It stupefies me, that people refuse to accept science, facts or theories ... somehow in their minds 2+2 does not equal 4. They transform knowledge that is tested and proved and treat it as if it were a belief. Which then allows them to believe that it must be wrong.
/boggle
Are your faiths so weak that the mere thought of the age of the universe, or how long humans have walked on the Earth, will shatter your beliefs? Is the notion that a chicken may have evolved from a T-Rex so powerful it'll destroy God? I think perhaps there's something wrong with your faith, or rather, your ability to be faithful and believe in the divine and not be able to move forward scientifically.
Science is not a religion, 2+2=4.
- Todays QQ brought to you by reading too many absurd comments under news & blogs about scientific things.
- Find out what I'm doing, Follow Me :)
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
IE8... Corrupt User Agent
Oh the joy that is having to work with IE8.
On a daily basis I test my work in Firefox, IE, Safari (pc), Opera, and Chrome, (latest versions for all). While they all have their own very special and lovely quirks, we all know how much fun IE can be, (any version).
So lately I've run into a situation where I'm occasionally blocked from viewing sites that are set up to route IE6/7 users to upgrade to IE8... "But I AM using IE8", I say to the screen over and over. I tried searching for a solution a few times and found nothing. I then got into the habit of commenting out the bits of code that produced that routing on my svn copy of whatever project I was working on. But as more and more sites finally decide to jump on the Google bandwagon and cut off support for IE6 I thought I better revisit this lovely browser issue.
The Answer!!
Today I was finally successful in finding the answer! A site I visited brought to my attention that my User Agent was corrupt. For whatever reason, (the author suggests a badly written addon could be the culprit), the UA was loading up with two instances within each other. The solution? Look through the registry on your system in a few key places and remove the second UA instance that is screwing everything up!
Look for, "Internet Settings/5.0", and, "Internet Settings/User Agent/Post Platform", strings in both Current User and Local Machine.
Now before you go rooting around in your registry, take a look at the site and see if you are experiencing this problem. If not, I'm sorry but you'll have to keep on searching.
http://www.fiddlertool.com/ua.aspx
Thanks for the great tool!
On a daily basis I test my work in Firefox, IE, Safari (pc), Opera, and Chrome, (latest versions for all). While they all have their own very special and lovely quirks, we all know how much fun IE can be, (any version).
So lately I've run into a situation where I'm occasionally blocked from viewing sites that are set up to route IE6/7 users to upgrade to IE8... "But I AM using IE8", I say to the screen over and over. I tried searching for a solution a few times and found nothing. I then got into the habit of commenting out the bits of code that produced that routing on my svn copy of whatever project I was working on. But as more and more sites finally decide to jump on the Google bandwagon and cut off support for IE6 I thought I better revisit this lovely browser issue.
The Answer!!
Today I was finally successful in finding the answer! A site I visited brought to my attention that my User Agent was corrupt. For whatever reason, (the author suggests a badly written addon could be the culprit), the UA was loading up with two instances within each other. The solution? Look through the registry on your system in a few key places and remove the second UA instance that is screwing everything up!
Look for, "Internet Settings/5.0", and, "Internet Settings/User Agent/Post Platform", strings in both Current User and Local Machine.
Now before you go rooting around in your registry, take a look at the site and see if you are experiencing this problem. If not, I'm sorry but you'll have to keep on searching.
http://www.fiddlertool.com/ua.aspx
Thanks for the great tool!
Friday, March 05, 2010
Criticism and Web Design
“Don't take it personally.”
As a designer, dealing with criticism is one aspect of your career you will never be able to avoid. You can construct the best piece of artwork you've ever created, get accolades throughout the graphic community, and you will still feel the sharp edge of criticism coming from someone.
Whenever I'm trolling the blog sphere and come across an article on this subject I find I'm quite drawn to it. Over the past ten years I'd had the pleasure of working with many clients, (and employers), who have made criticizing an art form. Unfortunately most of their criticisms are not very helpful. So I keep reading and hoping to find some key to dealing with the criticism, and deriving some useable direction out of it.
Here's the scenario, you start a new project, full of great ideas from the client, you've done your research, and drawn up some basic wire frames and get down to to work. You put in a lot of hours crafting the perfect site that in your mind meets the clients every need. It's graphically pleasing, audience appropriate, and user friendly. You gleefully send your mockups to the client, sure they'll love it and instead end up getting, “I hate this.”, “I don't think this is going to work for me”, “This isn't the direction I wanted to go”, and so on.
What to do?
You can argue with the client that everything you've created follows the basics and fundamentals of design principles. (Cause that always works.) You can feel deflated and start all over again, creating something totally different, repeating the process over and over until either you or the client gets so fed up that either hands are thrown up in the air or you settle for some Frankenstein design that makes the client happy and you miserable. (Well that's not going on the portfolio.)
