Raible Designs

New Stylesheet Switcher.

I'm trying to use the DOM and Javascript to come up with a new stylesheet switcher for this site. Currently, I use Javascript to read a cookie and do a bunch of document.write's to write out the full <style type="text/css">...</style> code. However, I should be able to use the following to simply replace the <style> tag's contents. However, it doesn't work in IE5/Mac :-(. Please notify me if you know why this doesn't work.

<script type="text/javascript">
function switchStyle() {	
  var current = document.getElementsByTagName("style").item(0);
    if (current.hasChildNodes()) { // IE5/Mac returns false, Mozilla returns true
      var newStyle = 
        document.createTextNode("@import url(/skins/sunset/styles/colors-n-fonts.css);");
      current.replaceChild(newStyle, current.firstChild);
    }
}
</script>
<button type="button" onclick="switchStyle()">switch stylesheet</button>

You can try it out using the button below:
switch stylesheet

Web Builder Blogs

In the course of this week, several speakers mentioned they had blogs and I even found a few via Google. So here they are for you to follow and read as you wish.

Marc's Voice is the blog of Marc Cantor, who gave the keynote on Monday. Marc is a great speaker and seems to have made his money via inventing Director from Macromedia. He seems to follow anything Broadband (in the true sense) related and is ready for streaming video. He seems to be a bitter about Apple, and mentioned that they steal good ideas from people - maybe they got one from him. I think it would be fun to have a conversation with this guy about anything.

Would I have a beer with him? Yes.
Update Rate: Every few hours.

lab404 * 2002 is a blog (and wacky design site) from Curt Cloninger. I attended one of Curt's sessions, and his site looks like some of the sites he showed in his session. He appears to do a lot of off-the-wall websites that designers might like. I don't particularly care for them, his site in particular hurts my eyes. He appeared to be really nervous in his presentation, so couldn't tell much about his personality. I'm not a designer and he is, so we probably wouldn't have much to talk about over a beer.

Would I have a beer with him? Nope.
Update Rate: Once a week.

Andrew Porter Glendinning blogs about client-side scripting and about his personal life. Seemed to know a ton about the DOM and other UI-related scripting stuff. He gave a good speech and peaked my interests with his session.

Would I have a beer with him? Sure.
Update Rate: Every other week.

james hong's Radio Weblog seems to just cover James's personal life (at least in the last month). James is one of the founders of Hot or Not. He and his brother, Tony, started xmethods.net. I attended one of his sessions on web services.

Would I have a beer with him? Yes.
Update Rate: Every few days.

megnut.com - a weblog by meg hourihan covers the world of blogging and seems to also cover cooking. Meg is one of the founders of Blogger so this is probably a great blog to follow if you're interested in micro-CMS's. She uses Moveable Type - to find out why, click on the "Why" link at the bottom-right of her site. I didn't hear her speak much, but she seemed like a nice lady.

Would I have a beer with her? Sure.
Update Rate: Every day.

Chris Dix's Thoughtpost is "Just another .NET and Web Services blog." I didn't attend any of this guy's sessions, so can't comment on his personality.

Would I have a beer with him? Don't know.
Update Rate: Every few days.

Molly.com - Welcome shares her Web development work and personal thoughts on her site. This lady seems fun, and I only saw about 10 minutes of her XHTML session yesterday. Apparently, one of the most 10 influential women on the web and knows lots of famous people. I signed up for MollyNews in hopes of learning more from her.

Would I have a beer with her? Yes.
Update Rate: Once a week.

Backup Brain is a joint project of Tom Negrino and Dori Smith. I don't remember seeing either of these folks speak, but I think Dori gave a talk on JSP's - which I skipped. I like the idea of two people posting to one blog, kinda neat to get two perspectives.

Would I have a beer with them? Don't know.
Update Rate: A few times a day.

Scobleizer Radio Weblog is the weblog of Robert Scoble. Robert organized and recruited speakers for the conference. I think I saw him a few times, but never had a conversation with him. Seemed like a real nice guy that is very glad this conference is over. Bravo Robert - good conference!

Would I have a beer with him? Yes.
Update Rate: Once a week.

The FuzzyBlog! is the blog of J. Scott Johnson who gave held a session on outsourcing your web development work. I never met the guy, even though I followed his blog before the conference.

Would I have a beer with him? Don't know.
Update Rate: Every few hours.

The Daily Report from Jeffrey Zeldman talks mainly about web standards and the life of a web developer/designer. I've enjoyed reading Zeldman's site ever since I first saw him at Web Design World 2000 in Denver. Why should you listen to this guy? Because he is a leader of the web standards movement (www.webstandards.org) that persuaded Microsoft and Netscape to support the same technologies in their browsers, thus radically simplifying web development while making sites more accessible to all. And we love writing only one version of our sites.

Would I have a beer with him? Sure.
Update Rate: Every day or two.

Doozy appears to be a blog from one of the conference participants.

In the process of composing this list, I thought it might be nice if the above blogs contained a picture of the person. Since they didn't, I might never know who some of the folks are. To be fair, here is picture of me from a couple years ago with my lovely bride.