I just learned from the WebMasterWorld.com forums that Mozilla (and, by extension, Firefox) can highlight individual table cells by control-clicking within them. This could come in handy for designers who need some help debugging their tables.
A helpful denizen of the Textpattern forums introduced me to an online utility called “What the Font?” that you can use to identify interesting fonts you run across in magazines, on signs, or virtually anywhere else. All you need is a good, straight-on image of the font in question.
I just discovered that 90% of the links on my master archive page were broken, so I’ve taken it down until further notice. Right now I’m awaiting the new-and-improved “nicer archives” hack (dead link) for WordPress 1.2 promised by Christina. No pressure or anything. 
According to a small graphic on the front page of his current weblog, Lance Arthur will be resurrecting the late, great Glassdog.com on June 1st of this year.
Glassdog was one of the preeminent personal web sites back in the day when CSS was still new and experimental and Netscape’s proprietary layer tag was making a controversial splash. It was always full of neat new hypertext toys and gizmos, and had a forward-looking design and interface that was always being improved upon. Glassdog was also, in 1996, the first web site I came across that followed a format similar to what would eventually become known as the weblog. It’s nice to see it coming back, and I’m curious to see what form it may take. Right now, there’s no clue except for the little dog standing guard on the home page.
In other, somewhat unrelated, news Lance has gone all “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” on us and provided the first three parts (face, body, and hair) of a four-part series on male grooming. I just read the “hair” article last night. I learned some things I didn’t know about shampoo and conditioner, but I couldn’t help chuckling as I realized that this is the same guy who once regaled his web audience with the story of how he shaved his head one day just because he felt like it.
Lance isn’t the same guy he used to be (who is? who wants to be?), and Glassdog probably won’t be quite the same site that it once was, either. One thing’s for sure though — it’s bound to be interesting.
Dean Allen, creator of Textpattern and Textile, is starting his own hosting company and shirking venture capital to fund it with up-front money from the first 200 customers. It’s an insanely great hosting package, for $199, for life.
I encourage any bloggers who are starting to outgrow their current hosting providers to look at the specs, read the thread in the Textpattern support forum, and go for it. Those using PHP/MySQL tools should be especially interested, since the servers will be optimized for this. WordPress users may also be interested to know that if you choose to become part of the “VC200” 10% of your one-time payment will be donated toward the WordPress development effort.
I just took the plunge, and I’m looking forward to a big fat upgrade come June. 
(thanks for the tip, Photo Matt)
Update: As of about 4:45 4:15 PM my time on May 26th, all the spots are gone. People on the Textpattern forum are joking that Dean should write a book on how to finance your business start-up by raising $40,000 in 75 hours. It wouldn’t have been possible without the goodwill and trust Dean had already built up in the blogging community or without the ceaseless patience that he and Jason Hoffman showed in answering absolutely every question someone posted about the new service. Way to go, guys. Congratulations on your successful fundraising, and best of luck with the new venture.
Now where are keys to my account, already?
