All posts by Robin

I'm a woman in my early thirties living in North Carolina, USA, and I have a lot of varied interests; I love creative writing, music composition, web design, surfing the Internet, thinking out loud, and gaming. And yes, my glasses are crooked. :)
Monday in the HTMLab

How Does Web Design Affect The User?

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affecttheuser
We designers often feel saddled with the need to make our layouts compact and yet readable, everything beautifully-designed and yet fast-loading. And often, in the fever of design, we end up forgetting to make our pages actually usable (guilty as charged). When we’ve spent so much time with our graphic design creation, we tend to see it more as an extension of our pride and effort rather than an entity that needs to be intuitive and useful.

Based on this tendency, I have created a checklist for creating web designs that are both graphically pleasing and user-friendly. Bear in mind, most of my experience comes from my personal preference, but it also comes from many years of trial and error in web design. Beauty is still in the eye of the beholder, but usability is on trial today.

Color/Pictures

Do the design’s colors draw attention where you want it most?

In general, users’ eyes are attracted to the brightest or most interesting-looking color first. In your design, is there color beside or behind the element you want users to pay attention to first? If there isn’t, your users might be momentarily confused as to where to look first. (See point #3 for how to choose an interesting color that doesn’t take over the whole page.)

Do the pictures in the layout enhance the content?

When we design layouts, we can easily get too caught up in how pretty the pictures look in the layout, how well we’ve blended several pictures, etc. But we have to make sure that our designs’ pictures don’t take away from the content, but instead offer our “brand” or otherwise identify our site in the user’s mind.

Your graphics can be simple or complex, incredibly detailed or pixelated, but it’s got to make sense with the rest of the site. A grungy design can take away from a sleek technology-based site, for instance, and vice versa.

Do the colors “go” together?

Using complementary (opposite) colors in a web design can work to great effect when trying to draw attention to important elements (see point #1). But if there are way too many colors going on, the site design can cross the line between funky and tacky (like wearing too many patterns at once). Likewise, if your site has a monochromatic look, it may seem boring to users’ eyes. You have to throw at least something in there to break the tone-on-tone look, otherwise users won’t know where to look, or they will be turned off and navigate away from your site.

My fix: put in at least one contrasting or vibrant color into your layout, and for the rest of your color scheme, select colors that harmonize with each other. Then, you’ll have an “accent” color that draws attention to what you want to highlight, without overwhelming the rest of the page.

Content Organization

Is it easy to find site navigation?

I’ve seen it many a time–site navigation that is so darned tiny you can barely see it, and it’s tucked away close to the bottom of the page where nobody is going to find it. Place your navigation at or near the top of the page, and make it big and bold so your users immediately see it–otherwise you’ll have a lot of frustrated users on your hands!

Is it easy to keep reading the page?

Headings, subheadings, and a good amount of white space are essential, especially for long articles (such as the one you’re reading right now). If text is crowded together with no paragraph breaks, no headings, etc., then it will suffer from “Wall of Text” syndrome and no one will read it.

Is it easy to figure out where a particular page is located?

We designers can be awfully vague when we name our navigation links! Be careful that your navigation categories make sense and are immediately recognizable…even if this means typing a few more words into your navigation panel/bar than you’d really like to. (For instance: “Layout Info” is much more meaningful than just “Site Info”.)

Fonts

Let me preface this by saying that Web designers have long been trying to outdo each other by using the prettiest or most complex fonts they can find in their graphics. Nowadays, the font battles continue even on regular text in blog posts and pages, since designers have found custom font tools such as Typekit. (I still stick to the Web-standard Verdana, Garamond, Arial, Times New Roman, etc., but many designers have gone over to using custom fonts for everything.)

Fonts do, however, tell users more about our content than perhaps we intend; one funny chart about fonts’ true meaning (with a bit of bad language) puts this competition over fonts in perspective. (I read this chart and thought, “Finally, somebody else who can’t tell the difference between Helvetica and Arial!”)

While this lends a humorous angle to the “font wars,” we as designers do have some serious concerns to address when we choose fonts for our designs:

Is the font style easy or hard to read?

We often forget, in trying to make our site look inventive and cool, that the font actually has to be reasonably legible. Overly cursive, decorated, or symbol-like fonts may look really unique, but it makes it almost impossible to determine what letter is which, especially on small resolutions. When we choose fonts, we must make sure that our users can still read our content underneath the “icing” of the font. (Pet peeve: really cursive font that is set to a tiny size. STOP. DOING. THAT.)

Is the font size big enough?

