So far I think it’s great. Thanks for your hard work, Damien.

Figure 1: Envy Code R in action

For some time now, Montreal’s Hockey team, Les Canadiens have been playing hard in the NHL Playoffs. Unfortunately as of this post they’re one round away from a possible elimination. But that’s all the more reason for us to give them our support!

So last week I put together this wallpaper to show my dedication to our team. Taking the classic Canadiens’ logo, adding a 3D spin, and a bit of Trajan Pro. I think I came up with a simple, attractive wallpaper. I hope you like it. (I imagine it helps if you’re a Habs fan.)

Download: 1440x900 | 1680x1050 | 1920x1200

Share and enjoy.

I purchased the hami.sh domain a few months ago (.sh stands for Saint Helena, if you’re curious). And for the longest time it simply redirected to my blog.

Now, I’ve always envisioned a sort of central point for my web presence, somewhere I can send people instead of naming off a bunch of web sites I use — my newly acquired domain was the perfect candidate.

The whole web site came together quite well. In the past I would start toying with some designs in Photoshop, but eventually become discouraged, and toss everything. A designer is always his/her own worst critic.

But in the end, I knew I wanted something simple. So I focused more on the layout and type; I put together the header you see now, and from there slowly produced the rest of the site.

I’ll likely be touching it up as time goes by. Tweaking some of the colors, and layout. But overall, I’m very happy with how it turned out. I hope you like it too.

If you recall, I mentioned that I bought an iPod Touch on my trip to New York City. So now thus equipped, I thought I’d make use of the Photos application, and put together some train schedules that I can refer to on the go.

After a bit of time in Photoshop, and a hefty dose of Helvetica, I finally had what I needed.

So far it’s working out great. The darkened region highlights the trains that I usually catch on a normal work day.

Here are some shots of the schedule in action:

Now the question is, what else should I do?

As for wp-typogrify; there’s a bug that I’ve noticed (and been told about before) that I haven’t quite fixed yet. Basically, it’s when you use the option to wrap capitals (acronyms, abbreviations, etc.) in <span class='caps'> tags for special styling. What this can result in is HTML in your post titles. Which is fine for actual HTML output, but when your title appears in the <a> tag’s title attribute, your HTML ends up being displayed in the tooltip. Not good.

So how do I fix this? Well I thought I had, using the method I described here.

Unfortunately, it seems that Wordpress no longer acts as it once did. Though I don’t think this is new in 2.5 — I just never noticed it myself since I was using a fairly old version of Wordpress for some time.

Anyway, right now the easiest fix I can think of is to use PHP’s strip_tags() function on the titles. I’ll update the plugin and info pages with this information ASAP. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments, or by email.

Thanks. And have a great Sunday.

Can you guess the font?

Anyway, about a week ago I returned home from my first trip to NYC. It was fantastic. I went down with my buddy Erik Wright for BarCampNYC3, meeting lots of great people in the industry. I also stayed an extra day to see the big city and to do as many touristy things as I could.

The event took up the whole weekend, Saturday and Sunday, and was held at the Polytechnic University in Brooklyn. With presentations going on from 11pm till about 5 or so.

On the Saturday we also had some late night gaming, hacking, and a sweet trip over to NYCResistor, a great place for hackers and wannabe hackers to learn and play. For a small fee, you can sign up for courses that cover anything from soldering to game development. If only I lived in NYC!

The Monday after BarCampNYC3 was the one day I had for myself. So I did what most tourists would do, and went to see the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island. Also, as it turned out, that very Monday was St. Patrick’s Day — so I was able to witness some of the parade along 5th ave. (not to mention the green hats, wigs, and other attire everywhere I looked) — and of course, a few drunk people to boot.

Before hitting up Times Square, I had to see the famous Apple store on Fifth Avenue. The store, to put it simply, is amazing. Beautiful architecture and design. And boy was it crowded! But that didn’t stop me from buying an 8gb iPod Touch. Yup, my first Apple product ever! So far, I love it.

Also, the Air is ridiculously thin.

Next on the list was Times Square. And all I can really say is “Wow.” If you’ve seen it, you’ll know what I mean. While checking out the area, I hooked up with George Favvas (who happened to be in NY at the time) and one of his business partners at a nearby Steakhouse.

Lastly, I’d like to give a shout out to the great and affordable accommodations at Hostelling International - New York. I stayed there for a total of four nights, and have no big complaints. But, note to self: if you’re going to stay in a co-ed dorm, remember to bring ear plugs.

But yeah, the place was great. Nice dorms, a common room with TV, WiFi, Books, Games. And, of course, another opportunity to meet cool people.

All in all, my trip to New York city was a fun and memorable one. But there’s still lots more I’d love to see and do there. I’ll be back for sure!

One of my favorites is the Time Machine icon. representing Apple’s newly released backup solution.

For this issue of Design Challenge, I’ve created from scratch a sort of remix of said icon. Feel free to download the PSD and play around with it yourself.

