25 replies to this topic

[Nick Springer]

Also, sometimes I will click on a thread link and be prompted to open the .php in Dreamweaver. Of course I click 'cancel' and then click the link again and viola, sweet nuggets of carto-knowlege lay before me. Is this a bug or your end, or is it my system? Anyone else ever get this? <BTW, this was happening before the upgrade as well.>

Patrick

I've experienced the same thing, but haven't notice any obvious patterns.

We have all seen it from time-to-time. It's a server issue, and comes and goes, not sure of the cause.

[Nick Springer]

I was taught that serif leads to slower reading and greater comprehension, and that sans facilitates skimming. So, I find the choice of serif a bit counter intuitive for a message board. In this train of though I would expect the title to be serif and the body sans, but it's just the opposite here.

I find those old saws about serif vs. sans serif to be generalizations, and depends greatly on the typeface, application, and personal preference. Georgia, the serif face chosen here, has a larger x-height and old-style-figures as designed by Matthew Carter expressly for screen display and at relatively small sizes. I personally find it very legible, and less straining than the vertical repetition of Arial or Verdana.

From a design standpoint, I also don't like the sans serif web typeface choices of Arial or Verdana, they just aren't as pleasing to me as Georgia. Trebuchet is OK in small doses, but is a bit informal, and Helvetica renders inconsistently between browsers and platforms, and is not universal.

Of course this is my opinion, and those of you who prefer sans serif have that choice.

[p-dub]

I was taught that serif leads to slower reading and greater comprehension, and that sans facilitates skimming. So, I find the choice of serif a bit counter intuitive for a message board. In this train of though I would expect the title to be serif and the body sans, but it's just the opposite here.

I find those old saws about serif vs. sans serif to be generalizations, and depends greatly on the typeface, application, and personal preference. Georgia, the serif face chosen here, has a larger x-height and old-style-figures as designed by Matthew Carter expressly for screen display and at relatively small sizes. I personally find it very legible, and less straining than the vertical repetition of Arial or Verdana.

As from a design standpoint, I also don't like the sans serif web typeface choices of Arial or Verdana, they just aren't as pleasing to me as Georgia. Trebuchet is OK in small doses, but is a bit informal, and Helvetica renders inconsistently between browsers and platforms, and is not universal.

Of course this is my opinion, and those of you who prefer sans serif have that choice.

Fair enough! For my out of date script, the sans-serif works well. 8) Is it Arial?

The note on typeface makes a lot of sense. If I hadn't been able to spew back that platitude about serif vs sans a few semesters ago, I wouldn't have done as well in the class. I guess that is why I appreciate this resource; Cartoltalk is a place to get opinions, advice and critique from professionals. And as we all know the real world is never black and white, as it is in a blue-book.

As for having a choice: priceless! Hold the pickles hold the lettuce...

[Derek Tonn]

Excellent work, Nick! Love the new look. I couldn't resist looking "under the hood" at a few of the new images...and decided tonight to blog about it a bit and give CartoTalk a bit more visibility: http://www.graphicso....com/blog/?p=60

I'm such a computer geek! I LOVE optimizing imagery and making stuff load faster and work better though...so if you need/want to shave a few bytes here and there off the site, just let me know...

[frax]

Derek, if you would skip every 5th word in your posts, it would lead to a reduction of bytes in your posts around 20%!


(not to ridicule your efforts, I just couldn't resist a little joke...)

[Nick Springer]

I have decided to save all the graphics as 100% quality JPGs at double the size and will resize them in the HTML just to watch Derek squirm

[Derek Tonn]

He he. Fortunately (Hugo), about 30 pages of written words on a web page don't generally equal the same file size and bandwidth consumption of the typical image file...so I have free-license to be a wind bag! And, unfortunately, I take GREAT liberties with that license, LOL.

I haven't got anything against the .jpg file format, Nick! I'm just obsessed by the concept of "greening" and speeding-up the internet. I'm making it my life's SECOND work...after allowing mapformation to pay the bills. Maybe if I harp on it enough, people will eventually listen just to shut me up? Please?! I'd rather be disc golfing anyway....

[natcase]

I'd rather be disc golfing anyway....

In this weather? Nice week to curl up by the fire and optimize a bunch of images, I'd say

On a marginally related note, has anyone else been having wierd things happen, where you click on a CartoTalk link and it thinks you're trying to downlowd "index.php"? I think this has been happening to me (on all my mac/firefox machines home and office) since the skin redesign.

[Hans van der Maarel]

On a marginally related note, has anyone else been having wierd things happen, where you click on a CartoTalk link and it thinks you're trying to downlowd "index.php"? I think this has been happening to me (on all my mac/firefox machines home and office) since the skin redesign.

Same here. This behaviour had shown up in the past too, but I hadn't noticed it for months, until the new skin.

[Derek Tonn]

I'd rather be disc golfing anyway....

In this weather? Nice week to curl up by the fire and optimize a bunch of images, I'd say

We're from Minnesota though, right?! Below zero temperatures just means more layers of clothing! Actually, if not for two torn tendons in my knee this fall/winter (happened shortly after I came back from NACIS), I'd be out playing 3-4 afternoons/week...regardless of what Mother Nature has to offer. Way, WAY too much fun to let a little snow and cold stand in the way...

On that "index.php" problem, I haven't experienced that one. Which particular types of links are you referring to? Links to threads? Links to the pages that Nick has created for the forum (Help, Members map, etc.)? Links from within postings? Links TO CartoTalk? Just curious...as depending upon which types of links you are having issues with, I might have an idea or two of how to fix the problem.

[Nick Springer]

On a marginally related note, has anyone else been having wierd things happen, where you click on a CartoTalk link and it thinks you're trying to downlowd "index.php"? I think this has been happening to me (on all my mac/firefox machines home and office) since the skin redesign.

Same here. This behaviour had shown up in the past too, but I hadn't noticed it for months, until the new skin.

I noticed that this was back as well, after having resolved itself after the move to a new server. A Google search of the problem didn't turn up much specific, but there were some mentions of caching issues, which would make sense since it resolved on it's own in the past after a content refresh. Hopefully once the new skin is cached on servers and local machines it will once again go away.