Before you choose 10pt font for your body text, ask yourself: do you like looking at pages and pages of text in 10pt font? Most people will say that they don’t. Many web designers, however, resort to using 10pt font (and even smaller!) to try to cram all their content onto one page without the user having to scroll. This is not the best way to draw users to your site–if it’s hard to read, they’ll leave and not come back. If you want your user to enjoy your content, make your fonts big enough to read; after all, isn’t the content the reason you created the site in the first place?

Summary

Designing layouts is not just about creating a visual work of art–we’re also creating an INTERACTIVE work of art, one which our users must be able to navigate and use to their heart’s content. Being considerate and careful in how we use color, fonts, and content organization will make our layouts much more usable–which means more people will visit our easy-to-use, easy-on-the-eyes sites!

Saturday with the Spark

Getting All Beaded Up

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gettingbeadedup
It was a random side trip to Walmart that started it. I found myself in the Fabric and Crafts section, staring down a glittering aisle I’d not bothered to travel before–the bead section. Literally hundreds of cards full of beads hung on the racks, in varying shades and amounts of sparkle and glimmer. How had I never seen this aisle before?

Pretty much out of the blue, I picked up a few cardfuls of beads that interested me, plus a couple of “Instant Necklace” kits, with the appropriate silver clasps already attached to the wire and cut to size. Two necklaces later, I was absolutely hooked on creating my own beaded jewelry.

The following pictures are of necklaces I created using the Instant Necklace wire kits plus my own selection of beads, arranged in self-created patterns. The Instant Necklace kits are cut to size, but some of the beading patterns did not take up all the room on the necklace (mainly because I needed room to handle the wire long enough to thread it through the other side of the clasp). Thus, they might be a little bare in spots, but they wear well once they are on.

Samples of My Work

This was my first necklace, but certainly not my last. I loved alternating the silver and dark blue, denim-patterned beads, and this is still one of my go-to necklaces when wearing blue, black, or white tops, though it can also go with gray and even red on occasion.

This is one of my favorite necklaces I’ve ever done, because it is BLUE and SPARKLY. 😀 It makes me happy. Not to mention that I enjoy the play between pearls and gemstones, managing to create a weightless look without too much effort. Since I wear a lot of teal and white, this necklace sees a lot of wear especially in the summer. (This necklace’s wire was accidentally bent in two places during an aggressive airport baggage check, which accounts for the odd angles in the picture, but it straightens out well when I wear it.)

Even though this one was a bit of a color stretch for me, I’ve found myself wearing it more often than I thought I would. I have some purple tops that go well with it, but it has surprised me how well it wears with other colors–even pink shirts look good with this!

My Personal Beading Style

The trend in beading today may be big, chunky, earth-based necklaces, but I prefer my beaded jewelry to actually look, well, like jewelry: polished, pretty little stones, delicately set together. Thus, I choose small beads over large, and I like to combine sparkly beads with pearlescent ones on the same necklace for pretty variations.

Most of how I put necklaces together is rather instinctive; I look at a selection of beads in a store and think, “Ooh, I have some pearls that will go well with that.” A few minutes of arranging the beads back at home generally brings me to a setup I like, and I run with it.

Along with my idea of pairing a sparkling translucent bead with a pearlescent bead of same or similar color, I also like to vary sizes along the length of the piece I’m making–usually, the beads in the middle of the necklace will be slightly larger than the ones at each end, and that’s deliberate (called “graduating sizes”). If I do change it up and mix in bigger beads earlier in the pattern, I will generally set smaller, clear beads around each large stone to help it not stand out quite so much.

Lastly, I try to use symmetrical patterns for my necklaces. If I have a pattern started on the left side of the necklace that goes “tiny pearl, tiny gem, small pearl, big gem, small pearl, tiny gem, tiny pearl,” then I mimic that when I get to the right side of the necklace in the same place.

It can be hard to keep up with where you are in the necklace, so I recommend laying out your beads first on a beading tray to get your pattern together. Amazon.com has several beading trays (also called “beading boards”) that help corral your beads and even align them into a necklace-like shape so that you can make your patterns and thread the wire through more easily.

I’m certainly not the most skilled beader out there–I’m still not familiar with all the intricate patterns you can use to make bracelets and necklaces out of, like macrame. However, the single-strand necklaces I make are enough for my jewelry needs, and they are simple enough to master even for my clumsy fingers.

Try Beading For Yourself

For those who are veterans in beading, or those who are completely new to the craft, many big-box stores like Walmart have cheap beads that don’t look completely tacky. Choosing solid colors of beads generally gives you a better product–some of the mixed-color beads end up being ill-made, as I’ve unfortunately found out. There are also a lot of online tutorials and articles which can help you out!

