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Subject: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 6:15 pm

If you're having problems, please do let me know. 

You should hold your shift key and hit the refresh button on your browser to make sure it reloads the old style sheet.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/08/10 at 6:45 pm

Glad you told us, but it's not working for me. Black text on white background. The old bg was very easy on the eyes -- in fact, re our discussion of spending too long in the submission pane and getting timeouts, one reason is that the pale turquoise background made it easier to catch tiny errors in punctuation, etc. than in any B&W text editor, no matter how many hours were spent reviewing the text copy.

The shift+reload isn't working. XP SP2 with Firefox 2.0.0.20, though I'll see if using Fx 3.6 affects it. NoScript add-on, with JS from amiright.com allowed.

Actually got an XSS (cross-site scripting, hacking) warning from NoScript when I tried one reload. On-Screen message:

"this submission form was called improperly, possibly due to a bad link, please let the system admin know what you were trying to do at the time."

What I was doing was, I had just submitted a parody (in the B&W page).  Came here to see about the colors; tried the reload, and got that message. Firefox gave the following info in the Tools > Error Console:

" Sanitized suspicious upload to from []: transformed into a download-only GET request."

I told it to ignore the warning and allow the "unsafe" reload.
Which means that the song probably was submitted two or three times, so if you see more than one submission of a parody titled, "DKTOS" in Tuesday's update, please snip all but the first (they should all be identical). Thanks.

Will try Firefox 3.6 and see if the background color comes back. BTW, I store no private data or cache data -- it's all dumped whenever the browser is closed, not to mention puter shut down, for privacy and security. So if you're looking for a CSS in my cache from yesterday, it wouldn't be there. Any other suggestions to get the old background back? TIA.

Back in a bit after trying the latest browser version (never had a problem before).



Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 6:53 pm


Glad you told us, but it's not working for me. Black text on white background. The old bg was very easy on the eyes -- in fact, re our discussion of spending too long in the submission pane and getting timeouts, one reason is that the pale turquoise background made it easier to catch tiny errors in punctuation, etc. than in any B&W text editor, no matter how many hours were spent reviewing the text copy.


definitely sounds like it's not loading the style sheet for some reason, because there is no white background anywhere on the site.  I don't have FF 2 anymore, it's been out of date for a long time.  Push comes to shove I'll reinstall it and see what the issue is.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/08/10 at 7:00 pm

Here I am on Fx 3.6. Same issue. No color -- just a white background. So I don't think it's an Fx version issue.

Are any other remote resources being called that weren't before? I have a lot of security blocks in place to keep the bad guys out.

Also, if there's anywhere else you want me to look, in settings, page source, etc., let me know.

I have one clue:  the View > Page Style choices have always been "no style" or "Basic Page Style" (the default style of the web site designer).  I still have those choices at, e. g., Wikipedia.
But at AIR, "Basic Page Style" disappears, and is replaced by "currentStyle" (in that exact camelcase). I've never seen that choice before.

EDIT: As a temporary work-around (in either browser version), I can go to Tools > Options > Content > Colors, uncheck "Allow pages to use their own colors", and substitute my desired background color. But that applies to all sites visited, which means this forum just went from the default design to plain black text on the closest turquoise I could find. But it makes AIR a bit easier to read.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 7:13 pm


Here I am on Fx 3.6. Same issue. No color -- just a white background. So I don't think it's an Fx version issue.

Are any other remote resources being called that weren't before? I have a lot of security blocks in place to keep the bad guys out.

Also, if there's anywhere else you want me to look, in settings, page source, etc., let me know.

I have one clue:  the View > Page Style choices have always been "no style" or "Basic Page Style" (the default style of the web site designer).  I still have those choices at, e. g., Wikipedia.
But at AIR, "Basic Page Style" disappears, and is replaced by "currentStyle" (in that exact camelcase). I've never seen that choice before.




no, nothing new being called, except the google adsense code did change.  currentStyle is the title for the style sheet as it is called on every page.

