Davin's blog

Category: User experience, web, technology

  • Nice error text from Gmail

    I like the peronality coming through what would normally be very dull error text.

  • Change in web design is emerging, again

    There is a new kid on the block, and her name is “I’ve never designed with a table in my career.” To her, our old ways often seem strange and confining, and it is within this generation that we will most likely see more departures from what design conventions have emerged in the past decade.Thinking…

  • Removing words from the Microsoft Office Custom Dictionary

    In Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, Entourage, or PowerPoint, when you do a spell check, you have the option to add a word to the custom dictionary. This is helpful, for instance, if your name is odd, like “Davin.” To stop my name from always appearing when I run a spellcheck, I just clicked the “Add”…

  • MSU Usability & Accessibility Center

    Anne Hunt (co-worker) and I just went for a tour of MSU’s Usability & Accessibility Center, which is housed in the Kellogg Center on campus. Wow, they really did it up. From the ergonomics of the furniture and room layouts to the technology used to record audio, video, and motion screen captures, it all looks…

  • [nav links above do not lay out properly in some browsers]

    I’m trying a slightly different layout with the nav links above, and they don’t lay out as I want in some browsers. They are fine in Firefox on the Mac, but not in IE or Safari on the Mac. I’m guessing there are some issues on Windows, but I don’t have the time to deal…

  • MS Manual of Style has no “open source” entry

    I was just drafting an email and wanted to know if there is a standard way of writing out “open source,” like, is it capitalized. I happen to have the “Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, Third Edition” on my desk, and I found no entry for anything resembling “open source” in it. Somehow,…

  • Diagram of XHTML, CSS, JavaScript as types of code in a web page

    I’m thinking of using this diagram in an XHTML class I may be teaching in a couple weeks. The idea is to put XHTML, CSS, and Javascript in context with each other—yet to also illustrate that they are separate types of code and often are actually different files altogether.

  • Why use CSS-based layouts?

    I was prepping for a Dreamweaver class a couple months ago and was fiddling around with the practice files that came as part of the course material. There is a whole lesson devoted to using html tables as a tool to do page layouts. This poses an issue for me. My primary job for the…

  • I’m looking for a good text editing program for Windows, for coding

    As many of you know, I’ve been a Mac user for a good many years. As such, when I feel the need to do some coding (for example: xhtml, css, php, or javascript) by hand, I would just fire up BBEdit and have at it. Let me also say, BBEdit is a ridiculously great program.…

  • ANGEL at MSU–Who tossed out the IA?

    I’m listening to the second edition of the podcast, “the digital paper chase—education, technology, and life in the academy,” in which the intrepid hosts, Steve & Troy, talk about being tech-newbies all over again. The discussion revolves somewhat around the concepts of blogging as a Web site and podcasting. Anyway, at some point Steve made…