You can also find quite a bit of beads and beading supplies online, or go to an actual beading specialty store–I’m lucky enough to have a beading specialty store in my area, called Off The Beaded Path. Beading specialty stores will likely have beads of better quality, but you will often pay a little more for that quality (which is okay).

In terms of metallic beading wire, necklace clasps, earring pins, etc. (collectively known as “findings”), you’re better off going to a specialty store or looking online. Walmart had those Instant Necklace kits that got me started, which were great for me because I didn’t have to fool with putting the clasps on the wire myself. But if you want to build the necklace completely from scratch, you will find more variations in color and style going to a specialty store.

I tend to blend my big-box-store finds with my specialty-store finds to make pieces that are at once fairly inexpensive to make and expensive-looking. Try combinations of your favorite colors and favorite textures of beads, and experiment as much as you can!

Beading Links

Beadage.net – projects, instructions, beads available online
BeadingDaily.com – daily ideas, tutorials, and patterns
BeadingTimes.com – every month, a new issue, with articles about how to market your jewelry, how to come up with original designs, and lots of other topics!
Free Patterns @ Beadwork.About.com – free beading patterns
TheBeadCoop.com – patterns to download and print

Friday around the Web

Philosophers, Shuffle, Lamp vs. Chair, and Barcode Art

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philosophers
Philosopher.org.uk
Ever heard of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Foucault, Descartes, etc., and wondered what their philosophies were all about? Check out all of them and more out at this site!

Shuffle
Like a twisted game of pool–get rid of all your opponent’s balls before they get rid of all of yours! (yes, I know how wrong that sounds, but there was no other way to put it)

You Smell Like…(Funny Shirt)
A lamp pokes fun at a chair. (language alert)

BarcodeArt.com
Make yourself an individualized barcode for fun, to put on a t-shirt, and all kinds of other fun things!

Thursday in the Zone

Resident Evil Deck Building Game

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residentevildbg
For those who are not familiar with any of the Resident Evil video game series, the whole concept sounds like something you don’t want to mess with. Arming yourself with various and sundry weapons to fight zombies? Sounds like a horror movie gone crazy.

I certainly thought this way about the video games, and wasn’t too enthused about playing a deck building game based on the same mythos. Horror and killing stuff really isn’t my bag in movies or video games either one, so when my boyfriend (a major Resident Evil fan) asked if I would like to try the deck-building game, I expected it to be not much fun.

Boy, was I proved wrong! In the Resident Evil DBG, like many other deck building games such as Ascension and Dominion, the long-term strategy is the winning strategy, which means lots of fun happy times for gamers like me who like to play for the long-term gain rather than the short-term strike.

To Begin The Game

All players in the Resident Evil DBG start out with a character card of your choice (more about those later) and the same 10 cards in their decks:

7 ammunition/gold cards, worth 10 ammo and 10 gold each, used for powering your weapons and purchasing upgraded items and ammo
2 combat knives, each of which can deal 5 damage and doesn’t require any ammo
1 handgun, which requires 20 ammo to work and which can deal 10 damage

From this original 10-card deck, you draw 5 cards and begin your turn. On your turn, you may buy 1 resource from the rows of resources laid out on the table, play 1 action, and explore the Mansion 1 time if you choose. Once your turn is over, you take all the cards you’ve played this turn and place them in the graveyard (your used cards), and draw 5 new cards to prepare for your next turn.

Wait, What’s the Mansion?

The Mansion is familiar to those who have played the Resident Evil video games, but in the context of the game, it’s simply another deck of cards on the table. When you want to “explore the Mansion”, you must have a weapon (like the Combat Knife, the Handgun, or other sundry upgrades to these items) in your hand, as well as enough ammo to power it. You then declare you’re going to explore, and then turn over the top card of the Mansion deck. Whatever Infected zombie creature is revealed, your weapons must deal it enough damage to defeat it in one hit, otherwise the Infected creature deals your character damage and then goes back under the deck.

Say, if you explored the mansion with two Combat Knives and a Handgun. You’re able to do 20 damage, because each Combat Knife does 5 damage, and the Handgun does 10. All the weapons you play combine together for total damage, unless otherwise specified on the card or the character.


If a Male Zombie shows up as the top card, you’re in luck, because it has 20 health and will be defeated with your combined 20 damage. You then get 1 decoration for having defeated it.


However, if the top card is a Licker instead, you’re out of luck–it has 40 health, and will not be defeated by two Combat Knives and a Handgun combined. You will instead take 30 damage from the undefeated Licker, which will then go under the Mansion deck to be rediscovered later. (Be careful–you can end up taking enough damage from undefeated monsters to actually kill your character!)

