• Apr252007

    Oh Microsoft what have you gone and done now?

    Posted by Gene in Email Marketing

    Office 2007I know there have been several articles and posts about this subject already across the web but I have to put in my two cents worth. I agree with David Greiner at Campaign Monitor when he says “Microsoft takes email design back 5 years” with their decision to use the Word HTML rendering engine in their new Office 2007 release of Outlook.

    What are they thinking? While it appears they support inline-styles, this is still a long way from being at least a decent upgrade instead it is a major step backwards. A short list of what isn’t supported in the new Outlook/Word 2007 HTML rendering engine uncovers a very sad state of affairs:

    no support for background images (HTML or CSS)
    no support for multiple nested tables with background colors applied
    no support for forms
    no support for Flash, or other plugins
    no support for CSS floats
    no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists
    no support for CSS positioning
    no support for animated GIFs

    I struggle to understand this decision and why Microsoft continues to steer away from supporting widely accepted W3C HTML standards (yes I know IE7 was a step in the right direction but I’m not 100% satisfied.)

    “HTML has nearly universal adoption among consumers: A Jupiter Research consumer survey found just 3% receive only text email.” taken from emaillabs.com

    I’ve read many posts that support the “text-only” approach which in my opinion is simply the easy way out, and I know simply complaining about this isn’t going to change Microsoft’s mind and at least have them use their own IE7 HTML engine *gasp*… I have always built the email messages for my clients using the tried-and-true tables with inline styles method and I’m sure things will be fine with that practice going forward but isn’t this a huge step backwards for web-standards and HTML email marketers worldwide?

  • Apr232007

    More design gallery love

    Posted by Gene in Design

    We’ve been featured in a few design galleries around the web. Here’s a run down of all the exposure. Hey, why don’t you go and vote on our design too. To all those galleries a hearty Thank You is in order!

    screenfluent.com
    http://screenfluent.com/view/www.period-three.com

    cssbloom.com
    http://www.cssbloom.com/2007/04/11/period-three/

    cssmania.com
    http://cssmania.com/galleries/2007/04/07/period-three.php

    screenalicious.com
    http://www.screenalicious.com/screen/period-three.com/

    cssimport.com
    cssimport.com (Notable Entry)

    dailyslurp.com
    http://www.dailyslurp.com (we’re in there somewhere)

    css-galleries.com
    http://www.css-galleries.com

    cssgalerie.com
    http://www.cssgalerie.com/?page8 (The French love us.)

  • Apr122007

    Top down design

    Posted by Jay in Design

    This post by Todd Dominey blew my mind. He goes to check out a house for sale that had been featured on the cover of Dwell magazine only to find it’s a piece of junk. The house seems to have been built almost as a prop. No attention to detail and shoddy craftsmanship in every aspect of the house:

    There were misaligned windows, floor tile that extended to the wall and then dropped off into God knows where, and incredibly, a sconce on the wall that had a paper cup for a shade.

    Then to cap it all off, the upper loft-areas were surrounded by a railing made out of steel pipes with a cherry-looking wood top. They looked rather stylish from afar, but upon closer inspection the pipes were garden variety stuff you’d pick up at Home Depot with the barcode stickers still affixed to every pipe.

    This is exactly what gives designers a bad name. Designing only for aesthetics and not for use or accessibility or sustainability. Design starts with the user, not the creator. If it doesn’t work, then nobody will use it. This goes for any aspect of design, whether it’s product design, architecture, or web design. It means not only being able to design something but being able to build it. It’s impossible to do one successfully without the other.

  • Apr122007

    P3 on CSSMania.com

    Posted by Gene in Design

    cssmania.comLooks like we’ve been showcased by CSSMania.com, go check it out, don’t forget to vote too!

    With CSS showcases, web developers and companies that want to have a presence on the internet have the ability to analyze the latest designs done in CSS.

    CSS Mania’s primary audience is made up of professional web designers (most of them with blogs) and regular people who love CSS. These regular people are discerning customers, as they have special intuition about high quality products.

  • Apr112007

    P3 on Screenalicious.com

    Posted by Gene in Design

    Thanks to Screenalicious.com for featuring our website.

    Screenalicio.us is the web’s new premier source for showcasing excellent websites and inspire artists all alike to create spectacular work of their own. They have the largest collection of websites you will ever lay your eyes on, and it keeps on growing every day.

  • Apr102007

    uway.org profiled on cssmania.com

    Posted by Gene in Design, Our Clients

    Uway.org website designOne of our clients United Way of the Midlands’ website has been profiled/featured as a quality design and good HTML/CSS build on www.cssmania.com go take a look and make sure to vote if you like what you see.

  • Apr092007

    Happy Dyngus Day!

    Posted by Jason in Random Stuff

    Dyngus Day (The Old Days)

    From Wikipedia, “In Poland, traditionally, early in the morning boys awake girls by pouring a bucket of water on their head and strike them about the legs with long thin twigs or switches made from willow, birch or decorated tree branches (palmy wielkanocne). However, the earliest documented records of Dyngus Day in Poland are from the 15th century…”

    So, dump a bucket of water on a co-worker!

  • Apr092007

    Jott Networks

    Posted by Gene in Random Stuff

    Jott LogoI ran across this nifty little web-app. Really it’s pretty cool. You can call yourself and leave yourself a reminder, the system then transcribes it and sends it to you as an email, you can then also listen to the audio if you want. I actually do this sort of thing, that is call my cellphone and leave myself a voice mail as a reminder, the problem is I often forget to check my messages in a timely fashion so my plan for a reminder doesn’t work out so well…

  • Apr022007

    What not to do when building your website

    Posted by Gene in Design

    Josiah Cole has developed a list of the top things a web designer/developer should never ever do when they produce a website. I agree with him entirely. Here’s a quick list:

    Never resize the user’s browser window
    Never load your website’s “real” content pages in a pop-up
    Never require the user to determine which version of your website they want to view
    Never build your website to be 100% Flash based
    Never load music automatically on initial page load
    Never use a technology just because it’s new or cool

    My favorites are:

    If you are a “print designer” do not attempt to design the website
    Use a copywriter for your copy
    Support all the major browsers

    He writes it much better than I do, so go read it for yourself, and if you find yourself being offended by any of his points, you should stop building websites…

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