I have two pages setup:

http://www.amiright.com/index2010.shtml

this is the mockup (similar but not exact) for the current design, but with a different style sheet.

http://www.amiright.com/index2007.shtml

is the old style page with the style sheet reference changed as well. 

if both of these work fine, it's likely a caching error.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 7:16 pm

should look like this in FF

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/08/10 at 7:24 pm


currentStyle is the title for the style sheet as it is called on every page.

Yes, I just saw that in the page source.

I have two pages setup:

http://www.amiright.com/index2010.shtml

this is the mockup (similar but not exact) for the current design, but with a different style sheet.

http://www.amiright.com/index2007.shtml

is the old style page with the style sheet reference changed as well. 

if both of these work fine, it's likely a caching error.


The old one from 2007 loads correctly, as before. The new one from 2010 gives the symptoms described. I'm still on the new browser, and will stay with it until resolved, to remove any possibility that it's related to the old-version browser.

To eliminate any possibility that the change in the ad code is a factor, I tried it with google-syndication, google-analytics, and assoc.amazon js both blocked and allowed, doing a forced reload each time. No change.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 7:33 pm


Yes, I just saw that in the page source.
The old one from 2007 loads correctly, as before. The new one from 2010 gives the symptoms described. I'm still on the new browser, and will stay with it until resolved, to remove any possibility that it's related to the old-version browser.

To eliminate any possibility that the change in the ad code is a factor, I tried it with google-syndication, google-analytics, and assoc.amazon js both blocked and allowed, doing a forced reload each time. No change.


check the screen shot in the post above and see how closely it matches what you're seeing.

I thought it was because some of the pages now call the full URL of the style sheet instead of a shorter /amiright.css reference, but if the 2007 one works too, that's clearly not it.

maybe your monitor contrast is too high?  it's a very light color now.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/08/10 at 7:43 pm


check the screen shot in the post above and see how closely it matches what you're seeing.

Sorry, I missed the screenshot before. Yes, that's what the *home* page looks like, although your screenshot still looks like a flat-white bg to me.

Can you do a ss of any particular parody? That's where it goes to total black text on white, except the following colors show: In "Voting Results", "Your vote counts", and the blue hyperlinks. Plus the AIR logo and the top mouseover menu are OK.

Maybe it is "light". I'll try playing with display settings. But it looks white.

Add: The style title here at 00s is "Basic Page Style". But since the browser View > Page Style *is* picking up your AIR style title of "currentStyle", it seems it should be loading it. Any reason why there is a diff in titles of the style? Would changing the style title to what FF is used to, "Basic Page Style", make any diff? Where does it fetch it from? If it's part of www.amiright.com, shouldn't be a problem fetching it.

I can see this in the Page Source:

<style type="text/css" title="currentStyle">
@import "/amiright.css";
</style>

Going to look @ display settings now.

Are there any other firefox users here? Any problems?
Might even look at it with (gasp) IE (6).

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 7:46 pm


Sorry, I missed the screenshot before. Yes, that's what the *home* page looks like, although your screenshot still looks like a flat-white bg to me.

Can you do a ss of any particular parody? That's where it goes to total black text on white, except the following colors show: In "Voting Results", "Your vote counts", and the blue hyperlinks. Plus the AIR logo and the top mouseover menu are OK.

Maybe it is "light". I'll try playing with display settings. But it looks white.


here's a parody screen shot: http://www.amiright.com/parody/misc/nationalanthems8.shtml

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 7:47 pm

if it turns out to be just a color issue, I do plan on adding multiple style sheets to the site, so you can choose a different one.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/08/10 at 8:15 pm

Sorry, I accidentally opened a new thread about "Parody Screenshot". It can be deleted. Reprint below:

Parody screenshot: all white bg, except for "Parody Sections", which was the old style. Black text. Logos and ad colors came though fine.

Skins would be great. Could you please include the old one?
(Then Rex can change skins every day, avoiding the boredom of all those new parodies KIDDING!)

Still intend to try IE and display settings. Laptop @ 1280 x 800 LCD, so not as much color fineness as larger desktop monitors. 32-bit color.

BTW, the style *here* is taking *very* long to load: Page starts to load as mono, then with my chosen "no style", then the standard forum style appears -- FWIW.

