David McCreath

Google introduces a new page creation tool, Google Page Creator (not Poogle?), in beta, natch. Free, 100MB storage, templates, super simple. Quicker to start than [Blogger](http://blogger.com/) (for me). Which brings up a question? Where will this fit with Blogger? Just a different market? Will Blogger be the premium service and this the ultra-basic?

Modern Frustration

Tracking my new iBook. This happened with my last iBook one, too. They come through Anchorage from China on their way to clear customs in Tennessee or Kentucky or where every they go. Then they come back to Anchorage.

Modern Relief

Update February 22, 2006 2:10 PM AST
New iBook is here! Read more at the Flickr post .

Chameleon: an icon set from SimpleBits that changes color. Similar to the set linked below, but with a couple of significant differences:
* You buy a single set of icons with one color behind them (you can buy a set of six pre-selected colors, which would probably be more than adequate for most sites)
* There are 70 icons instead of 121 (again, probably more than adequate for most uses)
* The icons themselves are actually nicer. Not to dis Some Random Dude, because the Clearbits icons are okay, but Dan’s icon designs (all of them, not just these) are really, really swell and, I dare say, worth the money.

Sanscons is a set of 121 small icons for web sites and web applications. The background color and shape are configured through CSS. Pretty nice. I think something similar using PNG translucency would work well, too, especially if IE7 gets that stuff sorted out.

Post edited on April 25, 2010. This icon set was originally called “Clearbits” and at some point got renamed. Name and link updated.

defective yeti: Shares Of ACME Corp. Plunged In After-Hours Trading. This not funny, except that it is hilarious.

It’s taken me a while to actually do the deed, but today I handed in my letter of resignation at the [Anchorage School District](http://www.asdk12.org/). As of February 21, 2006, I’ll be under contract with [Mule Design](http://muledesign.com) as Lead Developer.
I’m really excited about the chance to work full-time with these folks. I’ve been doing small part-time jobs for them since September, and it’s gone very, very well. That part-time work has given us the opportunity to get to know each other and to figure out how we’re going to work 4,000 miles apart. Yes, that’s correct. Katie and I are staying in Anchorage. We bounced around the idea of moving down there, but ultimately Katie and I decided that we couldn’t move down there as quickly as Mule and I wanted to start working together, so the team at Mule very graciously agreed to try a long-distance contract. So far it’s working very well. It helps that we’re only one hour apart and that San Francisco is pretty easy to get to from Anchorage, but it’s still a huge gesture of faith on their part, and it’s very appreciated.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Dustin Diaz’s [getElementsByClass](http://www.dustindiaz.com/getelementsbyclass/) Javascript function is a swell piece of work. Not only will it find all the elements of a given class on a page, but you can tell it to look only in a certain node (it defaults to `document`) and only for certain tags (it defaults to `*`). Be sure to also take a look at [Top 10 custom JavaScript functions of all time](http://www.dustindiaz.com/top-ten-javascript/).

Yesterday I busted on IE’s interface, but I do believe that the IE team has their hearts in the right place, at least with regards to how we as web developers will use it. They are aiming for much tighter conformance to the W3C standards for CSS, and most notably fixing the fabled Box Model problem.
A couple of days ago, they published a [nice, concise document](http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/IETechCol/cols/dnexpie/ie7_css_compat.asp) about what we can expect from the new version in terms of rendering, and they specifically talk about what well-known hacks will not affect IE7. Which is great.
What remains to be seen is where IE7 misses the standard. (And I’m not saying that Microsoft is the only one that misses the standard. CSS development is and will remain a juggling act.)

In [Stop Stop Stop Hurting the Internet](http://rentzsch.com/suck/stopStopStopHurtingTheInternet) John Rentzsch says “My God, they’ve made _metal_ look good.” (A reference to the unloved [Brushed Metal](http://daringfireball.net/2006/01/brushed_metal) theme that Apple used for a while, and is now most prominent on Safari as other Mac apps move on.)
On top of the _looks_ of the thing, they’re dropping buttons (”Stop Loading” and “Reload”) and moving things around from the places where _all_ browsers have _always_ had them. Safari’s take on the “Stop”/”Reload” buttons is especially nice, where they’re combined. (”Reload” turns into “Stop” while a page is loading making it more of a “Loading Control” button.) What kind of thinking is that?
And wtf is going on with squeezing the tab bar between two other tool bars? Do these people not use tabs? I have no less than five tabs open at any given time, and it’s usually closer to ten.
They have such a chance to grab some cred here, and they’re getting close to squandering it before they’re out of beta. I know it must be hard to be under the microscope like this and who knows what sort of orders they’ve got from higher ups at Microsoft, but man. This just doesn’t look very good.
For reference, [here's the official MS blog post](http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/02/01/522737.aspx) that Rentzsch is talking about. There’s interesting feedback there, too, bearing in mind that most, if not all, users of a beta web browser are going to be self-selected and that IE and Microsoft are so polarizing.

While I was puzzling over a CSS problem, Nadav wondered if there might be a “crapulent” way to fix it, maybe by adding a `