Last week I got a new computer (IBM ThinkPad T60p), which means I retired my old ThinkPad T41. Today is the first time that I've tried to logon to my Chase online account to pay my credit card bill, which is due today. I've never had a problem logging on, but today the Chase online banking site has recognized that my computer fingerprint has changed. The hair-pulling experience I'm in the middle of right now has reminded me that it's a fine line we as software developers walk between creating tough-to-crack security while continuing to make sure our software is user friendly. [More]
Jan 11, 2008 • by Jason Sherrill
Your home page is the most valuable real estate on your website, but also the hardest page to choose content for and layout. A good home page will drive visitors into your site, while a poor home page will drive visitors away. But how can you tell exactly how visitors are using your home page? [More]
Dec 1, 2007 • by Jason Sherrill
Now that you've weened yourself off of using tags to set the font attributes on your web site, it's time to refine your style sheet even further. It may be easier to just use the point (pt) or pixel (px) size, especially when converting a Photoshop mockup, but if you use percent (%) for your font-size, you'll greatly improve accessibility. [More]
Nov 26, 2007 • by Donovan Myers
No matter how creatively you plan your web site design, the underlying structure of (X)HTML is grid based. Even if you aren't laying out your site using tables (you aren't right? good) you can think of multiple DIVs, headings, paragraphs, and images as a piece of your grid. So, if you're creating your web site mockups in Photoshop, dragging out some grid lines should be the first move you make.
First, create a new document for your web site mockup. If I'm doing 800 x 600 resolution, I like to use 760 x 480. If I get to use 1024 x 768 resolution, I create my mockup at 960 x 480. Once you have your new document created and ready to work on, make sure that you have your rulers turned on by going to View -> Rulers or pressing Command + R (or Control + R on a PC). Now, if the numbers on your ruler don't match up to the size of the document you created, your ruler units are not set to pixel... [More]
Oct 22, 2007 • by Donovan Myers
Do you have a long form on your web site that might be intimidating to users? After all, you only require about half of the fields on your form? Now you can use XHTML and JavaScript to allow your users to hide the optional fields and only fill out what is required of them. Heck, you could even hide the optional fields by default.
To begin, we'll need a properly formatted XHTML form example:
<form id="form" method="post" action="" >
<fieldset>
<legend>Personal information</legend>
<div class="required">
<label for="first">First name:</label>
<input name="first" id="first" type="text" />
</div>
<div class="optional">
<label for="mid">Middle name:</label>
<input id="mid" name="mid" type="text" />
</div>
<div class="required">
<label for="last"&... [More]
Sep 27, 2007 • by Donovan Myers
