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And So the Garden GrowsMay 19, 2003
Alright! Now we're going somewhere! The Zen Garden has shown up on BD4D and Newstoday, both design portals that reach the other half of the audience that the Garden is intended for.
I've said it a few times now, and feel free to correct me if you see it differently — the problem has been that code geeks have wrapped their mind around advanced CSS layout and know how to use it well, but they're incapable of anything beyond simple, boxy layouts. Designers haven't had the slightest interest in figuring it out due to sketchy browser support, and far more importantly, lack of design tools. That's why the best graphic designers are so focused on Flash — it's intuitive to build with, has a well–built design interface, and the coding works. All the time. In every browser.
We're hitting a turning point here, where valid CSS layout is now more than a pipe dream, it's a legitimate way of building a site. Once designers get their mind around it and the ideas start flowing, you will begin seeing amazing things. Bet on it.
(Incidentally, there have been 8 additions to the Garden since its launch, make sure not to miss the latest)
Reader Comments
Hope Newstoday's crew can put together a submission to the garden like they implied they were going to do. Can't wait for that one!
They will not all function. Several of them (even most) get _overlapping text_ (large chunks of it) with just a bit of text zoom (and some minimum font size) in Mozilla et. al.
The result is _text that can not be read_. (In at least one case you can't even get at the links to change to a different style sheet because of severe text overlapping.)
The solution is to go for simpler design. Some things just can't be reliably done with CSS.
Good design with CSS (at least for screen display) must always be flexible. It must work under wildly varying conditions. If not - it's broken. If it's broken, it should not play, not matter how pretty the colors and the pictures.
I would like to see Zen Garden take psd's submitted by designers and realize them with CSS.
The major problem I've had with the current project I'm working on, is that as much I would like to rely on CSS all the time, I just can't seem to faithfully recreate the original design with it.
Bertilo, I think the point of the Zen Garden is *not* to go with a "simpler design" but to be able to show "how pretty the colors and the pictures" are while utilizing a different medium besides Flash or conventional HTML methods (i.e. slicing and messy code)
Some designs may be made to be ULTRA flexible and be very simple. Others, as flexible as it can be, without consideration of a user's personal browser preferences. Design and coding is for the greater good, anyway, so frankly, why should we consider the 0.05% (random percent here) who fiddle with their settings? To my understanding, a majority of web surfers don't touch the "factory settings" and surf happily away. Thus, having the designs on Zen Garden appeasing 99% of users using the lastest browsers.
Bertilo, you're way too dogmatic. If I were to call CSS a complete failure because I couldn't kern my text in it, (which is a perfectly valid design concern, I cannot yet do that) then I'd have abandoned it long ago. To say that a design is broken because it doesn't conform to your narow criteria is a flawed approach.
I am willing to concede that the designers (myself included) are to blame for examples in the Garden which don't handle a bit of font scaling. That doesn't mean their designs are broken, merely that they didn't account for the contingency. Right now the biggest challenge with CSS is cross-browser support, and we've just about figured that out. But it's still pretty easy to get lost in testing for the various browsers, and forgetting about font scaling.
View Mike Pick's 'Dead or Alive', Keith's 'Wicked Grove' and my recent addition 'Coastal Breeze' for some designs which safely allow you to jump up two font sizes in Mozilla. See, it can be done given forethought and proper testing. Now go read my link again for reasons why it can't always be done given the current state of CSS.
haiyan - I'm up for the challenge. Send me a JPG. If I think the design itself is strong enough to make it into the Garden, I'll build it myself. I built all my examples in Photoshop first, the exact same way I'd build a tabled design, and then converted them afterwards to CSS. If you're familiar with the approach, it's just as easy (and I have to say, even despite all the IE5 testing, it's even easier) as building a site with tables.
Bertilo - We could debate all day about what consitutes "broken" – In my mind none of these really "break". But hey, I get your point. I would also agree with Dave's assertion that most people don't muck with the "factory" settings.
Haiyan - I too do the majority of my designs in Photoshop first and then convert them. I don't do everything in all CSS, but that is neither here nor there. If you are interested in a process for coverting photoshop designs into Web standard, CSS based code, I guess Zeldman's new book, Designing With Web Standards, has some really good info on that.
I've not read it but I trust that's the case.
haha back to the ol' form vs functionality issue.
designers tend to go crazy with the aesthetics-side of the project, making the site gorgeous to look at, but completely unusable. coders tend to go all out on functionality, making the site totally functional, but looks like a crappy, generic jakob nielson "use-it" site.
nobody will ever get that balance right because the median is different with each person. to constantly bitch about usability is the same as constantly bitching about the aesthetics. the key is to quit your bitching and realize that your pride is irrelevant in the end-product; the site is for your client's audience… whatever works for them, go with it.
Man, I was waiting for you to show up, haze! Good points as always, and as always, here's my addendum/refutation:
There are general points that most people can agree are consistently good principles for every audience, and the rest are details. Macromedia's approach is going to be totally different than Microsoft's, because they're targetting different end users. But neither of 'em would use red text on a green background, for starters.
There's definitely middle ground here, but dogmatic right-brainers are going to miss it just as easily as flighty left-brainers.
Bertilo, you can't please all of the people all of the time. See here where I've addressed this exact issue before.
I suppose I could always scrap HTML text and have everyone convert their copy to images with pixel fonts… that would solve the 'bad design' problem, no?
Well, it's all about fluid design, regardless of how they "look" they will all still function. And frankly, I'm going to have to disagree with Bertilo on this anyway, I've checked a few of them with various font sizes and they seem to look pretty well. I know when i was working on Wicked Grove I checked this out and was fairly happy with the results.
There are no assurances, with CSS or otherwise, as Dave points out, when the user ultimately controls the experience. I mean, I could go to say, k10k, turn of my images and that site is going to "look horrible" right??
Most of the designs in the Zen Garden are actually amazingly beautiful, outright stunning… as long as you use the same browser settings as the authors. If you use other settings for fonts and especially font sizes (font zooming, minimum font size, ignore font sizes…), _most_ of the current designs (yes, that is _most_!) break horribly. That means _they look horrible_. I have to use strong words here: The Zen Garden, as it stands now, only shows how badly you can design with CSS. Sorry, but that's the way it is.
Keith: The point is to show what CAN be done with CSS. Period.
That is indeed the point with the CSS Garden. But "what can be done" is not only _good design_. "What can be done" also includes _bad design_, e.g. _design that breaks_ and design that sometimes looks awful.
