CSS Fixed location menu

The observant reader may recognize that scrolling on this blog gets rid of the Blogger-bar at the top and retains a full-width menu for Skinyourscreen.com items that stays put in the browser, even while scrolling. That is, unless you're using the single largest security threat to MS Windows, Internet Explorer, which, unfortunately, doesn't comply to an ever-increasing amount of web standards.

While putting together new templates for Skinyourscreen after recovery from the hack attacks, I've been investigating some of the fun free goodies the web has to offer in the way of AJAX, script.aculo.us, and Ruby On Rails. I had previously attempted creating a dynamically loading horizontal set of menus using AJAX techniques but found them only working part of the time, inexplicably inoperative at others. Here's a simple rendition of the effect using just standard HTML/CSS.

It's a basic effect accomplished with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and a few HTML additions to a web template. Below are the CSS styles used in the header of this Blogger template. These are included in this template's header, although they could just as easily be employed in a separate style sheet:

/*===[ Top Navigation Bar Styles]===*/
.horzmenu {
position: fixed;
left: 0px;
top: 0px;
background-color: #222;
font-size: 12px;
width: 100%;
height: 1.3em;
border: 3px solid #777;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
}
.horzmenu li {
width: 142px;
height: 49px;
color: #fff;
display: inline;
}
.horzmenu a {
padding: 0px;
margin: 0px 5px;
border-bottom: 3px solid #444;
text-decoration: none;
}
.horzmenu a:link { /* unvisited link */
color: #aaa;
height: 49px;
width: 149px;
}
.horzmenu a:visited { /* visited link */
color: #889;
}
.horzmenu a:hover { /* mouse over link */
border-bottom: 3px solid #f90;
color: #fff;
}
.horzmenu a:active { /* selected link */
background-color: #333;
color: #fff;
border-bottom: 3px solid #444;
}

Now the addition to the HTML template (in this case, Blogger template)... Blogger doesn't seem to like certain HTML tags in a blog (tries to render 'em), so I'm going to use the [ and ] symbols instead of the sharp brackets usually used in HTML for the following example. (Google/Blogger appear to have this feature in beta-testing). Immediately after the tag insert the following:

[!-- My custom Skinyourscreen.com links --]
[div class="horzmenu"]
[ul class="nav_ul"]
[li][a href="http://skinyourscreen.com/site" alt="SYS"]Skinyourscreen[/a][/li]
[li][a href="http://skinyourscreen.com/podcasts" alt="Podcast"]SYS Podcast[/a][/li]
[li][a href="http://skinyourscreen.com/skinwiki" alt="SkinWiki"]SkinWiki[/a][/li]
[li][a href="mailto:mrbiotech@skinyourscreen.com" alt="Contact Me"]Contact me[/a][/li]
[/ul]
[/div]

Not to bad, 'eh? Sorry for the illegibility... Blogger doesn't like Tabs or extra spaces apparently, so the above code has no indents to help you view the structure. The CSS styles are essentially creating a box of fixed position at the top of the browser window containing an inline list of unordered items.

It's a nice way of keeping common options always available without making users scroll for them. Right now I'm experimenting with more graphical versions of this in both horizontal and vertical formats. I'm trying to use the graphics from my Singularity LiteStep OTS2 theme in this endeavor. Another goal is to create one that sits on the bottom of the screen but still stays put when the user scrolls.

News on Nerio

Hi friends,

Got some more news on Nerio that I'd like to share with everybody. Again, thanks for your hopes, prayers, and wishes for our mutual friend. He's a fantastic human being, and the outpouring of friendship from so many of the community have evidenced your innate quality as well.

For those interested in sending cards, letters, flowers, etc. to Nerio... I DO have a dedicated work address for his work location (not the hospital) where these things can be sent, although it is a secure address due to his work contract. For this reason, I will not publically publish this information. If you are interested, please email me.

Here's the update on Nerio's condition as stated by his close friend Philip:

Bonjour Mr Richard

Some other news arrived by mail and phone..
Apparently gretha survived to the cauma, she's still alive, his hasben
told me that she will probably loose the ability of walking some
months, but not for ever, so after all, she's still alive, and this is
important..

For Nerio, Dr STAFFAN said today that his situation is very good now,
esspecially after his waking up, and could probably be transferred at
home, he charged sarah to make him some readucation movements in home,
to recover ability of walking and talking correctly! dont know exactly
where sarah will transfer him, because he have two brothers, one in
italy, and one in algeria they offered to have him at their homes
respectivly.
we received about 2000 mails/letters and other nice things from
diffrent countries, even from japan, algeria, cairo, Ausralia, Canada,
argentina, Israel, UK, France, Italy, Russia, Germany, Burkina Fasso,
South Africa....and so much others, i dont really know if some of
these Nerio friends are with you, but we want to thank them for all
what they send all kind words and prayers, we dont know how to thank
them in deep, but Nerio seems to be a good person enough to have all
these friends around the world...he will be proud of that and we are
too.

Ur Quan Masters: Old-school fun

What to do when your site's been trashed, your research gets intensive, the family gets ill and you feel like the planet's collapsing? Sit back and relax. Try something new. Or... try something old-skool.

