racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Today is April 5th—CSS Naked Day. So I’ve turned off the stylesheet.

Regular programming resumes tomorrow.

It’s up to you if you want to go in the buff in person that day. But I’m talking about the annual CSS Naked day which will come this April 5th.

In 2006, Dustin Diaz declared April 5 to be the annual CSS Naked Day, a chance for the web world to be reminded of the benefits of CSS web page design. By removing the stylesheet for the day, the world would see naked web pages. They would also have a little more appreciation for the skills of web page designers.

CSS, after all, was meant to separate content from the aesthetics. And being naked will help you know if your site or blog’s markup is usable and accessible (and yes, even compliant). Remember the tables and frames of olden days? I hope you ditched them a long time ago.

The fact of the matter is, if you’re writing good solid markup to begin with, it shouldn’t be all that bad anyway. It will be a test case to see how usable your website is to others without a design. So in the meantime, don’t hesitate to prepare your site for the big day.

So I’ll see you (your site, at least) naked on April 5th. If you’re running WordPress, here’s a plugin that automatically disables your style sheet every April 5th.

Do check out the campaign site of a certain Eric J. Gunderson from Montana, who’s running for a seat in the US House of Representatives this year. I commend whoever developed and designed Mr. Gunerson’s site for the great concept and design. Remember, folks, this is 2006 we’re talking about here. According to the DIGG link, it’s the awesomest campaign site, ever!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you YOUR next congressman from Montana. All done with CSS positioning—but with vintage mid-90’s flavor and an authentic myspace aftertaste. Take note of the wicked LP-rip that loops on the homepage. I hope he wins!

Here’s a screencap:

It’s the 1990’s all over again. Heh!

I remember my old homepages (here and here, and old J Spot writeup here).

And who could forget my sister’s old homepage and high school class homepage?

Warning: looping MIDI alert!

Ah, the good old days!