Make your photo's jump off the screen with better contrast and some clever JavaScript (click on the thumbnails). Mix this tool with Getty Images or iStockPhoto and I'd be so happy. I also really respect the author for not using the word AJAX and for having a great looking blog.
I'm not usually very aloof, but certain things I take for granted--like properly functioning doorways. This is especially true for businesses that rely on customers to actually walk into the establishment. Nothing irritates me more than visiting a restaurant that has a double door entrance with one door locked.
Sounds crazy huh? Not so! It happens to me ALL THE TIME. I can't even count how many times I've walked into a locked door while the other one mocks me.
Besides making me look stupid, being bad for business, and not making any god damned sense, isn't that a fire hazard? There doesn't appear to be a pattern, for sometimes the left door is locked and sometimes the right. It's gotten to the point now that I am paranoid of double doors. I apprehensively test them like hot frying pan handles before moving forward.
Would someone who's worked in a restaurant or movie theatre please give me an insight into why this practice is so prevalent? Does the staff just get a kick out of it or is there a legitimate reason?
If you aren't familiar, ClearType is a little known display effect in Windows that smooths fonts. If you're on a Windows XP machine, you can easily test this out:
- Right click the desktop
- Select "Properties"
- Click on the "Appearance" tab
- Click on the "Effects" button
- Find the dropdown labelled, "use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts"
- Select "ClearType"
- Click "Ok"
- Click "Apply"
Here's a quick visual for the reading impaired:
If it's working, you'll see that your text is smoother and, perhaps, easier to read. Of course, being a web designer I can't actually use this because I have to take into account that most users do NOT have this turned on. I wonder why?
From Microsoft Help & Support
Because a standard cathode-ray tube (CRT) screen uses an electron beam to excite pixels, and does not have specific pixels at a specific location, you do not experience the same benefits that you experience on an LCD screen when you use a CRT screen. However, because ClearType still includes antialiasing support, you may see some improvement when you enable ClearType on a CRT screen.
Huh. Strikes me as lazy because there's this nifty tool out there called ClearTweak that allows you to tune the contrast and "fuzziness" of the smoothing. It seems to solve the problem on both my LCD and CRT screens. I guess when XP was being rolled out this was a low priority and they needed an excuse to leave it unfinished. My guess is that in the next generation of Windows they'll have this all figured out.
Please give a show of hands if you're already using ClearType.
