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Hi! I'm Martin Söderlund, the owner of this blog. I work as a web consultant in Stockholm, Sweden. My main focus areas are .NET development and interface development.
If you've got something on your mind, feel free to contact me.

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Regarding style sheets and the title attribute

When linking to external style sheets and using the title attribute, you have to be a bit careful. I'll explain to you how to correctly link to external style sheets.

Normally, you link to an external style sheet like this:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/main.css"
	media="screen,projection" />

Perfectly fine!

However, you'd like to add a print stylesheet to, using media="print":

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/print.css"
	media="print" />

Now, this too works fine. However - when you want to use the title attribute with your style sheets, you have to be careful.

The title attribute is great to use if you want simple style switching and alternative style sheets. But you need to know what you do to get it to work!

In this code, the print style sheet will not work, it won't be triggered in different browsers:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/main.css"
	media="screen,projection" title="Default stylesheet" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/print.css"
	media="print" title="Print stylesheet" /> 

It's because the print style sheet's title attribute has a value. If the value is removed, or the whole title attribute, the print style sheet will work.

This happens because there are three different types of style sheets - and if an external style sheet is of the wrong kind - this style sheet will simply be ignored.

Three different types of style sheets

The three types of style sheets are:

  1. Persistent, which is a kind of default style sheet. No title attribute is needed.
  2. Preferred, which is the style sheet web browsers apply. Title attribute is needed.
  3. Alternate, which is alternatives to already existing style sheets. Title attribute is needed.

If these are mixed up, things might not be working as expected. Here's more on specifying external style sheets.

Conclusion

If you want your style sheets to work, make sure they're of the correct style sheet type. This final example works very well:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/main.css"
	media="screen,projection" title="Default stylesheet" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/print.css"
	media="print" />

It's official - I'm going to Nansen!

Nansen! It's now official, I have a new job and it's a great one - I'm going to Nansen!

I've had a great four years with my current employee, Hallvarsson & Halvarsson, but the time has come to move on.

I'll be working with system development and interface development at Nansen. A lot of .NET and EPiServer focus, exactly the way I like!

My first days at Nansen will be in September. Can't wait!

My favourite Windows tools

I recently bought myself a brand new Solid State Drive and re-installed Windows 7 plus all necessary programs. Here's my compiled list of the tools I can't live without.

Developer tools first

After a clean Windows 7 installation, I download Microsoft's Web Platform Installer, which is really useful for developers. It'll install all the tools necessary for .NET web developmentweb server as well as the latest .NET framework, SQL Server, plus much more if you want it to. Try it out, it'll save you a whole lot of time! Here's a blog post on how to install the .NET development tools you need.

No .NET environment is complete without Visual Studio though. I'm of course sticking with Visual Studio 2010.

Tools that improve my everyday computer usage

7-zip
For file archives.
xplorer2
Great file explorer with dual panes. My explorer of choice since 2007 something.
Foxit Reader
Fastest pdf reader ever.
TeraCopy
Copy files faster. Improves speed a lot.
J.River Media Center
Music player totally worth the minor cost. Best ever.
Paint.NET
Free and fast Photoshop alternative.
Picasa
Watching photo albums.
Ultramon
For window and multi screen management. I use it solely for the shortcut commands.
Daemon Tools Lite
File mounting.
FileZilla
Ftp client.
Damn NFO Viewer
View NFO files.
Notepad++
Smooth text editor.
uTorrent
Download torrents.
VLC Media Player
Media player of choice.

Tools for collaboration

Skype
Great client for obvious reasons. Calls made simple.
Windows Live Messenger
The IM client.
Google Talk
Keep track of your mail and Gmail contacts.
TweetDeck
Twitter desktop style.

The browsers

Google Chrome
The one and only. Fast and reliable.
Firefox
The best browser for web developers.

Tools from the largest of them all

No comments needed.

Do you have any favourite Windows tools?

Why developers should do time estimates

Over and over again, I stumble upon web projects where someone other than the developer has estimated the development time. Nothing could be more wrong.

A developer, no one else, should estimate the time for a set of tasks involving development.

Even more important, the developer(s) involved in the project, should do the time estimation.

Why is this? Well, for starters, this will give you a more accurate timesheet. And this will certainly help your customer relationship.e

Here's some more reasons to why developers and no one else should do the time estimates:

  • Developers probably has the best knowledge of how much time a specific task will consume
  • A more accurate time estimation will actually give you an idea on how much time is needed for a specific project, making planning a bit easier
  • Issues might be found earlier
It's a no-brainer, the craftsman whose expertise area is development, should do the time estimation.

So when the next project is due - take your time and make sure a developer does the time estimation before a time limit and definite price is set with the customer. It'll help you a lot.

 

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