Actually the Zen Garden has (among other things) shown exactly that.
I however thought that the contributions that are accepted into the garden should be the good ones, not the bad ones.
Keith: It's fairly obvious that you aren't the target audience for the CSS Zen Garden - Graphic Designers are. If they come to the site, see some neat designs done with CSS and find some value in it, then the site is a success.
Aren't they supposed to see designs that could actually be used on the web? Are they supposed to be tricked into believing that some things can be done with CSS, that actually can't?
Keiht: Also, if you look at my design (Wicked Grove), I checked it in numerous browsers and it scales just fine, I don't think it breaks at all.
True. Wicked Grove is one of those that do work. It's a superb design. Congrats! (Well, actually it break just a little at extreme text zoom, but nowhere near the worst examples in the Garden.)
Keith: Maybe, to enlighen those who might not know, you can "delve into the actual CSS" and explain where they go wrong.
OK. I picked 'A Garden Apart' (more or less at random). It has among other things these rules (slightly abbreviated here):
#quickSummary { position: absolute; top: 92px; right: 0; }
#linkList { position: absolute; top: 92px; right: 0; }
#linkList2 { margin: 190px 15px 15px 15px; }
The values for margin for #linkList2 is the main problem here. The value 190px gives the vertical space where #quickSummary is supposed to live. That presupposes that #quickSummary will not need more than 190px vertically. #quickSummary however has text content, and there is no telling how high it will actually turn out to be. With just a bit of text zoom it will be much more than 190px, and its text will overlap that of #linkList2.
This design could perhaps have been more robust if em units had been used instead of px.
Dave S: Bertilo, you're way too dogmatic. If I were to call CSS a complete failure because I couldn't kern my text in it, (which is a perfectly valid design concern, I cannot yet do that) then I'd have abandoned it long ago.
I did not call CSS a failure. I only said that some things can not be done with CSS. So, we just avoid doing those things. There are plenty of nice things we can do.
Keith: We could debate all day about what consitutes "broken" – In my mind none of these really "break".
If you can't read the text, not even with a magnyfying glass, since the text you're trying to read overlaps with other text, then the page is most certainly as broken as broken can ever be.
Lea: why should we consider the 0.05% (random percent here) who fiddle with their settings?
Because they are not "fiddling". They are adjusting their browsers so they can use the web. Some people need to set a minimum font size and/or font zooming in order to be able to read the text at all, or to be able to read it without eye strain or headaches. Some peole do not know how to adjust their browser, some do. Do we really want to punish those that do know, and that need to adjust their settings? Why not just go ahead and punish all that don't use the standard OS (Windows) with another browser than the one installed by default (MSIE)? Why have they "fiddled" with their disks (instaling Linux instead)? Why have they fiddled with their default programs (installing Mozilla)? Most people (more than 90%, I'd guess) don't do these things. Why care about the other few percent of "fiddlers" at all?
Bertilo, I think you've seriously missed the point of this exercise. The garden isn't a real site. It doesn't have real users or even real uses. It's an example of how something primarily functional like semantic html can be made beautiful. Of course you'd implement some things differently if you were making a real site - TechnOhm has an image called bandwidthkiller.jpg for pete's sake.
Bertilo - You really have missed the point. I mean can you tell me that not one of the designs works for you under any circumstances? I don't think so. If anything, blame the design not the technology. Do you realize that the designer has no control whatsoever over the actual HTML page and are limited to just editing a style sheet?? That shows the amazing power of what CSS can do - you could, for instance, create your own stylesheet for this site, thus making it display however works for you. Or, if it was a "real" site – a basic stylesheet could be very easily made available to those folks who might have problems with a certain design.
The point here is that you CAN change the font size, and you CAN change the stylesheet to suit your needs. This can also be done fairly easily or in a rather complex manner, whatever suits your needs. It's flexible.
The point of this was to show some of the extreme things that can be done with CSS - obviously we could very easily show more simple flexible designs, but that isn't the point. The fact that we're even having this discussion proves the fact that CSS based designs are extremely flexible.
Jemaleddin: The garden isn't a real site. It doesn't have real users or even real uses.
So what's its use then? Designs that look pretty (with some limited user settings), but can't be used in real sites are of little or no value.
Keith: I mean can you tell me that not one of the designs works for you under any circumstances? I don't think so.
Of course not. Some of them work very well, but _most_ don't. That's what I wrote.
Just have a spin with Mozilla or some other Gecko-based browser, using text zoom etc. You'll see for yourself how many of the designs break (remember: try to read the text).
I haven't delved into the actual CSS to find out precisely where the faulty designs go wrong, but it seems to mainly center aroung _repositioning_ of major parts of the content. Drastic repositioning, changing the actual order of the content, can often only be done if you specify the exact width and/or height, and also position, for the moved elements. To do that you need to now how much space the content of those elements will need. And there's the rub: You can't know how much space text will take, since you can't know and you can't control which fonts and what font sizes will be used (you can only suggest). If you can edit the HTML and change the order of the content elements there, then you can get a lot more done. The Zen Garden however (as far as I understand) tries to demonstrate how much you can do with CSS only. But some (many) of the designers are trying to do things you cant' really do that way.
Anyone who thinks you can control the fonts and the font sizes has misunderstood what CSS is and how it works (at least for the WWW).
These problems would get immensly larger if the designs were to be used with templates, where the actual content can vary. Serious web publishing very often uses templates.
Again, you are missing the point. You asked - "So what's its use then? Designs that look pretty (with some limited user settings), but can't be used in real sites are of little or no value."
The point is to show what CAN be done with CSS. Period.
All of these sites have value in showing how HTML can be manipulated with CSS to produce some extreme, "controlled" if you wan't to go there, designs. What's more - I would assert that all of these designs are more USEFUL and USABLE than many of the tabled, pixel perfect layouts you see many designers out there producing. Some of the designs might not be "prefect" but who says any of this is black and white. It's an experiment for crying out loud.
It's fairly obvious that you aren't the target audience for the CSS Zen Garden - Graphic Designers are. If they come to the site, see some neat designs done with CSS and find some value in it, then the site is a success.
Also, if you look at my design (Wicked Grove), I checked it in numerous browsers and it scales just fine, I don't think it breaks at all. This is an open site, you are free to take this to the next level and produce your own design that not only looks good, but also fits whatever critera you choose. I'm quite confident that it can be done.
Maybe, to enlighen those who might not know, you can "delve into the actual CSS" and explain where they go wrong.