Back shortly.

Identical white in IE 6. Didn't scroll enough before - entire right side has the old b/g; the entire main portion (left 2/3) is white.

To the display settings...

Subject: Dispaly settings

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/08/10 at 8:22 pm

Making the contrast very dark and upping the brightness to compensate lends a bluish tinge to the bg, -- but also does so at sites that I *know* use black text on white bg. Examples would be Wikipedia and http://www.schneier.com/. So I still have a white bg for some reason. What is the color that you intended, which my box isn't reading?

Desperation move: Will pull backup puter out of closet and crank it up. Are there any Microsoft components that are being called that weren't by the old style? I've gotten rid of some of the ones that were useless to me, on this machine. The other is still pretty much OOB.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 8:30 pm


Sorry, I accidentally opened a new thread about "Parody Screenshot". It can be deleted. Reprint below:

Parody screenshot: all white bg, except for "Parody Sections", which was the old style. Black text. Logos and ad colors came though fine.

Skins would be great. Could you please include the old one?
(Then Rex can change skins every day, avoiding the boredom of all those new parodies KIDDING!)

Still intend to try IE and display settings. Laptop @ 1280 x 800 LCD, so not as much color fineness as larger desktop monitors. 32-bit color.

BTW, the style *here* is taking *very* long to load: Page starts to load as mono, then with my chosen "no style", then the standard forum style appears -- FWIW.

Back shortly.

Identical white in IE 6. Didn't scroll enough before - entire right side has the old b/g; the entire main portion (left 2/3) is white.

To the display settings...


Any new skin would just have different colors, the cd background would be totally gone.  I have to finish upgrading EVERY section of the site to point to multiple stylesheets.  I've been working on it tonight so that I could change these in the future with less headaches.  Right now, I'd say there's still a few hours of work before I can begin to rebuild most of the pages of the site.  Parodies for instance, are generated only when added to the site.  I have to run a special script to recreate them with any changes.  It needs to be done, I've just never bothered before.

I'll see if I can play around with making one tonight, it'll appear on the pages that I've updated so far. 

It's definitely your monitor or something if the layout is fine but you don't see the color. the hex value is: #F2F7F1  which is close to white.  Your graphics card would have to be at 256 colors to be unable to render that properly, and I don't think anyone is still running a card that old.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 8:35 pm

you can see the new style selection on pages that support it (most major section indexes, including the homepage).  It's the old green for the page background.  The site logo doesn't have a transparent background, so that looks a little odd.

Only problem is that it doesn't seem to stay on from page to page. I believe I need to look at the javascript I used over on amIwrong to make that happen.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/08/10 at 8:53 pm


It's definitely your monitor or something if the layout is fine but you don't see the color. the hex value is: #F2F7F1  which is close to white. 

I went to http://www.2createawebsite.com/build/hex-colors.html#colorgenerator and entered the above value. The "swatch" is indeed *very* close to white on the backup machine, which has had very little use. *This* machine is coming up on 5 years old and has been used intensively for both work and play. I've heard that LCD screens deteriorate over time. On this machine, that same swatch on the same site is stark white.

Your graphics card would have to be at 256 colors to be unable to render that properly, and I don't think anyone is still running a card that old.

No, I had fine 32-bit color at the old site (and your 2007 link above), and still do at all other sites I've tried tonight. I think it's just that the new bg is so light, and this LCD screen so heavily used, that it's barely distinguishable from white.

Even on the newer, less-used machine, the bg is very, very pale, and not nearly as eye-easy. Perhaps it could be darkened just a bit, for those whose machines and eyes are not what they used to be? Or if I'm the only one, I'll live with it.

Again, I didn't think the old color scheme was broken, but that's just MHO. Sorry to have taken up so much of your time.
(And mine -- haven't even read any songs yet today.)

