Web Design by Sheriar Designs: Impeccable Code | Beautiful Design

I have been avoiding IE7 like the plague for a while now. My basic stance on the whole thing has been, “I’ll wait until the final version rolls out before testing and debugging sites in IE7. I don’t want to spend time creating hacks for bugs that might get squished by the time IE7 releases for real.” Not a bad philosophy, as I see it. But, I couldn’t run forever. So, this morning I finally downloaded and installed IE7.

My heart was literally pounding and my stomach was full of butterflies as I opened first my own dear blog to survey the damage. With one eye shut tight and the other peaking out from a squint I watched my site load …

You may recall my post of a couple months ago – Office Space, a New-School Web-Programming Geek, and a Business Name – in which I spoke of a new business partner and a new business venture. You may be wondering whatever came of that? Well, the business partner is still with me, and the business venture is still in the works … it’s just changed scope a bit (as ventures tend to do). It’s gotten more exciting!

Since April of this year I have been working for HGTV.com creating their monthly and bi-monthly Gardening Newsletters. This has been great for me in so many ways.

Hey Everyone. So, I have slacked off big time on the blogging side of things lately. Rest assured, I have excuses:

• I was out of town for a couple of weeks
• I have been spending tons of time and energy trying to get this new business off the ground
• I have barely been working (billable hours, that is), and so have no new tips and tricks to draw from
• Life in general has taken an extremely hectic turn

After close to three years of working out of my home in my pajamas I am finally ready for a change, and a move up. I am planning on taking the plunge and moving into an actual work space. You know, a space dedicated only to work? Not also to laundry and cooking and movie watching and child-rearing? My own creative space (drool).

Well, not just my own. I am teaming up with someone else. A secret-identity project manager, business-type guy. So I don’t have to take care of all the business! And if the space sharing goes well, we plan on forming a full-fledged startup company! It’s very exciting!! In the mean time, we are in need of three things – eight others to share the space with, a new school programming nerd and, eventually, a new business name. If you live in the East Bay of the San Francisco area and are looking for space, check out what we have to offer and drop me a line. If you are a new-school web-programming nerd and you’re looking to team up with, say, a designer/coder and a business guy, definitely let me know. If you have any name ideas, please, please, please sumbit them in the comments – it’ll be fun!

Slashdot has been accepting submissions for a redesign contest and yesterday I submitted my design.

Whoo Hooo! All, or at least many, of my greatest nightmares about IE7 have just been rendered moot!!

So, I’m looking in my site statistics this morning, glancing at the trends for January. I’m inching upwards slowly in terms of readersip. My average went from 300-350 hits per day at the beginng of the month, to about 350-450 hits a day towards the end of the month. But, what’s this number here at the end of the month? Is that … one thousand six hundred unique visitory just yesterday? What the … ?

Excitedly, I look to my referrer log to see what could have prompted this huge jump in traffic and I see that, second only to the CSS Zen Garden, most of my visitors are coming from a new article on A List Apart. I quickly scan my brain … did I leave a comment on ALA that was possibly so enticing that readers were drawn to my site in throngs? No. I did not. So that must mean that I was cited in the article itself.

I go to the article and do a search for Mani – nothing. I do a search for Sheriar – still nothing. I start hovering over every link looking for my url and I quickly find it, just two links in. The author is referring to my little old 3-column Holy Grail example, and he’s calling it a good template! Granted, he points out that source order is sacrificed, but so what!? I’m cited in A List Apart! Whoooo hoooo!!!!

I am proud and delighted to announce that Faded Flowers has now become my second design accepted as an Official Design in the CSS Zen Garden.