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text:
Gasp! Tables!May 13, 2004
Andy Budd, a name some of you will recognize as a proponent of CSS-based design, has decided to take a long, hard objective look at the arguments made in favor of CSS.
I'm sure we've all found ourselves writing fairly complicated CSS to do something that would be trivial using tables. Take form styling for example. It's possible to lay out even very tricky forms using tables in just a few minutes. You can achieve similar results by floating elements with CSS, but it's a lot more involved
The rest of Andy's points are lucid, level-headed, and enforce something that you may or may not personally believe: CSS-based design under all circumstances, while a goal to strive for, is hard. Using a table for layout may at times be the best way to get the job done.
For example, it's (relatively) easy to keep a CSS-based design functioning on a simple 10 page, custom-designed site; you're designing for rigid and known conditions. There's almost never a need to fall back to tables under those circumstances.
But it's a whole new level to keep a large 500 page CMS-driven site functioning, which could potentially see large images dropped in the content area (thus breaking your floats), or multiple hands involved in creating markup (including those that are markup-illiterate), or any number of other conditions beyond your direct control. More and more of us are learning this from direct experience, myself included. Just because you know how to code without a table in sight doesn't mean the rest of the stakeholders in your project will.
None of this is permission to go wild. One simple table stripped of presentational markup should almost always suffice in these circumstances. And please, leave the multiple nested tables in 1999.
But claiming structural tables are wrong under any and all circumstances is too much of an ideal at this moment in time. The practical reality of today's web is that learning curves and browser support can sometimes raise the bar too high for full-out CSS design in certain scenarios. A designer using proper discretion who pays special attention to accessibility, essentially a designer who is educated and capable of using tables well, may consider the layout table a still-valuable tool.
Reactions will be mixed. Vive la difference!
: The thinking behind this post has been expanded on and clarified here.
Reader Comments
There is a big difference being a savvy-developer and being a zealot. Last time I checked, tables still validated.
You need to pick and choose your battles. Especially when dealing with client projects. Spending 3 days of client/company money fixing an 3px IE bug is just plain unacceptable.
With that being said I still avoid tables like the plague, but sometimes a little population control is a good thing.
I couldn't agree more. Like I always say, we can't be "standards lemmings" and follow these recommendations over a cliff when common sense should prevail.
Well said. You've got to be balanced and know arguments for and against using tables. As long as you do, you'll be okay.
I've had great success using a blended approach to build Web apps. Using CSS to lay out the structure of your app with a combination of absolutely- and relatively-positioned divs keeps presentation manageable, while placing form elements within divs is often best done using tables. I've achieved some pretty cool Windowsy application layout effects using this technique. So I agree.
It's also great when your fancy CSS-driven layout (and overall code purity) is broken by some off-the-shelf Java-based WYSIWYG HTML editor.
"font" is bad, "FONT" is worse.
I think, as far as possible, we should obviously be leaving structural tables in the last century. But yes, as web said, "spending 3 days of client/company money fixing an 3px IE bug is just plain unacceptable". If it's impractical to avoid tables, then use them.
It may be semantically wrong (or whatever the latest buzz phrase is in that area), but it still works. There comes a point where we just have to get on with it, and use whatever works best for the job in hand.
I have to admit that I've once considered submitting to tables for my comment form, but I resisted and spent a whole day making a decent-looking form.
I shall always say that tables are evil. Big, fat, ugly, and evil.
yup, i'm struggling with this issue at work at the moment…although i'm fairly confident in getting all of the main http://www.salford.ac.uk to be table-free and css driven, many of our web authors who sit in the faculties, schools and support services know just enough to use DW 4's WYSIWYG. some have been doing "web stuff" for the last 6 years or so. getting these people to learn the ins and outs of css-driven layouts is proving quite challenging…but i'm slowly getting there. in the meantime, i don't have a fit if they use tables…but if it's something simple to replicate via css, i take the time to explain to them why it should be done the "new" way, and show them how easy it is to implement.
In the newsletter I just sent out last night – see http://smallinitiatives.com/journal198_0_1_0_C.html – which explains my travails trying to get a folder-tab-style interface to work, I had to confess to using a table to ensure a desired effect.
Dave, thanks for making me feel a little better about it!
I try to use CSS when I can, but when it comes to forms, I almost use tables. It can even be argued that forms are tabular data, which is often the case. This comment box could be considered tabular data quite easily, it's just that I'm editing the data in the table.
CSS is great, but when IE rears it's ugly head, what are you supposed to do? Sure, on personal projects it's no big deal to fight and fuss, but on anything with a budget why kill yourself? When the broswers are finally on an equal playing field, then maybe it will be time to shun tables, but until then set the tables free!
That was my thought when reading this initially - forms are tabular data. They have multiple fields, like a spreadsheet. I don't see a problem using tables for this at all.
That said, I still will think they are evil for presentation. But I haven't come across something yet that I can't do with CSS, and I think that knowing it inside and out is the place to start. I'm still an idealist. If we know the new paradigm, we can design sites that don't try to do things CSS can't do.
That said, I haven't done work on large sites where problems would come up, so I'm sure in time my naivete will fade :)
Personally, having been slowly moving to CSS-based layouts, mostly personal pages, I noticed that I am often forced to employ numerous hacks, or seek alternative solutions to accomplish something that would have taken me relatively short amount of time to get done via tables. Maybe it is a learning curve thing … once I learn the ins and outs, the box model, and other, hacks, I can probably develop the same UI in as much time.
However, I can certainly understand how CSS layouts could be discouraging to web developers, and affecting the rate of it's adoption. We've learned hacks to get our table layouts to work nicely in all browsers, now we need to learn hacks to get our CSS layouts to play nicely … not exactly the promised land we've been lead to believe.
Of course, this is not all a fault of CSS … browsers are to blame for the most part. But, hey … maybe by 2010 we'll have 100% compliance from all browsers, and no bugs to work around …
Now, that's the promised land … if only we had a Moses to lead us there …
I'm not sure I'd say it's "easy" to implement unless you're dealing with one browser, but it sure makes maintenance easier and doing things stucturally will help you and your team down the road when you have to go back to that code and figure out what you built.
The last site I built for a client was all xhtml/css, but like it was mentioned, it's a relatively small site and relatively straightforward to code.
Sites at work driven by CMS and other tools have to be carefully designed and constructed in a manner that may not always work 100% without a blighty table. Slowly but surely, we'll get there. Once that happens, I'm sure someone or some company will change the rules again - standards be damned.
I think a lot of the problems that you encounter using CSS, are first time only problems. For instance, I had problems doing my first float based layout a while ago, because I'd always used positioining before that. Now though, if I want to do a similar feat I can do it in half the time.
Or take for instance form markup. Most forms use a fairly standard layout, which means since I've already mastered the layout of forms once [http://illuminosity.net/thoughts/archives/styling_forms ] (although there's more I've done since then that isn't covered there), it's a simple matter of writing the correct form markup, and a quick CSS copy & paste, with maybe a few alterations if necessary for the site.
I guess what I'm saying is, if you don't have the time, then you might need to go with tables, but if you can afford to spend the time, you should, since it means in future you've got that problem sorted if you come across it again.
The other david s > "It can even be argued that forms are tabular data"
Sorry to deviate slightly, but I still don't understand this argument. The clue is in the quote. Forms are NOT data, therefore they aren't tabular DATA either. They are in interface for inputting data, but not data themselves.
Creating a form like this:
label | field
label | field
label | field
label | field
It might LOOK tabular in APPEARANCE, but this is purely presentational, as you may well want to layou your form out like this instead:
