. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/11/06/irregularity/.. - .. - ..[CDATA[ If you were to take a random sample of successful blogs, you will find that, irrespective of their subject matter, country of origin or background, they are all likely to share a number of common characteristics. Good writing is easy enough to identify but having a predictable and consistent posting regime can be just as important. ]]> .. - .. - ..[CDATA[

If you were to take a random sample of successful blogs, you will find that, irrespective of their subject matter, country of origin or background, they are all likely to share a number of common characteristics. Good writing is easy enough to identify; whether it's biting analysis, insightful discussion or just sheer wit, content is very much king. Other characteristics that would probably lay on this list would be the blogger themselves, whether it's their personalities, depth of knowledge or background as would the topics that are being discussed.

Yet, whilst the writing and the writer are by far the most significant factors, what is often overlooked is that the regularity of the posts themselves is of substantial import. Whilst quantity rarely makes up for quality, all the blogs that I read have a(n approximate) consistent posting pattern..1... Without trying to sound too tautological, a predictable routine results in regular reads; expectation is a useful tool in hooking readers. Imagine the impact of a missed publication of a daily newspaper or the Olympic games being delayed by a 6 months or so. Or to continue to stretch the realms of believability, what if you couldn't rely on their regularity? Suffice to say, their popularity would suffer somewhat.

So if a regular posting pattern is so important, how do I explain my utter failure at adhering to my own advice?

Procrastination defined

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I enjoy blogging. I enjoy writing and enjoy having a platform to talk from. And yet, my last few main posts are about or have accompanied site redesigns rather than being more interesting fare.

The problem is that when it comes to blogging, the decision involves more than deciding what to write (about). As with all things in life..2.., there's a cost as you have to weigh up what the benefits of writing that blog entry are against what you're giving up to do so. The time it takes to write that post on "Why Google bought YouTube" is time that could have been spent on development, watching a movie, spending time with family and friends or rather amusingly, reading someone else' blog post.

It's partly for this reason why I find "services" such as PayPerPost so unconvincing. Why would you want to give up your valuable time, not to mention your credibility, for a meagre 10 dollars?

Getting back on track

What makes procrastination so tempting is the way I write posts. I probably spend far longer on blog posts than many; I admire people who write off-the-cuff as it were but my style is more deliberate. The other factor is that I write as much for myself as for anyone else. That this blog is read by others is a nice side effect but, strictly speaking, not the main driver. The problem is that often, I would start writing a post on a topic, gathering up information and evidence for and against a given point, writing the introduction, bits of the middle and the end and then, having been satisfied with the process, leave it there. Definite room for improvement there.

Heading forward

One possible solution may be to tie your hands. Making a public commitment, that is removing options or at least removing some of the incentives, can make decisions easier. So here's mine; I'm going to write at least on a bimonthly basis. I'll try to aim to better that but at the least, there'll be a post every two weeks.

Let's see how this plays out…

1. Note that I used the word consistency. Different blogs succeed with widely different posting patterns. Some like 37SvN and Kottke manage to deliver on a daily basis whilst others have a less vigorous routine. What's important is a predictable pattern and not the specifics of the pattern itself, though there would be a strong correlation between post frequency and readership. [back]
2. As Netscape found out, simply being on the internet doesn't make you magically exempt. [back]

]]> .. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/11/06/irregularity/feed/.. .. - .. ..A pink redesign.. ..>http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/10/01/a-pink-redesign/..> ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/10/01/a-pink-redesign/#comments.. ..Sun, 01 Oct 2006 23:27:07 +0000.. ..Phu.. ..Wordpress.. ..Design.. ..Site.. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/10/01/a-pink-redesign/.. - .. - ..[CDATA[ This month, I'm going Pink for October. Welcome to the 8th iteration of If..Else codenamed 'Dianthus'. ]]> .. - .. - ..[CDATA[

I've been meaning to find some time to work on this site and so when when Pink for October was announced, it sounded like an ideal opportunity. An excuse to redesign the site (not that I've ever really needed one) as well as spread the word about a good cause. Sign me up! However, as it always seems to be the case, time just trickles away and so when Matthew reminded me that October was only a weekend away, I found myself in a bit of a mess having not even started any of the development ..1...

