Adobe is releasing a new product that will allow you to pass a three dimensional image that can be rotated and scaled in the pdf format. It is expected to be used heavily in the manufacturing market, however it seems to me that it could easily be expanded into the medical and many other fields with great results.

If you have Adobe Reader Version 7, you can view a demo to see what the buzz is about. Right click on an image and choose show toolbar. It is fairly intuitive after that. I have taken a small screenshot of the sample three dimensional turbine.

I have written a tutorial previously discussing the various answers for the box model hack problem with Internet Explorer (a plague on the browser community in my humble opinion). I just finished a vary temporary under construction site for a client here that needed that to render properly the two column solution that they requested. They provided the jpg image and the text and gave me the layout. I like the look and it is consistent with some other things that they have done in the past. Does it break in your browser? If so, please drop me a comment. Thanks.

This is a very interesting read about the right of a poster to remain anonymous on the internet. A recent ruling required disclosure of anonymous posters’ identies because their conduct amounted to libel per se.

Am I the only one to see the irony of statements like this:

“But when lawyers for Klehr Harrison demanded to know the identities of the anonymous commentators, lawyers for Pantelidis refused to turn them over, arguing that disclosure of their identities would violate their constitutional right to engage in anonymous speech.”

Wait, they aren’t anonymous if their identies are known to someone. They may be undisclosed authors, but they aren’t anonymous. If they were anonymous, then you couldn’t disclose their identity.

The judge in this case required disclosure of identies of people allegedly defaming a law firm.

I have long believed that this was not possible in web design. I today find this from the W3C suggesting maybe it is possible — or going to be possible? I find their content to be near impossible to unravel and understand. What is proposed? What actually exists? What is the latest post on something? Anyway, this particular post is dated in 2001. I am guessing it was a proposal that failed and that absent scripting this is an impossible task. Can anyone prove me wrong and show me an example where it is working?

I would like to use it for example where I have a growing list of items. I want an equal number of items in each column. I can code a script to see how many items I have at a given time, divide by the number of columns and do the job. How much nicer if it could all just flow and when you add an extra couple of items, the html/css knows what to do?

I look forward to your comments.

Don

I probably would not bother to even mention this “flap” about the Washington Post shutting down comments on it’s articles had it not apparently escalated into a KERFUFFLE! Now I know about an East Midlands Folk Band and a Brittish phrase I had never heard before.

I am amazed that someone like the Washington Post doesn’t have a karma type of filter in place on it’s comment posting to autopass on most comments and only force the questionable ones to moderation. What is even more interesting is that the whole point of their enterprise is to create views of advertisements. They actually got something drawing readers — and instead of selling premium advertisements to support the viewings (now there is an idea if the editer wasn’t quite so old school) — they shut of the viewerships participation thus reducing the number of people coming to visit.

So I learned a new word and I learned that the editor of that paper ain’t all that sharp.

This site has one of the nicest horizontal drop down menu implementations I have seen lately. It is a simple, clean implementation with multiple layers to it and it is done in CSS. I like it.

Ebay has decided to create a store of sorts where you can list items for immediate purchase. The store will be called Ebay Express. The purchasing experience is intended to be like a more traditional internet storefront. It appears that buy now items will be included “automatically” for preferred sellers, meaning those with less than 98% positive in selling, and with over 100 feedback ratings, according to and email from Bill Cobb, the president of Ebay North America, sent to all registered users.

Ebay in the same announcement indicated a lowering of many fees on the site, and an increase of only one.

There is an upcoming Town Hall Meeting at Ebay where Mr. Cobb and other Ebay personnel will attempt to answer questions about Ebay and listen to input on what they can do better. Frankly the one thing I find most frustrating is that there really is no effective way to respond to a negative comment because you can leave a phrase or two at the last minute and the other side is deprived of an opportunity to respond. Also, I think they should allow you to decide to keep auctions open for a set period of time to extend the auction in an effort to avoid sniping.