saila.com: Archive

Dispatches from 2010

Posted in June

New designs on news
The new msnbc.com design represents a whole new way for editors to report the news online

Jun 29 2010 at 01:11 AM EDT

Category: Journalism

Topics: Web Design, Work

Comments: 2
Saila CSS layouts, revisited
An update to the tableless CSS-based, liquid, three-column layout that uses HTML 5 and CSS 3 selectors, and works in Internet Explorer 7 and up; Gecko-based browsers like Firefox; Webkit browsers like Safari and Chrome; as well as the Opera browser.

Jun 12 2010 at 12:10 PM EDT

Category: Web Design

Topics: CSS, Web Design

Comments Disabled
Safari fine
The latest upgrade to Apple's Web browser brings a promising set of new features.

Jun 08 2010 at 12:38 PM EDT

Category: Web Design

Topic: Browsers
No Comments
The summer of the city
Toronto reveals its true face in a trio of movies released in 2010

Jun 01 2010 at 10:53 PM EDT

Category: Attic

Topics: Toronto, Movies

No Comments

Outside

Briefly Noted from June 2010

Proportional leading, fluid line length

Using msnbc.com's new design to talk about a way to improve typography

Jun 30 2010 at 11:58 AM EDT

Topics: CSS, Typography
Kettled in at the G20

Reporter on being in a public intersection that became a de facto detention centre

Jun 28 2010 at 10:31 AM EDT

Topics: Toronto, Politics
Photos of G20 in Toronto

Hard to see Toronto looking like this, even if it's a tiny snapshot of what really happened

Jun 27 2010 at 2:58 AM EDT

Topics: Toronto, Politics
Talking to Canadians

Say what you will about about the G20, at least it's got American news outlets looking north

Jun 25 2010 at 7:12 PM EDT

Topics: Journalism, Politics
G8 police intimidate reporter

Police use extensive security measures on a veteran, accredited journalist trying cover the summit

Jun 25 2010 at 11:34 AM EDT

Topics: Journalism, Politics
Targetting iPhone 4

A simple CSS-based media query can help improve the design of the high resolution device

Jun 24 2010 at 8:37 PM EDT

Topics: CSS, Mobile
IE9 and HTML5

Third developer preview looks amazing, all the more so to those debugging early IE browsers

Jun 24 2010 at 11:26 AM EDT

Topic: Browsers
Photography and Canadian law

Comprehensive listing of the laws and how the apply to shooting pictures across Canada

Jun 23 2010 at 11:59 AM EDT

Topics: Journalism, Canada
RIP Tracy Wright

One of the most interesting actors in Canadian film, television, in theatre is now gone

Jun 23 2010 at 1:53 AM EDT

Topics: Movies, Canada
Chimp warfare

Fascinating portrait of war as waged by chimpanzees, and possibly, humanity, too

Jun 22 2010 at 12:20 AM EDT

Topics: Politics, Culture
FEED Magazine back

The archive for one of the most influential online magazines is finally back online

Jun 21 2010 at 11:00 AM EDT

Topic: Online Journalism
Notes on typography

Seventy years ago, Vanity Fair announced it has toned down its experiment with Modernism

Jun 20 2010 at 8:10 PM EDT

Topics: Typography, Style & Usage
Typical American expressions

As defined by the U.S. military's own training branch

Jun 20 2010 at 12:53 PM EDT

Topic: Language
A deacade of the globeandmail.com

Canada's national newspaper looks back at 10 years of online news coverage

Jun 19 2010 at 12:23 PM EDT

Topics: Online Journalism, Newspapers
Publishing on the iPad

"The iPad ... is a joint venture between editorial, technology and business development"

Jun 19 2010 at 11:34 AM EDT

Topics: Mobile, Online Journalism
OECD on newspapers

Globally things are looking tough for printed newspapers, but the online business shows promise

Jun 19 2010 at 11:30 AM EDT

Topics: Newspapers, Online Journalism
IE9 best practices

Overview of how, when, and why to use Internet Explorer's compatibility features

Jun 19 2010 at 11:22 AM EDT

Topic: Browsers
Sliding captcha

Clever UI for filtering robots and a few more tweaks would even make it accessible

Jun 18 2010 at 12:27 PM EDT

Topics: Web Design, Accessibility
The price of an iPhone

There's a growing unease about the disparity between the manufacturing and marketing of Apple products

Jun 17 2010 at 11:29 AM EDT

Topics: Mobile, Politics
NYTimes.com creating public beta

Beta620 will be a parallel site to test new features for the newspaper's site

Jun 15 2010 at 4:54 PM EDT

Topics: Online Journalism, Web Technology
CBC...beyond repair

Ryerson Review of Journalism publishes another of its trademark critiques, this time on CBC New

Jun 15 2010 at 2:02 AM EDT

Topics: CBC, Journalism
Scribd as a low-cost mag-app

Magazines looking for an app-like experience should consider the HTML5-based Scribd service

Jun 15 2010 at 1:34 AM EDT

Topics: Magazine, Mobile
Le Monde fin?