One last reminder, please: In the troubleshooting process, I may have double- or triple-submitted a parody titled "DKTOS". Please make sure only one version is posted. Thanks much.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 9:08 pm


I went to http://www.2createawebsite.com/build/hex-colors.html#colorgenerator and entered the above value. The "swatch" is indeed *very* close to white on the backup machine, which has had very little use. *This* machine is coming up on 5 years old and has been used intensively for both work and play. I've heard that LCD screens deteriorate over time. On this machine, that same swatch on the same site is stark white. No, I had fine 32-bit color at the old site (and your 2007 link above), and still do at all other sites I've tried tonight. I think it's just that the new bg is so light, and this LCD screen so heavily used, that it's barely distinguishable from white.

Even on the newer, less-used machine, the bg is very, very pale, and not nearly as eye-easy. Perhaps it could be darkened just a bit, for those whose machines and eyes are not what they used to be? Or if I'm the only one, I'll live with it.

Again, I didn't think the old color scheme was broken, but that's just MHO. Sorry to have taken up so much of your time.
(And mine -- haven't even read any songs yet today.)

One last reminder, please: In the troubleshooting process, I may have double- or triple-submitted a parody titled "DKTOS". Please make sure only one version is posted. Thanks much.


not a problem at all.  at least I know why, and I know that I should darken it up a little.

I think the plan is to have multiple style sheets this time around.  if you check out amIwrong, you'll see I used them for multiple sizes.  I think two different color schemes would be good, since the plan was to go to a lighter background, but some people may prefer less contrast.  Most sites seem to go for a stark white with dark text look.  It's less likely to have issues for people with color blindness.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 9:25 pm

one nice side effect (affect?) is that I am finding a lot of stuff that needs to be cleaned up, old files that should have been deleted, bad grammar, bad html mark up, etc.  Going through all the sections one by one.  Still having some weird issues with the parody indexes not reflecting my changes.  it'll take me a few days before things get straightened out for the better.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/08/10 at 9:48 pm


not a problem at all.  at least I know why, and I know that I should darken it up a little.

I think the plan is to have multiple style sheets this time around.  if you check out amIwrong, you'll see I used them for multiple sizes.  I think two different color schemes would be good, since the plan was to go to a lighter background, but some people may prefer less contrast.  Most sites seem to go for a stark white with dark text look.  It's less likely to have issues for people with color blindness.

The size option at amiwrong is nice, though FF has a zoom option, View > Text Size that will increase or decrease all text on the local page (sometimes doesn't affect iFrames or other remote resources). Two color schemes would be nice.

I could be mistaken, but I had thought that the most common color-blindness was red/green (bad for stoplights), so if one avoids red (too much looks like a pawrn site anyway), most people are OK.

I think the issue for moi was the glare. Sites like the ones I linked - www.schneier.com and Wikipedia -- have a *lot* of text for the amount of bg. Parodies have a huge amount of background and just short lines in the middle (center-align is cool). So there was waaaay more "almost-white" space glaring from the parodies.

The pastels cut the glare tremendously. I've seen soft beiges used nicely, as well as the aqua family. Here's an example of nice beige.. Clicking any of the topics will demonstrate it even better, as there is also a fairly large amount of bg compared to text.

Another look that's eye-friendly: http://forums.informaction.com/viewforum.php?f=7, and pick any individual topic, like this one: http://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3995

Again, I'm sorry that we had to investigate all these extraneous issues, but it's just as well to eliminate them.

In general (not personally directed), it seems that site designers assume that *everyone* has a brand new machine, with the latest OS and all the latest gizmos and gadgets. I wish I could tell them all that some of us can't afford to throw away our machines every year or two (bad for the environment, too), or "upgrade" to a new OS -- in fact, some of us *prefer* the simpler, time-tested, patched and refined OS, which is why I'll stick with XP until one of us (it or moi) croaks. :)

The aging LCD screen is my problem, but the unique amount of bg compared to text and graphics was the killer here. Thanks again for all of your time and help.

***
Just got the cross-posting warning:
one nice side effect (affect?)
"effect". I'd thought many times about doing a "grammarody", in the vein of http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/thebyrds27.shtml, http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/thebeatles2007.shtml, and http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/thebeatles2006.shtml, on the topic of "affect/effect" -- in fact, I think Red Ant asked for it once. Just never got done. Will try to put on the to-do list.

