The Caveena Solutions Blog

So it looks like Google is getting in on the Domain Registration Business. I’m all for another player in the field but am cautiously optimistic considering this is Google.

Domains come with up to 100 email aliases which forward your emails to existing accounts. I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually they integrated this with Gmail through Google Apps for Business. More information on their Features page.

And like all things new at Google, the service is under an invitation-only beta.

Domain Privacy at No Extra Cost

One thing I do applaud Google for is they will be providing Domain Privacy (what they call Private Registration) at no extra cost to the buyer. I’ve been a huge proponent of Domain Privacy and even included a section on it in our Websites 101 article. Kudos to Google for taking this step.

Google Domain Pricing Revealed? USD 12 a year

If you’re anything like me you quickly asked “OK Google, how much?” So far there is no official word but an image on their Features page seems to indicate a price of USD 12 a year. Considering they are throwing in Domain Privacy as well, that’s not too bad.

Today I learned that there is a Malay translation of WordPress… version 2.9.2. Last updated on 24 November 2011.

Let’s just stick with the official releases, yeah?

I had to do a double-take when I saw this banner at the local government hospital. At first glance it looked as if the finger was making a rude gesture.

I really liked the design of Bru-HIMS‘ other posters so I’m willing to look past this little snafu.

I was surprised to receive an email attachment from Brunei’s Tabung Amanah Pekerja (TAP; Employees Trust Fund) that was formatted as an OpenDocument Spreadsheet. I am not familiar with their in-house standards of practice but I acknowledge them for using the OpenDocument Formats. However, I question the utility of actually sending these formats to people outside their organization considering that most would likely have no idea how to open such a file.

I think it would better serve by exporting the document to PDF or a Microsoft Office format. OpenOffice and LibreOffice have all this built-in. It would certainly help avoid confusion on the recipient’s part.

ODF Logo courtesy of ODF Community

Sometimes well-meaning security tweaks to your website can actually inhibit, or even outright kill, intended functionality. It is imperative web developers understand what they are trying to achieve and the different ways to get there.

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A lot about building websites involves using third-party code in your own projects. Whether that means an existing WordPress theme to build a Child Theme, a library like jQuery or one of many Lightbox modules standing on the shoulder of giants helps to get your work out there faster.

But sometimes you’ll be in a situation that momentarily leaves you scratching your head wondering “Now where did that come from?” only to realize it originated from code you did not write.

Thank goodness for Search and Replace. Some OSes have this feature built into their command-line but folks like me prefer having a GUI. You are probably capable enough to do an Internet Search and find your own but being on Windows my preference currently lies with TextCrawler.

It supports searching folders & subfolder, Regular Expressions, and File Filters. That’s pretty much all I need but it also sports other functions including Fuzzy Search, Batch Commands and inserting content either before or after your search string.

Nifty.

To test your CSS font stacks. Seriously.

So maybe you use @font-face or maybe you link to an external font like this:

<!-- Linking to Source Sans Pro hosted at Google Fonts -->
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:300,400,700,400italic,700italic' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>

And your CSS has code like this:

body {
  font-family: "Source Sans Pro", SourceSansPro-Regular, Helvetica, Arial, 'Liberation Sans', sans-serif;
}

Did you type that font name correctly? Are you sure? Why not test it like this:

body {
  font-family: "Source Sans Pro", SourceSansPro-Regular, "Comic Sans MS", Helvetica, Arial, 'Liberation Sans', sans-serif;
}

Did you catch that? I added “Comic Sans MS” to the font stack. So if your intended font doesn’t show up, the visually distinct Comic Sans MS will alerting you to the problem.

Just remember to remove it from your production code. You wouldn’t want to be embarrassed, would you?

Or, you know, you could just type it into your website inspector of choice to double-check the font stack works. Just saying…

When I was studying in the National University of Singapore our lecturers were eager to raise us not merely as “Programmers” but as Software Architects. Where the Programmer lays bricks, the Software Architect is thinking about higher-level design: where do those walls go in the first place?

In recent years, something similar has been happening with CSS — people started thinking about CSS architecture to ensure that styles were reusable and the website itself could scale. I don’t know who kicked off the discussion but my first exposure to a formalized, higher-level technique of writing CSS was Object Oriented CSS (OOCSS). The name threw many off and I found myself comparing it to the Object Oriented Programming Methodology from my days learning Java.

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We’ve heard it before: Sans-serif fonts are more legible on screens blah blah blah.

I always got excited anytime a new free Sans-serif typeface was released that contained what I consider the required four variations: Regular/Roman, Bold, Italics and Bold Italics. And thanks to @font-face allowing font embeds on websites, collection sites such as Font Squirrel and hosting solutions including Google Fonts, the web designer is more spoiled for choice than ever before.

I present below four Sans-serif fonts provided by four different sources that, erm, kinda look the same. All contain my required four variants and they all even have thin versions of themselves. Best of all, they are free for use on websites.

Open Sans

Source Sans Pro

Fira Sans

Clear Sans

Serif VS Sans-serif: no longer a question of legibility?

Interestingly, with the advent of monitors possessing higher pixel densities, usability proponent and aficionado Jakob Nielsen has revisited and somewhat overturned the common wisdom that Sans-serif fonts are more legible. Truth is they were back when monitors weren’t so capable. On moderns screens, when it comes to choosing between Sans-serif and Serif fonts for legibility:

there’s no strong usability guideline in favor of using one or the other, so you can make the choice based on other considerations — such as branding or the mood communicated by a particular typographical style.

Well if that don’t just beat all.

I’m not a huge fan of Under Construction style landing pages — I rank them just below websites that make me Click here to enter — but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun building them (and perhaps learn a thing or two).

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