Efficient Use Of Transparent PNGs
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- May 27th, 2008
- Posted In:
- CSS & XHTML
- Comments:
- One Response, Join The Conversation.
You can do a lot with transparent PNGs but it’s not very often that I come across someone doing something useful with them. Sure you can make a scuba divers light get brighter as you scroll deeper (CSS Zen Garden) or make icons look sweet with a drop shadow on all types of different backgrounds but that’s basic, almost useless stuff compared to what MAC cosmetics is doing with transparent PNGs on their site.
Kat was trying to send her friend an image of a colour of eye shadow, but every time she sent the image it was grey instead of the colour of the eye shadow. She asked me “WTF?”. I checked it out, they’re using a solid background colour with a transparent PNG over top. Amazing.
Instead of having to generate thousands of images and load them individually, they have one image with a bunch of background colour hex codes stored in a database. It’s genius and it probably saves them a bunch of money.
Check it out by clicking on the link below and then checking out any of the thumbnails. You can also click on the thumbnails for a bigger version of what’s going on. They have to use some simple JavaScript to force the PNG transparency in IE6 but it’s well worth it.
I Wrote About My Morning Jacket For Much Music
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- April 22nd, 2008
- Posted In:
- Music
- Comments:
- No Comments, Start The Conversation
I wrote a blog post about My Morning Jacket’s new single, album, Saturday Night Live appearance and Toronto show for the Much Music blog. Check it out: New Music From My Morning Jacket
I borrowed the photo from Brandon Hirsch, check out his photos on Flickr.
Love You To Death Website
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- April 6th, 2008
- Posted In:
- Portfolio, Web Design, Wordpress, XHTML & CSS
- Comments:
- No Comments, Start The Conversation
A custom Wordpress skin created for the power pop band Love You To Death. I did all of the HTML and CSS, I also laid it all out and created the background images. I did everything but the logo. Love You To Death website.
New CTV Video Player
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- April 4th, 2008
- Posted In:
- CSS & XHTML
- Comments:
- One Response, Join The Conversation.
The most recent roll out in the CTV beta broadband video player series is the CTV prime time broadband video player. You can watch 4 seasons of Degrassi: The Next Generation, 2 seasons of Whistler, or season 5 of Corner Gas (Mom & Dad), but in my personal opinion the best part of the player is the CSS… wow… breathtaking.
To be honest, I still can’t stop watching the Comedy Network’s video player. How can you go wrong with every single episode of South Park, Chappelle’s Show and Reno 911?!
Snowboarding At Smuggler’s Notch
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- March 23rd, 2008
- Posted In:
- Snowboarding
- Comments:
- One Response, Join The Conversation.
I made a cheesy video of Alison and I snowboarding at Smuggler’s Notch in Vermont last week. It’s really just here so I can watch it when I’m dying to snowboard again in the fall. Without iMovie I’d never be able to make these crappy videos, thanks Apple!
New Website: Devil Strip Rollers
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- March 18th, 2008
- Posted In:
- CSS & XHTML
- Comments:
- No Comments, Start The Conversation
The second of the two websites I’ve been working on as favours to friends has finally gone live. A devil strip is “The strip of concrete between the rails of street car tracks in urban centers.”, The Devil Strip Rollers are people who ride bikes in the city of Toronto. The website will be a central place for all cycling related info, pictures, videos and events.
The site is a 100% custom Wordpress skin created by me and based on the Photoshop files supplied by Ryan, the site’s owner. There are a bunch of plugins at work for the events, the Twitter feed, the Flickr feed and the YouTube feed. Thanks to some last minute help from Andre the Flickr plugin was fixed while I was on my way to Vermont for a snowboard trip, thanks Andre.
I learned a lot about Wordpress while working on this site and I’m happy with how it has turned out so far. I know Ryan has some big plans and I’m excited to see how this site will grow.
Getting to Smuggler’s Notch
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- March 16th, 2008
- Posted In:
- Snowboarding
- Comments:
- One Response, Join The Conversation.
I made the worst video ever on the way to snowboard for a week in Smuggler’s Notch, Vermont. Check it out, it’s kind of like video twitters all mashed together. It sucks!
New Website: Love You To Death
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- March 10th, 2008
- Posted In:
- CSS & XHTML, Design
- Comments:
- 3 Responses, Join The Conversation.
I’ve been working evenings and weekends for the past couple of months making some websites as favours to friends. The first of those websites to officially go live is a website for the power pop band Love You To Death. Love You To Death needed a new site because they changed their name from The Pettit Project and I know them because I used to play drums in The Pettit Project.
The new Love You To Death website is a custom Wordpress theme (made by me) with 2 plugins, Gigpress for tour dates and the Flickr Photo Album plugin for photos. I did all of the HTML and CSS and I did a little bit of design (background images) based on the logo, I did not do the logo.
I’m pretty proud of how it has turned out so far. Looks like they need a new store now since they’re still using a static one I built years ago but that will have to wait until after we snowboard in Vermont next week.
New Discovery Channel & TSN Video Players
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- February 26th, 2008
- Posted In:
- CSS & XHTML
- Comments:
- No Comments, Start The Conversation
The roll out of the new broadband video players we’ve been working on continues… The beta version of the Discovery Channel Broadband Video Player has been live for a couple of weeks now and the beta version of the TSN Broadband Video Player launched last Thursday. TSN has the usual sports clips if you’re into that kind of stuff (Dad, check it out!). Discovery Channel has a few shows that I really like including Jetstream, Doctor*ology, and How It’s Made.
Wondering what I had to do with it? Check out my post about the Comedy Network Broadband Video Player. Use these players! Watch TV on demand for free. All of the players are still beta so leave some feedback on the CTV Developer Blog.
Facebook Is Fed Up With IE6
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- February 25th, 2008
- Posted In:
- CSS & XHTML
- Comments:
- 4 Responses, Join The Conversation.
My friend Dave and I always joke about creating a style sheet that we’d only serve to people browsing with IE6 that just has * {display: none;}. For all you non-geeks this means that everything would be hidden, you’d see a blank page. I have seen a few personal blogs with messages that show up saying something along the lines of “your browser is old, get a new one” but until now I have never seen a “corporation” with a similar message.
When you visit Facebook using IE6 you get a message above your news feed (see above). The message reads:
Please Read This!
You may want to upgrade your browser.
You’re using Internet Explorer 6 to browse Facebook right now. Facebook will work better if you upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 or switch to another browser.
The message then lists links to upgrade to IE7, switch to Firefox, Safari or Flock.
I wonder what it took for the Facebook developers to convince their higher ups that this was something they should do. As far as I can see the site works fine in IE6. Lucky guys, no more IE6 for them….
-
Subscribe
-
Matt is...
Categories