The uniquely managed French newspaper (journalists have control and veto rights) confronts bankruptcy

Jun 14 2010 at 1:04 PM EDT

Topic: Newspapers
Mind over mass media

Stephen Pinker in response to all the talk of how the Web is ruining our brains

Jun 11 2010 at 11:27 AM EDT

Topics: Online Journalism, Web Culture
Hyphenation online

A seemingly easy way to justify, and nicely hyphenate, text online

Jun 10 2010 at 8:30 PM EDT

Topics: Typography, CSS
Locals and Tourists: Seattle

Ferry lines seem to extend the city's borders, locals emphasis the hearts of each neighbourhood

Jun 9 2010 at 8:20 PM EDT

Topics: Seattle, Social Media
Locals and Tourists: Toronto

The city's tourist stay downtown, but it's amazing to see how photographed Bloor and Queen streets are by locals

Jun 9 2010 at 8:15 PM EDT

Topics: Toronto, Social Media
News site readability

Great analysis of the design problems with online news sites (and a elegant solution, too)

Jun 9 2010 at 12:47 PM EDT

Topics: Web Design, Online Journalism
Emerging business strategies

The 3-year deal FiveThirtyEight struck with The New York Times suggests a new business option for micro-content companies

Jun 4 2010 at 12:42 PM EDT

Topics: Online Journalism, Subscriptions & Registration
What Clay Shirky reads

The most surprising thing might be how (Web) mainstream his media diet is

Jun 3 2010 at 11:18 AM EDT

Topics: Web Culture, Journalism

Inside

This Just In

A picture’s worth

There’s an itch that the Internet and its all-seeing search engines hasn’t yet scratched: visual search. Despite all the improvements to the UI (see Bing and Google’s recent efforts) and technology (including the amazing TinEye), it remains stubbornly difficult to find digital copies of the images one see’s so clearly in the mind’s eye. For example, I have this clear memory of a scene in Return of the Jedi — an X-wing fighter crashing and exploding into the shields of the Death Star in the movie’s final battle. Subsequent viewings, however, never showed that particular scene. Fruitless Internet searches years later left me unsure whether it was the search engines, or my memory, failing. (Upon the re-release of the “original” edition, it was a false memory explaining what could have happened.)A few days ago, a similar situation resurfaced, despite the many years of search technology improvement. In an episode of Mad Men, two characters are brainstorming an ad for Samonsite luggage. A mouse makes a random appearance, and an elephant is constantly mentioned in conversation. Instantly, I recognized the reference to a classic suitcase ad showing an elephant balancing on a suitcase after being scared by a mouse.The visual, along with the design of the ad, was clearly discernable in my mind. Last night, I decided to look for it online. Again, nothing. Instead, all I found were references to other people trying to find the ad. They all recalled the same images I did, and none had managed to find a copy of the ad either. A massive ad campaign of decades passed had, for all intents of purposes, morphed into a figment of our collective consciousness.There is something poetic in the thought that these iconic images become, in essence, legendary in a time when almost everything else is discoverable. But really I still would like to see that ad again

Sep 8 2010 at 1:52 PM EDT

Category: Web Design

Topics: Search Engines, Advertising
New designs on news

The new msnbc.com design represents a whole new way for editors to report the news online

Jun 29 2010 at 1:11 AM EDT

Category: Journalism

Topics: Web Design, Work
Saila CSS layouts, revisited

An update to the tableless CSS-based, liquid, three-column layout that uses HTML 5 and CSS 3 selectors, and works in Internet Explorer 7 and up; Gecko-based browsers like Firefox; Webkit browsers like Safari and Chrome; as well as the Opera browser.

Jun 12 2010 at 12:10 PM EDT

Category: Web Design

Topics: CSS, Web Design
Safari fine

The latest upgrade to Apple's Web browser brings a promising set of new features.

Jun 8 2010 at 12:38 PM EDT

Category: Web Design

Topic: Browsers
The summer of the city

Toronto reveals its true face in a trio of movies released in 2010

Jun 1 2010 at 10:53 PM EDT

Category: Attic

Topics: Toronto, Movies

Dispatches from 2010

Posted in June

Outside

Briefly Noted from June 2010

Inside

This Just In

Topics: