Decent browsers (Firefox, Opera, Safari etc) hide the scrollbar until it is needed which nicely provides a little extra space to play with, but if the next page on the website is quite long and requires a scrollbar or if you use css/javascript to show/hide content the page appears to jump when the srollbar is displayed.

This looks tacky.

I am not a big fan of tacky so looked into a solution to stop this from happening, I envisaged some nasty javascript hack but luckily css has a nifty little answer to the problem.

html {
            overflow-y: scroll;
}

That tiny piece of css forces a vertical scrollbar on your browser. Unfortunately Opera doesn`t support this but there is an Mozilla alternative

overflow: -moz-scrollbars-vertical

Job done, scrollbars on the page even if the content on the page doesn`t need them. No more nasty jumping around on the page.

I have just upgraded the wordpress installation behind the site in preparation for a completely new look and feel to the blog. I have just upgraded to Wordpress 2.8.2 from… wait for it… 2.0.1!

Lots will now be thinking, WTF, who cares? The geeks amongst you will be shocked at how and why I had not upgraded sooner. The difference between the two versions is quite large so I expected the upgrade to cause a few issues.

Nope, it all went ahead without a problem. I backed up the old files (just in case )), then backed up the database behind the site (double just in case) and then went on my merry way upgrading.

Well done Wordpress.org, the old system was great but the new system is superb.

Right, back to coding up a dating website I am developing at squarechilli website and graphic design Derby and Nottingham.

Here’s what I mean

Thisis a div which consists of a background image for the blue background, a paragraph for the text and an image of a heart to finish. Ideally I do not want the extra few pixels at the bottom showing my backgroudn through.

<div class=’testimonial’>
<p>“Thank you so much for your help. I met Bob through the site after less than a month, and we are still together and happy all these months on. Thanks Motorway dating ”
<br /><br />
<strong>Katie x</strong>
</p>
<img alt=’Motorway dating testimonial’ src=’images/testimonial_bottom.gif’ width=’178′ height=’76′ />
</div>

You would think that adding margin: 0px; padding: 0px will sort the problem but nope, nadda.

I tried googling but couldn`t find anything on the subject apart from suggestions of zero margins and paddings despite many people coming across this very annoying problem.

So I put the good old thinking cap on and remembered this nifty little piece of css

vertical-align: text-bottom;

Hurray! Place this onto your image css

.testimonial img {vertical-align: text-bottom;}

and voila, no extra space beneath your image. Just to prove it here is what my testimonial looks like now

Hope this helps.

Today there was a company van in front of me, ‘Bespoke Painting’ it had plastered all over the back and sides.

Bespoke Painting?

WTF?!?!?! Of course painting is going to be bespoke, how else  can it be done? I mean, what use is a painter to paint the same wall over and over again?

This even got me thinking whether my definition of bespoke was wrong but looking it up ‘bespoke – made to individual order’ . So no this time at least I am correct.

Am I just moaning about nothing again or am I making any sense here? Friggin bespoke!

Along with footballers, UK weather people (I am learning here)  must be the least professional of any profession. Imagine if I sent a website for approval to a client and the shopping cart didn`t work or all the text was wrong.

You may have noticed I have been mentioning UK weather people. I go to the states quite often and each time put on a local weather station (gees you folks think we are obsessed with the weather, you have dedicated channels and local channels have a forcast every few minutes!!)  or the Weather Channel and as ifby magic, if they say it will rain, it does, if they say it will be glorious sunshine, it is! The other year whilst in New York the weather forcaster was brash enough to say that at 3.02pm it will rain. Like the geek that I am I set my watch by the clock on TV station. Later that day it began to rain, guess what time it was? You guessed it, 3.02pm!

So UK weather numpties, get your fingers out of your ass and sort yourselves out!

I feel better now after that, phew.

The last time I put transparency onto a website was back in the days when css was rarely used and was in it’s infancy. I remember utilisng a backgroudn image in the transparent area to mimic the idea of opacity, a good workaround that worked a treat. But what happens when the user expands the text size and the containing div is expanded, all goes to cock!

So, I am a few years older, a few more grey hairs on my head (still not receeding though, phew) and css has come on a long way, so have web browses I hope!

At time of writing this post, website opacity is not a w3c recommendation although it has been adopted by the major web browsers.

Mozilla and Firefox have supported css3 opacity since 2004 but our old nemesis IE had not, that is until the recent release of IE 7 .

So lets do it in our website;

• the css3 standard for setting transparency is opacity: 0.5
• Mozilla uses -moz-opacity:0.5
• IE uses their own messed up method of filter:alpha(opacity=50)

Working example

As ever we need to ensure our website is developed for all web browsers, so in our css lets style for all three variations

opacity: 0.5;
-moz-opacity:0.5;
filter:alpha(opacity=50);


This sets 50% transparency, just change the values, a lower values makes the layer more transparent. Oh and remember to set a background colour background-color: #ffffff or something to get the true effect of the transparency.

The story is that of losing a pet, someone (yes I use the word someone for a pet) whome shared your life, been through highs and lows, stayed with you and showed you unconditional love throughout your time with them.

The author is Bruce Fogle, a vet who recently lost his six-year-old female golden retriever. It is great to read someone who expresses the same feelings I feel towards my dog. Some people think I am silly and stupid for how I treat my best friend, I say read this and if you don`t share the relationship with your dog Bruce had with his and I have with Molly, then I pity you but hope that one day you will also share this unique and truely amazing relationship with your pet.

Here is the article on The Independent website.

See if you can find her, click the image for a larger version.

This image was taken in Shipley Country Park on my mobile phone so the quality aint great but good enough for this game. I have plenty more Where’s Molly type images, if this proves popular I shall upload a few more.

Many months ago I (and many of my friends along with thousands of others) signed a petition to prevent the manufacture and sale of electric shock dog collars. Now I don`t think any sane human being would need any explanation as to why I signed the petition.

Yesterday we received a response from the Prime Minister, here is his response…

“The Government recognises that many people are concerned about electric shock collar training devices and their potential for misuse, particularly collars operated by remote hand-held controls. It is equally aware there are others who are convinced that they have a place in training animals where other methods have failed and the alternative might be worse – possibly destruction of the animal in some rare cases…

…There are no plans at present to ban the sale and use of any electronic training aids for animals, including the ‘electric shock collars’. For many years the Protection of Animals Act 1911 made it an offence to cause unnecessary suffering to a domestic or captive animal. However, the Government is not aware of any prosecutions under the 1911 Act in relation to the use or misuse of electronic training collars…

…While we are aware of a number of scientific studies on electric shock collars, Defra considers that to date those studies published in this area are not sufficiently robust and that the evidence base needs to be built on before consideration can be given to either banning or regulating their use. The government is not prepared to do this unless there is clear evidence that these devices in themselves are harmful to welfare.”

The response in full can be found here.

I very rarely swear, but on this occasion; YOU FUCKING IDIOTS! Well done government for recognising that an electric shock dog collar may be misused, however until you have proof that they are misused you won`t do anything about it. And on their comment that there is no proof that electric shock dog collars are harmful, you bunch of friggin morons! Of course anything that sends an electric shock through a neck or a dog or any creature is going to be fucking painful!

The government rarely makes sensible decisions, there are many people who would like to train the MP’s into making correct decisions, may I suggest an electric shock neck tie?