Different enemies have varying levels of decorations–some give you 2, 3, or 4 decorations if you defeat them, and the two strongest monsters in the Mansion (Nemesis T-Type and Uroboros Aheri) give you 5 and 8 decorations, respectively. Whenever Uroboros Aheri is successfully defeated, the game ends, and everybody counts up decorations–the highest total wins.

Character Cards

Fans of Resident Evil games will recognize the various characters included in each box of Resident Evil:DBG. Familiar faces like Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield are there, alongside others like Jack Krauser, Sheva Alomar, and Ada Wong (my personal favorite).

Some characters have weapon specialties–you’ll want to give Jill all the Grenades she can carry, for instance, while Sheva makes magic with Rifles and Krauser is a beast with Knives.

Each character in the original DBG has two abilities that activate when they have gained a certain number of decorations. At Level 1, the character can use the first ability listed on their card; at Level 2, they can use both abilities.

The reason Ada Wong (at left) is my favorite is because of her Level 1 ability, which allows her to “peek” at the top card to see if it’s something she can defeat with her current damage total. Ada can put the “peeked” card on the bottom of the Mansion instead of trying to defeat it, and she can then go for the second-from-the-top card instead. (This is great for moving Uroboros Aheri out of the way when I don’t have 90 damage to defeat his 90 health, because with my luck, I’m ALWAYS drawing the boss. XD)

Another important point to remember: each character also has a set amount of health. Some characters can survive a 70-point hit by Uroboros and live to tell about it next turn. Unfortunately, Ada and several other characters only have 70 health to begin with, so they have to be played more carefully. No haphazard reckless exploring the mansion for them!

Look through each of the character cards and see which ones fit your playstyle. Since I’m horribly unlucky in my Mansion draws, Ada’s ability suits me well. But you may find that another character is your favorite!

Game Modes and Resources

You can play Resident Evil: DBG several ways–a list of possible scenarios follows.

  • “First-Timer:” helps you get used to the game mechanics, basic and fun
  • “Mercenaries:” timed game, with various mini-scenarios to act out
  • “Versus:” where instead of fighting the zombies, you try to defeat the other players!
  • “Custom:” you and your fellow players choose resources to purchase, and play much like First-Timer

There are many, many different resources you can use to build your perfect streamlined deck in the game, such as upgraded weapons, healing herbs, and cards that let you get weapons back, trade out items, draw more cards, etc. Each game mode has its own set variety of resource cards–in First-Timer, for instance, there are some cards in the box that aren’t even allowed on the table, whereas in Versus mode, you’d make copious use of those cards.

My Personal Strategies

After several times of playing the game, I generally know what some of my first purchases are going to be. Purchasing upgraded ammunition cards is the first order of business–trading out all those 10s for 20s and eventually 30s will help power bigger weapons and will help you pay for those bigger weapons, too. Also, purchasing cards that help you clean out the cards you no longer need is very important. (Once you’ve purchased bigger and better weapons, you’ll want to get rid of the Handguns and Knives unless your chosen character has a specialty with them, for instance.)


The Six Shooter is kind of an upgrade from the Handgun, is it not?

Action cards such as Shattered Memories, Ominous Battle, and Item Management (no image) are great support cards for early- to mid-game deck thinning and streamlining. Other helpful Actions include Reload (get a weapon back from your graveyard, get 2 actions), Umbrella Corporation (draw 2 cards, put 1 card from your hand back on top of your deck, get one more Action to play), and Escape from the Dead City (draw 1 card, get 2 actions).

I generally don’t explore the Mansion for about half of the game–most of the first half of the game is getting my deck streamlined, and I usually avoid getting damaged by too-strong monsters until I’m ready to take them on.

However, by not exploring the Mansion, I sometimes miss out on the two most epic weapons in the game, which are actually hidden in the Mansion. Sometimes, you’ll Explore and come across one of these babies as the top card:

 
The Gatling Gun can be filled with any amount of ammo for equal amount of damage; the Rocket Launcher deals a flat 90 damage for 0 ammo investment.

For me, I’m not willing to risk Ada on the possibility of getting one of these weapons, so I play carefully. If the other players get the Gatling Gun or the Rocket Launcher, that’s great for them–I am simply more comfortable using tried-and-true (and safe) methods to last through the game. I don’t know if this playstyle would work for everyone, but it’s won me most of the games I’ve played so far!

To Find Out More

Unfortunately, the official game website has been closed because Bandai is no longer publishing RE:DBG as of 2013. But you can still find information through the RE:DBG page on the Resident Evil Wikia. Also, BoardGameGeek’s page on this game is a great resource as well, and I used it heavily while writing this article.

