| LED Digest 1890: Ebook Readers, Mac vs PC and Typefaces |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ............................................... November 3, 2004 Issue #1890 ............................................... .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Reading Digital Content ==-- ~ Kathryn Martyn "...what e-book readers would you recommend?" ~ Tom Aman "...PDF can be very good for [printing]." --== Mac or PC? ==-- ~ Rick Gortatowsky "...people think a computer should be like a TV set." --== Mac Test Environment ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "...the cheapest [Mac] you can buy is an EMac." ~ James Wrubel "Instead of purchasing a Mac, I recommend Browser Photo..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Typefaces & Text Sizes for Everyday Sites? ==-- ~ Steve Pronger ~ Peter D'Aprix ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Kathryn Martyn Subject: Reading digital > Newspapers... know it's faster and easier to scan down > a narrow column than to toil along long lines of text. I'm > a great e-book reader. I find the narrow format of a handheld > screen ideal for reading whodunnits... - Valerie Beeby, LED 1889 Your comments about using an e-book reader bring up a very good point, and is one that all Internet publishers should see. I've created a lot of content online and had not given this any thought whatsoever until now. I'm one that always prints everything to read off-line. I don't like to read on the screen simply because I want to "own" the material, in the sense that I want a copy, someone in my physical world that I can put my hands on. I've never been fond of keeping files on my computer and I'm constantly looking for better ways to categorize information. I hadn't thought about someone reading a file in an e-book reader though, and what you said about PDF files' inability to wrap makes sense. Wouldn't it then be prudent for an author to simply provide a different format for those using an e-book reader? I looked at e-book readers a few years ago and they were still clunky and in my mind, not worth the bother. Too small a screen, etc., no ability to print, notate, turn down the corners, etc. I like print, as I said, so consequently in my myopic view I created only PDF files. So, if it's not off topic, what e-book readers have you tried and / or would you recommend? I want to look into this and see what format(s) I need to consider, whether there are more than one, etc. I pray to the format Gods that there are only a few, not dozens. ;-) Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP Ending Emotional Eating, One Bite at a Time http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Reading digital I agree with Valerie, it is not always a great way to read digital info. Not only that, but Adobe Reader 6.0 can be quite slow to load and, when running within a browser, it steals some of the available real estate for its own controls. On the plus side, however, PDF can be very good for files that are to be printed. Tom Aman http://www.cyberspyder.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Rick Gortatowsky Subject: Mac or PC Hi all, I have been reading all this Mac vs PC jargon in the recent LEDS. A computer, be it a Mac or a PC, is only as effective as its user. If someone is building a web site and wants compatibility of all possible platforms then the key is understanding how to build web pages using standardized basics and not fancy plug-in's, drop down menus and the works. If functionality is needed on a higher level then it's best to code or have coded Perl, PHP, C++ whatall scripts to accomplish the task. Browser compatibility being the main goal means one must reduce to the lowest common denominator of the browsers to achieve compatibility. In a prior LED, stability of PC's vs Mac's was the issue. As a reseller of software we have numerous platforms and I can say that both are not 100% stable and probably never will be until all content is piped in and computers become intelligent terminals. That is the future of computing and then some. That is to say digital video, phone, computer and more will be integrated and as far as software and such goes nobody will even own a thing. This will allow for stability, various forms of money making for pay per usage, reoccuring billing on and on of usage. There are as has been stated people who think a Mac is superior to a PC, visa vera, people who think Linux trashes all. The fact is the machine is moot, software makes things happen and in software the PC is simply "it" if you want your computer to do anything you want it to do. The Macintosh is a vertical market computer now. For every piece of software created for the Mac there are 100 created for PC's, perhaps more. If money is an issue or upgrading a few years down the pike again its a hands down choice. It was noted in a prior LED for the original thread poster to try both platforms and see which they like better. If you can use a mouse and read you can use either a Mac or a PC, thats moot. What is important is researching the software that fits your needs and then try and determine what flexibility you may need down the road. If a person is not certain of the present needs and prospective future needs then a PC is the best bet as no matter what the application it is out there. It may not be as fun to use. In that regard again its moot. No computer is fun to use. Fun to use means its intuitive enough that I can speak to it no matter what the application and it works, thats many years off. The #1 problem in computing today is not the computer platform, the operating system or software. Its the fact that people think a computer should be like a TV set. "I should not have to read or learn to use a computer". This same facet by the way of the modern western civilizations happens to be why other nations are now beating us at our own game. For them learning equates directly to a better life and lifestyle, real goals. Rick Gortatowsky, President Software Society ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Mac testing > I am a web designer and I would like to test my sites > on Mac browsers... What is the cheapest model I could > buy that will run most popular Mac browsers? - Abu Haider, LED 1888 If you meant buying a current Mac, the cheapest you can buy is an EMac. It will happily run OS X and all the browsers you could want to test. However, it has an integrated monitor. The same is true of the next level of Macs - the iMac. To get a box only, you're looking at a more substantial computer, the low end of the "professional level" computers. You could, however do very well to get a computer that is a few years old - which will give you a much cheaper computer, but one that will hum with OS X, and again, run all the browsers. My own computer is a 466 MHz G4 - FAR behind current computers, but entirely satisfactory for my work, and more than enough for your task. If I were in your position, I'd get something like that. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy ------- new post - same topic ------- From: James Wrubel Subject: Mac testing Instead of purchasing a Mac, I recommend Browser Photo: http://www.netmechanic.com/browser-index.htm It performs as advertised, and the cost is less than buying a Mac, if you are not developing many sites or making frequent changes. If you do decide to get a Mac, I believe the iMac is an integrated monitor / CPU, so that may be an issue for you space wise. As an owner and user of a Power Mac laptop, I would recommend you wait until you can afford a Mac laptop. That will address your space issues, and regardless of operating system preference, once you get used to the Mac laptop you will find it hard to not have. The integrated features and form factor of it are simply worlds-better than a Wintel laptop. Desktop, I consider a different matter. I use a Dell. But if you can afford it, I highly recommend any Mac laptop you can get. You won't regret it. James Wrubel ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Steve Pronger Subject: Window sizes > I can't offer much in the way of text size because text > size is easily adjusted by the visitors in their browser. - A Brantley, LED 1889 Not if the text size is controlled by CSS. I agree that the horizontal scroll bar should be avoided, but I find that setting widths by percentage makes pages too spread out on high resolution screens. I find the best compromise is to set a fixed width of around 750 pixels. You do get some blank real estate on high res screens but the design will stay intact and 800 X 600 viewers won't get a scroll bar. The number of viewers using less than 800 X 600 are getting smaller and smaller. I don't think there is a right or wrong way of doing this, just preferences. Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Peter D'Aprix Subject: Window sizes I have been reading both this question and the responses for quite a few issues now. I wonder if it is a question that can ever be answered definitively when we are discussing a medium where the publisher never has total control over how a page will be displayed on any particular monitor; there are so many uncontrollable or barely controllable variables. With the printed page, once the ink is down, the page always remains the same until it is used for another purpose than reading. But with the web, even with Cascading Style Sheets, the pages will look different on different browsers running on the same computer and monitor without the user changing any settings. Perhaps the best controls we can use are elements of common sense. A sans serif font, we have been told by the experts, such as Veranda (developed, as I have heard, by MicroSoft especially for clarity on a computer monitor) along with Arial, Helvetica, Swiss, Geneva, Sun Sans, would be a good choice for ease of reading. They are probably the most universal cross platform fonts. But these should be limited to just those faces that can be expected to be provided on a computer when computers are sold. There are so many faces and versions out there, that if you don't specify and give a higharchy, the computer will revert to its default font which may be very different than the one you used to design your page. Like colors, there are only about 256 "web safe" colors that will display fairly consistently over cross platforms. If you want to have some measure of control over how your site displays, you also have to accept limitations on your creativity. Test your choice fonts on several machines as well as your colors. Test your site with your monitor set at 256 colors, thousands and millions. You would probably be fairly safe if your fonts and colors were consistent with monitors set on thousands, but a lot of people still use 256 max colors. It can be useful to analyze your market before picking a font size (or color set, or page width). Is your site aiming at the elderly who probably have vision restrictions and need a larger type and probably don't know how to go into their control panel and raise the resolution of their monitors anyway. Are you aiming at people who use computers in their work and do know how to make their own settings and make better use of their screen real estate by increasing the resolution as well as bumping up their color range. Is your crowd one who use laptops with smaller screens? Sometimes the 800x600 rule applies to people who don't change their screen resolutions as well as people who have to use lap tops. Approximately 30% of the visitors to my clients' sites have their monitors set to 800x600 whether they need to or not. So I still design sites to that size window. In businesses with an IT department, frequently the monitors are locked in by the IT techies so the users can't go in and make changes, so even if you are aiming at business people, you can't necessarily count on their greater computer sophistication since what they do at home they may not have the option to do at work. That goes for operating systems as well. So many business are still working on old operating systems since the cost of down time to upgrade a whole business to a new version then work out all the bugs etc. can be great. So if your site is aimed at business to business, don't count on every viewer using the latest OS or browser. Will your viewers be kids who feel at home with flash animation, multi tasking, noise, and other game elements etc. or will you be pushing to adults for whom a computer is still in the camp of "the enemy" who still live in fear of the damn thing. White knuckle mousers. All this tends to dumb down the fun of using all the latest toys in building sites. But this is not new ground in publishing. All publishing not to mention product developers have to design with the end user in mind. If you want your site to be successful, first you have to determine who your visitors will be, what you want the site to do for you AND for them, then pick the tools to achieve your goals. Fonts and font sizes are just part of the mix. Just like picking tires for a car, first you have to identify the car, what size tires it needs, what type of road conditions it will be used upon, the expertise of the driver, even where in the world it will be driven. There is not tire or font that fits all requirements. So now you can feel free to fall asleep and let your eyes cross. Perhaps another cup of coffee with a shot of eau de vie might help. It may not answer your question, but it can take the edge off the frustration. Peter D'Aprix - Visual Communications http://peterdaprix.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else." - Andre Gide |