To make matters worse, on that very weekend, I'd been co-opted to helping out with some house-moving..2... And so it was that I barely managed to squeeze in the launch of my redesign in time for the start of October..3... Welcome to the 8th iteration of If..Else codenamed 'Dianthus'.

Spreading the word

It'll be remiss of me not to talk about what precipitated this redesign. This year, over a million people will be diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Despite initiatives such as screening programmes, Breast Cancer is still the most common form of Cancer affecting women. For the last two decades, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month has helped in building wider public awareness and so, it's my pleasure to be able to subvert this site for a good cause, even if it's only in a small way. In addition, I'll be donating all my adsense revenue + 100% for this month to Cancer Research UK.

Words on this redesign

Due to the beforementioned time constraints, this site redesign is far from what I would consider finished. Even ignoring the many design features that I had to drop to get this finished in time for the October launch, I haven't been able to give this a rigorous test to make sure that the design holds up across not just the various browser configurations..4.. but also across the various pages and site options. In particular, I have little more than a vague hope that the existing content holds up without too much damage and I'm disappointed that work on the archive and search pages had to be dropped due to a sheer lack of time. Apologies for any borkages.

The big point to note about this redesign is how far I've had to stretch the definition in order to class this as a pink redesign. My initial sketches and prototypes used pink in a far stronger manner. In fact, one of the designs that I was all but ready to go with was full-on-pink. The problem was balance.

I personally don't consider myself to be a great designer and that showed in trying to develop a design that fit in with the Pink theme whilst not detracting from the content. My main problem was that, whilst each of my initial designs looked good as a one-off feature, the design always seemed to overwhelm the content which it was intended to support. With more time, I would have probably have been able to bring it under control but in a bid to get things done, I took the easy way out and applied dashings of pink to a more stable design. It's no accident that this iteration bears a lot of similarity to it's predecessor; realign is once again the word of the month.

I'm not sure how successful this design is yet. I guess it's still a bit fresh for me to make an objective decision. However, despite the rush job, I'm reasonably pleased with how it turned out. Whether I'll keep this look post-October, or whether I revert back or even redesign again is still an open question but for now I'm happy I managed to go live with it. And with that done, I'm off to bed.

1. Though fortunately, I had sketched out what I'd planned to do beforehand and worked on a couple of the major assets such as the header. [back]
2. Which was not helped by the fact that I also ended spending a good 8 hours on the road. What is it with rain and traffic? [back]
3. Actually, I missed it by about half an hour but I'm ruling it in via use of a technicality as this site is hosted in the US:) [back]
4. I did give it a quick test across IE6, FF1.5, Safari, and Opera 9 [back]

]]> .. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/10/01/a-pink-redesign/feed/.. .. - .. ..Many colours of a reboot.. ..>http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/05/02/many-colours-of-a-reboot/..> ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/05/02/many-colours-of-a-reboot/#comments.. ..Tue, 02 May 2006 17:54:43 +0000.. ..Phu.. ..General.. ..Web.. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/05/02/many-colours-of-a-reboot/.. - .. - ..[CDATA[ And so another CSS reboot comes to an end. This time around, there have been some real treats in store for design fans but with the sheer number of rebooters this year, you might have missed a few. So here are a selection of my favourite reboots of Spring 2006. ]]> .. - .. - ..[CDATA[

And so another CSS reboot comes to an end. This time around, there have been some real treats in store for design fans but with the sheer number of rebooters this year, you might have missed a few. So here are a selection of my favourite reboots of Spring 2006.

Red

Earth and fire, red is an under-utilised colour amongst web designers. So it's a pleasure to see that those who did choose red were also amongst my favourite entries.

Rob Goodlatte bats off with a wonderfully warm and worn entry; the palatte chosen work well with the style of the site. Kyle's firey entry roars with it's bold background and colour scheme. And Prabhath embraces a more earthy design; natural and personal, Prabhath was also one of the few to have gone with a fluid layout.

Other notable entries: codesign

Green

From one colour of nature to another, though green does appear to be more popular amongst developers. That said, this shouldn't be such as surprise; whilst red is bursting with emotion and boldness, green is altogether more calm and relaxed which, perhaps, makes it more appealing to designers.