Back in high school I really enjoyed some computer games called Star Control and Star Control II. Found out only recently that the developers of these (Atari) released the source code to Star Control II in 2002 and there's been an avid following who have created a thriving gaming community dedicated to these classics. Best yet, they've got it ported to Windows, Linux, BSD, and Mac OSX, so people of just about any system can play it. It'll run on just about anything.

It's fun to pull out your old favorite toys, and Ur-Quan Masters (formerly known as Star Control II) is no exception. Playing the super-melee mode with my kids has been a really fun experience and demonstrates that despite the killer gaming engines available these days, it all still boils down to how the game plays.

Check out Ur-Quan Masters here - it's a free download!

Nerio Alive and Conscious!

Fantastic news!!! Nerio has been through three surguries to repair damage to veins and recently awoke from his coma to request water. BIG thanks to everyone who has been so faithful with your prayers and hopes for the recovery of our great friend. This is literally a miracle... ejected from a vehicle from a massive impact, major trauma to the head, and he's still alive and able to converse after many days of coma. Here's the official word I received:

Bonsoir Mr Richard

Am Sarah who write this message, this time i think i have good news for
you, because Philip is in another base for the work.

Nerio situation is more good now that he passed operation with success,
all veins recovred and he is completly out of danger, he have 3
operations in head wich take 6 hours in all, but Doctor Staffan say
that he is all good now and out of danger, this operations was very
expensive but nothing is more then Nerio, your friend, my hasben.

yesterday at 19h he oppned his eyes and looked at me, then got a little
smile and say : need water! i cant keep my self and cry a lot that he
is still a live!! you hear me Mr Richard...he is still a live!!!!!!!

sade that ahmed was dead, but greatha is still fighting in cauma, i
dont what will happen to she. his hasben will take her to Cologne in
germany this next days.

Me and Nerio, and all his familly here we thank you a lot but never
much for what you do, we thank you for all prayers and kind words you
say, we are sade for what happen to your site and i present you my
homages...please give all Nerio friends my best salutations from here.

Dieu vous bénisse

For those of you who wish to send your best wishes to Nerio, feel free to fill his mailbox at nerio@skinyourscreen.com - that's where family and friends are keeping tabs. Thanks again, my kind and generous friends.

SYS Downloads up

SYS Downloads are up here.

Just to ensure that theme downloads are up, I've set up a VERY BASIC solution - akin to not much but static pages, but at least the files are accessible. This is by no means the final solution for the site, just a quick and dirty way of making sure everyone's contributions are still online. I'm working on the tutorials next.

If you have a submission you'd like to make to the site, I'll have to add it manually, so send it to me via email.


Hacker Update.
Curious chain of events, this is: Got this message yesterday to my skinyourscreen.com mail account:

hi, i want to talk with you about your site.
I am in ErrorHack team and i want to talk something about your site..
could u add me to ur messenger ?

Messenger : fenerli@hotmail.com

see you

To which I responded:

Sorry, don't use messenger. Contact by email is just fine.

He quickly replied:

any other chat programs ? like icq mirc ?

By this time I'm thinking that there are only a few reasons any hacker from the diabolical ErrorHack group would want to contact me: 1) Get a direct link to my computer to do more harm, 2) Rant about their shady aims, 3) Apologize and offer to fix the site. Seeing that they've done nothing but malicious acts, I quickly ruled out option #3 and wrote the following response:

I have a chat account but it's reserved exclusively for contact with my wife. I'm also at work right now, meaning a dedicated chat can't happen right now.

I must admit, I'm curious as to why a group so bent on making sure my site stays down is even interested in contact at all. But put yourself in my shoes for just a sec... the group claiming responsibility for repeatedly taking your site down suddenly wants to chat without stating their intentions. Would you trust anyone who broke into your house and trashed the place on multiple occasions?

You must realize that I greet your approach with utmost skepticism and distrust considering the actions of the group you claim allegiance with. Just being honest with you. I've layed aside my anger and determined that I just want to run my site and provide a fun place for some skinning buddies to get together. That does not mean that I feel you or your group are to be trusted, however. See my reluctance to converse? Why would I want to speak to the group that broke into my website and trashed the place? Why speak with people who have done nothing but exhibit undirected malice at something I've helped to create?

I've pinpointed that most of their activity came from two domains in Turkey, and this is also where dewe/fenerli of the errorhack group hails from. The initial instinct was to IP ban all of the turkish telecom services, as has been done elsewhere on the net to deal with this recent and persistent hacking threat. However, trawling the site logs, we do have people from Turkey who legitimately browser the tutorials, making that an unfair solution.

We'll just proceed as we can. Hopefully the errorhack group feels they have made their point and will not cause additional malicious problems.

DL solution within the week

For a recap on why you've been directed to this blog instead of skinyourscreen.com, read this entry.

I love the skinyourscreen.com and Astonshell communities. You guys are truly an amazing bunch! Your support for the skinyourscreen.com site has been greatly appreciated.

I've been crunching like mad behind the scenes (my bloodshot eyes will attest) to get a working solution for downloads up and running before the week is done. Every theme, skin and wallpaper will be up and running with its appropriate screenshots and descriptions. This will hopefully be a temporary solution as more permanent alternatives are considered.

Next on the agenda will be putting up all the tutorials.

Again, thanks for the continued interest. Working to keep SYS alive!