Images are so Web 1.0

I found this nifty little site that generates code for your roundy edge boxes, without using images - strictly CSS and nested div tags. The code is still a bit lengthy, but it's all Web 2.0 friendly.

Now I have to work out how to integrate drop shadows into this. If there is anyone out there who can help, please do.

posted by Cat Murray @ 16:10 0 comments

Foo Fighters

I went to see the Foo Fighters live in Hyde Park on Saturday. They were incredible live and I recommend their show to you all should they pass your way while on tour promoting their new album, In Your Honor. They also brought on The remaining members of Queen as a surprise act to play an old skool classic with the Foos drummer on lead vocals - wow! One of those once in a lifetime things that I will always remember. I have tons of photos from the concert and the last few weeks which I will try and get uploaded as soon as I can, life has been a bit hectic for a while here in London Town. Here is a video:

Things are going well in general at the moment otherwise:
1. Closed my first deal last week - yay! Commission!
2. Found a gorgeous flat in Southfields, and even more gorgeous flatmates - watch out, three hot women taking over from 1 July.
3. Designed a website from scratch, which is fully CSS driven and hacked it so still Joomla! compatable - taught myself, so giving myself a huge pat on the back for that one.
4. Not sick and dying
5. Opened 2 bank accounts sucessfully - those who have settled in the UK will know what a big deal this is

posted by Cat Murray @ 07:40 3 comments

Call to action

Vincent Maher recently blogged about a citizen journalist who documented a hostage situation in Zimbabwe, which is very interesting and heartbreaking to read. Take a look here and here.

In the meantime, a family member of one of my closest friends has passed away. They all still live in Zim and this is what she had to say about the funeral process:

There is only one crematorium that works in Zim, and it's in Mutare. So you have to put the body in the back of a bakkie and get it there yourself. It then costs half a billion (just over) for the cremation. The problem is, the banks have no money and the funeral homes don't take cheques. So even if you can afford the bill (yeah right!) the maximum you can withdraw in a day is 50 million, and that's if the banks have it. And the biggest note you can get is a 50 000. The new 100 000's are all at the border...because ZESA is desperately trying to buy currency off people as they come in to pay our electricity bills. We had 4 hour power cuts everyday when I was home. Oh and did I mention the hospital bill is 1.2 billion...life is interesting in zim...a good thing since no one afford to die!

How can we continue to tolerate this country? People are forced to live like animals and quite frankly it makes me feel physically ill. My heart is with you my girl, you are in my thoughts and prayers.

Can't we do something about this? Like now? It is time...

posted by Cat Murray @ 17:12 0 comments

What has happened to the Mail & Guardian Online?

The Mail & Guardian online traditionally has been a favourite of mine, a one of the first sites I would go to in the morning to read well reported news reports and articles from home and all around the world.

I am very disappointed however to see that ad banners have completely overtaken the visual space on the page. They are horrible, glaring, completely overpowering and absolutely all over the place. In fact it is entirely unpleasant to navigate the page and I have avoided it ever since this little disaster happened.

I know the M & G must be earning potloads of dough over this, but have some sympathy on the reader will you?

posted by Cat Murray @ 12:59 6 comments

Print is where words go to die

Yes it's true. Print is dying, in fact by 2040 it will be dead as many of you are aware. And books are probably the most limiting of communication media.

The problems with books are many: They are frozen in time without the means of being updated and corrected. They have no link to related knowledge, debates, and sources. They create, at best, a one-way relationship with a reader. They try to teach readers but don’t teach authors. They tend to be too damned long because they have to be long enough to be books. As David Weinberger taught me, they limit how knowledge can be found because they have to sit on a shelf under one address; there’s only way way to get to it. They are expensive to produce. They depend on scarce shelf space. They depend on blockbuster economics. They can’t afford to serve the real mass of niches. They are subject to gatekeepers’ whims. They aren’t searchable. They aren’t linkable. They have no metadata. They carry no conversation. They are thrown out when there’s no space for them anymore. Print is where words go to die.
- Jeff Jarvis

Print is dead. Long live digital media! Let's go paperless, save our last trees and share, remix and talk about content and knowledge.

posted by Cat Murray @ 13:32 0 comments

Send that penguin flying...

Great stress relief.

posted by Cat Murray @ 18:21 0 comments

Websites as graphs

We found this a site online Websites as Graphs. You can enter your URL and it will map your homepage as a graph showing how your links, tables, forms etc fit together. It's pretty nifty and you can watch the tree growing in front of you. It provided hours of mindless entertainment in the office.

This is what my blog looks like:


This is what the colours mean:
What do the colors mean?
blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

posted by Cat Murray @ 15:37 0 comments