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I always thought it would be great if you could create variables in CSS. It would make skinning a site much easier.

I have a customer who has 400 companies that all use their site and want a unique look and feel. Since we are using ASP.Net we thought creating a Theme for each customer would be the only route. But that takes a .Net programmer to put each one together and that would take forever!

So I went out on the great big Google search and found another solution.

CSSHandler

What a time saver. Now we have a single page that the customer can create a unique look and feel for the customer and do it all in a web form.

Oh…. and it also optimizes the CSS a little by getting rid of extra white space.

Check it out.

Don’t worry, if you don’t get it….. your probably not missing much.

Noise to Signal

Just like there are frameworks to make programming easier, there are also frameworks to make CSS easier. I have found three nice ones:

• Blueprint
• Yahoo’s YUI
• YAHL

All are a little bit different on how they accomplish things. All have Pros and Cons.

I’m using Blueprint on all of my projects. I prefer it over the other two because of how light the code is and how easy it is to implement.

Please let me know if you are aware of any other frameworks.

I encourage you to join the Blueprint Google Group. The project is young and the people are great.

Recently I was asked by a client to design a Web 2.0 look and feel for MOSS 2007. But honestly I had no experience with the layout and graphic techniques. But I found a pretty good design guide.

• Web 2.0 how-to design style guide

It was obvious to the master from the start of the conversation that the professor was not so much interested in learning about Zen as he was in impressing the master with his own opinions and knowledge. As the Zen teacher explained, the learned man would frequently interrupt with his remarks like “Oh, yes, we have that, too” and so on.

Finally, the Zen teacher stopped talking and began to serve tea to the learned man. He poured the cup full, then kept pouring until the cup overflowed.

“Enough!” the learned man once more interrupted. “The cup is overfull, no more will go in!”

“Indeed, I see,” answered the Zen teacher. “Like this cup, you are full of your opinions and speculations. If you do not first empty your cup, how can you taste my cup of tea?”

- Bruce Lee

What a great resource!

Open Source Web Design is a site to download free web design templates and share yours with others. We help make the internet a prettier place.

• http://www.oswd.org/

Here is a link to 53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without.

• http://www.smashingmagazine.com

So I recently bought a copy of Microformats: Empowering Your Markup for Web 2.0 and I’m impressed. Not only by the book. But also by the whole idea.

What is a Microformats? Microformats.org defines it as:

“Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards.”

It seems pretty easy to learn, since it is not a new language. It is just a standardized way of formating common data. Now I just have to go through some recent sites that I have built and implement it.

Check it out!

I couldn’t handle the HYPE. I broke down and bought a copy of GenoPal.

What is GenoPal?

“GenoPal is software for graphic designers and web designers to generate eye-pleasing colors, color schemes & palettes.”

I must say that I have been very impressed. I find that I start that little program up all the time now.

Definably worth checking out!

Pretend you had enough influence to talk to some of the best designers in the world to answer 5 thought provoking questions.

Now compile the list of answers and publish it for the masses.

That is exactly what Smashing Magazine has done. Here is a link to the article: Enjoy

The links to their personal websites is a treasure trove of ideas and examples.