dBaines.com » rants

Woes of a Web Designer

Baines — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:13:24 +0000

“I don’t have the internet.”

Woes of a Web Designer

Baines — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:17:17 +0000

Contrary to popular belief, there is no magical “fix your poorly taken photo” button. If your photo looks terrible in your hands, it’s going to look terrible when it’s scanned.

Woes of a Web Designer

Baines — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 05:30:00 +0000

“I thought you were giving me the Internet? How can you give me a webpage and not give me the Internet!?”

CSS Tables are not the answer

Baines — Thu, 07 May 2009 00:18:30 +0000

Just because you’re using CSS-tables doesn’t mean you’re making tableless design.
Lately I’ve seen so much praise for this stupid technique and it really baffles me.
Do people really think that designers ditched tables because the tag was named table?

This:

Is in no way better than this:

In fact it’s worse. It’s longer to write out, meaning it takes longer to implement and makes your file sizes larger, which in turn takes the files longer to download.
It’s also less semantic. If you have to use a table-based design, use a table. Don’t use divs and then make them act like tables. You’re missing the point entirely.

End rant.

Stupid terms

Baines — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 09:37:59 +0000

I was asked recently if I believed in “Climate Change”.
I said, “Yes, yes I do. It was warm yesterday, and today it is quite chilly. There are quite obvious differences in climate between Summer and Winter, not to mention differences between places closer to the equator and those further from it and they each have their own varying climate changes depending on the time of year. So yes, I believe in ‘Climate Change.’”
I was then promptly told I had “no fucking clue what I was talking about” and to “read a newspaper sometime.” I told them to read a fucking dictionary.
What happened to “Global Warming”? Why did people stop using that term? Was it not PC enough? Was it not ambiguous enough? Seriously. Global Warming is pretty straight-to-the-point. How climate change suddenly became a replacement is beyond me.

A similar thing happened in High School when I was asked if I believed in “Intelligent Design.”
After thinking on it for a few minutes I came back to him and told him I did, believing full well that intelligent design just meant a logical and well structured design.
In my defence I’m not religious at all. I had no idea what the term had been stolen and molested in to.

Can we all agree right now to stop using stupid terms like these? I’ll be your friend on Facebook if you do.

Woes of a Web Designer

Baines — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:30:50 +0000

Woe No!

I make a beautiful website design for these people and what do they give me? Terrible, terrible photos! Then they call up saying that they don’t like their images. What the hell do you want me to do about it? It’s so depressing

Australian Work Ethic

Baines — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:43:49 +0000

Christmas Tree in the middle of Adelaide

Erect a tree in the middle of Victoria Square and don’t decorate it. Doing us proud, Australia!

Google and Adobe are ruining the world

Baines — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:36:58 +0000

Back in August I blogged about something that really pisses me off: When applications install in to your C drive regardless of where you tell it to install.

Another thing that is similar and just as heinous is when you download a program, run the installer and then the installer downloads another installer. Again.

Ruination

If this isn’t the installer, what is it? An installer for the installer? Redundant much?
I could give a flying fuck if you want me to have the latest version. Create an auto-updater for your software if you want everyone to be on the bleeding edge. I downloaded the setup file because I wanted it to be accessible from anywhere. If I knew this was just going to be a proxy for the real setup I would have just run it from my temp files after it had finished downloading. I chose to save the file so I could use it anywhere and any time. Now I need to be attached to the internet just to install your stupid browser that nobody takes seriously anyway. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, this is Google after all, not exactly king of the software realm. Unfortunately though, they aren’t the only ones that do this.

Dear developers: Stop it. Just stop it. It’s not clever. It’s not cool. It’s stupid and you’re stupid for thinking it’s any good. Just quit it.

C: Drive Usage

Baines — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 08:36:46 +0000

0 bytes

Continuing today’s ragey theme, why the fuck do things require space on the C: drive when I explicitly tell it to install to another drive?

Adobe’s Audition music editor is the latest culprit of this stupid and archaic trend. The program requires ~350mb of disk space. During the installation it asks where you want to install it, so I decide to install it on to my 750GB drive I’ve named Local Data. So you know what it does? It installs about 50mb in to the drive I told it to install in to and the other 300 in to my C. Why? Why even ask me where I want to install it if you’re just going to stick it all in C anyway. Fuck you. No wonder I never have any free space on C.

MP3 Players in Australia

Baines — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 06:00:18 +0000

As some of you may know I’ve recently been on the lookout for a new Portable Media Player.
After much research I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to get a Creative Zen 32GB. I say “going to” because NOBODY FUCKING HAS THEM.

I’ve been to every shop in town that would have them, except for Tandy’s because it doesn’t fucking exist. Seriously I’ve been up and down Charles street ten times, inside David Jones and in the fucking mall. IT DOESN’T EXIST. It’s a LIE.
Nobody has them.
I’ve been to every shopping mall in South Australia, the largest sized MP3 player that wasn’t an iPod I found was a whopping 8 gigs. Eight. Fucking. Gigs. Fuck you Australia. I purchased an iRiver h320 over four years ago. At the time it also came in a 40gb variant. Are you honestly telling me that in four years we’ve managed to regress 32gb? And the fact that they sell ONE gigabyte models at almost the same price as the 8GB model is just fucking hilarious.

The kicker is that when I ask them if they sell the 32gb model, most salespersons’ jaw almost drops to the floor. They’re like, “What? There’s an MP3 Player that isn’t an iPod that’s larger than 16GB?”
One guy even tried his darndest to sell me a crappy 8gb model. Why the fuck would I want 8gb when I explicitly asked for a 32gb model. He was all like, “8 gigs is all you’ll ever need!”
I told him Bill Gates said the same thing about memory but I don’t think he got the reference. I don’t think I even have 8gb free on my iRiver h320.

So Why? What the fuck does Australia have against mp3 players with decent storage? I can buy a piece of crap iPod touch with 80 fucking gb of storage but if I want a functional, modern PMP I have to put up with 8gb? What kind of logic is that? FUCK YOU AND YOUR HOUSE.

Fuck you South Australia. It’s times like these that I thank Science that online shopping is a reality. Sure I have to pay extra for shipping and handling, but at least I can actually fucking OWN it.

/rage