Darice de Cuba

I just cached up with the latest entries on Whitespace written by Scrivs especially on this entry: The Commercialization of a Blog Scrivs has putted up a paypal link for readers who want to pay for his content. Well I must say in this case I don’t agree with it, I find it absurd. Whitespace consist purely of its content, very good content I must say. But this content like most other weblogs is based in on the authors opinion and then the opinion of people who comment. I read Whitespace because I like to know what other people think on these subjects. But I don’t depend on this web log only, there are many others out there who write on the same subjects from their own personal point of view.

If a weblog offers a usefull program like Refer offered by Dean Allen and MovableType to name a few, it would make sense to have a paypal link. If keeping a weblog is your passion and you like doing it as a hobby or pass time it shouldn’t be something you ask money for. I personally don’t like weblogs with Google Ads for example, but I don’t mind if a weblog like PVRblog has them. They actually give advice, articles, tips shortly; things that are facts and not theory. In Whitespace I have to say the Google Ads are merged nicely with the layout so I don’t even notice them.

Still there are people who do want to give money, if they want to who is gonna stop them? Keep a nice and simple tab button instead of a screaming button. It was the first thing I noticed when Whitespace opened in my browser today. That’s why I went to the specific entry to find out what it is all about. So a nice and simple design with good content is now overruled with a donation button of 114 by 26 pixel.

I’m aware weblogs with paid content is something that is emerging now a days, but just like downloads and Peer 2 Peer; why pay for something if you can get it for free. In this case; why should I pay to read a weblog about webdesign if I can get a hand full of others writing on the same subject. If I want to reach people with what I write, to actually get them to try something new I certainly wouldn’t accomplish that by asking for money.

If you have a weblog and want to make money out of your writing; write a book. By you I mean the weblog community. Being free of a price tag is what makes digital content so popular, most people with internet will look something up online before going to a library or bookstore. The day webloggers start bugging about donations and subscription it will go downwards. Imaging having to paid for example one dollar a month for each weblog you read, for most people that’s already more than thirty dollars a month. Do the math for yourselves. Still a nice idea to pay for content?

After pulling an almost all nighter with photoshop I’m ready for my next article, an intro to Web Standards, XHTML and CSS. This to explain to my friends, classmates and everyone interested why not tables but CSS. I’m tired of explaining over and over so that’s why I’ll just write it down for once.

Yesterday I recoded a friends page to show him how you can achieve the same layout he did in tables but using XHTML Strict and CSS. I did it in about 40 minutes, nothing good but close to it. Take a look at the examples: Table version(hope you don’t mind Earnie) and the CSS version Right now the boxes in the CSS version must be of fixed width because of the rounded corners, I still have to change them so that if they expand they’ll keep the rounded corners. I got an idea on how to do it but I’m not sure it will work.

Twice in a week I came across the same problem: How do you align text on the bottom of a div? On the tables version you can see some text under the lions. In my version the text is still on top. I tried vertical-align: bottom; but nothing. Maybe a stupid thing but I can’t figure it out. But aside from that I got the same layout working in IE and Mozilla. Hopefully I’ll write a good enough article and on an after thought; add some examples because most people rather see to believe then accept what they read.