hushed gray: the Kevin chronicles

Sunday, June 22, 2008

New Web site design
Last week I put a new design in place on my main Web site, Philosateleia. There's some stuff on the site that looks a bit weird right now--it's just going to take time to go through and bring all of the pages "up to code," so to speak. I think the site will look better if I ever have time to get all that done, though. I'm definitely aiming at directing people toward the popular portions of my site.

One interesting problem I encountered wasn't a huge problem, per se--just a "why's it doing that" annoyance that I ended up spending a couple of evenings working on. Basically, when I had this CSS in place:

div#content {background-color: #ffffff; border-left: solid 1px #e0e0e0; border-right: solid 1px #e0e0e0; margin: 1em auto 0em; overflow: auto; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: left; width: 760px}
div.promoArea {float: left; width: 232px}
div.promoArea h3 {border-bottom: solid 1px #e0e0e0; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 1.5em; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0.2em; padding-bottom: 0.1em; text-align: right}
div.promoArea h3 a, div.promoArea h3 a:active, div.promoArea h3 a:hover, div.promoArea h3 a:link, div.promoArea h3 a:visited {color: #000000; text-decoration: none}
div.promoArea p {margin-bottom: 0em}
div#promoArea1 {padding-right: 15px}
div#promoArea2 {border-left: solid 1px #e0e0e0; border-right: solid 1px #e0e0e0; padding: 0px 15px}
div#promoArea3 {padding-left: 15px}

Firefox, Safari, and Opera were all happy as clams (which is a rather odd phrase). Internet Explorer 7 and 6, however, inserted a white "gap" below the three floated columns. This wasn't a huge deal in the overall scheme of things, but I wanted to know why.

Apparently IE gets confused if a div (perhaps any element, I haven't tested it) that is floated either left or right is the last element inside another div. In that case, IE apparently decides, oh, I must need a blank line here. Which it didn't. I didn't want a blank line there. So I went to experimenting, and here's what I finally came up with that worked:

div#content {border-left: solid 1px #e0e0e0; border-right: solid 1px #e0e0e0; margin: 1.5em auto; overflow: visible; padding: 0em 20px; text-align: left; width: 736px}
div.promoArea {width: 223px}
div.promoArea p {margin: 0em}
div.promoArea h3 {border-bottom: solid 1px #e0e0e0; font-size: 1.5em; padding-bottom: 0.1em; text-align: right}
div.promoArea h3 a {color: #000000; text-decoration: none}
div#promoArea1 {float: left}
div#promoArea2 {float: left; border-left: solid 1px #e0e0e0; border-right: solid 1px #e0e0e0; margin: 0em 15px; padding: 0px 15px}
div#promoArea3 {display: inline}

More convoluted than it should have had to be, methinks. div.promoArea3 is set to display:inline because Safari bumped that div down to the line under the floating divs if I set that div to display:table-cell. Meanwhile, Firefox didn't like display:inline unless I removed the margin and padding from that div--which I ultimately ended up doing, placing it on the div.promoArea2 instead since it results in the same visual appearance I was aiming for. So that puzzle was finally solved.

Work has not been particularly fun the last couple of weeks. The new Web site (which is supposed to launch very soon) still has some functional issues, the causes of which my boss and I have been trying to identify. And it has been pretty discouraging because I have nary a clue where to even begin looking. I don't know ColdFusion, I've never claimed to know ColdFusion, and the programmers who originally wrote the code left virtually no comments to identify what the code does. So I'm going through, reading code I don't understand line-by-line and trying to figure out where the problems are originating. Not fun.

Today I took care of the summer supplement for The Philosateleian. I don't know how many people actually use the pages, but I think it's 17 now that have submitted their e-mail addresses to be contacted whenever I release a new supplement. I have big ideas for the site; it's just finding time to actually do something with those ideas. Also rounded up the stamps for a couple of outstanding trades, got those ready to go in the mail tomorrow.

We had a little bit of rain here this afternoon. It looked on radar like there was a thunderstorm south of here, but only light precipitation outside my apartment. Before the rain fell I went for a half-hour bike ride--thoroughly enjoyed it even if it was hot outside, and even if my legs may feel it tomorrow. It has been a while since I've been on my bike, but I want to get back into that. It's more interesting than just walking because the scenery can vary a bit more, and I think it's probably better for me because if I push myself a little bit it gets my heart rate up more than just walking does. And with sunset not until around 8:30 I should be able to do a bike ride each evening after work (except, of course, on evenings when I have to do laundry or run other errands).

Speaking of running errands, on Thursday evening that's what I did after work. I'd been putting it off, putting it off because I really didn't want to, but I finally bit the bullet. Went to the library to check out a book that may have helped inspire the next sermonette I deliver; we'll see how that comes together. Also went to the auto parts store to pick up a couple of quarts of oil, then went to the gas station and finally to the grocery store. By the time I got back to the apartment, unloaded the groceries and went for a short walk it was well after 8 p.m. Hard to get much else done when it's already that late.

I've begun listing a little bit of my excess philatelic material on the Delcampe.net auction site. It's a site geared toward collectibles (picture postcards, coins, stamps, etc.), but there are no listing fees. You only pay a commission if something sells. And that's the sort of setup I need with the generally low-value material I'm posting. No sales yet, but I haven't listed more than a couple of lots in a single day yet, either. One nice thing is you can set the auctions to automatically restart for items that don't receive any bids, so I'm thinking I'll do that and once I get a few more items listed probably link to my Delcampe storefront from my main Web site. Hey, if I can convert some of the stuff I have no interest in into cash, that would be great!

There's much I want to do, little time to do it. I sat down this evening to put together a rough outline for evenings that are not occupied. A set block of time for Bible study, X minutes for exercise, X minutes for correspondence, and so forth, just trying to come up with a template to help me make good use of my time. Without it I tend to not get as much done as I think I can, so we're going to see how it works to have things a little better defined.

Everything's getting more expensive. Not just gas, although that's the one that gets all the attention. Think about the prices of various items next time you shop for groceries. Last week I was thinking about it and most of the prices appear to be about 20% to 50% higher than they were say at the start of the year. It makes sense, of course--the people who transport the stuff to the grocery store are paying more for fuel, so naturally we're going to pay more for the goods. But what can you do, you know? I'm ever more thankful for the Kevy Chevy and the gas mileage it gets.

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