One such thing is Typography. Typography is the art of language, the visualization of the spoken word. A medium by which non-verbal communication is made possible. And though I profess no expertise in this art, I have come to deeply appreciate it’s power and ability to convey the same message in so many different ways. Each with a unique feeling and style.

The Messenger

In 1956 Howard Kettler designed the typeface Courier. It was made for IBM’s new (and revolutionary) line of electric typewriters. Originally called “Messenger”, Courier is one of the earliest fixed-pitch (also known as Monospace) fonts, meaning each character takes up the same amount of space on a line; allowing for easy tabular alignment and legibility.

Courier was a hit, and as many made the transition from typewriter to computer, this classic typeface wasn’t far behind. It was included in all early Apple computers, and while creating the core fonts for Windows 3.1, Microsoft hired Monotype Typography to give Courier a makeover. And so Courier New was born, as a thinner and cleaner version of it’s former self.

Future Type

Fast forward to the present day, and Courier New is now the de-facto standard for almost all programming IDEs on Windows. It was the default font for Notepad, Visual Studio, and many other text editors and compilers, paving the way for many more typefaces to come.

Courier New is a great monospace font. It’s thin, clean, and quite readable.

For the longest time, I used Courier New. It never really occurred to me that there were other options (aside from proportional width fonts; but who programs in Times New Roman?). I just used it, and it worked well enough.

Change

Now when you’re working on a program, website, or any other body of code, there’s only one thing you’re really looking at. Text. And lots of it. So naturally it’s important for the text to be easy to read and comprehend.

In most cases your editor of choice will use syntax highlighting, changing the colors of various pieces of code, making it easier, for example, to visaully separate your strings from your function definitions. You saw an example of this in the image of Courier New above.

Syntax highlighting is great. But no matter how well your code is marked, it can never make up for a well thought out typeface. One that is properly spaced, has distinct and readable characters, and is flexible at various sizes.

Five Typefaces for Programmers

I’ve compiled below five of my favorite fonts for programming, along with an image, and brief history. I hope you find this list useful. And I encourage you to try them out for yourself (I will provide a download link where possible). Maybe you’ll be surprised with what you find.

• Consolas
  
  Just as in the days of Windows 3.1, Microsoft has again invested in the creation of new fonts for their latest operating system, Windows Vista. Consolas is just one of the many that were made.

  Designed by Lucas de Groot of Fontfabrik, Consolas is easily my favorite font for programming. The characters are compact, yet distinct. For example, it’s easy to tell the difference between the letter O and 0 (Zero), and having been designed to take advantage of ClearType Hinting technology, Consolas is almost guaranteed to look great, even at small sizes.

  Download Consolas » (Comes with Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer 2007)

• Andale Mono
  
  From Microsoft:

  Andale Mono is a highly legible monospaced font. Looks like Monotype.com? Yes, this font was originally distributed as part of the Internet Explorer 4.0 add-ons page as Monotype.com. We’ve decided to revert to the font’s original name, Andale.

  Created by Steven R. Matteson, Andale Mono was the second monospace font I used after leaving Courier New. It is, as Microsoft says, very legible. Though I find it more rigid than fonts like Consolas, or Courier. It too distinguishes well between the zero, and the O. And it certainly had me satisfied for quite some time. So why not give it a try yourself?

  Download Andale Mono » (Available as one of Microsoft’s core fonts)

• Courier New
  
  We already spoke a bit on the history of Courier, and it’s New counterpart. And though I may not use it much myself anymore, there’s no doubt that this classic font will forever remain in my memory. It set an example for other typefaces, and it’s got the history to prove it. Love it or hate it, it’s here to stay.

  Redesigned from the original Courier by Adrian Frutiger, Courier New was a staple of modern printing and typewriting. Nowadays it’s still popular on the PC platform, though it doesn’t distinguish too well between zero and O, Courier New is very clean and thin font that just might fit your fancy (and perhaps it already does).

  Download Courier New »

• Lucid Console
  
  The monospaced member of the Lucida family. Lucida Console is another font that I used for quite a while.

  Designed by Bigelow & Holmes, Lucida Console is a pleasant and vertically compact typeface. Though it unfortunately lacks much distinction between zero and O, Lucida Console is great for those who wish to fit lots of text on their screen, and works great at small sizes. And as the name suggests could be used for a console or terminal display.

  No download of Lucida Console is available, though I believe it is a standard font on Windows XP/Vista

• Bitstream Vera Sans Mono
  
  To be honest, the best way to describe this font is as a better Lucida Console, it has a slightly larger line-height and it does a better job of distinguishing the zero and O (if you haven’t already noticed, that’s an important criteria), if you like Lucida Console, then you’ll feel right at home with Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.

  Download Bitstream Vera Sans Mono »

That’s all folks

So there you have it. I hope you found something new or enjoyable in this article (if you did, please subscribe for RSS updates!). Let me know what you think, and what font you use for your own programming work.

For more information

• A great list/review of programming fonts
• Jeff Atwood’s thoughts on programming fonts
• I Love Typography — great resource on all things typography
• PHPRunner — somewhat unrelated, but it’s a program I wrote a few weeks ago, and the source of the Python code examples used in the images above