Therefore I must refute any claims of forms being tabular data.
Going back to the original discussion, yes, if you are in the process of learning CSS - of course, its an ongoing process - but if you are at the foot of the learning curve then tables may well be the better option at that point.
> "spending 3 days of client/company money fixing an 3px IE bug is just plain unacceptable"
I realise this is an exaggerated example, but if you do find yourself spending that long on a CSS bug, then it could be argued that your knowledge of CSS isn't quite advanced enough to be using it in actual client work.
I think its down to making that decision…"am I good enough with CSS to start using it in my client's projects yet?". If you can answer yes to that, then it is time to leave behind tables for good (with the only excpetion being for when you need to get your site looking the same in Netscape 4.x or some suitably ancient browser…but thats for another discussion).
Whether forms can be considered tabular data or not, it certainly does make sense to utilize tables in some instances, at least until all browsers are css 3.0 compliant, at which time we can all quit hacking and start designing again.
Tables are not evil, they just do not make sense for layout purposes, not now that css positioning is the standard. Tables are always a good idea for data columns, of course - and you can use css to make them attractive.
It's a no brainer really.
It puzzles me why CSS people are so anti-table. I understand that
 tags don't belong in the markup, because it's presentational. But that doesn't mean that tables are bad, only that CSS needs to support tables so we can move it out of the html. Once we have CSS3 and display:table (like in 10 or 20 years), then pure CSS layouts will be practical in all cases.
> Once we have CSS3 and display:table (like in 10 or 20 years), then pure CSS layouts will be practical in all cases.
Let me rephrase that for you:
"Once we have CSS2 in Internet Explorer instead of "CSS1.5", then structural layouts that do not compromise for visual style will be practical in all cases, instead of just for users of everything except Internet Explorer."
Right tool for the job. Thats what it comes down to for me. If a table will do the job (IE tabular data and some forms) then that is the right choice. but nesting several dozen tables into each page is not the right decision.
Using a sledge-hammer to "nudge" something into place is not good regardless of your profession.
A little too quick with the Post button.
That should be ie as in the Latin "id est" for "that is" not IE .
This sounds a lot like ALA's "No-Fault" CSS again.
I've just finished re-designing a student data analysis tool, its a huge site which is dynamically generated with hundreds of pages.
It's been tough to convert it into css 2 and xhtml 1.1, the original coder didnt really know what was going on… but the journey has been a good one, and I've had some pleasing results.
I know exactly where your coming from when you say
"Just because you know how to code without a table in sight doesn't mean the rest of the stakeholders in your project will"
But thankfully i've been pushing hard, and i'm on the way to converting all of the designers ( and a large majority of coders! ) to standard compliant work.
After reading all this, especially the part about "But it's a whole new level to keep a large 500 page CMS-driven site functioning,…" it got me scared a bit. I just finished a template design for a gaming website, totally in CSS/XHTML with almost no table. Now it's in the hands of the developers and soon it will be tested. So far things seems to go well… but I kind of hold my breath after reading this. Hopefully things will end up fine. One thing that gives me hope is the fact that the developers are all for the idea of using CSS layouts. So I'm probably worried for nothing ;-)
And secondly I now understand when I look at my blogs stats why my CSS form is so popular ;-) I made it just as an experiment but yes, it was a "pain in b*d" and I'm not sure if I would actually use it. There are always browsers where it doesn't look 100% correct.
This article is very enlightening, I've always wondered now that I started to use CSS can I never use tables now? I think indeed you can still use tables. One thing I would NEVER do is use nested ones.
There's no disgrace in hybrid layouts built around a simple table.
Current limitations in CSS columnar formatting have resulted in some highly creative thinking and examples of clever workarounds – but I will always advocate a pragmatic approach to development.
A few month's back, Dave Shea fired my imagination with CSS and I was hell-bent on developing table-less sites but after countless hours of fiddling, fudging and fruitless frustration it dawned on me I was square-pegging a round hole; multi-columnar formatting is better achieved using a simple table wrapping my logical block markup.
I am now at peace.
Hmm, I find it concerning that after all the work people have done over the past year to spread the message of standards that so many people are still saying "its ok to use tables" simply because its easier. If you care about standards, then I don't think this is at all the right attitude. Nobody is expecting people to become a CSS whizz overnight, but IF you have the time to learn to use it to its full potential (I understand not everybody has that time) then I see absolutely no reason to go back to using tables because its "easier".
Why are people still not getting it? More and more big sites are converting to CSS-based layouts - look at mp3.com, look at blogger.com, look at cnet, look at wired etc. If these big players can do it, then anybody can. I think its time to stop making excuses for table-based layouts.
Yes there are certain things that are easier to do with tables. Yes, hybrid table/css layouts are useful if you are only just starting to learn CSS, do not have the time or means (client restrictions?) or need to support legacy browsers, but if the option is there, IMO there is only one choice. Otherwise you are just going backwards.
Perhaps some people will choose to see me as a CSS "zealot" - I don't know why, I have no say in what you choose to do, however for the purpose of discussion I'm willing to stand up and say that its time to stop excusing table-based layouts.
I found myself thinking this just the other day - I spent several hours trying to get an daily event calendar to look alright using floated divs and headings only to decide that a table for that sort of data would be perfectly acceptable. I think in this case the table actually cut down on the code by a little bit, and it certainly required less CSS rules to look the same.
I don't think anybody is suggesting tables shouldn't be used for genuine tabular data, such as a calendar. To not would be as incorrect as using tables for layout.
Like many people earlier comments I can only agree with those that have advocated the common sense approach, it's simply not always possible to take into account every variable that the final site will be exposed to.
And then there is the time issue, it's obviously not viable a lot of the time to spend days rearranging complex pages with CSS when you could do the same with a perfectly validating well built, well thought out table in hours.
CSS is great, it gives amazing flexibility, but at the moment it is time consuming to build universally good CSS on every platform and there are times when going back to certain HTML entities makes solid time and business sense.
I can only agree with you Dave. I've been coding http://www.bratislavahotels.com comply with valid XHTML 1.0 Strict code and later found that tables are necessary for the layout. It was quite difficult to fight all float bugs when making it 3-column CSS layout, also it has not been good for SEO. I have found it difficult to find solutions to some bug that occured and I guess that had to do with floats widely used. Nevertheless, I changed for basic TABLE layout with 3 columns defining
 and
 when needed. That's just plain markup with CSS on top. We can use it, that's not so bad. Otherwise
's are used.
I work for TSN.ca, and we have about a dozen people here who work on the site on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this site has always been seen as a SPORTS website (emphasis on Sports, little emphasis on website), and as a result, the milage of the HTML education of the staff varies greatly. I only finally managed to convince them to close and 's a few years ago. Moving them to CSS based design is going to be nigh impossible.
If it was just me (like it is with my side projects), I'd say, "BOOYEAH CSS and Standards all the way", but it's not, and there's no way I'll be able to teach these old dogs all of the new CSS tricks when it's easier for them to rely on the "old ways" to get the job done.
It may not be right, but it's the hand of cards I was dealt with.
Hmmm…where to begin…most of what I do are specialized web apps, i.e. primarily form-based, so my view on tables is in general much different than the usual one here.
That being said, it's nice to see you (Dave S, not the other Dave S) mention that "by the way, sometimes using a table is OK". I regularly use tables to lay out forms; partially because the "general" audience (those used to filling out paper forms, for example, or still working with *gasp* mainframe apps) find it easier to use and grasp.
