From How to Become a Hacker, by Eric Steven Raymond. It’s a great read and, as I’ve been spending just about every waking moment on my projects lately, extremely timely encouragement.
This was a fun design task, as it was an exceedingly simple single-page HTML/CSS-only site, and I gave myself the artificial restriction of a 3-hour time limit. Normally I overwhelm myself by considering every possibility, but this time it was pretty much all instinctual, and it turned out well. There are of course far more ambitious ideas for it but for now it’s off to a modest start, just like the project itself.
The nice little embedded music player is 1 Pixel Out’s Audio Player WordPress plugin, modified to work in a non-WordPress site with this tutorial from Mindy McAdams. This Boagworld tutorial was also helpful in making the fixed footer.
GOG sports a nice and classy design as well, a rarity for gaming sites.
That’s Proper English Title Capitalization by Cantus Vetustus, which is excellent except for the fact that the list of ‘small words’ that get uncapitalized is a bit incomplete. So I merely replaced the list with that of John Gruber’s Title Case (which gets its list from the New York Times Style Manual).
To install the script on a Mac (no luck for Windows users) drop the file into /[username]/Library/iTunes/Scripts (and if that folder doesn’t exist, make a new one). Then a little paper scroll icon with the new option inside should appear in your iTunes menu bar.
An interview with Jonathan Ive about industrial design? Sold.
Why now, over two years later? The excellent MenuShade stopped working with Leopard, and after throwing a tantrum, begrudgingly accepting an ever-present menu bar, forgetting about the trick, remembering the trick a year later when re-assessing my Quicksilver triggers, frantically searching for a Leopard-friendly menu bar auto-hide app, and finally finding one (Menu Eclipse), I now have faux full-screen goodness again!
Menu Eclipse doesn’t have the features MenuShade had… you have many choices for your desktop color, as long as it’s black. But now I can happily single-task once more! I highly recommend giving it a try.