Refresheration
I recently decided to start going through some of the css tutorials on Lynda.com as a means of a refresher. While I’ve been working with css and xhtml for several years now, the intro series’ on the well-known tutorial site appealed to me because of who they managed to corral for the presentation.
The first series I went through was the very basic, CSS Website Design by Eric Meyer. I actually spent the full 6.25 hours going through the series despite the fact that there was really nothing new to me. What I did find interesting, though, were all of the little css factoids and things that Eric weaved throughout the entire course. As a result, I ended up taking a page or two of notes about more obscure css stuff that I was not aware of before.
That series got me pumped up, so I ended up jumping into the other series presented on the site, CSS For Designers hosted by web-phenoms Molly Holzschlag and Andy Clarke. Again, with this series, there’s really not a whole lot that has been brand new to me, but the tidbits and additional commentary between the two designers has been insightful. I’ve added another page or two of css tidbits to my notes, and I’ll probably get another couple before the end of the series.
Most people would probably not even care to take the time to designate 13 hours or so of their freedom to revisit topics that they already feel they have well in hand. But, I started thinking, when would you be able to spend 13 hours of your time with three of the foremost designers and coders picking their brain about portions of their design process and what they think about the rudimentary aspects of css and design? Mmmm never. Yet, in these two series I feel as if I’ve accomplished just that. Who knows what it will be next? Maybe Windows 95 for haters, we’ll just have to see.