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Sausage Sizzler - Lets Blog! |
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| Editorial March 27th, 2003 |
G'Day Sizzlers!
I had an interesting response to last weeks editorial asking about
your will and want to blog or not. It looks like there is a
demand for a service by Sausage Hosting that can help you get up
and running with your own blog. I have also gone into a little
more detail on the whole phenomena in this weeks Gear Grinders.
I do belive if all goes well we will have a plan for those of
you who want to run a blog in the coming week or so.
As always there are other great tips and tricks in this weeks issue, so
read on! Also feel free to submit your own ideas for articles.
Read, learn, then implement.
Keep on sizzling!
Nathan Allan
Sausage Sizzler Editor
editor@sausage.com
|
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code you are provided somewhere on your Web site. Then as people
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|
HotDog Affiliation / Distributor Programs
We recently had a request to include a tip on how to add HotDog
button links / affiliation to a website.
The Sausage Products Distributor program provides you with all of
the information necessary to enable you to distribute the trial
versions of Sausage products, as well as their free products, on
your own web sites, CD-Rom's, books or magazines.
Importantly, the entire process is automated to limit the amount
of inconvenience to you. All it takes is the same style simple
login and password that you use for sizzler forums. You can click
on this link to go there now: Distributor Program and see the deals that can
be had.
You can also alternatively provide a link to Sausage on your
website and top referrers can win a prize and have their site
linked on the Sausage Winners page giving you a boost in the
number of website hits!
Sausage have worked hard to make sure there is a button link for
every style of website, and so there are now no less than 5 pages
of links, banners and logo's in an easy to use format that shows
you all the choices for each page in one easy step! Go there now
and see how easy it is at Marketing Resources. Even the html code
is included for you to cut and paste into your web page!
I've included two links below which show how 2 websites have had
a link included, why not take a look, you might like the websites
as well (btw none are mine!)
http://www.NetBloke.com/
http://www.GenXTek.com/
If you'd like to include a link but need more help, info or just
a holding-hand just drop us a line here or to any of the Sausage
staff and we'll help all we can!
Post your comments here:
HotDog Tip by Kevin Hannan
Lets Blog!
Well last week I got quite a lot of feedback on my question
regarding a blogging service, to be run by Sausage Hosting.
Quite few people had not even heard of Blogs, otherwise known as
Weblogs, or more simple explained as online diaries. They allow
people to put their thoughts on the Internet without having to
worry about building a designing a web site. Of course in my
opinion building a web site is only as hard as the tools you use
to do it. For example our own HotDog Junior makes it very easy,
with no need to learn any code!
However I digress. Blogging has really become mainstream. Google
recently purchased one of the pioneers in the blogging world,
Blogger.com. There are many other backends that will facilitate a
blog, however the best way to show you the time, passion and
world of blogging is to share with you some of the sites fellow
readers submitted:
http://www.bambinoscurse.com/
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107659/
http://www.genxtek.com/
http://www.netsheila.com/
Share your blogging experiences or questions:
http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1430
Spotlight by Nathan Allan
Specifying small type sizes - pixels or 'em's???
This tip has been reproduced with kind permission from Joe
Gillespe as I couldn't have written it any better than this! This
excercise also shows just how easy it is to get permission for
other people's work and stay on the right side of copyright law!
Quote:
There is a raging debate in Web design circles about the relative
merits of specifying font sizes in pixels or ems.
Using pixels locks the size of type in sync with physical pixels
on the device displaying it where using ems sets the type sizes
relative to those set up in the reader's browser preferences.
As long as the pixels are about the same size from one display
device to another, using pixels gives fairly predictable results.
Problems occur when the pixel size varies significantly from the
norm - or the reader's monitor or eyesight is not as good as the
designer's
Even at 9px, Arial looses its kerning and becomes hard to read.
It is, after all, a printer font and not optimised for screen
use.
Verdana has been optimised for screen use and is still quite
readable at 9 px - but not below.
Times was designed for small print in newspapers but is a total
disaster at small sizes on the screen.
If you have a 17" monitor running at 1280 x 1024 and the width of
the screen is 13 inches, then the size of the individual pixels
can be calculated by dividing the 13 inches by 1280, but it's
probably easier to consider the 'pixel density' - which is 1280
divided by 13 - approximately 98 pixels per inch. If the monitor
is running at 1024 x 768, then the pixel density is 1024/13 -
approximately 79 pixels per inch. The difference in perceived
size from one monitor resolution to the other means that 10px
type looks like 8px type at the higher resolution.
Some recent browsers can resize type sizes specified in pixels -
Mozilla/Netscape 7, Opera and Safari all do a reasonable job, but
some can't and leave little option but to change the monitor
resolution if the type is too small. Poor old Explorer 6.x
refuses to resize type specified in pixels - so that means
'most'!
Specifying type in ems is safer where the audience is using a
large variety of monitor sizes and less capable browsers. Think
of 1 em as being 100% of the user's preferred type size, 0.8 em
as 80% and 1.3 em as 130%.
Now, that's all fine but there's another factor that many
designers forget about. As a designer of small fonts, I'm aware
that there is a minimum size at which type can be formed from
pixels and below which it becomes a meaningless blob. This
critical 'threshold' size is based upon the need for five pixels
in height to properly form a lower case 'a' or 'e' and if you
add-in 'h' and 'g', you need at least two pixels for the ascender
and two pixels for the descender. So a font size of nine pixels
is the minimum you can get away with for an upper and lower case
font - with a good screen font.
If a designer specifies a small font size as, say, .6 em and that
resolves to less than 9 pixels in a reader's browser, then the
type will be totally unreadable - even changing the resolution or
using a magnifying glass won't help.
The moral is, if you do prefer to use ems to specify your type
sizes generally, when you want small type and get below about 0.8
ems, switch to px to be sure that your type doesn't go below the
critical 9 px threshold.
Do any other Sizzler reader's have any tips as regards pixels and
'em's and which fonts are best for small and large sizes? - Which
font's do you use in your web site(s)?
Post your comments here:
http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1424
Tip by Kevin Hannan
To read the Sizzler Forums you do not need to be a member.
However to take full advantage of this resource it will only take
you a few seconds to sign up!
- Go to: http://www.sizzlerforums.com/
- Read the information and click on the REGISTER button
- Fill out the form
- You will receive an email that you simply reply to
- Hey presto! Your a fully fledged Sizzler Forums member!
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