NetNewsWire Style

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I’ve been a long time fan of Ranchero Software’s NetNewsWire Lite, and with the new beta of 2.0, They have added the ability to modify the RSS entries through CSS. Most of the stock styles I found to be a bit lacking for the way I use the application.

To change this, I took an existing style from Bartelme Design and removed the images, as I had not made them. I also got rid of all fixed and absolute positioning. That made the style a bit more usable. Then, I added various and sundry tweaks to make it “pretty”. As this is a work in progress, expect changes and tweaks along the way.

Update 20/2/2005: Added padding and got rid of the overflow property for the headlines.

Download CMH Graphite (2KB)

On the <DL>

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Definition Lists are a little-known, but increasingly popular type of XHTML list. From research I’ve done, it was available for use starting with HTML version 3, but almost totally unused until after the advent of XHTML and modern CSS. The basic formation of the Definition List starts and ends with a standard container tag, in this case <dl>. Inside this container you have two sub elements, <dt> for “definition term”, or the thing you are going to define, and <dd> for “definition description” showing the meaning of the previous term. You can have single or multiple terms apply to one or more definitions, and you can have several term/definition pairs within a single list.

Originally, I thought that Definition Lists were only to be used in typical dictionary situations. I paid little attention to them, as I’ve never needed to write my own personal dictionary. Recently, many people have been using the <dl> in interesting and creative ways, such as marking up conversation, where the <dt> surrounds the speaker’s name and <dd> is used for the dialogue. More often, it is being used for sidebar lists on both progressive corporate sites, and the weblog community. Lists marked up using a <dl> are more “semantically correct” than generic unordered lists in that situation because there is a relationship between the header and the items within. Soon, I plan on changing the sidebar on this site to use Definition Lists, not just for the semantics, but also because of the vast CSS possibilities.

While the Definition List isn’t perfect for every situation (such as when you need to have a block level element in your <dt>, for example, a headline), They are amazingly flexible when it comes to styling the mark-up. As there are three elements to style, the possibilities are a bit more interesting than other types of lists, where you are limited to two styled elements. For example, you can make bold your <dt> and italicise your <dd> like this:

iPhony

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Let me go on record and say that I don’t believe Apple will ever create a phone of their own. Instead, they will partner with someone like Motorola or Sony Ericsson to integrate Apple-owned intellectual property (such as the already announced iTunes effort) into future mobile technology products. But sometimes I like to play games of “What if?”.

2011 Update: Boy was I wrong!

Software Design

My vision of the iPhone is simple. Let the phone be a communications device, and not a poor excuse for a digital camera, nor MP3 player. The iPhone will have an address book that synchs with Apple’s Address Book application, including both “smart groups” and ratings. Smart Groups work as they do in OS X 10.4, “Tiger”. Ratings work like the star-ratings in the iLife suite. Rating allows for hierarchy when you have multiple numbers for an individual —higher rated numbers float to the top. You could also set up incoming calls below a star threshold to go directly to voice mail. The possibilities are endless when you can rate your friends. My mythical iPhone would also have 3G capabilities and Bluetooth 2 connectivity so it can be used as a mobile high-speed hub for internet access anywhere you have service. Caller ID information could be spoken via text-to-speech and heard through the Bluetooth headset, or the speaker.

Hardware Design

The physical device would be compact, but not small enough to make it difficult to dial. The screen would be similar to today’s iPod. A high resolution, high contrast black and white screen that is easily viewed in daylight conditions, with a back-light for darker locations. A more expensive version with a colour screen could incorporate the photo in the Address Book entry for caller ID purposes. I also want to see a click-wheel, similar to the current 4G iPods. Under the click-wheel would be a standard numeric keypad.

I am not a fan of flip-style phones, but if the click-wheel, plus numeric keypad, plus screen make the phone entirely too big, a ‘flip’ style phone could separate the click-wheel and keypad from the screen. This would necessitate the addition of a second screen on the outside to view caller ID information without opening the device.

Life is Random

Of course, for the truly minimal, I would like to introduce the iPhone Shuffle. Much like its musical sibling, the iPhone Shuffle will sport an ultra-compact, screen-less, speaker-less shell that has only a single button: “call”. It will then place a call to a random person in your Address Book. Click it again to end the call. Incoming calls would have the same TTS capabilities of its larger sibling, but routed to the mandatory (sold separately) Bluetooth headset. I imagine this being used just after “last call” at the pubs.