Matthew Aebersold

As much as it surprises me to say, I’m becoming happier with the current version of Internet Explorer. One of the tougher aspects of web development is making sure the site you’re building works well on as many browsers as possible. This can be difficult, and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is notorious for being the one browser that gives developers problems.

They know that over in Redmond, and they’ve taken some pretty smart steps to make things easier for developers. In Internet Explorer 8, it’s incredible easy to switch rendering engines, so you can view the site you’re developing in IE8 or IE7 as simply as clicking a button. This takes the headache out of installing multiple copies of IE on your machine or using a screenshot generating service to try and see how the site is being displayed.

As far as I’m aware of, this option doesn’t include IE6 rendering. This isn’t as much of an issue today, because an increasing majority of users are surfing on IE7 and IE8. This is great news, and it’s now becoming more justifiable to stop supporting IE6 altogether.

The bad news is that we’re not quite there yet. There is still a fraction of the populous that clings to IE6, and they should be able to at least access the site. The solution that I’m most excited about now is the idea about making the site basically functional in IE6, and leaving the polish and embellishments to the more current browsers.

I feel like Microsoft is rapidly catching up to the rest of the pack, and there is definitely some good things happening with the current iteration of IE. Although they haven’t eliminated the headaches that come with cross-bowser development, they packed their current browser with some serious medication.

There are so many arguments happening now about this technology and that development language. The battle for supremacy has led to some fairly bad blood between some amazing companies. Listening to the recent debates between Adobe and Apple about flash on the iPad and iPhone has got me thinking. It seems like no matter what, there will be a problem and a battle until we as designers and developers get our heads in the right place.

This is because the debate is centered around technologies and programming languages. This strife is very prevalent in all areas of the web design industry. Should you use Flash or Javascript for that slideshow? Should we connect to this MySQL database, or this SQL server over here? .NET or PHP? There are some very opinionated groups, which is too bad because all of these technologies are amazing in their own right.

At the core of every project is an idea, and that is by far the most important thing to consider. Once the creative idea has been set, realizing that idea can happen any number of unique and innovative ways.
When figuring out how to produce the project, it’s all about what technology is best suited for the design. How much interactivity will it have? Of course you’re not going to utilize Flash for a site that is just plain, static text, and you’re not going to link up to a database when your site consists of two pages.

After these things have been sorted out, then pick the technology that you are most comfortable and efficient with. For example, I work really well in Flash and Actionscript. I am very comfortable with the language, and it comes naturally to me. That doesn’t mean that Flash should be used for everything, but in at the end of the day it’s all about the idea being produced, —not what technology was used to make it. If you need a slideshow, it can be written in Javascript, Flash, or hell even Lingo, as long as you end up with a killer slideshow.

It’s also not about the newest technology, ; it’s it’s about the best technology. My old college instructor is a professional type designer for a 1st-class graphic design agency. She stands by Freehand as the best tool out there for type and letterform design. It’s not a new program by any measure, but it works for her, and she produces some incredible work.

So we need to relax about the technology debates, and focus on making kick- ass designs, and have fun doing it.

A little-known fact about Safari is that is comes packaged with some pretty robust developer tools. It’s a very detailed set of analytical tools that look at page load times, database information, style sheets, scripts, etc. And of course, it comes with the slick apple polish. My favorite feature is the new resources bar graph. This shows what percentage your assets are taking up in terms of the bandwidth of your total site. For example, here’s the graph of PNDC.org, a site I just finished developing.

Here’s some steps to get the Developer tools set up on your machine.

Get Safari 4

Go to Apple’s Safari page and grab the latest version. As of the time I’m writing this, it’s version 4.0.5 but anything 4 or later will work just fine. On a side note, you can grab Safari for either the Mac or PC.

Activate Developer Tools

In the Safari preferences panel, click on the Advanced tab, and then click the button to “Show Develop menu in menu bar.”

After that, there will be a “Develop” menu item in the main menu bar. From there you will have access to all the developers features. The main party is in the “Web Inspector” Activate that and the lower half of the browser will turn into the analytical tools. You can detach this if you like to make it a floating window, which in my opinion is much easier to work with if your constantly having to analyze sites. Click this button to undock the panel:

That’s all you need to get started. Hope you enjoy this little-known feature set within Safari.