Fortyeightdesigns is one such lovely entry; the balanced colour scheme work well with the classic textures and the slightly curvy layout works a treat. Snook has gone in the other direction with his use of green; more edgy than earthy, it has a matrixy, old-school programmers feel to it. And like that programmer favourite, vi, it's crammed with little secret commands that might escape you on your first encounter. Freshbranding makes the most of it's name with a design that has a fresh, clean feel. It's, perhaps, a common studio design but one that's been pulled off well.

Other notable entries: Zooiblog, BusinessLogs, FortyMedia, ThannyLe

Dark

As much as designers like to consider themselves creative and different, it's always funny to see common trends. Light text on dark backgrounds has always been one of those cyclical themes that pop in and out of existance and it appears it's now time for it to reappear. However, dark colours do look good and are relatively easy to pull off so which is why it's had a good turnout this year.

It's probably no surprise to see Bryan's entry feature well. His last design was immensely popular and having done this 21 times before, he's a bit of a veteren to this redesign game. It's also nice to see that he hasn't forgotten the food banners. Alex Graul's entry at m.ossy also caught my eye. A Lovely use of columns and contrast, it's an impressively minimalist design pulled off with class. David Longworth has stopped blogging but he hasn't stopped designing; the reboot for Orange Tape Studios was another one of those simple designs that has been executed well. Background, colour scheme, type and layout have all contributed to a strong design.

Other notable entries: Totalspore, BrokenKode, EchoFaith, Niggle

Light

And from the shadows, we step into light. White has always been an extremely popular choice; whilst grey on black does look cool, it can become a bit of a strain on the eye when you're reading for long periods and thus, it's good to see sites embracing a more content friendly design. Natalie's clearly gone for such with the readable type and generous content area; whilst she's perhaps gone a bit overboard on the homepage, the internal pages are lovely to read. In redesigning his blog, Jeff has clearly gone back to the grid. Both internally and on the main page, Jeff has masterly utilised columns so as to present information with clarity and cohesiveness and nary a hint of confusion. DesignSnack's redesign is reshuffling and tidying of the previous look and feel. It's now less of a gallery and more of a Digg for designs; however, whilst its exterior is aesthetically pleasing, it's lacking from a design and functional viewpoint. I'm not convinced it's a successful reboot but sadly, I'm also a sucker for visual sweetness something which this design is coated with.

Other notable entries: Jorge Quinteros, Yoram Blumenberg, Derek Punsalan, Matt Brett, Intellicode, Twisted Intellect, WebJillion.

]]> .. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/05/02/many-colours-of-a-reboot/feed/.. .. - .. ..(CSS) Rebooted.. ..>http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/04/23/css-rebooted/..> ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/04/23/css-rebooted/#comments.. ..Sun, 23 Apr 2006 00:10:29 +0000.. ..Phu.. ..General.. ..Wordpress.. ..Design.. ..Site.. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/04/23/css-rebooted/.. - .. - ..[CDATA[ Having supported the last CSS reboot, I thought that it was time for me to join in and reboot this site as well. So, with not long to go, I decided to put on my designer boots, knuckle down, and work on the next iteration of ifelse.co.uk. ]]> .. - .. - ..[CDATA[

Having supported the last CSS reboot, I thought that it was time for me to join in and reboot this site as well. So, with not long to go, I decided to put on my designer boots, knuckle down, and work on the next iteration of ifelse.co.uk. Despite interruptions such as dealing with a kitchen renovation and FA cup football, I finished ahead of schedule. As such, instead of teasing you all with reboot previews, ..1.. I've decided just to go live with the whole gig.

Redesigned? Realigned? Rebooted.

Each of the last couple of redesigns for this site have brought major overhauls to the look and feel; not only did each of the design bring about structural changes (for example, moving from a 3/2 column switch design to what is now known as a fat bottom design) but they also brought in overhauls with the colour scheme and imagery.

And, to a certain extent, so does this iteration. Gone is the fat bottom and in comes a new flexible multi-column design. If you were a fan of columns and you own a wide monitor, then rejoice.

However, regular readers will notice little inklings of familiarity. Whilst the header has undergone change along with the colour scheme ..2.., it's change as evolution; I hesitate to use the words brand or identity but there's enough touches to help make this feel like the If..Else that you've remember.