So my approach in the last three years has been to use a table (sometimes with one level of nesting) primarily as a grid tool, and to use CSS to define the elements within the grid.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with using tables to do layout. Whether you call it "table" or "grid" makes no practical difference, and we all know that a grid layout is not evil in other mediums.
Part of the big issue I see here is the blurry line between "document" and "application", which has plagued the world ever since server-side app authoring as been accessible (no pun intended). Even some of the other technologies (*cough* XAML *cough*) suffer from this potentially confusing paradigm. The fact is that a markup document is a document; it is a captured state at a particular moment.
An application by it's very nature represents a number of different states, any of which may be captured using a document. So IMHO, a lot of the argument about "tables being presentational" is grounded in the wrong paradigm to begin with.
Of course tables are not structural. If its document semantics that you are interested (primarily as a vehicle for content communication), then CSS is inherently more powerful than locking presentation within structure. But if it's complex interaction, then I feel that the total separation of presentation and content, while laudable, is almost a waste of time.
(bear in mind I feel that a decent application structure will operate on a document "in flux"; that data document *should* be semantic and only semantic).
The problem with allowing tables for layout: how to stop people from going wild with them, and dropping all semanticly interesting elements like H1 and lists etc. As a tool for creating a flexible grid, they are of course much faster to use.
Amen. When you already have 80,000 documents (in Lotus Notes *cringe*), some with horrible layouts and huge images. It's much safer to use a table based layout, because after all, the most important thing is that it's usable. A sensible table layout isn't _that_ bad in the first place.
On tables in forms…
Didn't Mark Newhouse already muse on this (on A List Apart and his own site?) Based on code by Eric Meyer.
-> http://www.alistapart.com/articles/practicalcss/
-> http://realworldstyle.com/forms.html
Basically, it isn"t that much harder than using tables for forms!
You could always clip large images. In fact you should always limit the dimensions in which your clients can add content. But yes, using tables is a hell of a lot easier in some cases.
(In response to Luke Redpath)
I'm sorry, but the last time I looked at the specs, tables *were* still part of the standard. The argument here isn't really about standards, it's about separating content from presentation…i.e. semantic documents.
The point I was trying to make, which you seemed to ignore, is that there are situations where you are not dealing with a document paradigm anymore (in order words, full-fledged web-based applications) but an application paradigm.
Sure, I use tables to lay out most of my forms. That's because its still a standard, and it does what I need it to do. It's not like we're using IE specific tags (thank god MARQUEE has not appeared more than it has). We're still using standards. It may not be the spirit of what the w3c put forward, but it's still part of the spec.
I think you have to remember that there's more than one way to skin a cat here, even when using the standards. Sure, if you are dealing with a hyperlinked set of documents (your standard web site), then absolutely, do it with pure CSS. Lots of space saving, easier to control, etc. (I do use CSS pretty much exclusively when doing pure web sites, with the exception of some experiments…and that has less to do with the desire to use tables for layout and more to do with the poor implementation in some browsers).
But to ignore part of the standard because it doesn't conform with some idealized version of the "accepted" use of the standard, that I have a problem with.
I have recently tried to stick with CSS-based layouts with my designs, and while I have had a lot of success, it's frustrating to deal with IE 6!! Like it was said above, you can't spend too much time fixing a bug like that when you can solve it with tables and move on to the next project.
So my motto now is to try and get it to work with CSS, but if something comes up and I get stumped, I add a table here or there, (only a few ;) )and then I get the project done. The client won't understand that I was trying to get a float to display properly in 1 browser… and as long as you don't go crazy with tables, it shouldn't make too much of a difference on file size, or time to display the page on the site, it will still conform to XHTML.
That's how I deal with CSS and table-based designs.
For the forms discussion:
I am surprised that no one mentioned fieldset, with label and legend, that's about all the markup you need for creating usable forms.
As for the 500 page cms discussion:
Accepting that a CMS gives you poor output, is accepting the choice of a poor CMS. You should be able to control most aspects of the output from a CMS, as it's primary function must be managing content and not publishing content.
Storing content as structured documents, free of the current favourite flavour of presentation, allows you to control the output, and eventually to change it easily for major redesigns.
Think XML + XSLT, then go look for you CMS monster.
There is no Black or White, there are only shades of Grey…
If I hand-craft the layout and have total control of the content - my client can have a pure css solution. at a cost ;)
If they want the budget option and/or editorial control - as is usually the case - then one of my trained monkeys gets a copy of dreamweaver and the client gets a css/table hybrid =)
I am primarily a server-side programmer, and one of my main responsibilities when working on a project is to tie site designs with dynamic content from databases. In the past the site designs handed to me have all been table based, making it easy for for me to intigrate things like shopping cart contents int othe design.
But recently the designers I work with have started moving to CSS based layouts. I found it to be very time consuming to give dynamic content the same functionality without tables. It was possible, but not woth the effort. I have since decided to go for a hybrid approach; Using tables only when the data I was retreiving, required a tabular display. This method has worked great; the designers can still use css and I can fit my data grids in there div's without much extra work, keeping the layout intact. The end result is a standards compliant, dynamic site, developed in efficient manner, meating deadlines, and giving our clients more bang for there buck.
I think tables should still be used, but only for information that demands a tabular display, with rows and columns.
Just my two cents.
Remarkable how many results turn up on a web search for "tyranny of standards." Shelley Powers' O'Reilly article (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/news/tyranny_1200.html ) memorably called the WaSP a lynch mob.
I must say that as someone that develops sites to hand off to others, sites that must be edited in WYSIWYG browsers, and web applications, I couldn't agree more with Dave. When you are a professional, it's all about practicality.
Someone said eariler that CSS is beta, which isn't exactly true. Yes, it is a spec, but it is in its infancy. It isn't the ultimate or only presentational language solution and has a long way to go, both as far as the spec and implementation are concerned.
Taking my work as an example, I'm putting together a site with 2- and 3-column layouts. I comped them up nicely in pure-CSS with my dummy latin content. Everything looks great, and it is working nicely across browsers. The problem is, I now have to run it through a slew of tests to try and see how easy it is to break. If it doesn't break (which isn't likely, especially in IE) then I have to make sure it works with Dreamweaver MX. That presents another problem, because this site is going to be handed off and worked on in the WYSIWYG editor and must look correct in Dreamweaver and not break when adding content there.
Moral of the story is, I already know where this is going. I'm going to break it and it's going to look shoddy in Dreamweaver and I'm going to have to revert to a simple table layout to ensure my columns look proper. Then again, I know many more CSS-hacks this time around, so I'll probably spend more time trying to fix it and make it work. Who knows, maybe this time I'll be successful.
(Not sure where I went with that story, but I can't understand how any professional dev wouldn't agree with Dave on this one.)
The main problem with tables is that it really locks the site design into a 3 column layout, (or whatever they've been used for), which means that is it's decided that the site would look better with no columns, 2 columns, or even 4 colums or any other style you can think of, it would mean that you would need to alter the structure of the document just to change the layout.
Also, tables (especially 3 or 4 column layouts) can't really be optimised for incremental loading. Say for example you have a really large list for your navigation menu up the top, followed by the left column, then the centre column, and finally the right column. It might take quite a long time to actually get the main content in the middle that the user is really interested in, not to mention the dynamic resizing as each column is downloaded and rendered, which is really annoying.
Using CSS, it's not difficult to get a presentaiton like that using structured layout, optimised for incremental rendering using a structure like this:
<div id="content"

