Author Archives: Alec

jsFiddles: Borders and a Mixin

Posted on by
Reply
One of my favourite parts of being a front end developer is theming/styling a site. I love CSS and what you can accomplish with it, especially with CSS3 and its continued increase of browser support. In that vein, today I bring to you links to two jsFiddles.

http://jsfiddle.net/AlphaAlec/ZvHVx/
The first displays the extensive options you have with borders these days, thanks mostly in part to newer styles, such :before and :after pseudo-selectors and box shadows. This allows you have up to six borders on an element! Feel free to have fun with the features of jsFiddle and change the values around. Do bear in mind however that the regular box-shadow and the outline on #main switch around between Chrome and Firefox.

http://jsfiddle.net/AlphaAlec/gBhL3/
Second up is a Less CSS mixin. If you aren’t familiar with Less, I’d seriously recommend you have a look. It’s a wonderful extension to CSS, and very easy to pick up. In any case, this mixin is a semantic-friendly variant of Zurb’s Foundation block-grid, and allows easy changes to the block grid ‘up’ using media queries. Enjoy!

I am currently…
Listening to: The Spy by The Doors
Reading: Chronicles of Malus Darkblade by Dan Abnett and Mike Lee
Playing: Bioshock

Driving is for Chumps

Posted on by
Reply
As her 50th birthday present, I recently took my mother on a helicopter tour from Pitt Meadows to Downtown Vancouver. It was my first ever in a helicopter, and I’ll reiterate the post title to express some of my feelings about it: driving is for chumps. It was a fantastic experience and I can’t wait until I have a chance to get in one again.

It also fills me with some regret that it took twenty five years to take a helicopter ride, especially as a brief interest in joining the military led to a suggestion that I be a rotary pilot (I’m too tall to fly a fast jet). Maybe I’ll pursue lessons sometime in the future, though I understand the prices are high.

In any case, I’d strongly recommend people who haven’t been out in a chopper to save up and do so: you won’t be disappointed! The feeling is wonderful and you get the opportunity to take some amazing pictures. See for yourself!



The whole batch are on my Flickr account. Thanks for reading!

I am currently…
Listening to: Nightfall by Blind Guardian
Reading: Death of Antagonis by David Annandale
Playing: Blood Bowl Legendary Edition (still!)

Problem Solving with Google

Posted on by
Reply
I am honestly tempted sometimes to get a shirt made that says “I just work on a computer; I don’t fix them”. Spending a lot of time on computers via a mix of work and entertainment has resulted in many people asking me to fix their technical issues over the years.

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s nice to be needed and I’m happy to help (most) people, even if it’s something I don’t know much about. So I try and encourage a self-help approach. And generally the first stage of that is going to Google and search. I’ve found time and time again that it’s pretty likely you’re not the first person to encounter your problem. And with the mass of technical forums and question-asking sites, the solution is often just as likely to be there too.

This isn’t always the case though. I’m currently shaking a fist at Lionshead for their inaction in addressing corrupt Fable 3 saves. But that’s another story.

In summary: the solution you’re looking is likely just a few keystrokes and clicks away. If it isn’t and the almighty Google doesn’t yield answers, sure, come to me for help ;)

I am currently…
Listening to: This is War by 30 Seconds to Mars
Reading: Star Wars The New Jedi Order ~ Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand
Playing: Blood Bowl Legendary Edition

WordPress Custom Styling Techniques

Posted on by
Reply
Because everything within your WordPress site will (generally) draw upon the same style sheet, it can be difficult making a change to a div on one page when it’s used throughout the site. For example, giving one of your pages a different background colour from the rest. Of course, this would be no trouble at all in a hand crafted HTML site. There are solutions for WordPress as well, as it happens.

Now, it isn’t uncommon for home pages to have slightly different styles to the rest of their site. For example, if you wanted a white background for your wrapper, but have it transparent on the home page (as can be seen on this Feng Shui site). This is fairly easy to achieve, simply by using the .home class in your style sheet.
Continue reading →