webgarden.ca

Last year I created a website for Ginette Genereux – she is a Canadian country singer based here in Langley BC. I quickly found out what a nice,down to earth and fun person she is! I had a really great time working with her! You can visit her completed website here: http://www.ginettegenereux.com/

A few days ago she send out an email  saying that JRFM is starting to play her most popular song “Tomboy Girl” – this is so exciting!  If you haven’t heard her song, you can listen to a snipit of it here: http://www.ginettegenereux.ca/tomboyGirl.html 

If you want to hear the whole song, may I suggest calling JRFM and requesting it? 604-280-9370 (you can also email your request in here )

The more people who request the song “Tomboy Girl” the more inclined JRFM will be to give Ginette some play time! And the more JRFM plays Ginette’s song – the more likely it is that other radio stations will consider it!

I am so excited for Ginette – she is a hugely talented country signer with a great big heart – and if anyone deserves some fame and recognition it is her! Congratulations Ginette! I look forward to one day soon hearing your songs on radio stations across North America!

BTW: I would love to hear if YOU like her song? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!

A Picture of my daffodils from last year

I, like many garden enthusiast are enjoying this crisp sunny spell in the Vancouver area. The sunshine is making me itch to get outside and into the garden! Alas with the frozen ground there is nothing anyone can do…

However, I have been admiring the bravery of my little daffodils that are peaking their heads above the ground! I planted them on a sunny day in October and voila, here they are, my little green garden soldiers – proud as can be!

Planting bulbs in the middle of fall (before the first frost) is the best time. I usually choose a sunny day in the middle of October.When you are planting your daffodils (or tulips for that matter) please, please, please plant them in groups of 5 or more! There is nothing more pitiful than a garden that has several single, lonely daffodils scattered throughout it. It is better to have 1 group of 5 than 5 groups of 1! ( I mean, come on, how would you feel living out there in the cold all on your own!)

As with all good things, I know our sunny weather is going to come to an end – and we will be back to the dark and dismal rain that Vancouver is famous for…But,my little bursts of daffodil sunshine will be popping out soon- the first indication that spring is just around the corner!

It took me a couple of tries but I finally figured out how to create two stylesheets using wordpress.

1. Duplicate style.css 
2. Rename the copy to ie7.css (or whatever you would like to call it)
3. Go to the Header Page of your theme.
4. Find this code:
   <style type=”text/css” media=”screen”> @import
   url (<?php bloginfo(‘stylesheet_url’); ?>);
   </style>
5. delete this and replace with:
   <![if IE]><link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css”
   href=”http://blog.com/wp-content/themes/simpla/ie.css” mce_href=”http://blog.com/wp-content/themes/simpla/ie.css”>
   <![endif]>  
6. <![if !IE]><link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css”
   href=”http://blog.com/wp-content/themes/simpla/style.css” mce_href=”http://blog.com/wp-content/themes/simpla/style.css”>
   <![endif]>

Basically this says that if the browser is IE user the ie.css stylesheet. If the browser is not IE then use the style.css stylesheet. Although you will now have two stylesheets to maintain, it is a lot easier to adjust the styles for troublesome IE.

Resolving Browser Display Discrepancies Between IE and Firefox This is where the site tip comes from – Thanks Tom!

Well, with the new year, always comes change, and at webgarden.ca we are excited to announce that we are implementing some changes to our blog!

The webgarden blog is expanding it’s topics to not only include information about decorating for the web -  but also, decorating for your life! We are going to be writing articles about beauty and fashion, home decor, gardening, giftware, scrapbooking and OF COURSE – web design!

Watch out for our new blog design coming soon!

We would love to hear your comments so be sure to login and submit any comments or questions you may have!

The last but not least, is three column navigation. The typical three column layout has a wide center surrounded by  left and right narrow columns. Three column layouts can easily appear cluttered – so white space is essential! Three column layouts are used for sites that have tons of navigation, short bits of content (such as quotes) and advertising.

The apple store is an example of  3 column layout, fortunately it only has 3 columns on the home page and there is plenty of white space to keep your eye moving.

The opposite to left column navigation, would be (of course) right column navigation. Surprisingly there are not many sites with right column navigation. It is quite easy to find sites that use the right hand column for sub-navigation, or advertising but not for the main navigation.

I am not sure why there aren’t more sites that use right column navigation? Right column navigation makes a lot of sense in western cultures because our eyes scan from left to right when we read, making the site’s main content is the first part our eye is drawn to. Also, in my experience, my cursor is almost always near the right side of the browser window – so that I can be closer to the scoll bar. So also having the menu bar on the right makes a lot of sense!

Ultimately the choice between left and right side navigation will be the client’s decision. Left column navigation is more familiar and more standard, but that is not always a priority when designing or redesigning a site. If you are looking to have your site a bit different than the average you should give right column navigation a try.