Wednesday in the Word

Believe in God’s Power

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believeingodspower
Isaiah 26:4-5
4 Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal. 5 He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust.

This verse exhorts us to trust in God, for He is powerful (the “Rock eternal,” meaning security and strength), and He alone has the power to humble us and take apart the godless things we build up for ourselves. (The “lofty city” referred to in verse 5 can reference Babylon, Jerusalem, Tyre, or even Rome, but the meaning is the same, regardless: those things we build up to be so “impenetrable” and “strong” can still be taken down at a word from God.) Whatever we worship in place of God, like money, power, technology, or knowledge, will always be leveled to dust, to show us that they are not what we should be focusing on.

But the enemies that rise up against us and the trials we endure can also be defeated at a word from God. He is trustworthy because He never deserts us, as the rest of chapter 26 of Isaiah, a song of praise, attests. When we are faithful to His Word, He is faithful to His promises for us; when we are unfaithful to His Word, He disciplines us, but still never leaves us utterly alone. God is the truest friend we will ever have, but He is not like an earthly “buddy”–He is God, almighty and sovereign.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Respect Retail Workers

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respectretailworkers
Retail workers, as well as customer service personnel in general, have a very tough job, in my opinion, because they have direct contact with the public.  We as customers, admittedly, can be awfully tough on salesmen and saleswomen at times–how often have you seen another customer yelling at a cashier in line at a big-box store, or getting agitated while trying to return an item?  Heck, haven’t we all BEEN that customer at some point?

What we as customers don’t realize is that we individually aren’t the only people that retail workers see all day.  Literally hundreds of people pass through their store every day, and each of them have their own set of demands to make.  Having worked retail myself, and having two parents who have worked pharmacy retail for nearly 40 years, I not only have heard horror stories, I’ve lived them, too.  Customer service and retail workers have a very difficult job, and it’s certainly not for everyone.

Why should we respect these people who chose to take on this job?  Here are several reasons:

They are expected to stand all day long.

Most healthy people don’t think twice about standing in line for a few minutes, even if the wait is boring.  But how about standing on your feet for 6 hours with no rest, or 8, or even 10 or 12?  This is what is demanded of most retail workers who have to serve at cashier counters and the like.  You cannot sit down–if you do, it looks like you’re on break, and you have to “look available,” no matter how bad you hurt.

For me, this turned out to be impossible to deal with–I have terrible nerve pain, bruising, and swelling of the legs and feet that make it excruciating to stand or walk for long periods of time.  Needless to say, I had to quit one of the retail positions I took because I hurt so badly.  But I saw many co-workers stand for hours without breaking a sweat or even losing their smiles.  They bore up under that physical strain, which is much more than it looks, and they did it while looking pleasant and friendly.  Not only do retail workers have to bear their physical pain day in and day out, but they have to make it look effortless so that their customers feel that they are being served by happy people.

They are expected to deal with people who treat them like sub-human beings.

Some people are just plain mean to customer service personnel.  As soon as they come in the door, retail workers cringe–suddenly, retail workers are the “enemy,” somehow, even though part of their job description is to be ready to help.  For instance, there was a woman I waited on in a local bookstore one time who barely even looked me in the eye, even as I tried to be friendly and assist her; she eventually called the manager on me twice, once because I was “hounding her,” and the second time because “I wasn’t assisting her.”  I was, admittedly, glad to see the back of her–I felt as if I were the lowest bug in the dirt when she spoke to me, and it made me mad, because I didn’t deserve to be treated that way.

When you walk into a store or restaurant, it is important to at least treat the workers with civility, even if you don’t feel much like being friendly.  They are fellow human beings, after all, doing honest work for a paycheck just like you.  Believe me, a friendly customer is a blessing–someone who understands how busy a store or restaurant can get, someone who waits patiently rather than shouting “serve me now!!”.  Unfortunately, these customers are a minority–more often, you get shouted at, cursed at, or generally ignored until needed, as if you are a soulless creature with no emotion.

They are expected to instinctively know when their place of employment is being robbed/defrauded.

No human is equipped with eyes in the back of his or her head.  But it sometimes feels as if you need that surgery to be effective employees in retail work!  Somehow, amid your regular work of serving customers, running their purchases through, and keeping the business clean and tidy, you are also supposed to know just when a shady customer is about to make a five-finger discount.  It’s not easy–those who like to steal usually disguise themselves pretty well, and it’s hard to be assertive enough to walk up to somebody and say “Have you paid for that yet?”, not knowing if you’re going to get a gun or knife pulled on you.  Bravery is one of those “hidden” job requirements for retail personnel of any sort.