In the meantime, if you ever want anything copy-edited for grammar, punctuation, syntax, etc., just e-mail me. It'll be faster than PM, and you have my email.


is that I am finding a lot of stuff that needs to be cleaned up, old files that should have been deleted, bad grammar, bad html mark up, etc.  Going through all the sections one by one.  Still having some weird issues with the parody indexes not reflecting my changes.  it'll take me a few days before things get straightened out for the better.

Here's where I agree with Rex: Not just change for the sake of change, but going through periodic reviews and cleanouts. GL with that. Great idea -- every cloud has a silver lining.

Subject: Funny coincidence, *STRICTLY OPTIONAL READING*

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/08/10 at 10:06 pm

Early this morning, I was struck with an inspiration for a parody that would explain the basic core of puters and the Net, from binary to text and graphics, including -- color values.
As my frequent collaborator, Fiddlegirl, will testify, I emailed that to her before coming here. .. and here we are, discussing HTML hex color values. It must be ESPN!  :)

It probably won't show for a few days, but just thought it was a strange coincidence -- and the idea occurred well before I knew this conversation would be happening. Cheers!

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/08/10 at 10:33 pm


The size option at amiwrong is nice, though FF has a zoom option, View > Text Size that will increase or decrease all text on the local page (sometimes doesn't affect iFrames or other remote resources). Two color schemes would be nice.

I could be mistaken, but I had thought that the most common color-blindness was red/green (bad for stoplights), so if one avoids red (too much looks like a pawrn site anyway), most people are OK.

I think the issue for moi was the glare. Sites like the ones I linked - www.schneier.com and Wikipedia -- have a *lot* of text for the amount of bg. Parodies have a huge amount of background and just short lines in the middle (center-align is cool). So there was waaaay more "almost-white" space glaring from the parodies.

The pastels cut the glare tremendously. I've seen soft beiges used nicely, as well as the aqua family. Here's an example of nice beige.. Clicking any of the topics will demonstrate it even better, as there is also a fairly large amount of bg compared to text.

Another look that's eye-friendly: http://forums.informaction.com/viewforum.php?f=7, and pick any individual topic, like this one: http://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3995

Again, I'm sorry that we had to investigate all these extraneous issues, but it's just as well to eliminate them.

In general (not personally directed), it seems that site designers assume that *everyone* has a brand new machine, with the latest OS and all the latest gizmos and gadgets. I wish I could tell them all that some of us can't afford to throw away our machines every year or two (bad for the environment, too), or "upgrade" to a new OS -- in fact, some of us *prefer* the simpler, time-tested, patched and refined OS, which is why I'll stick with XP until one of us (it or moi) croaks. :)

The aging LCD screen is my problem, but the unique amount of bg compared to text and graphics was the killer here. Thanks again for all of your time and help.

***
Just got the cross-posting warning:"effect". I'd thought many times about doing a "grammarody", in the vein of http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/thebyrds27.shtml, http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/thebeatles2007.shtml, and http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/thebeatles2006.shtml, on the topic of "affect/effect" -- in fact, I think Red Ant asked for it once. Just never got done. Will try to put on the to-do list.

In the meantime, if you ever want anything copy-edited for grammar, punctuation, syntax, etc., just e-mail me. It'll be faster than PM, and you have my email.
Here's where I agree with Rex: Not just change for the sake of change, but going through periodic reviews and cleanouts. GL with that. Great idea -- every cloud has a silver lining.


I know what you mean about the glare, I have a friend that complains about the same thing, though he tends to go to the other extreme of pure black backgrounds and PURPLE text. 

Like I said earlier though, it's an interim design.  I plan on rolling out a better design early next month.  I'll probably use a neutral for the background text.  I'm in a rush to make sure I can fit the bigger ads on the site really. 

As for font size, you'd be amazed at how many people don't know they can change their font size, probably because SOOO many sites break the functionality by specifying pixels instead of pt size or em sizes.  The size changer uses style sheets and javascript to keep the size selected for future visits without the user needing to change the font size everytime they visit the site.  For amiright I probably would stick to color palettes anyways.