The new look hasn't totally annexed the old; it's more a case of the old design gently ushuring in a new successor.

Horses for courses

The more astute of you will have noticed a few developments with regards to columns. Firstly, if anyone is reading this post directly, take some time to go to the front page. Then head back to this post. For those of you using a resolution of 1280×1024, try resizing to 1024×768. Those of you with 1024×768, try dropping down to 800×600. Don't forget to scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Don't worry, I'll wait till you're ready.

Landing portal

OK, let's discuss the front page. This is the first place that many people will visit.

One of the things that I tried to do with the last couple of designs was to make the front page a real landing page. The home page shouldn't just be a chronological listing of your posts. It's also the place where visitors will arrive at for the first time. Let's try and hone the experience so that both the reader and ourselves benefit.

Let's highlight the lead/latest post so that we can draw attention to the important content. Let's segregate out our little asides, shorts and snippets so as to note dilute our main content. Give the readers a focused set of exit points to other content or parts of the site. By all means provide information but provide it in a way so as to not overwhelm the user.

Different layout for different situations

It's time to embrace wider screensizes. According to the everyone's favourite fresh smelling oracle, the lowest resolution on which this site is being viewed at is 800×600 by 4% of my readers..3...

I don't want to provide an inferior experience to anyone, but by not taking advantage of improvements in screen real estate, that's what I'm doing. And so, with some help from our man in blue, this site is now sporting a resolution dependent layout. However, resolution dependent layout sounds so technical and sterile; I call it a tailored layout, a design that accomodates you. Besides, if Simon Collison gets away with it, who am I to argue?

There are 3 layout types; one for people with 1280×1024+, one for people on 1024×768 and one for those on 800×600..4..

Quick search

Searching was neglected in the previous design; in fact, I didn't even show the search bar anywhere else apart from the front page. That said, I do find myself searching back for old posts (mainly my shorts which serve as my personal del.icio.us) and seeing as you can't develop a website without a mention of everyone's favourite kitchen cleaner, I decided to spend a bit of time plonking down a fancier search bar.

Different layout for different situations part deux

I've talked about two layout scenarios so far. There's the front page and as well as the resolution dependent layout. What we can look at next is the internal page layouts i.e. for a given blog post. Quick question: if you're viewing a blog post, what are looking for? The answer is content. So if that's what the reader is after, let's make it comfortable for them to read.

The general layout and colour scheme already gives the content an advantage but by increasing both the content area and the type size, it feels just that much more nicer for lack of a better word. Besides, this gives me an opportunity to use larger images which is always good, right?

Your thoughts

If you've made it this far, you must either have superhuman willpower or a severe bout of insomnia. Well now it's your turn. Any feedback..5..? Besides, this is a good opportunity for the lurkers amongst you to come out of hiding and post a comment:)

1. Yes Bryan, I'm looking at you:) [back]
2. The last theme was dubbed Black Gold and though neither are dominant colours any more (in particular, the infamous gold colour has mellowed out and black has taken a back row seat to the other colours), they're still around albeit if only in more of a background role. [back]
3. Personally, I've standardised on 1280×1024 but in the last month, there were over 3 times as many readers that ran their machines with even larger resolutions than those that were still on 800×600. [back]
4. There's even a pseudo-big-footer of sorts. [back]
5. That said, can I ask kindly that browser-specific issues/bugs are emailed to me rather than being added as a comment? Cheers. [back]

]]> .. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/04/23/css-rebooted/feed/.. .. - .. ..A theme a day.. ..>http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/02/21/a-theme-a-day/..> ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/02/21/a-theme-a-day/#comments.. ..Tue, 21 Feb 2006 00:55:10 +0000.. ..Phu.. ..Wordpress.. ..Design.. ..Interesting.. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/02/21/a-theme-a-day/.. - .. - ..[CDATA[ One of the things that I like best about Wordpress is the fantastic theme system which make developing and deploying site designs a doddle. I'm going to take advantage of that ease of use by embarking on an experiment I'm going to call 'a theme a day' week. Every day this week, I'm going to design and give away a WP theme ready for you to use on your blog. ]]> .. - .. - ..[CDATA[

One of the things that I like best about Wordpress is the fantastic theme system which make developing and deploying site designs a doddle. I'm going to take advantage of that ease of use by embarking on an experiment I'm going to call 'a theme a day' week. Every day this week, I'm going to design and give away a WP theme ready for you to use on your blog.

