Questions and answers

Questions and answers (1jun2009)

About this site
1. What kind of web site is this?
  This is my personal website, it collects stuff concerning my computer activity that may be useful for others. Sharing informations is the essence of WWW.
2. Why did you make your site so similar to the well-known XP desktop?
  Because almost everyone is familiar with that interface, so it should make easy browsing site contents. Furthermore, it was an interesting style exercise.
3. Non sei italiano? Perché non usi la tua lingua madre?
  Perché mantenere un sito in più lingue sarebbe uno sforzo troppo oneroso; l'inglese ormai è uno standard internazionale, la sua comprensione scritta può essere acquisita con relativa facilità. Inoltre sto cercando di migliorare il mio inglese.
4. Has this site a news feed to subscribe?
  Boh, my XSL transformation actually creates a RSS file, here's the link: RSS news feed.
5. What about your stuff available here? Can I use it without limitations?
  If otherwise specified you can do what you want, in the limits of the common sense; on the other hand I do not provide any warranty or support. If you use it in your works, a citation is appreciated. Regarding any third party stuff you must obviously comply with its original licence.
6. What do you mean with "no warranty" about the stuff here?
  I mean that if one of my files blows your PC or kills your cat I don't want any problem, you browse my site at your own risk.
Problems
1. These pages look bad, my browser does not display them properly!
  Use a modern browser, compliant with web standards, with javascript activated. I tested my site with Firefox, but other good browsers like Opera, Safari or Chrome will do.
2. Cannot open extension .7z!
  It's a LZMA compressed archive, you can use 7z archiver, though almost all others decent archivers can also handle this format.
3. Hey, after using a file downloaded from your site my computer exploded!
  Ehm, I can declare that all my uploaded files are virus/spyware free, however any use of them remains under your own responsibility.
Technical (web design) questions
1. Why have you arranged these faqs in such stupid way? I'm getting mad!
  Ehm, your're right, just playing with CSS pseudoclasses...
2. Do your website sources respect the W3C standard?
  Yes, both markup and CSS:
  Regarding CSS I had to renounce to the not standard setting input:focus::-moz-focus-inner {border:none !important;}, So the start button has that awful focus border.
3. Is your site compatible with all browsers?
  I tried to respect web standards, so with Internet Explorer you'll not be able to display it properly. Use web standard (pretty) compliant browsers like Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome, ...
4. Is the Sitemap dynamically generated?
  Yes, another XSL transformation creates a text file elaborated by Graphviz.
5. Which authoring tool are you using to edit and maintain this site?
  I edit a bunch of XML files with a text editor (PSPad), then obtain the HTML ouput with a XSL transformation performed by Saxon and upload them with WinSCP. The scheme is similar to the one available in XML help.
6. What program do you use to upload your pages?
  I'm using WinSCP.
7. That image change effect on mouse hover is awful, never heard about preloading images?
  I think that those kind of optimizations could and should be managed by the browser itself, not by the site developer.
8. Are your site sources based on pure CSS or there is also some javascript junk?
  Unfortunately some extras required a small javascript aid: the start menu, the clock, the image gallery and the windows overflow management.
9. With Flash you would have obtained better effects, why didn't you use it?
  Flash is a good product, you can do a lot of beautiful things, but it's a proprietary stuff superimposed onto the web standard, something that leads to a redundant, messy and less portable system. Speaking about web pages I hope a quick death for stuff like Flash and Silverlight, disabling those plugins will save you from a good amount of web gimcracks.
10. Are you aware you are using Microsoft proprietary images?
  Ehm, I appeal to the Microsoft Copyrighted Content License Terms that states: Use of Microsoft icons is permissible in training manuals or documentation written for and/or about a Microsoft product. However, in case of problems, I'm ready to switch to another graphic interface.