Duncan Mackenzie.NET

Aug 29

10:20 AM

Duncan M.

source code formatting checked in

Duncan M.

http://localhost/posts/Sampy/PAX-Day-3-In-…

Aug 29

10:25 AM

Duncan M.

Duncan M.

Duncan M.

I started out with overflow-x:auto ... which would add a scroll bar (at least in FF3), but then I went with white-space:pre-wrap; ... but IE doesn't like that :)

Aug 29

10:55 AM

Duncan M.

Nathan, can you send me the link to those pre-wrap alternates?

Aug 29

11:00 AM

nathan h.

http://users.tkk.fi/~tkarvine/pre-wrap-css…

Aug 29

11:05 AM

Duncan M.

thanks

Aug 29

2:35 PM

Duncan M.

I wonder if we should consider using this site to create/embed polls? http://www.polldaddy.com

Aug 29

2:45 PM

Erik P.

I've noticed a lot of people starting to use js includes and other stuff for polls, comments, ratings, etc.

Duncan M.

yep

Erik P.

For us, I think it's a matter of integration. Is it something we care to tightly integrate into our system to do custom queries and views things like that or is it something we just want to throw in? For polls, not sure which way is better. What do you think?

Duncan M.

I'm interested in the http://disqus.com/ comment system as well ... but not for our core sites

Duncan M.

For polls, I don't think we'd want to do anything with the data that is user specific

Aug 29

2:50 PM

Duncan M.

I think they really just want to put it up on the site, gets lots of interaction (including non registered users) and then discuss the results

Aug 29

2:50 PM

Erik P.

Then I think those external things is a good idea. :)

Erik P.

is = are

Duncan M.

the ideal type of intergration I could picture with something like polldaddy.com would be to associate a discussion with it somehow (like making it an entry) so that we could show the poll on the home page (sidebar?) and then have a 'click to discuss' option

Duncan M.

this could be manual even, just create a forum thread about the poll, embed the poll in that thread *and* on the home page, and then put a link below the poll on the home page to the thread

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From Dave Winer:

The flow there is pointless. It's like trying to make a baby by having sex with a rock. First, it's hard to get excited. And second, no baby.

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A month or so ago, I went looking to see if there was any way to read back issues of Marvel Comics online… and discovered a complete site around providing exactly that service. With a subscription to the digital comics section, you can view any issue of any series that is available on their online catalog; I sat down a couple of nights ago and read through issues 1 to 100 of Ultimate Spiderman for example.

The viewing experience (it appears to be based around some customized version of Adobe’s PDF reader) is acceptable to me, although it sometimes renders text out in odd fonts (obviously not the ones used in the original printed version) and its coolest feature ‘Smart Panels’, that lets you view the comic one panel at a time, instead of one or two pages across your screen, sometimes shows you a view that has cut off parts of the various bits of dialog. So far, the best experience for me has been viewing two pages at a time on a large wide screen monitor like my laptop’s 1920 x 1200 screen. The text is all readable, the rest of the art doesn’t look too cruddy from scaling, and I don’t run into the various bugs of the ‘Smart Panels’ system… and this is the closest in size and format to reading an actual comic, so it works out on many levels!

I’ve been reading a bunch of comics nearly each and every night… from ones that I read as a kid (like old issues of the X-Men, probably the only series where I had a ton of issues… well, other than owning the full run of ROM: Spaceknight and the Micronauts!) to all the new ones that I have never read at all (the Ultimates, Secret War, the Civil War series, M-Day, etc…)

The one major flaw with this system though, and this didn’t stop me from buying a year’s subscription but it might be a deal-killer to you, is that there are often gaps in a series you are trying to read. That 1-100 of Ultimate Spiderman that I mentioned earlier, well it is actually issues 1-3, 6-7, 14-15, 19-23, 31-34… and so on. Storylines stop right in the middle, then pick up so far ahead that it can drive you crazy! I’d like to hope that they are working on fixing this, but the cynical part of my mind wonders if it is on purpose, to encourage you to buy the print version of the comics… I hope that isn’t the case, it would really lower my opinion of Marvel :(

If you love Marvel comics you should check this out… maybe you’ll love it enough to pay for it, or maybe not… but I think it definitely worth a look.

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