Well enough talk, let's roll.

Day 1

The first offering is this week long project is a nice gentle affair. Simpla is a clean yet aesthetically pleasing theme that will allow you to showcase your words without distractions. Feel free to take a look at it on the demo site. If you fancy giving it a try, proceed to the theme page and download away:)

If you want to comment on this theme, head on over to this post. If you want to leave general comments about 'a theme a day' week, head over here:)

Enjoy!

Day 2

There are a number of gorgeous looking themes available but sometimes what you really want is something that looks smart. Enter todays theme which I've entitled Emire. Emire is a theme which is just as comfortable in a commercial setting as it is on a personal site. Calm and aesthetically pleasing, Emire exudes an air of professionalism. Feel free to take a look at it on the demo site.

If you want to comment on this theme or read more information on the work behind today's release, head on over to this post.

Day 3

I'll confess to having a soft spot for single column designs; I like the clarity of purpose they provide and how no-nonsense they are; when you go to a blog with a single column design, your first point of attention are the posts. One of the first WP themes that I worked on was single column and it's good to be able to develop another one. Give a warm welcome to Ambiru.

For me, Ambiru gives off an air of calm tranquility. The lovely header image..1.. brings a nice piece of balance to the design.

If you want to comment on this theme or read more information on the work behind today's release, head on over to this post or take a look at the demo site.

Day 4

And it's another day in 'a theme a day' week which means, of course, another theme. Today's selection is Treba. Once again, it's all about the words and Treba's clean design let's you concentrate on the content; after all content is king.

Take a look at the demo site and see what you think or head on over to the blog post to find out more and post a comment.

Day 5

The week draws to the end and the weekend beckons allowing us to temporarily forget about the stress and tribulations of work and concentrate on R&R. With the cold weather outside, one way to relax is to curl up in bed or by a fire and immerse yourself into a good book.

Today's offering for 'a theme a day' week, entitled Jentri, is reminiscent of such; for me, it gives off an air of comforting sophistication and provides the ideal canvas for words; the perfect setting for thoughts and insights to reside.

Take a look at the demo site and if you find that it's the one for you, head over to the theme page and download it for yourself. You can read more about this theme or leave comments at the related blog entry.

Final Day

After a break in our scheduled programming, it is time to reveal the final theme in the 'a theme a day' week feature. Today's theme is Bosa, a theme that is big and bold but which also carries an air of calm tranquility.

Take a look at the demo site and if you find that it's the one for you, head over to the theme page and download it for yourself. You can read more about this theme or leave comments at the related blog entry.

What's next?

So the next thoughts on everyone's mind is what's next? Well, I'm planning to do a writeup on this week's feature where I'll be talking about the design process, lessons learnt and other (hopefully) interesting points.

In preparation for that, I was wondering if I could ask a favour of anyone who has been tuning in; could you answer a couple of questions for me (don't worry, they're easy)? Just head on over to this post. Thanks:)

Thank you

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's left a kind comment, words of encouragements or linked to this site. This week long feature is really hard work..2.., and though it's one that I quite happily enjoy doing, but knowing that the work is appreciated makes things so much easier.

Additional information

Experiment?

This is an experiment because I have a day job. This means that I have a limited amount of time each day to design, develop..3.., test..4.. and release a brand spanking new theme. How limited? Well, realistically, I have about an hour in the morning before I go to work and about 3 hours..5.. to get something ready for release.

So, it'll be interesting to see what I can do under constraints.

Why are you doing this?

