I’ve been working on a Drupal Theme Design for a new site we’ll be launching probably within the next couple weeks, and with the new templating for Drupal version 6.+ there are many different places the css comes from, especially if you’re dealing with subthemes and multiple folders.

I had remembered a friend who templates Joomla a lot mentioning that he’d never find his way through the maze of files if it wasn’t for the Firebug extension for Firefox. I gotta tell you, this tool has saved me so damn much time I can’t begin to tell you. You simply open it, then you can drill down through the html to the element you need to style, and it will tell you ALL the dependencies in order, what file they’re in, and what line number in the file.

Most of my wordpress themes tend to only have one stylesheet and they average between 300 and 400 lines, so it’s never been a huge issue. But when you’re dealing with 5 or 6 stylesheets and some of them are in excess of 700 lines, and there are overrides and an order they load in, you HAVE to use firebug. I can’t imagine doing this Drupal template without it.

Some of my friends who write a lot of javascript and ajax goodies also swear by it for the same reasons. It has lots of debugging stuff too.

So if you’re working on some complicated templating, you might want to hook up with Firebug. You’ll be very glad you did.

Technorati Tags: Firebug, CSS Debugging, CSS dependencies, Multiple Stylesheets, Web Development tools

I’m a customer of Aldi locally, since it’s great to go in a store and not have to walk a mile to find the three things you need when you’re in a hurry, unlike the big box supermarkets that I hate with a passion for that reason. Aldi in Easton PA is a friendly place to shop, with a great staff. But there are certain frustrations with things that aren’t always available (what the staff calls the “damned seasonal stuff”.) This bugs me, and from what I’ve heard from other customers, as well as Aldi staff at the local store, I’m not the only one that’s bugged by this. There are also some items that come with three varieties packaged in a box. Usually one variety sells out repeatedly and early, and, according to staff, they can’t order/restock until all the varieties reach a certain low level. Also according to staff, customer issues that are passed on by staff to management are not valued.

Every package from Aldi has a guarantee on it. It also has the website address listed in a way that hints you can voice any concerns and give customer feedback on the website. Nothing can be further from the truth. The website has no contact form. When you click on the “Customer Service” link (which is hidden in an onmouseover event, and most likely less than accessible to anyone using assistive technology) there is a bunch of marketing language, and instructions at the bottom on how to send them a letter via SNAILMAIL. In this internet day and age, with the cost of stamps and gas, and all the green concerns of delivery and paper, the company expects its customers to send valuable customer feedback via SNAILMAIL? Okay, so I’ll call them on the phone instead. OOPS! No corporate phone number ANYWHERE on the website.

Now, that’s not the only thing wrong. The photo of whole coffee beans on the front page hints that this is a product available at Aldi. It isn’t. The website, as I’ve mentioned before, isn’t very accessible, since it depends on javascript and other things that may trip up assistive technology, which may bite Aldi bigtime if Target loses their lawsuit. I’d venture to say their search engine placement probably suffers as well. There is nothing sold on the website, despite the fact that a lot of the stuff featured on the website is not available at my local store, which is a huge missed opportunity for them as well as an annoyance to me.

But I can’t voice any of these concerns. There is no contact form, and there is no phone number. This is such a HUGE mistake. Both is preferable, but at least one would allow me to voice my concerns.

So Aldi won’t hear from me that I hate stocking up on Beaumont cappuccino in the spring to tide me over until fall, as do other customers as well. Aldi won’t hear from me that it’s annoying that they’re not offering the Fit and Trim mint ice cream sandwiches. Aldi won’t hear from me that I might TRY whole bean coffee if they offered it, and don’t buy anything but whole bean coffee, which means I don’t purchase coffee from Aldi. Aldi won’t hear from me that I don’t want trans fats and high fructose corn syrup in my foods and would purchase more if most of their stuff didn’t include trans fats and/or high fructose corn syrup. Aldi won’t hear from me that I and other customers would very much like it if they offered a couple breakfast cereals that didn’t have any added sugar. Aldi won’t hear from me that I’d buy my milk from Aldi if it was from dairies that didn’t use Bovine Growth Hormone and was clearly labelled as such. Aldi won’t hear from me that some of the electronics they’ve featured on their website are ones I would have purchased if they’d been available either at my local store or offered for purchase on the website.

Am I to assume from this that Aldi doesn’t care what Customers want? Am I to assume from this that they only pay lip service to Customer Service? That’s what this website says to me and others who try to use it. And it is a huge marketing mistake to essentially tell your customers you don’t give a shit what they want.

Technorati Tags: Web Design Mistakes, Marketing Mistakes, Aldi

I bought a new Dell back last September, and though I generally love the damn thing, I gotta say that the Dell Support Software is a joke. Rant warning . . .

First of all, the damn Support thing has been giving me “alerts” about the “security settings” I’m running. It says my Internet Explorer settings are insecure. Now, this is laughable since I don’t USE Internet Explorer for anything but testing webpages and running Windows Update, since it’s a totally insecure and broken piece of manure.

So Dell tells me my drivers need updating, I go to the support site to find the new drivers, by clicking the link in the Dell Support software, my default browser opens . . . and Dell tells me I’m using an unsupported browser. That’s Firefox, which has a significant market share these days. So I have to use an Insecure Broken Browser for doing anything with Dell, since THEY REQUIRE THE DAMN THING for interfacing with their support site. Excuse me? You tell me I’M INSECURE???? Dell REQUIREs ActiveX to be turned on to use their damn support site (Which, by the way, I only enable on a site by site basis, since it is so damned insecure.) Oh, and the issue they were squawking about re ME being insecure? The phishing thing, which I turned off since it was throwing an error consistently when I tested pages in IE locally. Oh yeah, that works REALLY well . . .

It was actually easier updating drivers on my old box I built myself, since they’d come up as optional hardware updates from within Windows Update.

Now, I could ALMOST understand this crapola on a box they sell as a home user box, though it’s been a long time since IE had over 90% market share. But I purchased through Dell Home Business (so I could get XP instead of Vista, and not have to get all that junkware they load home boxes with.) The LEAST that Dell could do would be to support all major browsers. And if they can’t do that, then THEIR SOFTWARE is insecure, not mine. It’s either that or they are too damn lazy to support what is fast becoming a significant portion of their clientele, who are those who are security conscious enough to use a REAL browser.

Technorati Tags: Dell Support Software, Dell Support Website, Dell Browser Compatibility