Ultranormal

Author: Kevin Lawver

  • 5 In The Morning and Can’t Sleep? Time To Mess Up Your Blog!

    I got about two hours of sleep. It’s really hard to sleep with a foot that’s on fire.\
    You may notice a couple different things if you read the main page of the site. I’ve added a couple links, and moved some stuff around. What’s cool, is it took very little markup changes to do what I wanted. With the new three column layout, things were feeling a little cramped. So, on the main page, the stuff that used to be on the right is now at the bottom under the entries. It should clear out some room for the content and make it easier to read.\
    The best part is that the different formatting of the menu on the home page is almost entirely CSS. I had to move the markup down there on the homepage (it’s just an include), and I needed to fix a couple url-encoding bugs to get the page to validate again, but to get the pics, links and feeds to line up the way I wanted just meant some descendant selectors from #body. Mmmm, I love CSS.\
    I think it’s time for more pain pills…

  • A Fun Javascript Puzzle: Shortcut Icons

    Someone at work asked about this and I can’t find the answer. And, because my foot hurts and I can’t sleep, I figured I’d give it a shot.\
    This is my attempt, and it doesn’t work in anything but Opera 8.5 (that I’ve tested so far), as you can see. Any ideas?\
    Before you start, here’s what I found with my example:

    1. Firefox and Safari both report no errors when I try to change the shortcut icon.
    2. Firefox actually updates the DOM to point to the new image, but the browser doesn’t display it.
    3. It doesn’t work in IE, but I had someone else test it and I didn’t get any more details other than it doesn’t work.
    4. I’ve only tried one way of doing it so far, but I can’t think of anything else that would work at the moment (paaaaaain piiiiiiiills).\
      Got any ideas? Isn’t it a fun little conundrum?\
      UPDATE: I’ve got something working in Firefox! Check out attempt two. It removes the shortcut icon link and appends a new one to the head. Still doesn’t work in Safari, and I don’t have IE at the moment to test, but it’s progress. If you try it in IE, please let me know if it works.

  • I Guess It’s My Turn…

    First Sheryl Swoopes, and now George Takai come out of the closet. It must be the week for it. Ok, my turn. I was in the closet this morning, and now I’m out. I was looking for a shirt, and with the crutches and the fact that my closet is upstairs? I don’t plan on going back in the closet anytime soon.

  • Home

    We’re home, I have a big splint/bandage combination on my leg, and I’m high… high as a kite.\
    Dr. Wilson says everything went well, but I forgot to ask him if I could keep the bone. Stupid oxycontin.\
    I don’t expect to do much for the next couple weeks except watch movies, take a lot of pain pills followed by lots of naps and try not to get bored. I don’t have a lot of experience writing code while on painkillers, but I might try it…\
    Oh, and this was announced today on the microformats list if you’re into that sort of thing. It was a lot of fun coming up with it, and I can’t tell you what product we’re building that drove its creation, but it may be the coolest thing I’ve ever worked on at AOL.\
    More details when I’m less high.

  • My Headshot for SxSW

    I could take a new one, but I just don’t have time between now and surgery on Friday. I think this’ll have to do.\
    This photo came from my first trip to Dublin – although I should probably just ask Dan if I can use this one

  • Writing About Myself Is Hard

    You’d think that having a blog would have prepared me for this moment. For SxSW, I have to write a short and long bio… about me. You would think that someone who talks as much as I do would be able to come up with a paragraph describing myself. But, every time I start, I get self-conscious about writing about myself in the third person and it goes all Bob Goulet on me. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

    Kevin Lawver is a passionate lover of web standards (which his wife oddly doesn’t mind). He french kisses his CSS and makes sure all his tags are closed so the neighbors don’t gossip. Kevin (that’s me) loves writing valid semantic markup by candlelight, and desperately wishes that Barry White had written a love song about CSS3 Selectors. But, Kevin realizes that it’ll probably be country music that brings us our first song about CSS – and it will unfortunately probably be about adjacent siblings. Kevin longs for the day when all browsers hold hands in harmony and web developers, management and designers all understand and love standards and understand their benefits. Kevin would also really like a cookie.

    What do you think? Too much?

  • Completely irrational but…

    I feel responsible for Kevin’s broken ankle.

  • The End Of The Line

    I have a second opinion that’s just like the first. I’ve spent three months in either a boot or a cast, which haven’t make the pain stop.\
    I get my ankle opened up, and the pesky extra bone removed, next Friday at high noon. I would say I’m looking forward to it, but I’m really not. It means at least 3 weeks on crutches, possibly longer, and a very long recovery (“it’s worse than an ACL”, says Dr. Wilson).\
    The one small consolation is that we stuck with the conservative option until it was clear it wouldn’t work. My doctor comes highly recommended (even by the guy who gave the second opinion).\
    My other source of comfort is that my wife is awesome. She’s handled my various horrific injuries with grace, support and love. She’s just the best.

  • How To Convince Your Company To Embrace Standards

    Since we’re listed on the official panels list, I figure I can blog about it. Our panel got approved for SxSW Interactive next year!!\
    It’s called How to Convince Your Company to Embrace Standards and should be a lot of fun. We’ve had a really interesting experience the past couple years trying to push AOL to adopt and embrace web standards. I think we have a lot of interesting information to share about how to translate the technical benefits of web standards into terms that decision makers understand, and how to build a grassroots standards movement “under the radar” without getting yourself fired or pissing off too many people (or at least the wrong people). Since AOL is the size it is, a lot of the strategies I’ve seen posted on blogs and at other conferences don’t scale. Hopefully, we’ll be able to help fill the gaps.\
    We’ve lined up some really interesting folks for the panel, all with a part in the drama, and all with slightly different perspectives on the whole process:

  • Jen’s new shows

    Since Kevin did it, I will too.\
    1. Prison Break– It’s an intense drama that is making me root for both convicted felons and the innocent underdog.\
    2. Supernatural– Kind of like Charmed and Buffy, but without the preternatural abilities. Absolutely cheesy, but the boys are pretty.\
    3. Commander-in-Chief– This reminds me of what The West Wing used to be like. It is full of ideals and hope that have no place in the real White House, I am afraid.\
    4. Invasion– Thanks to Tivo, I can skip the part I don’t like (the sheriff who looks menacingly at everyone)