IE 6.0 - QuirksMode - for all your browser quirks

What a great find! This site is like a roadmap to all of the browser quirks. I wish I had found this site two months ago. The web is truly a wonderful place, providing this type of instant info so the rest of us can succeed.

Enjoy the read, and make sure to bookmark this baby!

Labels: Web Development

Pieces come together as SU humbles Hopkins

"The Syracuse lacrosse team picked a perfect time to play a nearly flawless game. The Orange ousted top-seeded Johns Hopkins 15-9 Saturday before the largest crowd to ever watch an NCAA Division I semifinal. The 46,923 at M&T Bank Stadium witnessed a Syracuse team that wore the badge of underdog with haughty resolve and seized control of the contest with a confidence contrary to its No. 4 seeding. "

What a great game. The Orange have finally got the monkey off their backs!! See how they got there.

CSS Crib Sheet: mezzoblue
This is a great real-world cheat sheet. This can save you many hours, especially if you are trying to grasp the DIV layout craze. Enjoy the read!

Labels: CSS

Lindsay's late goal extends SU's Final Four streak to 22

...The referee, he said, shouted there were 15 seconds left in the game.

"I looked in," Vallone said, "and I saw Sean just curling down and I said, 'Oh jeez, I gotta throw it to him.' "

The two made eye contact. Lindsay never took his eyes off Vallone. He kept looking, kept praying for a pass.

"He put it in a perfect spot, just right on the money," Lindsay said. "I was just in the right spot in the right time and I put it in the goal."

Vallone never saw the ball ripple the net, but he heard the pro-Syracuse crowd erupt. Lindsay raised his stick momentarily in celebration, but because nobody knew how much time was left, he quickly pulled it back. When SU players inquired about the time and learned there were just five seconds left, they allowed themselves a twinge of happiness.

When Brennan tied up Corno at the final faceoff and a referee's whistle signaled the end of the game, SU rushed the field in a torrent of relief. The Orange was back in the Final Four.

Syracuse 8
Georgetown 7

Orangemen Lacrosse head to the Final Four

The streak is still alive! The Syracuse Orange lacrosse team is headed to its 22nd straight Final Four.It wasn't easy though, as the fourth ranked Orange trailed for most of the game against Georgetown, before pulling it out 8-7.

The Orange turned to their upperclassmen to pull through against the Hoyas Saturday at Schoellkopf Field in Ithaca.

Mike Powell scored three goals, all of them coming in the third quarter. But it was the senior duo of Steve Vallone and Sean Lindsay that saved the day.

The Barbarian Group - Mini Site Case Study

It’s official. If you’re young and happening on the Internet, the place to be these days is advertising. Forget e-commerce and cultural work; the firms doing Web sites for ad campaigns are now getting the biggest budgets and the most creative latitude.

Right in their midst you’ll find The Barbarian Group. From a late-starting, low stress office in Boston’s Newberry Street district, they’re creating dozens of innovative Flash sites a year.

"I think what we’re best at is experience-oriented brand sites and mini-sites," says company president Benjamin Palmer, "we tend not to do sites that are only the presentation of information."

Web Page Development: Best Practices

The Safari development team at Apple has made a dedicated effort to implement Web standards. This means that the easiest way to ensure optimal rendering of your pages in Safari is by following the standards. Doing so will also guarantee optimal rendering in Mozilla, Opera and Internet Explorer for Macintosh. Of course, each of these browsers has its own minor quirks or legitimate differences of interpretation, so testing your site in all of them is still mandatory.

By comparison, Internet Explorer for Windows—the most popular browser for the Windows OS—often requires web developers to use a number of non-standard tricks or to accept layout differences. This situation is unlikely to change anytime soon, so for now, web developers have to work around these problems.

This article gives some practical hints on how to create standards-conforming websites, and to work around some of issues that will arise for Explorer for Windows.

Before you start coding your website you must make a few decisions—which DOCTYPE do you use? Do you use pure CSS, or CSS with Minimal Tables? We'll discuss these topics, and then go into some design guidelines and issues to consider with XHTML and CSS.

Excerpt taken from Apple Developer Connection

Sliding Doors of CSS: A List Apart

A rarely discussed advantage of CSS is the ability to layer background images, allowing them to slide over each other to create certain effects. CSS2’s current state requires a separate HTML element for each background image. In many cases, typical markup for common interface components has already provided several elements for our use.

All I wanted was a functioning sprinkler system, completed within a reasonable amount of time and with no problems. What I recieved was (is) far from that. Here is my story.

There comes a time in each man's life, where you must make a decision to take the higher road. That decision was presented to me today, the morning of May 14, 2004.


The story really begins on Saturday, May 1, when The Sprinkler Guy failed to show to begin our job. He said he ran into trouble securing the trenching machine. I should have known this was the beginning of the end.