They are expected to take on-the-fly schedule changes without a frown.

Someone sick on Wednesday night when you have choir practice?  No buts about it–you’re coming in to work.  Your kid have a performance on Tuesday night, but the boss needs you to do emergency inventory?  No way around it–you’re coming in to work.  Retail workers are expected to pretty much have no highly-scheduled life outside of their jobs, because you never know when you’ll be called upon to cover someone else’s shift, or do extra work outside of normal job hours.  You are literally supposed to drop everything, even if that “everything” is really important to you, because people must be on hand to man the storefront. Since retail these days rarely even stops for holidays, the whole career is very time-sensitive, and you have to be ready to work at any time.

Admittedly, many jobs are like this these days, with people becoming more mobile and business becoming more demanding.  Still, with retail being as punishing on the body as it is, you often need more time to recover than your schedule can give.

They are expected to be constantly ready to give 100% or better.

Are you a cashier?  You better scan and bag those items super-fast. Are you a waiter?  You better never drop a dish or forget a customer.  Are you a receptionist?  You better type at over 100 words a minute or bust.  And there’s tons of other retail- and customer-service-oriented jobs that demand more than your best.

Whenever you deal with customers, they generally expect you to be expert at your job, know where everything is, be able to answer any questions–you are their window into the business, and they need information and service fast.  Many things are automated by machines these days, so it’s not surprising that many people treat human service personnel as if they should be machines too, never making a mistake, never forgetting a detail, and never needing to rest.  Unfortunately, not all of us can be Commander Data of the U.S.S. Enterprise; we get stressed out, overtired, or just plain sick, and things tend to go awry because we’re not functioning at 100% anymore.  But we still have to look and act like we’re functioning at 100%.

Summary:

When you’re a customer, keep in mind that the person waiting on you has likely been there for hours. He or she may be in pain, stressed or tired, or may be missing out on a part of life that doesn’t involve their job. But he or she is still serving you, and trying hard to meet your needs. 

Even if salespeople seem surly or rude, patience and a smile can alleviate that very quickly–answering them with rude comments of your own will only exacerbate the situation.  Be kind to retail workers; they’re doing their job so you don’t have to do it for yourself!

Monday in the HTMLab

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo with CSS

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bibbidibobbidiboo
For this post, I’m doing something a little different–I’m going to show, rather than tell. CSS is a magic wand for your HTML structure, but rather than go into the realm of technical details, most of which I’m not totally familiar with (LOL), I’ll illustrate just what CSS can do for your pages.

Without CSS: A Sad, Sad Layout Indeed


Click to view “Layout Without CSS” (in new window)

See what’s missing? The color, the organization–pretty much everything that makes a layout is not present, even though the divided layers are still there. Without CSS to direct how the divs appear and how they line up on the page, it’s just a linear, one-after-the-other presentation, along with the horrid default color scheme. The sight of bright blue links that turn purple when you click on them…ooh, it gives me the creeps. LOL

With CSS: It’s HTML, Now With Less Fail!

Now, see what happens when just a few touches of CSS are applied to the SAME EXACT layout!


Click to view “Layout With CSS” (in new window)

Look at all that has been added! A background image is present, as is a header image (like we talked about in last week’s web design article); the navigation links are styled more boldly and stand out when hovered over. Not to mention that the welcome and the “about this page” section are now placed side-by-side, taking up less vertical space. Most of all, the layout is pulled together with a tone-on-tone color scheme, blending with the header and background image to make a basic (but pretty) design. (Now, CSS can’t make your images for you, but it can sure position them and make them repeat! :D)

Seeing this drastic change is quite like watching your own Code Fairy Godmother wave her wand and transform your ragged HTML structure into a sparkling CSS layout. Now you, too, can go to the webdesigners’ ball!

Saturday with the Spark

Joining My Voice With Others

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joiningmyvoicewithothers
Choirs have been a major part of my life since childhood, and I have loved every rehearsal and performance of it. Even though performing with any group, be it a dance troupe, an acting company, a band, or a large choir, is a commitment that takes dedication, it has helped anchor my life in many ways. The interdependency of a performance group is one reason I love choir–you become a family of sorts, understanding how each other operates, helping each other learn, working together for the common goal of producing beautiful music.

And yet, I would have never known my future interest in choir if I hadn’t taken a risk in 7th grade…and I wouldn’t have known just how important it was to me until I couldn’t be in a choir for a while.