The New PNDC.org

In 1996, Gary Hull designed the first iteration of the PNDC website. That site was an essential tool for the club for over a decade, which served all of the needs for the club with ease. The site was simple, flexible, and lightweight.

In 2007, the site was minimally redesigned. This upgrade consisted of new photos and a different layout. It was clear to me that the entire structure of the site needed to be rethought from the ground up. Today so much activity happens online, and the site needs to cater to the ever-increasing demands of a more technically-savvy audience.

My primary objective for the site was to showcase the club’s rich heritage. Various members have gathered the most amazing photo archive that dates from the club’s inception in 1983 to today. This unique visual representation of the club is unparalleled, and my intention was to make this artifact the centerpiece of the new website.

Everything from parades, parties, tech sessions, to the infamous Blarney Ball Rallies were stuffed away in shoe boxes and photo albums. The most exciting part of this whole process was taking them out, dusting them off, and scanning all of the photos. The result is a gallery that spans two decades, which you can view here.

In addition, another main objective was to link the site to other social networks. This will help unify the PNDC brand and allow for easier and more compact communication. The site is now linked up to Twitter, Facebook, and DMC-Talk accounts.

The PNDC site is now poised to be the leading club site in the DeLorean community. There are many additions & ideas planned for future updates. The foundation has been laid for a dynamic, fun, and social site that club members and enthusiasts alike can enjoy.

Found this awesome video today. Incredible use of motion graphics, compositing, and video game themes!

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. – Watch original web videos.

I’m hoping that by writing this post, you will save yourself at least 13 headaches. It’s taken me a couple days to figure out all the quirks in getting @font-face to render correctly in all the major browsers. I’ve tested this code, with positive results, in the following browsers:

• Safari 4.0.5 (Mac)
• Firefox 3.6.2 (Mac)
• Firefox 3.6 (PC)
• Internet Explorer 8 (PC)

FIRST, you need a TrueType font

If you want this to work in Internet Explorer, this is a necessary first step. I’ve read online that you need a .ttf file to convert to a .eot file to make this work. I tried doing this conversion (.otf -> .ttf -> .eot) which failed. Apparently, you need to start out with a TrueType font, and then convert that to the Microsoft-specific Embeddable Open Type file (.eot)

Convert that .ttf file to a .eot file

If you can believe it, you have to make sure the conversion is done correctly. I’ve only had luck with a couple sites:

• ONLINE FONT CONVERTER
• TTF 2 EOT

Use this CSS

/* FONT-FACE */
@font-face {
  font-family: "customFont";
  src: url( fonts/GreyscaleBasicRegular.eot ); /* IE Specific */
  src: local("customFont"), url( fonts/GreyscaleBasicRegular.ttf ) format("truetype"); /* Everything BUT Internet Explorer */
}  

/* Here's the code to change the font for any element you wish */
.customFace {
font-family:"customFont", verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;
font-weight: normal;
font-size: 50px;
}

That should work, and then you can give any element the class .customFace, which will then render the custom face.

See an Example

Download the Code

After so many years of promises, development, and delays, here’s a video-test-drive of an actual pre-production Volt in Manhattan. Thanks FastCompany!

Test Driving the Chevy Volt

VIrgin Galactic offers up their first commercial spaceship, the ‘VSS Enterprise’. Looks like it’s going to cost $200,000 for a 2 hour space flight. Seems interesting, and I have to say, if I had an extra $200 grand, I would do this in a second!

Here’s a link to a more in-depth article on the subject:

The sky’s the limit for Virgin

Below is an infographic that shows the details on this awesome thing (click on the image for a high-res version).

Each quarter, the graduates from the Art Institute of Seattle show their portfolio work at a big open house at the school. This year, the event was held at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle. It was a fantastic show, and I received a lot of wonderful support from great friends and family.

Thanks to all who came by, and thank you for all the support and for helping to make this event a success! Below are some photos from the event, taken by my wonderful friend, Angela Mulberg. I will post more photos from my family when I get them.

**UPDATE**

Got some photos from my family, here they are.

MSN articles on the top 80′s dream cars featured… you guessed it… The DeLorean.

The Top Used 80′s Dream Cars