I just checked it on my small LCD monitor, which is a cheapie from 2000 (maybe 2001).  Looks the same to me. I think you got robbed man >grin<

either way, I'll probably go with a color that has at least as much contrast as the grey on this site around this box I'm typing in now.  Won't be grey though.  Or maybe just hot pink and orange, but only for IE 6 users.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/09/10 at 12:05 am

<snip>
I just checked it on my small LCD monitor, which is a cheapie from 2000 (maybe 2001).  Looks the same to me. I think you got robbed man >grin<

Did it get used 6-12 hrs/day, 5-7 days a week, for 5 years?
Also, sounds like a free-standing monitor. Even the cheapest are probably better built than a laptop screen that is mounted in the lid, and has to be scrunched into that space and thickness. Unless one buys something other than the bottom-end cheapest model laptop, which could happen if parodists were paid >snicker snicker<

either way, I'll probably go with a color that has at least as much contrast as the grey on this site around this box I'm typing in now.  Won't be grey though.  Or maybe just hot pink and orange, but only for IE 6 users.

Most IE-(any version) users would love that! :)

I seem to be unable to preview the parody I'm trying to submit, but if you have any sense, you're asleep. Will check the rest of the site for relevant site-down messages. All else - comments, etc. - working OK.

Subject: Got it

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/09/10 at 2:00 am

This 2005 laptop has three display settings: brightness, contrast, and gamma, so you're fiddling with three non-independent variables (each affects the other). Finally found a combo that shows the pale background enough.

Haven't touched those settings in at least a couple of years, so I guess I never before encountered a color so close to white, but not white.  (Like, you're at 242/247/241 out of 255 = 727/765 = 95% white.)

Or when I did, the sheer size of the almost-white space wasn't anywhere near the size of a parody page background with just a little text. I've now seen a little bit of pale blue bg in email that used to be white, but again, I think the issue was sheer size - entire page, very large, = large glare vs. small portion.

I guess it's my fault. Just didn't recognize it as a settings thing when usually, white is white, like in this box where I'm typing. (Uh, that *is* supposed to be white, isn't it?  ;D )

Oddly enough, the 2008 machine, same OEM, same price point (bottom), same OS, different display driver, doesn't even have those adjustments, at least not in desktop > properties > (or Control Panel > Display >) settings > advanced. Maybe they're hiding somewhere else. Will worry about that then.

Have a beer on me....  http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-eatdrink004.gif

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: nally on 03/09/10 at 5:39 pm

Not sure if this is the right place to post this (but I'm assuming it's part of the new site design, cuz I hadn't seen it before), but I noticed something a wee bit peculiar on some of the lyrics sections (both misheard and real). The thing I noticed was a big red vertical bar on the right hand side of each page, next to the album covers.

For example...
http://www.amiright.com/misheard/artist/clarksonkelly.shtml (chosen at random)

Scroll down a bit, on the right hand side, and just below the ad banner, the big red bar starts, with the first album ad to its right, and then the rest of the album ads begin after the red bar ends. Is it supposed to be there?

(I'm using one of the latest versions of Firefox, by the way.)

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/09/10 at 6:39 pm

I see the same thing. Apparently deliberate (Chucky mentioned that the Google ad code had changed.)

<div style="height: 600px; width: 60px; background: red;">

IMHO, it's unattractive and annoying, and separates the ads more from the content. It was more natural when the ads (like for albums by TOS band) were just part of the page and on the same background. I vote to ditch it. Besides, Chucky mentioned issues with colorblindness anyway, and red/green is most common. :)

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: nally on 03/09/10 at 6:42 pm


I see the same thing. Apparently deliberate (Chucky mentioned that the Google ad code had changed.)

<div style="height: 600px; width: 60px; background: red;">

Oh good, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed it.



IMHO, it's unattractive and annoying, and separates the ads more from the content. It was more natural when the ads (like for albums by TOS band) were just part of the page and on the same background. I vote to ditch it. Besides, Chucky mentioned issues with colorblindness anyway, and red/green is most common. :)

Agreed. It's visually distracting.

Subject: Re: Interim webdesign is now active on amIright

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/09/10 at 7:42 pm

That was the old ad unit.  I'm in the process of hunting down all the places it's referenced to remove it, which is why I made it ugly.  Hopefully by tomorrow night most (if not all of them) should be gone.

On a plus side, I figured out the stupid thing I did last night, before I went to bed that broke the preview screen.  Remember how I said I was cleaning up old unused files?  Well I cleaned up too many of them.  My fault for not naming it something more meaningful, I thought the template used by the preview script was the old submission form.  I'll have to dig it up out of my backups and restore it.

Subject: Preview Screen

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/09/10 at 8:12 pm


On a plus side, I figured out the stupid thing I did last night, before I went to bed that broke the preview screen.  Remember how I said I was cleaning up old unused files?  Well I cleaned up too many of them.

Been there, done that.

My fault for not naming it something more meaningful, I thought the template used by the preview script was the old submission form.

Having been there, done that, learned the hard way to keep *detailed* changelogs, with notes in real time (as changes are made, before forgetting), and to keep backups of changelog. Agree on intuitive and descriptive naming of files.

I'll have to dig it up out of my backups and restore it.

Other thing that moi, too, learned the hard way: Back up *everything*, regularly. Assume the whole thing will crash in the next five minutes. (It has.) Glad you have a backup. GL.

Subject: Re: Preview Screen

Written By: ChuckyG on 03/09/10 at 9:44 pm


Been there, done that.Having been there, done that, learned the hard way to keep *detailed* changelogs, with notes in real time (as changes are made, before forgetting), and to keep backups of changelog. Agree on intuitive and descriptive naming of files.Other thing that moi, too, learned the hard way: Back up *everything*, regularly. Assume the whole thing will crash in the next five minutes. (It has.) Glad you have a backup. GL.


I learned that the hard way, but this wasn't the time I learned it >grin<  I knew where the backup was, it just takes AGES for it to load and give up the file. This lesson was more along the lines of, don't make hundreds of changes all at once.  I kept blaming the new design for something totally unrelated to it.  I knew I was taking a chance by trying to do everything at once.

I usually try and keep a changelog in the top of the files as I work on them, but a lot of the stuff on amIright is before I began doing that.  There's also a lot of poor design decisions I need to revisit someday.  Or at least before I begin adding new sections again.

anyways... most of the red boxes should be gone.  Heck, if you find them, let me know.  I think the submission forms are maybe the last thing I need to tackle tomorrow night, to make sure they pull the same style sheets as the rest of the site.

Aside from the submission issue last night, the transition was pretty smooth for something I didn't spend much time planning. >grin<

Subject: Re: Preview Screen

Written By: Tommy Turtle on 03/10/10 at 1:49 am

<snip>
This lesson was more along the lines of, don't make hundreds of changes all at once. 

When I was a snow-ski instructor, we used to say, "Don't change two things at once". E. g., if you are taking the student to a new trail, make sure it's at the same skill level as trails s/he's already skied and has the skills for. If you are teaching the student a new skill, *stay on a trail with which they are familiar and comfortable*. Don't take them to new terrain to learn a new skill.

In tweaking my own OS, I've violated that many times -- and sometimes paid for it. But I never learn - well, sometimes. >cha-grin<.

Aside from the submission issue last night, the transition was pretty smooth for something I didn't spend much time planning. >grin<
PPPPPP, right? >wink<


  I think the submission forms are maybe the last thing I need to tackle tomorrow night, to make sure they pull the same style sheets as the rest of the site.

The Preview window seems to work!  ;D I believe I'll try submitting that parody about how puters work -- including hex color values.  ;)

EDIT: It's in for today (Wednesday). I know that you can't comment on parodies, but you might find it personally amusing -- or not. >wink< 
And thanks for fixing the Preview -- that one took a *lot* of previewing, and the pastel bg really does highlight glitches that a monochrome text editor doesn't.  :)

In any event, don't miss your plugs in footnote 6! >shameless brown-noser<


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