 (column 2)

 (column 1)

 (column 3)

This way the main content is delivered first, ending with the site navigation, since it will usually be the last place your visitors look before leaving the page.
So true. Iam 'forced' to use a CMS which doesn't care about valid output.
It's really hard to see that my codes breakes because the developers didn't spend a minute on thinking about valid code :(
I beeing one of the lead developers of a famous bulletin board software often come on trouble because i really need tables but i nearly forgot how to use them because iam not used to it anymore :D


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CAIRO — Arab countries should resist funding Sunni fighters in what is turning into a cross-border war between Iraq and Syria because that support eventually could help the fast-spreading insurgency in Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday.
Kerry said the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has become a threat to the entire Mideast, and perhaps beyond.
"This is a critical moment," Kerry said after meeting with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
He said the group is a "threat not only to Iraq, but to the entire region."
"There is no safety margin whatsoever in funding a group like ISIL, and we particularly discourage individuals in the region who may have been sending money through some illicit charity or through various back-channel initiatives under the guise this is for the general welfare and benefit for people who have been displaced, but then that money finds its way into the hands of terrorists," Kerry said.
"We are obviously discouraging any kind of support to entities where it is unsure where the money is going ... and that goes to any government, any charity, any individual. We must not allow that kind of funding to be a part of this equation," Kerry said.
U.S. officials later made clear that Kerry was not calling for an end to aid — financial or otherwise — to Syria's moderate Sunni rebel forces. They have fought for more than three years to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
It is possible that some support to Syrian rebels may wind up in insurgents' hands due to the amount of overlap between Sunni fighters within and between the two counties.
A U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters said the U.S. is comfortable that the moderate opposition in Syria has enough control over its international assistance to prevent that from happening.
The U.S. is looking for ways to work with Mideast nations, most of them led by Sunni governments, to curb the Sunni militant group's growth.
Some officials in the United States and the Mideast have suggested privately that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must leave office before Iraq's Sunnis will believe their concerns will be heard by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.
But al-Maliki has showed no indication he is willing to step down, and his political party won the most votes in national elections in April.
Both Kerry and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said it's up to Iraqis to decide their leaders, but at the same time they said Baghdad must create an inclusive government if it hopes to quell the violence.
Shoukry, in a joint news conference with Kerry, said Egypt is worried about any spillover effects the unrest in Iraq will cause its Arab neighbors.
He said Egypt is looking to work with other countries to help the Iraqi people.


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Perl for Puzzlers
I was working on creating a puzzle a couple of weeks ago and needed sets of a dozen 5-letter words that all "interacted" in a certain way (sorry, don't want to give away too much). One of the software guys here at work suggested a Perl script to find sets words, specifically Strawberry Perl. I have been programming since I was a kid (basic on a VIC-20) but lately have been resistant to learning new languages because I can usually accomplish my goals with the languages I already know. This time I decided to take his advice and was pleasantly surprised with the simple learning curve and thought I'd pass on a bit of intro on how to set up and start using Perl to help create puzzles.
I am not a Computer Scientist, nor do I play one on TV. This is a description of how I went about solving a specific problem, not necessarily the best method. For informational purposes only. Use at your own risk.
Installation of Strawberry Perl was completely straightforward on my XP machine. I haven't tried any Win7 installs, but the home page suggests it is just as simple. I just downloaded the Windows installer and let it run. This will install Perl on your machine let you run scripts from the command line.
1. Create a folder to place all of my code and research material.
2. Create a text file in the folder where I had all of my puzzle related info called "prompt.bat" (no quotes), and consisted of the single word "cmd" (again no quotes). Double-clicking this file will open a command prompt within the folder so you can launch the scripts easily.
3. Download a word list that can be easily read into your script. I used output from Tea, but I also found some other word lists here: http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/
4. Create a text file (I prefer Notepad++ for text editing. Be sure to set the Language to Perl to get the correct syntax hi lighting) with the name of the puzzle and a ".pl" suffix. This file will be your Perl Script.
5. Start the script with "#!/usr/bin/perl" This tells the computer that it is a Perl script.
6. Here's a script I wrote to find all the rotations of a word (anyone who saw my sample puzzle on the forum may recognize this) listrotator.pl (Save target as… or you may get an error. No idea why). You can run this by typing "perl listrotator.pl words.txt" at the command prompt.
#!/usr/bin/perl#use strict;my %words;my $i;open(DATAIN,"<$ARGV[0]") || die "cannot open \"$ARGV[0]\": $!";while(my $line = <DATAIN>){$line =~ s/\s+//;$words{$line} = 1;}foreach my $word1 (sort keys %words){my $num=0;my $word=$word1;print "-$word\n";for($i = 1; $i < length($word1); $i++){$word= rotate($word);print "$word\n";}}sub rotate{my $foo=shift;chomp($foo);my $out=substr($foo,1,length($foo)-1).substr($foo,0,1);return $out;}
The beginning of the script reads in the command line argument (words.txt in the example above) then reads the word list into memory. Specifically into a hash structure named words hash, but I'll discuss that later. While reading the file into memory, it also strips carriage returns and unprintable characters.
Next the script steps through each entry in the hash (%words). It takes this entry, and rotates it using the rotate function, once for each letter in the word. This way we end up with all possible rotations.
In a future post I'll cover some of the neat things you can do once you have a word list in memory.


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Kintis Selected as a DARPA Riser
Panagiotis (Panos) Kintis has been selected to participate as a DARPA Riser in D60, DARPA's 60th anniversary symposium.
Cybersecurity Training Program at Georgia Tech Prepares ROTC Students for Service
The Cyber Spectrum Collaborative Research Environment (C-SCoRE) program helps cadets develop operational skills that will be instrumental in combatting cyber and electronic warfare in the interest of national security.
Alfarraj Selected for CSIP Outstanding Service Award
ECE Ph.D. student Motaz Alfarraj was selected for the Center for Signal and Information Processing (CSIP) Outstanding Service Award for spring semester 2018.
Shafiq Chosen for CSIP Outstanding Research Award
Recent ECE Ph.D. graduate Muhammad Amir Shafiq was chosen for the Center for Signal and Information Processing (CSIP) Outstanding Research Award for spring semester 2018.
Ildefonso Awarded IEEE NPSS Grant
ECE Ph.D. student Adrian Ildefonso has been awarded the 2018 IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society (NPSS) Paul Phelps Continuing Education Grant.
Yalamanchili, Bloch Honored with Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher Awards
Sudhakar Yalamanchili and Matthieu R. Bloch were announced as the Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher Awards honorees on April 13 at the annual Eta Kappa Nu Spring Picnic.
Muneeb and Rabia Zia Receive I2S Best Video Award
Muneeb Zia and Rabia Zia received the Best Video Award at the finals of the 2018 Ideas to Serve (I2S) Competition, held on April 12 in the Scheller College of Business Atrium.
Nagel to Lead ECE Accreditation Efforts
ECE Academic Professional Kristine Nagel has been named the leader for assessing the ECE curriculum and maintaining the School's ABET and SACS accreditations.
Tech Tower Gets New Letters
The letters atop Tech Tower are being replaced with newer techology for the interior lighting components.
Na, Ko Win Cybersecurity Demo Day Research Award
ECE Ph.D. students Taesik Na and Jong Hwan Ko won first place in the research track at the Institute for Information Security & Privacy's Cybersecurity Demo Day Finale. This event was held on April 12 at the Krone Engineered Biosystems Building.