My Personal Experience in School Choirs

Though I sang with my elementary school choir in 5th grade, I never really thought I had much of a singing voice until 7th grade, when I joined the choir “just to see if I liked it.” If I didn’t like choir, I reasoned, I could always go to band the next year.

I started out the year singing as I had always done: very softly, because I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right. But my choir teacher kept urging us to “sing from the diaphragm”–take deeper breaths and somehow push a louder sound out. I couldn’t wrap my head around what she wanted, so for a few weeks I continued singing very, very softly.

Finally, one morning she was fairly exasperated with us because we weren’t really trying much that day–most of the class wasn’t paying much attention. Right in the middle of her instructions on how to produce bigger sound, a knock came at the door, breaking her concentration. “All right, I’m going to say this one more time,” she said quickly, as she went toward the door. “Take a deep breath–don’t move your shoulders–tighten your stomach, and produce the sound!” Then she opened the door and talked to whoever was outside.

In the 30 seconds it took for her to talk to the person, understanding suddenly flashed in my head. Tighten the stomach? OH! THAT’S what I was supposed to do! I thought, “Well, is that all? Heck, I can do that.” When she came back into the room and took up her position at the music stand again, I was ready to sing, with my deep breath and tightened tummy.

From the expression on her face as we sang through one or two measures, she was not ready for the explosion of sound that came from the alto section. She motioned for us to stop singing, and in this shocked voice, she whispered, “Who was THAT?” It felt like every finger in the alto section pointed to me, and I wasn’t sure if her reaction was a good thing or a bad thing at first. 😀 But the big smile that dawned on her face let me know I had done at least something right.

From that day, I became one of the strongest altos in the section, and I never did make it to band. Finally, after nearly seven years of feeling like I had no place at school and that I would never do anything of consequence, I had found a place for myself, a place to be useful to other people. Many of the other altos were, like me before, still too shy to sing, so I produced tons of sound…which, I found out later, helped some of the other girls become more comfortable with the idea of singing with every rehearsal. The rest of seventh and eighth grade passed in this way–and, by the end of eighth grade, most of the altos I sang with had found their confidence as well. We thus had a strong corps of ladies ready to move on into high school choir.

I made it from the freshman Glee Club to the highest-level Chamber Choir in tenth grade, as one of only three ladies to be promoted immediately from Glee Club to Chamber Choir that year. Three successful years of Chamber Choir followed, under the direction of our high school choir teacher, who worked with us just as hard to shape our sound. (Some days I was worried he was going to have a stroke in front of us, he worked so hard!) But I did learn how to produce the tall vowels and enunciated sounds he consistently looked for in performance and rehearsals.

I carried this experience and knowledge into my college career, with one year of singing with the Women’s Glee Club and three years of singing with the Women’s Choir. My knowledge of choral music and my ability to adapt to different song styles grew as I sang in college, and by the time I’d graduated with my undergrad degree, I had sung in at least 13 different languages, traveled to sing in New York and England, and met a number of wonderful musicians who enriched me just by singing beside them.

The Break from Choir

Unfortunately, when I got into my graduate degree program, I had to largely quit choir to pay more attention to my studies in Middle-Grades Education. Other than my church choir, which I got to sing with only on Sundays I came home from college (and even then, not as often as I liked), I was out of the organized singing groups I had been used to singing with for nearly 10 years.

This break from choir, oddly enough, helped me realize what I loved about singing, and what I missed about it. I missed the camaraderie formed by trying to learn songs together (and often missing notes, lol); I loved performing with my fellow altos, keeping our line strong and helping the other three parts to stay on target. Though I did get to sing on occasion, I missed the constancy of rehearsals more than once a week, learning many different pieces, building up to a huge performance. I honestly felt lost without a group to perform with, and I think it contributed to my sinking heart and low state of mind.

A Joyous Return

But a serendipitous meeting with an old choir buddy (at Walmart, of all places) let me know of a new opportunity–the local Choral Society, a group of all levels of singers, was looking for altos. That was the impetus for me to attend a rehearsal, which led me to join up within the week. It was an electric experience after having been out of regular choir for so long. I snapped back into place like a long-lost puzzle piece, and I haven’t even entertained the idea of dropping out since.

My Current Choir Experience

I’m now involved in Choral Society as well as my church choir, and both choirs fulfill me musically, but in different ways. Church choir is a time for me to praise God for the ability to sing and the ability to make music; it’s not so much about the technical perfection of the music, but about the feelings and meanings that propel that music along. Choral Society, by contrast, is a time for me to sing with other choral musicians who enjoy rehearsing and learning challenging and lovely music–striving for technical perfection is part of the enjoyment (even if you don’t quite get there in one rehearsal, LOL!).