You see, he is also working on my next door neighbors yard, and therefore was trying to complete both jobs (the trenching) while he had the rental. Big mistake. Due to time limits, I feel as though he rushed to get the job(s) done to get the machine back in time.

On Monday, to make a long story short, he cut through a few utility lines. Yes. I said A Few. The Cox cable line (TV & Internet) and the phone line. This was only my yard. In my neighbors yard, he also cut the Cox cable line, but worse yet, he cut his well. Yes the well. Remember, this was on Monday.

So, Monday night, Cathy spends the entire evening on hold with Cox trying to schedule repair service. Cox customer service blows. I mean it is terrible. She was on hold for hours, using up our mobile minutes since we couldn't use the land line...because it was cut too!

So, on Tuesday, the phone guy said our phone line was cut in so many places, that it required an entirely new line to be buried. Yes. I said the line was cut in so many places. But, at least we had service, even if our yard looked ugly. Unfortunately, Cox couldn't get out to the house until Wednesday. Well, we could wait one more day.

Wednesday arrives, and Cox is scheduled to be at the house. We work it with The Sprinkler Guy to make sure to be there when they arrive, to show them where it is cut. Well, by the end of the day, it turned into a he said, she said affair between The Sprinkler Guy & Cox. Cox said they showed and noone was home, so left a door tag. The Sprinkler Guy said they never showed at all. The curious thing is, a door tag was never found. Hmmmm. Bottom line, no show, no service.

After we reschedule with Cox (after a long time again on hold), it is now Saturday as the earliest they can come out - between 4pm-6pm. Wow. This is really amazing. Well, that wasn't going to do for us. I decide to take matters into my own hands and pull the "MacGyver" and try to splice the wire. I used an extra VCR/TV connector to rig the cut wire. It worked for the TV only, not the broadband. At least we were half way there.

So, after this long week, friday arrives. The system is just about completed, except for some sprinkler head adjustments and the controller box walk-through. I stress just about completed. When I walk out to meet The Sprinkler Guy, the first thing he asks me for is the balance due. Well, I think I took him by suprise when I told him that I would pay the balance when the job is complete.

Let me tell ya, he flew off the handle. I was taken by surprise a little by his animosity. I mean, the job wasn't done. There were utility lines and piles of dirt in the backyard. In my mind, the job was not completed. I wanted to withhold payment to insure that I wouldn't be charged by Cox for the line repair. It turned into a huge shouting match, right in front of the house for the whole neighborhood to hear. It was classic, I was in rare form.

I proceeded to tell him he should hand dug around the Miss Utility markings. That is what you are supposed to do. Hand-dig. It's all about being prudent. It could have saved me a lot of headaches, and it would have insured he got his paycheck on Friday. We went back and forth, and he gave me every excuse, that it wasn't his fault. I mean The Sprinkler Guy, the guy who cut through two (2) cable lines, a (1) phone line and a well pipe, was going to blame everyone but himself? Give me a break.

We went all week without our broadband internet, something vital to our careers. No broadband = no work from home. He didn't seem to understand that our livlihood relies on that service. Through the whole argument, I did a good job to argue/debate without lowering myself to name calling, and by providing solid examples and reasoning behind my decision to withhold payment.

The Sprinkler Guy, however, did not do the same. As I was walking away, with my back towards him, I hear him say under his breath, "you're an asshole." I paused, for what seemed about 2 seconds, still looking in the direction I was heading, and then carried on. I couldn't believe that this whole debacle had dropped to this level. A new low.

I made the decision to keep walking, right on into the sunset.

Hammered out by the members of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and other standards bodies and supported in current browsers developed by Netscape, Microsoft, Opera, and other companies, technologies like CSS, XHTML, ECMAScript, and the W3C DOM enable designers to do the following:

• Attain more precise control over layout, placement, and typography in graphical desktop browsers while allowing users to modify the presentation to suit their needs.
• Develop sophisticated behaviors that work across multiple browsers and platforms.
• Comply with accessibility laws and guidelines without sacrificing beauty, performance, or sophistication.
• Redesign in hours instead of days or weeks, reducing the costs and eliminating grunt work.
• Support multiple browsers without the hassle and expense of creating separate versions, and often with little or no code forking.
• Support nontraditional devices, from wireless gadgets and web-enabled cell phones fancied by teens and executives to Braille readers and screen readers used by those with disabilities – again without the hassle and expense of creating separate versions.
• Deliver sophisticated printed versions of any web page, often without creating separate “printer-friendly” page versions or relying on expensive proprietary publishing systems to create such versions.
• Separate style from structure and behavior, delivering creative layouts backed by rigorous document structure and facilitating the repurposing of web documents in advanced publishing workflows.
• Transition from HTML, the language of the web’s past, to the more powerful XML-based markup of its future.
• Ensure that sites so designed and built will work correctly in today’s standards-compliant browsers and perform acceptably in old browsers (even if they don’t render pixel-for-pixel the same way in old browsers as they do in newer ones).
• Ensure that sites so designed will continue to work in tomorrow’s browsers and devices, including devices not yet built or even imagined.