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Location: Coastal Plain Soil, Water and Plant Conservation ResearchTitle: Designing relevant biochars as soil amendments using lignocellulosic-based and manure-based feedstocks Author
|Novak, Jeffrey - Jeff
|Cantrell, Keri
|Watts, Donald - Don
|Busscher, Warren - Retired ARS Employee
|Johnson, Mark - Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Submitted to: Journal of Soils and Sediments
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/10/2013
Publication Date: 3/21/2013
Citation: Novak, J.M., Cantrell, K.B., Watts, D.W., Busscher, W.J., Johnson, M. 2013. Designing relevant biochars as soil amendments using lignocellulosic and manure-based feedstocks. Journal of Soils and Sediments. 14:330-343. DOI:10.1007/s11368-013-0680-8
Interpretive Summary: Biochar is a byproduct of the biofuel processing industry. Biochar has a long history as a soil amendment; however, it doesn't always work effectively to improve soil fertility. Biochar's effectiveness as a soil amendment varies considerably with feedstock selection and production conditions. It would be a more successful soil amendment if the biochar was engineered to have certain chemical properties that are known before soil application. Here, we conducted a laboratory incubation study using biochars produced from agricultural crop and nutshell waste, along with poultry manures. In addition, we made biochars from blends of several agricultural waste materials by mixing them in known ratios with poultry manure. These biochars were laboratory incubated in a sandy soil for 2 to 4 months, and about every month the soils were leached with water. Soil and the leachates were analyzed for their nutrient concentrations. We found that biochar produced from pine chips did not significantly increase soil fertility or nutrients released into leachates. Biochars produced from poultry litter, in contrast, greatly increased nutrient concentrations in the soil and leachates. We also found that biochar blends cause the soil to contain sufficient soil nutrient concentrations without losing much into the leachate. These results imply that biochars can be produced through blending feedstocks that can more effectively improve soil fertility levels.
Technical Abstract: Biochars contain an assemblage of organic and inorganic compounds; they can be used as an amendment for carbon sequestration and soil quality improvement. Not all biochars are viable soil amendments, however, because of differences in their chemical composition. In this study, we demonstrate how biochars can be designed with relevant properties as successful soil amendments through feedstock selection, pyrolysis conditions, and particle size choices. Biochars were produced by pyrolysis of parent lignocellulosic (peanut hulls, pecan shells, switchgrass, pine chips, hardwood wastes wood), and manure (poultry litter) feedstock sources, as well as blends of these feedstocks at temperatures ranging from 250 to 700 degrees Celisus (°C). Additionally, blended feedstocks were made into greater than 2-millimeter (mm) pellets prior to pyrolysis at 350°C. Dust sized (less than 0.42 mm) biochar was obtained through grinding of pelletized biochars. After chemical characterization, the biochars were evaluated as fertility amendments in a Norfolk soil. Poultry litter biochars were alkaline and enriched in nitrogen and phosphorus (P), whereas biochar from lignocellulosic feedstocks exhibited mixed pH and nutrient contents. Blending poultry litter with pine chips resulted in lower biochar pH values and nutrient contents. In soil incubations experiments, all biochars significantly raised soil pH, soil organic carbon, cation exchange capacity, and Mehlich 1 extractable phosphorus and potassium. Poultry litter biochar added at 20 grams per kilogram resulted in excessive soil P concentrations (393 to 714 milligrams per kilogram) and leachate enriched with dissolved phosphorus (22 to 70 milligrams per liter). Blended and pelletized poultry litter with pine chip feedstock reduced soil pH and extractable soil P and potassium concentrations. Water leachate dissolved P concentrations were significantly reduced through blending. This study revealed that biochars and blended biochars can have different impacts at modifying soil quality characteristics.


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Fast multiplayer action set in the Half-Life 2 universe! HL2's physics adds a new dimension to deathmatch play. Play straight deathmatch or try Combine vs. Resistance teamplay. Toss a toilet at your friend today!
Only registered members can share their thoughts. So come on! Join the community today (totally free - or sign in with your social account on the right) and join in the conversation.


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Senate passes first budget in 4 years
In the early morning hours Saturday after almost 13 continuous hours of voting, the Senate passed a budget resolution for the first time in nearly four years.
The proposal, which Democratic drafters say will reduce the deficit by $1.85 trillion between spending cuts and tax increases, passed narrowly 50-49 on a largely partisan vote at 4:56 a.m.
Story Continued Below
A handful of Democrats, all up for reelection next year and representing conservative states, voted against the measure: Sens. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska). Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) was absent.
( Also on POLITICO: 'Vote-a-rama': The ones that matter)
Nerves started to fray about 2 a.m., with Democrats pushing to end the voting and Republicans trying to continue to consider amendments. In total, they considered 101 amendments.
The standoff brought leadership from both parties to hushed huddles on the floor as tired senators tried to intercede and speed the process.
More than an hour of negotiations ensued until a deal was struck, more than 30 amendments would be passed without a vote as a package. Another 14 amendments would be voted on beginning just after 3 a.m. to allow them to finally be able to vote on the budget.
( Also on POLITICO: Congress averts shutdown)
It was then that conservatives in the Senate were finally able to move on some of their more controversial amendments. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) offered amendments dealing with foreign relations in the Middle East and U.N. funding related to the legality of abortion, all of which were defeated. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) offered an amendment reiterating the rights in the 2nd Amendment, which was shot down after being ruled unrelated to the budget.
As part of a deal to move forward, the members agreed to remain seated and vote out loud as their names were called, an unusual event on the Senate floor.
The 12-hour series of votes — more than 100 amendments were considered, breaking a previous "vote-a-rama" record — is mostly political theater and gives both sides the opportunity to force votes on pet issues. The budget is non-binding, therefore none of the passed amendments will likely carry the weight of law.
But the votes are symbolic victories, demonstrating the ability of one side to rally enough senators to support a measure in hopes of using those votes for future bills. It also gives both sides a litany of roll calls to try to clobber their opponents during the next election.
Republicans claimed victory on some key amendments, including passage of one to repeal the medical device tax included in Obamacare and one calling for the approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline.


