KnowIT

Occasional writings by Miraz Jordan

Main navigation

Archives for March 2008

The tiny red star

Here’s a general note to people who design forms for the web: if you’re going to use a tiny red asterisk to denote required fields, then for heaven’s sake don’t use the same tiny red asterisk to indicate a warning on a field that isn’t required. The contract I’m working on for my client involves […]

[Continue reading...] about The tiny red star

Green gecko, Huhu beetle, Giant weta, Korimako and more

The latest newsletter from the Karori Sanctuary is online now, with its gorgeous photos — Early to Late Summer – 2007-2008: Sitting on the Fence; Over the Fence!; Fair Weather Flowers; Animal or Vegetable?; Two Summer Transformations; Road Rage; Taking Flight; Have a Demon Grasshopper, My Dear; Which Poroporo?; Korimako Chronicle; Spine City: Enter at […]

[Continue reading...] about Green gecko, Huhu beetle, Giant weta, Korimako and more

Xero for a new year

Back in December 2007 I was wondering: MoneyWorks or Xero? An accounting quandary. Recently I did some work, helping Rod Drury with his WordPress blog, and in return Rod offered me a good deal on Xero. I took him up on that, and with two weeks to go before the start of a new financial […]

[Continue reading...] about Xero for a new year

No smoke round here

The other day I was waiting with about 40 other people to cross Bowen Street on to Lambton Quay. After a few moments I could suddenly smell cigarette smoke. After a bit of swivelling, I identified the smoker, standing at the edge of the group. I looked at the group waiting to cross towards us: […]

[Continue reading...] about No smoke round here

The Monarch of the garden

In recent times I’ve noticed an increase in the numbers of the gorgeous Monarch butterflies around here. They are by far the biggest butterflies, floating and soaring above the tops of the grasses. According to Which New Zealand Insect by Andrew Crowe, the Monarch arrived in New Zealand from North America, and is New Zealand’s […]

[Continue reading...] about The Monarch of the garden

Touch your web space

Virginia from the National Library has written about her experience using websites with her iPhone, and the kinds of things a web designer should think about. Many of them are elements of standard good design, such as separating adjacent links: Good margins around each ‘patch’ of information and the overall page: I can get my […]

[Continue reading...] about Touch your web space

The imaginary kilobyte

Courtesy of Colin Jackson, a link to a hilarious xkcd comic: Kilobyte. Colin says: WHAT EXACTLY IS A KILOBYTE? (OR A MEGABYTE, OR A GIGABYTE) There is a lot of confusion about this out there – some of it deliberate – as I said on the radio last week, but the usual definition is 2^10 […]

[Continue reading...] about The imaginary kilobyte