Partly because I like to give back to the WP community. Partly because I've been a bit lax with 'real' posts recently. Partly because going public gives me a big incentive to get off my backside and not procrastinate. But mainly because I like doing this and I like a challenge:)

1. Which I had a bit of help with. With the tight time constraints, I decided to ask my brother Mike if he'd could spare a bit of his time to help me develop a header image whilst I worked on the rest of the design. Much appreciated especially with the tight time constraints which he had to play with. [back]
2. The smart thing to have done was to spent some time planning and doing some preparatory work before embarking on this crazy venture. Perhaps waiting till I had a free week would have been more sensible. But what is life without a bit of spontaneity and carefree rashness? [back]
3. Limited time means no AJAX, fancy scripting or admin panel customisations. What you will get though is a robust, well crafted theme for your blog. [back]
4. Yep, I'll try to test across all the major browsers in play. [back]
5. Maybe more, maybe less. I generally get home by about 7pm. Since I'm not going to be working on this at work, that doesn't give me a lot of time to play with. [back]

]]> .. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/02/21/a-theme-a-day/feed/.. .. - .. ..A brief history of names.. ..>http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/01/15/a-brief-history-of-names/..> ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/01/15/a-brief-history-of-names/#comments.. ..Sat, 14 Jan 2006 23:37:11 +0000.. ..Phu.. ..General.. ..Interesting.. ..Personal.. ..Social.. ..http://ifelse.co.uk/archives/2006/01/15/a-brief-history-of-names/.. - .. - ..[CDATA[ Some thoughts on names; where they come from, how are they constructed across the world and some words about my own. ]]> .. - .. - ..[CDATA[

I wrote a short post earlier today regarding names and I thought that this would be an interesting topic to delve into and talk about.

A rose by any other name

"Names are easy to understand, right? Forename, Surname; what's so difficult about that? OK, so sometimes, there's a middle name in there but that's about it, right?"

The fun starts when you consider that there are a variety of cultural naming conventions. Lets start with the basic western naming construct.

Personal Name, Family Name

The dominance of English as the dominant form of communication has also indirectly meant that the above construct is familiar to most. However, looking beyond the anglicised form, it's easy to see various divergances. Firstly, in China and other eastern countries, the order would generally be family name, given name..1.. i.e. Ly Phu Cuong, Wong Fei Hong.

Even the two phased construct isn't a given as the Arabic system follows a more sophisticated naming in which an individual would be addressed as a chain of names..2... An example of such would be Osama bin Laden; an expanded form of his name would be Usamah bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Ladin. This would allow you to trace back an individuals family history; the bin (also spelt as ibn) means 'son of'. Hence you can, for example, work out that he's the son of Muhammad Awad bin Ladin. A similar construct is also used countries in Irish speaking countries e.g. John Michael Patrick Reilly; John son of Michael son of Patrick Reilly.

Family Name

"So, maybe I was a bit hasty there but at least I can't go wrong with saying that everyone has a Family Name, right?"

Well, step back a couple of years and you'd be wrong. Until 2004, most people in Mongolia were identified strictly on a firstname basis. This lead to a lot of confusion and severely pushed back many forms of census analysis. Upon attaining power, the communist goverment had abolished the use and record of family name, fearing that tribal loyalty would provide a power challenge.

The results of the 2004 election swung the seat of power away from the communist party and one of the more progressive legislations was to reinstigate the use of Family Names...3..

Moving westwards, Russian surnames generally differ depending on the individual's gender; compare Boris Yeltsin with his wife, Naina Yeltsina. The use of grammatical gender is repeated across many other Eastern Slavic countries, though often each with their own regional variations; for example, whilst Russian names generally end with the masculine ov or the feminine ova, the suffix enko is generally restricted to Ukraine.

In Iceland, the last name is usually a patrynomic. I'll talk a bit more about what patronymic are in the next section.

The etymology of family names.

Before we move on, lets have a look at the etymology of family names. With English names, the derivation of the name can be broadly sorted into five categories:

• Occupation (Baker, Smith),
• Descriptive (Brown, Young),
• Location/Geographic feature (Hill, Rivers),
• Aspiring trait/expression (Hope, Goodspeed)
• and Ancestry.

Ancestry is an interesting one; generally, this would take the form of a Patronymic. A patronymic is component based on the name of one's father; for example, thtere is Richardson (son of Richard), and Wilson (son of William). Patronym are a popular cultural construct and arise all over the world. In Netherlands, you'd have Pietersen; in Iceland, you'd have Karlsson. There are patronymic such as di Marco (son of Mark) in Italy, and the Hiberno-Norman prefix fitz manifests itself in FitzGerald and Fitzroy..4... Mac, the common surname prefix is also a patro..