This is the promise of forward compatibility.

Excerpt taken from “Designing Web Standards” by Jeffery Zeldman

Protect Against Exploit Code - Security Bulletin MS04-011

IIS users beware.

Building a Custom Registration and Login Control

New login utilizing ASP.NET for HolavaGuy.com. This should be a great learning example. We'll see how it works...

Wow - what a great technique this is. As you can see, I utilized this image technique on HolavaGuy.com. Clean & browser friendly, especially with the IE work around. The site is taking shape...more to come.

read more >>

Ah yes...right where I belong. At least for now. First place after a spanking of The Bobble Heads. Keep up the good work, and don't forget how long the season is.

Grandma Holava, my Mom, came to visit this weekend. It was nice to be able to spend some time with her, more than the ususal 1/2 day. We hung around the house on Saturday, Jake opened presents from Grandma, and then we grilled out burgers for dinner. It was a nice day, a little chilly compared to Friday.

That evening, Cathy and I went to a Cinco de Maio party across the street. I was apprehensive to go because the host doesn't like me too much. I don't understand why. What's not to like? Anyway, it was a great time as we got to see some old neighbors and catch up. They get crazy at this party every year, with karaoke singing and jello shooters.

Jacob got to go next door and hang out with Tate, Lane and Elle for most of the night. they had there own party, watched Justice League and ate ice cream. Fun, Fun!

On Sunday, we got up early and went to brunch at Waterman's restaurant. It was nice, even thought the waiter tried to screw us with the bill ( and pretty much succeded). We walked on boardwalk and took pictures. The monster trucks were there, all lined up in the sand. The weather was awesome, sunny and warm (85).

We went home and put our shorts on, and filled up Jake's pool. His pool has a built-in sprinkler, which made the grass very happy. Frank and I fixed the footer on the back door to the house. Drilling into cement is never easy. But at least it's done now.

All-in-all, it was a great weekend!

Here are the first pictures from Jakes Birthday party...
Image One
Image Two
Image Three

I hope you enjoy them...they are huge files, so be patient with the download times.

Yahoo! News - AP: WTC Developers to Break Ground July 4

To be discussed...Question of the day...should we build on "Ground-Zero"? This author is leaning toward "No".

The Problem, the Balloon, and the Four Bedroom House: A List Apart
Good article for project management/scope issues.

The problem
Without a problem, there is no project. Where there is a problem, however, there is a stakeholder who is desperate for a solution and who has a delivery deadline which is normally sometime yesterday.

Please repeat after me: "What you are asking at this stage has changed the project considerably from the documentation and the scoping process that we undertook and has been approved. We could continue, but I believe it would jeopardize the quality and the integrity of what needs to be delivered. If what you are suggesting is vital to the project, and cannot be handled as a phase two, then I would like to stop the project now so that this new addition can be properly scoped and integrated, rather than tacked on. To continue without re-scoping, may cause unforeseen problems later, which could be quite costly. However, you must understand that to stop now will affect timelines and budgets. How would you like us to proceed?"

My little boy is growing up so fast. People will tell you the time flies, and they are right. Just yesterday it seemed that I was feeding him bottles of formula, and changing poopy diapers.

Cathy and I are going to Jacob's school today to help him celebrate with is classmates. It will be nice to see how he interacts with his classmates. He has started reading (fan, cat) last week, and is making great progress overall. Not only is he cute, but he is smart and athletic as well.

Of course, as his father, I am a little biased.

Happy Birthday Jacob. I love you!
Love Daddy...

Cascading Style Sheets
Know the rules before you begin...easier said than done.

OK - here we go. We have published the new look HolavaGuy.com. Hopefully, I will be able to share ideas and insights with my family, friends, and co-workers.

SU Athletics - Powell Busts "The Move," as Orangemen Defeat UMass, 17-10

The new scoring leader at SU. He will beat his brothers on the last day of regular season...

Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: My Glamorous Life

Very interesting perspective...on death and sickness. This is also a sample of what I want holavaguy.com to be. It can be, I know it.

Here we are, it's 1:30 pm and the skies are looking ominous. Jake's 4th birthday is at 3:00 pm. Hmmm. Well, we have a pinata, pin the tail on the donkey, a moon walk (weather permitting), cake, ice cream, petting farm & hay ride (also weather permitting) all planned for the day.

We have a nice guest list, some of Jake's neighborhood friends & friends from school, highlighted by his best friend Norman, and his "girlfriend" Ally. Not sure on the whole girlfriend thing, but that's for another discussion. All the details are coming together nicely...just waiting to leave for the farm at this point. Jake has been playing outside all day, and will not get his customary afternoon nap. We'll see how that goes.

Over and out...pictures to come??

This is the definitive resource for all things creative. Any designer should have this site bookmarked, and should visit here on a weekly basis.

Great idea generator!