I enjoy singing with others much more than singing alone, though singing alone is cool; there’s just something about hearing your voice meld with others’, hearing it build in intensity, hearing it recede and return like audible ocean waves. It’s almost an animal in and of itself, moving, growing, and changing moment by moment…it’s awesome. It may not be a powerful soloist’s career, but for me, it’s a powerful experience. I’m so glad I took the chance to “see whether I liked choir”–it led to a lifelong love.

Friday around the Web

Spanish Poetry, Street Fighter II, Bubble Sheet Prank, and PortableApps

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spanishpoetry
I Like You When You Are Quiet
Beautiful Spanish and English translation of this poem by Pablo Neruda.

Street Fighter II
Play old-school Street Fighter II, right in your browser!

The Bubble Sheet (comic)
Once every year, this teacher plays this hilariously cruel prank on unsuspecting test-taking students…

PortableApps
Carry zillions of cool applications with you, on your flash drive!

Thursday in the Zone

Life Gain…It’s Not Just a Stall Tactic Anymore!

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lifegainnotstall
In my other posts on Magic the Gathering and casual gaming versus competitive gaming, I’ve often touched on the fact that there are many ways to play a game like Magic. Many competitive strategies involve lots of aggression or opponent control, and certainly these are faster ways to win than the style I’m about to describe. But just because a strategy doesn’t win quickly doesn’t mean it’s not worth looking at.

Life-gain in M:TG has often been characterized as nothing but a stall tactic, a way to keep yourself in the game while you build up slowly over turns. But choosing to keep your life total high can be much more important. The following are 3 ways you can use life-gain in your own decks: as a stabilizer, as opponent deterrent, and even–GASP!–a win condition!

Dipping Your Toe Into Life-Gain: Life-Gain as Stabilizer

Most times, life-gain is the net that opens below you as you fall from the tightrope. Many of the instant life-gain spells (see a fairly complete list here) give you the ability to partially or fully recover from a hit on your opponent’s turn, leaving you open to gain more life on your turn. (Remember, you have to live through the damage your opponent has dealt to you before you can gain the life off the instant spell.)

This kind of life-gain can be fitted into your existing strategy without making your deck too life-gain-based–it adds just a touch of resiliency. If you find that your super-aggressive deck isn’t staying around long enough when games go beyond 5 or 6 turns, you can put in a bit of life-gain (often combined with other control-based game effects like removing a creature or land, countering a spell, etc). Also, if your control or combo deck is having trouble staying stable in the first few turns before it can really build up, life-gain can give you a little cushion against high-damage decks while you’re searching up your combo pieces.

Partial Devotion to Life-Gain: Life-Gain as Opponent Deterrent

Sometimes, though, life-gain can be a way to discourage your opponent from attacking, especially in a group game. If all you’re doing is gaining life, and no damage your opponent deals really sticks, then they are likely to go for an easier target, or instead just build up their own strategy and leave you alone. Even in a one-on-one game, a good bit of life-gain can work as a mind game on your opponent, making them despair of ever taking your life total down permanently.

You don’t have to have tons of life-gain cards to make this work–just a playset each of Life Burst and Rest for the Weary can be enough for some decks, as well as some good lifelink creatures to block with. With a partial devotion to life-gain, there will be enough life-gain to shield you AND to keep your opponent guessing about how hard they’ll have to hit you for any damage to stick!

Total Devotion to Life-Gain: Life-Gain as Win Condition

Now, when I think of the concept of life-gain as a win condition, two cards come to mind: Test of Endurance and Felidar Sovereign. Both of these cards have a “You win if your life total is at or above this level at the beginning of your upkeep;” one is an enchantment, one is a creature. It is an unusual way to win, but it is actually quite effective; I have a deck based around Test of Endurance, visible here, which incorporates both damage prevention and steady life-gain off of everything one can possibly gain life off.

Building a deck like this means that you’re largely hunkering down and waiting to win–you’re not going to be doing a whole lot to the other player, unless you choose to use Lifelink creatures to do combat damage, or unless you build in a bit of opponent control into your own deck. Since I’m a more reactive, defensive player, I like this hunkered-down style of playing–the other person gets to play what they want, and they can TRY to attack me, but it’s not going to do much good, since I can bounce back pretty easily from any hit.

Summary

If you’ve never tried life-gain before, remember that you don’t have to devote 40 out of 60 cards to gaining life–you can add as few as 8 to give your deck a little more rebound from the depths of single-digit life totals. And it’s definitely not a weak strategy; indeed, if used correctly, it can blindside your opponent and bring you an unexpected win!