site information
The FAQ, everything you might want to know about the inner workings of this site. The last update was on June 15, 2005. Now, let's get down to business, shall we?
I suppose we could cover what the goal here is. This site serves a few purposes. First of all, it's the best place to find out what's going on with me. Second, it'll have all the stuff I work on including my exploits in web development and gaming work. And finally, I'd like to actually create a decent resource for web designers both novice and experienced.
Miscellaneous
- This site is coded using CSS 2.0 and XHTML 1.0 Transitional. Layout is done via CSS and the content is marked up in XHTML. Therefore, you absolutely need a browser with good CSS support, or the site's not going to work properly.
- This site is designed primarily for a 1024x768 screen resolution. Other resolutions should work just fine, though.
- I've tested this site with the following browsers:
- Internet Explorer 5.x - It gets the job done. You should get a better browser, though. *cough*Mozilla*cough*
- Internet Explorer 6 - Works a bit better than 5.x, but it's still not among the best when it comes to proper rendering.
- Netscape 7.1 - Works pretty well.
- Netscape 4.7 - This version of Netscape does not adequately support CSS, so if you have it do yourself a favor and upgrade now.
- Opera 7.21 - Works pretty well, aside from a few minor spacing issues.
- Mozilla 1.5 - Excellent support for W3C specifications. You can expect subsequent versions to work just great as well.
- Mozilla Firefox 1.04 - Fast and efficient, it's a solid browser with excellent standards support. Firefox has become my new default browser and the one I keep in mind while designing.
- Safari 1.0.1 (v85.6) - A solid browser for the Mac OS X platform, besides Mozilla that is.
- Known bugs:
- Internet Explorer 5.x fails to handle the small-caps declaration at all. So if you see a header and it's in all caps, chances are you're using good ol' Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 6 has since fixed this. Every other browser I've tested renders it just fine.
- Internet Explorer 5.x also has a small glitch with the menu, but it isn't anything detrimental. It also fails to support borders everywhere I've placed them, but again it's not a huge deal.
- This site is hand-coded using a Notepad-like program called NoteTab. Sure, WYSIWYG editors like FrontPage or Dreamweaver are convenient, but they have a habit of creating sloppy code. I like my code to be as pristine as I can make it.
- I use Adobe's PhotoShop 7.0 for all of my image work.
- You'll see this on the Contact Page but there's nothing wrong with a tiny bit of repetition. If you have something to say to me, you can send e-mail to matt@commentedout.com, and if you have any comments or questions regarding the site itself you can send those to webmaster@commentedout.com.
Copyright Info
- All of the material on this site, unless otherwise noted, is, protected under a Creative Commons License. You're free to make copies of the material on this site and distribute it for nonprofit purposes as long as the license goes with it and credit is given to myself or any respective author I might quote.
- If I happen to post someone else's work it will be explicitly marked as not mine and I'll be sure to provide a way to get in touch with them regarding any questions, comments, whatever you may have.
Site Questions
- Why is it called Commented Out?
Good question. When writing a stylesheet or an HTML document or a script (be it in JavaScript, PHP, or whatever) the author might tack in comments, which get ignored by the browser but are viewable in the source code. Usually comments are used by designers to help organize their work, leave reminders about their code, or even help curious aspiring designers understand what's going on. When something is marked as a comment it's referred to as being commented out, and since part of what this site is all about is a look behind the scenes at web development and the life of an aspiring developer, I thought it was appropriate and catchy.
- What's that CSS stuff you mentioned before?
CSS (which stands for Cascading Style Sheets) is one of the most fantastic tools at a webmaster's disposal. The first version, cleverly titled CSS1, crept quietly onto the internet scene back around 1997, and Internet Explorer tried its very best to support CSS1 in its version 3.0 release. The problem was that the CSS specifications weren't even set in stone yet. Nowadays, however, we've got CSS2 ironed out and the major browsers do a good job with support for it with CSS3 coming in fast.
CSS is basically a very convenient way of defining everything on your web page: fonts, font colors, line spacing, positioning, you name it. I use one CSS file to define everything that makes up my site. Even the layout itself is done with CSS, so if you lack a CSS-enabled browser you're looking at some funky stuff right now. Through that one document I can control every color and bit of spacing on this site without having to go and change each individual HTML document.
It's a beautiful thing.
- You don't use too many pictures or animations on your site. Why not? I see lots of sites full of them!
Flashy has never been my style. Besides that, lots of pretty pictures and animations can add up to higher bandwidth requirements, which I consider bad for two reasons. One, it's a longer download time for you and I want to keep things as quick and streamlined as possible. Two, more bandwidth costs me more money so if I can keep a low bandwidth requirement, it makes my wallet very happy. Money really is the root of all evils.
- Why do you throw your e-mail address everywhere?
For your convenience. This way, you don't have to hunt down my address to drop me a line. It'll almost always be right there for you.
- This site is only done by you, right? Then why do you give your e-mail and a webmaster e-mail?
It's easier for me to organize and respond to e-mail that way. Stuff sent to the webmaster address is site-related, and stuff sent to my address is for me. It saves me plenty of time since I don't have to rummage through stuff to figure out what's what. It all just goes to a seperate inbox.
- Could you make me a homepage?
While I would certainly love to, I've got just about enough time to manage this one. I can't really afford to take on projects like this for other people unless I know I'll have time to devote to it for them. You can always feel free to drop me an e-mail if you have any questions, though, and I'll try to help as best I can.
- Well, if you can't make me one, how can I learn to do it myself?
Why, right here! Part of what I'm trying to do here is provide a good resource for people who are just getting into web design so they can avoid bad habits and develop good techniques right from the start. If you already know a bit about HTML, all is not lost! I'll get into advanced layout techniques with CSS and all that fun stuff eventually. So soak up a little HTML and CSS knowledge and pick up two books: Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman and Cascading Style Sheets 2.0 Programmers Reference by Eric Meyer. Some hosts like Tripod or GeoCities may have tools for quickly creating pages, but the code you create yourself will always have the advantage of being cleaner and easier to work with. You'll see.
- Why don't you design your site with Flash? Flash is so cool.
Once again, it really comes down to bandwidth. I like things to load fast. Flash layouts, while ultra-cool, can sometimes suck up bandwidth and hinder dial-up users (and there are still plenty). Besides that, you need the Flash plug-in installed in your browser. A site designed with Web Standards (like this one) will load up quick and is much more accessible. Don't get me wrong, I think Flash is a fantastic tool and Flash layouts can be awesome (like the portfolio of Greg M. Washington) but they're not my preference. Besides all that, Flash hasn't found its way onto my list of proficient skills just yet.