Right from the start, a great practice is to present your mockups to the client with a detailed explanation. Tell them up front why you chose certain colours and fonts. Explain to them why this layout will be the most user friendly, pointing out that the overall look and feel is directed at their targeted audience. (Not them) The more understanding you impart to the client, the less of a negative gut reaction you'll receive.
When and if you do receive any unhelpful criticisms, what I would suggest is to help the client to better articulate what they do and do not like about the design you've presented to them. Ask questions and be specific, “What don't you like?”, “What isn't working?”, touch on everything, the colours, fonts, layout, content presentation, etc. When they start asking you to change or add things that you know won't fit, offer suggestions why certain elements will not work. Often I've found that you can take the essence of what a client wants, adding it to the design in the proper way and the client will love it.
Some Guidelines
And remember.... Don't take it personally!
As a designer, dealing with criticism is one aspect of your career you will never be able to avoid. You can construct the best piece of artwork you've ever created, get accolades throughout the graphic community, and you will still feel the sharp edge of criticism coming from someone.
Whenever I'm trolling the blog sphere and come across an article on this subject I find I'm quite drawn to it. Over the past ten years I'd had the pleasure of working with many clients, (and employers), who have made criticizing an art form. Unfortunately most of their criticisms are not very helpful. So I keep reading and hoping to find some key to dealing with the criticism, and deriving some useable direction out of it.
Here's the scenario, you start a new project, full of great ideas from the client, you've done your research, and drawn up some basic wire frames and get down to to work. You put in a lot of hours crafting the perfect site that in your mind meets the clients every need. It's graphically pleasing, audience appropriate, and user friendly. You gleefully send your mockups to the client, sure they'll love it and instead end up getting, “I hate this.”, “I don't think this is going to work for me”, “This isn't the direction I wanted to go”, and so on.
What to do?
You can argue with the client that everything you've created follows the basics and fundamentals of design principles. (Cause that always works.) You can feel deflated and start all over again, creating something totally different, repeating the process over and over until either you or the client gets so fed up that either hands are thrown up in the air or you settle for some Frankenstein design that makes the client happy and you miserable. (Well that's not going on the portfolio.)
Right from the start, a great practice is to present your mockups to the client with a detailed explanation. Tell them up front why you chose certain colours and fonts. Explain to them why this layout will be the most user friendly, pointing out that the overall look and feel is directed at their targeted audience. (Not them) The more understanding you impart to the client, the less of a negative gut reaction you'll receive.
When and if you do receive any unhelpful criticisms, what I would suggest is to help the client to better articulate what they do and do not like about the design you've presented to them. Ask questions and be specific, “What don't you like?”, “What isn't working?”, touch on everything, the colours, fonts, layout, content presentation, etc. When they start asking you to change or add things that you know won't fit, offer suggestions why certain elements will not work. Often I've found that you can take the essence of what a client wants, adding it to the design in the proper way and the client will love it.
Some Guidelines
- Start off by giving detailed explanations about your designs when presenting them to clients.
- When dealing with boards or people who join a project that has been under development for a while, define some boundaries about what is and is not being discussed, what has already been approved and so on.
- Help your clients to articulate and be specific about what they do and do not like.
- Take the essence of what they want and mold it into something great. (You'll kick yourself in the pants if you skip this step at the beginning of a project)
And remember.... Don't take it personally!
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Checking Back & Happy New Year
Was leaving a comment on a nice rogue-y blog and decided to pop over to my own. Forgot I had changed the template! =) I should probably get around to updating my own blog over at finalendeavor.com.
We had a good Christmas and New Year, over our almost two week break. I managed to finish leveling another rogue to 80. This being the faction changed horde Belf, Jaethra wearing the guise of a Night Elf.... learning their secrets and city layouts. The bad girl will be going home to the Horde very shortly, with all that she's discovered.
Kaawn, my main, managed to get a load of Ashen Verdict rep and a pretty new ring for her efforts, and just last night bought a nice new overpriced, (at 50 emblems), cape to wear. She'd kill for a good pair of boots right about now, and new trinkets, but as for the boots, no one seems to craft anything on Zangarmarsh and nothing ever drops for poor Kaawn. =/ (sad panda)
We had a good Christmas and New Year, over our almost two week break. I managed to finish leveling another rogue to 80. This being the faction changed horde Belf, Jaethra wearing the guise of a Night Elf.... learning their secrets and city layouts. The bad girl will be going home to the Horde very shortly, with all that she's discovered.
Kaawn, my main, managed to get a load of Ashen Verdict rep and a pretty new ring for her efforts, and just last night bought a nice new overpriced, (at 50 emblems), cape to wear. She'd kill for a good pair of boots right about now, and new trinkets, but as for the boots, no one seems to craft anything on Zangarmarsh and nothing ever drops for poor Kaawn. =/ (sad panda)
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Starting Out...
...What the blog? I'm not sure why I started this blog, I rarely have anything to say, unless I'm angry, which is a state that I try to avoid - stress will kill you! But everyone else is doing this... I guess I'll have to jump off that bridge as well now.
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