GryphonShafer.com
The GryphonShafer.com site is filled with stuff and things about which Gryphon does, sees, or finds interesting. News, faith, current events, software development, philosophy, ministry, chess, bicycling, flying, sailing, photography... these and more are all fair game.
Rounded Corners and Borders
May 8, 2009
I dislike rounded corners and rounded borders. By that I mean: I don’t particularly hate the visual design choice of rounded corners; what I dislike is the implementation annoyance of rounded corners in practice. Here’s one possible rounded corners implementation that seems to work across most browser types and versions and is fairly reasonable to maintain.
In CSS3, the way you create rounded corners is by listing multiple images and positions of those images for background. With CSS3, you’re no longer limited to only a single background image per DOM element. So the HTML for a CSS3 implementation could be as simple as:
div class="rounded blue box_type_a"
h4: Rounded Edge Blue Background
p: This is a simple rounded edge
/div
Anyway, started with the above HTML, which seems fairly reasonable to maintain, I wanted to make a CSS-less-than-3 implementation that kept code badness to a minimum.
Read the full-text of the Rounded Corners and Borders entry »
That was 7 years ago...
December 18, 2008
Caller: "Hello sir. I am calling you today from COMPANY."
Gryphon: "From COMPANY? OK..."
Caller: "I'm seeing that you have several web sites hosted with us including: gryphonshafer.com, goldenguru.com, (etc., etc.)"
Gryphon: "I did many years ago, yes. They've been hosted elsewhere since then."
Caller: "Sir, I'm seeing that your account with us is past due."
Gryphon: "I canceled my account with COMPANY several years ago. I think it was about 7 years ago."
Caller: "I see. But you still have an account with us."
Gryphon: "No, I canceled my account several years ago."
Caller: "Can you provide me the confirmation code number from the cancellation confirmation email?"
Gryphon: "No. That was 7 years ago. I don't have that email anymore."
Caller: "Well, you have an account balance that needs to be paid for time between then and now unless you can provide a confirmation code."
Gryphon: "No, I don't. You're records are in error. Fix them. I have not done any business with your company for 7 years. I canceled my account 7 years ago. There was no account balance due when I canceled my account."
Caller: "Well, OK, I can give you a code that if you email to our support department, they can delete your account."
Gryphon: "No. I decline to take action in this matter. I canceled my account with COMPANY several years ago. I haven't heard from COMPANY since then. It is not relevant what records you have or what data you have on your servers. You can delete that data, archive it, or ignore it. I am not going to take any additional action. There is an error in your records that you need to fix, not me. Is that clear?"
Caller: "OK, I will email them on your behalf; but that will mean that your data may be deleted."
Gryphon: "...that's fine. Thank you."
Read the full-text of the That was 7 years ago... entry »
S-CRAP Methodology
September 5, 2008
Introducing the S-CRAP software development lifecycle methodology.
Read the full-text of the S-CRAP Methodology entry »
Business Ethics
August 13, 2008
In business, I’ve noticed a set of five distinct stages of ethical erosion. There’s what’s illegal, what’s legal but unethical, ethical but against company policy, not against policy but not in the client’s best interests, and finally what’s not really contrary to the client’s best interests but isn’t really going to benefit them either.
The sad fact is that most people think anything conducted in the last three bubbles is acceptable provided you don’t get caught.
Every time an employee does anything that falls into any of the above ovals, the company makes less profit, either in the short-term with things like stuff that’s not in the company’s best interests or long-term with things like unethical and illegal activities.
