April 2006 Archives

You must unlearn what you have learned

For the longest time I have always placed two spaces after a period. I never thought this was wrong since this is what I learned while in high school. However, recently I have been researching typography and noticed many people saying that one space after a period is correct.

How was I supposed to know? I understand that two spaces after a period was relevant when typewriters were mainstream. I think I can say that the typewriter era has passed.

We are in the computer age and typefaces are no longer monospaced, meaning that letters do not use the same space length. The letter i takes less space than the letter m for example. On a typewriter, all characters use the same length. Because of this, two spaces after a period made reading the text much easier.

Look at a magazine, a book, or even online text. There are no two spaces, only one after a period. There are many proportional typefaces used now for web design and desktop publishing so two spaces seems too wide and may not look good.

I must now, as Yoda put it, unlearn what I have learned. It is hard to not place two spaces after a period. My thumbs are so accustomed to it that I have to think really hard to not place that extra space. At least you cannot see my mistakes since the internet only displays one space. This may take some getting used to since I was doing the two space thing while writing this post.

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Relaxing vacation

April and I really enjoyed our vacation. Going to our destination took about 16.5 hours. We stayed at Apopka, which is a suburb north of Orlando.

We had loads of fun on our trip and it gave me the opportunity to get away from daily life for awhile. Even the drive was enjoyable. April and I did not kill each other while on the road.

We went to St. Augustine and checked out the historic town on Sunday. St. Petersburg was another area we visited in which we took a boat ride and saw dolphins and multi-million dollar homes. We also went to Downtown Disney and Universal. Our last day was spent on Cocoa Beach.

For me the highlight of the trip was going to Cape Canaveral and visiting the NASA Kennedy Space Center. I took lots of pictures and really enjoyed the Apollo/Saturn V Center. I am not old enough to remember the Apollo missions, but I really enjoyed learning about them through the HBO mini series From the Earth to the Moon.

We also stopped at the International Space Station Center where we saw the future of NASA. I did get some space ice cream while I was visiting as well as a miniature Saturn V rocket. The ice cream was not good.

This was the first time I have been on the main section of Florida. My first trip to Florida was Pensacola, which is on the panhandle. The palm trees were also nice to look at.

Now back to my normal life.

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Florida Vacation

I am going on vacation to Florida! This Saturday April and I will be getting up in the middle of the night to make our way to Apopka, Florida by car. Apopka is a suburb of Orlando where we have family. It is nice to have family in such a warm climate.

While on vacation, I will not be checking email, making updates to this site, updating other sites I maintain, or surfing websites. I will be without a computer for six full days. That is a long time. Hopefully I will not go through online withdraw.

Time away from my computer is always a good thing since it keeps me from getting burned out. I will be able to replenish my body and mind while soaking up the Florida sun.

After mapping out the route I am guessing it will take between 15 and 17 hours, depending on how many times we stop. What worries me the most is the trip with my wife, who does not do too well with long trips. Someone suggested bringing benadryl to help her sleep.

While on the way home from our Gatlinburg trip she was starting to get on my nerves. I get on her nerves so I guess it works out. Anyway, I am looking forward to sunny days on the beach and 80° weather.

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No longer naked

The design of this site is back up and no longer naked. I was starting to feel a draft.

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What is wrong with this site?

Please do not try to adjust your screen, the site design is gone on purpose. This site is going naked all day on April 5. OK, so it is still April 4th (as of this writing). I thought I would go naked a little early.

Why is this site naked and where did the design go? I am participating in the first annual CSS naked day. This is to promote web standards and good semantic markup. This site should still function without the design.

I’m Naked!

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