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Reporting Brian Ives
Filed underClassic, Headlines, Latest Headlines, Music
Bruce Springsteen generally communicates with his fans via his music — he's not one to post too often on his website or social media. But this week, he took to his official site to post a thank you letter to fans, and also a new music video, which served a similar purpose.
"To all the tramps and travelers who exposed themselves night after night to the long flights, the long drives, the long queuing, the rain… we appreciate it," he wrote.
RELATED: Not Fade Away: Bruce Springsteen's 'The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle' Turns 40
Springsteen also thanked the "'creative' request sign makers," "the families who showed up (with) all generations represented" and notably, "our young fans, the newest members of our E Street clan, who brought their life, vitality, fresh energy and who immersed themselves in 40 years of music, we thank and welcome you. You're our future."
Bruce also posted a video of his cover of Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream," produced by Wrecking Ball producer Ron Aniello, which features a montage of concert footage, both of fans and the band.
Springsteen previously covered the song on his solo acoustic tour for 2005′s Devils And Dust, and in 2008, released it as a limited edition EP. The version heard in this video is more orchestrated and sounds like it was produced during the sessions for Wrecking Ball.
Up next for Springsteen is a one-off solo performance at New York Beacon Theatre at the annual Stand Up For Heroes event on November 6. Next year, the E Street Band returns to the road for a string of dates in Australia and New Zealand starting in February.


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Americans have a love affair with pork sandwiches, according to pork checkoff-funded research. About 36% of all sandwiches consumed in 2000 were made with pork. That list includes ham, hot dog, bologna, hero/sub, salami, sausage or bacon/BLT.
Research by NPD Group, a Chicago research firm well known in the food industry, says that nine out of 10 Americans eat sandwiches regularly. The average person eats three sandwiches a week, one of which is pork-based. Ham tops the list of the 15 types of sandwiches that are eaten most often.
This research has been conducted for more than 10 years. Ham has consistently topped the list each year in all regions of the country.
"Consumer preferences for ham sandwiches has remained constant over time, partly due to checkoff-funded promotion of pork," says Steve Schmeichel, Hurley, SD, pork producer and chairman of the National Pork Producers Council's Demand Enhancement Committee. "Also, part of the consistency is because pork is a versatile ingredient for sandwiches and because consumers change eating habits slowly."
The NPD National Eating Trends Service collects data from 2,000 households over a two-week period.


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I find you very nice, but we need to get a few things straight and we will have a wonderful experience together….
I iz KING puppy!
I rulez da house and I demand and will receive all treats I ask for.
I get paid for letting you know which sissifur has to go out and do der business as in,
who needs to release da poop.
Mom knows dis and daddy is learning dis, so I fink you and
I should just get dis little matter out of da way now…
ok, let's review…
I iz KING pup and get lots of treats.
I would appreciate it if you would allow me play time wif Sandy Beans,
she and I are bestest buds, I wuv her. Annabelle is a whole otta story…
she likes me but I don't fink she wuvs me much…
she barks at me all da time…
Mom knows I iz as gentle as dey come and I haz never growled at anyone, ever…I iz a good pup.
Now about dis walking fing …..I like it and I fink Boo could use some exercise,
she is getting a widdle chunky in da belly region if ya know what I mean….
Boo has a BOODA belly.
Mom mentioned she iz taking daddy away to Florida to see da Gators play…
why dey going to Florida to see gators play, all dey need to do iz turn on da Animal Planet channel
and dey can watch dem all day…
I fink dey iz crazy, but dey have 3 pups so I know dey isz crazy, BOL.
We get to watch TV all day everyday….I prefer Nickelodeon, and Sandy likes da Disney channel,
dis iz very important to remember…
otta fings to remember…
I like my treats, Boo barks at everyone and Sandy is da cuddle muffin….
I will snuggle up wif you if you'd like, I iz da snuggle buggle.
I hope you find dis note useful, even if you remember nuffin from it remember one fing ok….


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Thayer School's single integrated department of engineering sciences is housed in a single integrated facility that fosters innovation, community, and student-faculty interaction.
Connected by a soaring central atrium, MacLean Engineering Sciences Center and Cummings Hall place state-of-the-art student project labs at the heart of the combined building.
Large internal windows intentionally reveal the inner workings of engineering—allowing easy observation of works-in-progress in labs and workshops. For students and faculty, this can inspire new ideas and collaborations. For visitors to Thayer—from prospective students to non-engineers—the facility itself is a window into the ingenuity and creativity of engineering.
To see more of Thayer School, enjoy a virtual visit.


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Pleasantly Surprised
Fund: ff Venture Capital
Posted by Anonymous on 2012-03-08
ff invested in my company, and while we were grateful for the money, they were a smallish part of the round, so I wasn't counting on much aside from the cash. To my surprise, John has been the most on-the-ball, helpful investor in our latest round. He responds immediately to his companies' needs and has hooked us up repeatedly. I have been pretty much blown away by how hard he's worked for us. Definitely recommend.PRIVATE: Members Only (638 Characters)


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Over the past three years, business owners and entrepreneurs have told us that they don't have the time or resources to navigate the maze of government agencies and need a one stop shop where they could go for all the assistance they need at every stage of their development. As President Obama said in his State of the Union address last month, we need to give U.S. businesses every opportunity and tool to succeed and not a maze to navigate. And as Secretary Bryson has said multiple times while traveling to manufacturers in Columbus, Norfolk, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis, we need to support American businesses so they can build their products here in America and sell them everywhere around the world.
This is why the Obama Administration is launching a new online platform, BusinessUSA, to help small businesses and exporters of all sizes find information about available federal programs without having to waste time and resources navigating the federal bureaucracy. BusinessUSA combines information and services from 10 different government agencies through one consolidated website and coordinate telephone support through a single 1-800 number. The BusinessUSA website went live today with hundreds of business resources consolidated in one place including Commerce's International Trade Agency, Census Bureau, Patent and Trademark Office, several other Commerce bureaus, as well as, multiple other government agencies.
BusinessUSA is a platform to make it easier than ever for businesses to access services to help them grow and hire from the day they need technical assistance to start a business, to the day they start building a product and need financing, to the day they are ready to export and need help breaking into new markets overseas.
It's a "No Wrong Door" approach for small businesses and exporters, creating a common platform to match businesses with the services relevant to them, regardless of where the information is located or which agency's website, call center, or office they go to for help. And as more federal agencies publish content through web services, the more we will be able to highlight the most relevant information and programs from across the government.
To ensure that it is designed with the customer in mind, BusinessUSA was built with the active feedback of U.S. businesses and relevant online communities and, to the extent possible, and we are encouraging businesses to continue giving us feedback that we will incorporate as we refine the site. The BusinessUSA website provides an easy-to-use mechanism to provide feedback directly to us and we will use that information to make the site even better. For example, as we move forward, we will integrate related state and local government services, as well as those of private sector partners.
The President has laid out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last – an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values. We need to make sure that today's business leaders and tomorrow's innovators can get the information they need to start or grow a business, export to other markets, or learn about the latest contracting opportunities. BusinessUSA is one of the steps the Administration is taking to realize the President's vision of a streamlined government that serves the 21st Century economy.
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