September 16th, 2009
Tags: Typography
Posted in Typography | 
None
I am fortunate enough to get an invite of typekit. Typekit is a technology platform that allows users to render custom fonts(other than the core web fonts) rather then depend upon flash or images for rendering custom fonts. It offers a way to license fonts for them to be used by web designers.
There are many drawbacks of using images or Flash to render custom fonts. They make indexing the pages a nightmare(Google wont be able to find you easily 
) and there are many accessibility issues. Typekit aims to sort these problems while maintaining the quality of design.
It works only on Firefox 3.5 or Safari since only these browsers support the @font-face.
August 13th, 2009
Posted in Uncategorized | 3
While redesigning this site I came across a css hack by which borders inclined at an angle can be created. I observed it while designing the navigation and decided against removing the slants cuz I think they’re cool.
I decided to play a bit with this little hack and made myself some hills using plain html and css.
You can view it here.
The CSS
#hill
{
float: left;
width: 250px;
margin: 0px;
font-size: 21px;
}
#hill a {
display: block;
width:0px;
padding: 5px 5px 5px 10px;
border-bottom: 125px solid #fff;
text-decoration: none;
color: #000;
}
#hill ul{
margin: 0px;
list-style-type: none;
padding: 0px;
}
.h1
{
background: #e3e147;
border-left: 300px solid #e3e147;
}
.h2
{
background: #47e3b5;
border-top: 125px solid #fff;
border-left: 300px solid #47e3b5;
}
.h3
{
border-left: 300px solid #47c0e3;
border-top: 125px solid #fff;
background: #47c0e3;
}
.h4
{
border-left: 300px solid #e34765;
border-top: 125px solid #fff;
background: #e34765;
}
The HTML
<div id = “hill”>
<ul>
<li><a href=”#” class= “h1″></a></li>
<li><a href=”http://ganeshiyer.net/about/” class= “h2″></a></li>
<li><a href=”http://ganeshnomicks.blogspot.com/” class= “h3″></a></li>
<li><a href=”http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ganeshiyer/rssfeed” class= “h4″></a></li>
</ul>
</div>
I’d love to see your results, post ‘em here.
July 25th, 2009
Posted in Uncategorized | 2
So finally I decided to revamp the look of the blog. It took me nearly three days to get it done. The code was written on PHP Designer 2007 and graphics were made on Gimp. The CSS used is valid. Usability and accessibility issues were considered while designing.
Did you like the design? Or found a bug? Please post it in your comments.
July 15th, 2009
Posted in News | None
As if Google hadn’t terrorized Miscrosoft enough, on 7th July Google announced that it would be launching an OS. I have always believed that web based operating systems are going to be the future and Google’s new OS is, loosely speaking, a web based OS.
What it means is that it takes away the burden from your processor and transfers it to the processors of the websites you are going to be using.This will be done by the means 0f your internet connection. I dont expect it to be a fullon OS like Windows or Mac. I think its rather a going to provide a framework that’ll enhance our web experience.
What we need is better support for existing technologies to develop more kick ass web apps. We have already stretched AJAX, HTML and other web based technologies. Hopefully Google’s OS will help in imporving the potentials of these technologies.
