I just remembered that I have another pair of RM Williams boots at the factory having their worn-out leather soles replaced with hard-wearing Neoprene. They should have returned at the same time as the other pair. Where are they? Time to phone the local outlet, and get them to track them down.

I have only just begun scouring all the hardware stores scattered about Perth. Seven Caroma stools have turned up so far.
      I might not have a big fat fancy black leather couch, but no visitor need ever complain that I do not have enough things to sit on.

The Repetitive Stress page on the Wacom US website has some unsolicited letters from new Wacom users about how their new art tablets helped them in dealing with Repetitive Stress (RSI) and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS).
      I have used Wacom art tablets for years, ever since I decided I was not going to put up with the RSI I had rapidly developed after starting to use desktop computers.

All of Apple’s high-end PowerMac mini-tower computers are now dual-processor machines. The consumer entry-level eMac range has now gained a SuperDrive model. The LCD iMacs have dropped in price again.

My RM Williams boots are unique. I have never seen anything exactly like them, made by any other bootmaker or designed by any other designer.
     
There are boots that are similar, and that share some of the same characteristics. Chelsea boots have elastic sides, and were originally made for riding horses, although they have flatter heels and a more traditional shape. Tim Little in the New Kings Road, my former workmate at The Leagas Delaney Partnership, makes the best traditional Chelsea boot. Tim is an admirer of the RM Williams boot, most particularly for the way it is made with one piece of leather, but his Chelseas are very different to anything RM Williams makes. However, if I was still living in Europe Tim’s are the only boots and shoes I would be wearing now. The quality is amazing, the designs are great and I like someone who does things with passion.
     
Williams boots are a little like American cowboy boots, but more understated in the Australian way.
     
Ah bugger it, that is all for now. I don’t want to overdo this boot thing!

I LURVE type and great typography, and yet there have been almost no books on the subject that I could recommend without reservation. The best so far has been Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style, but it is far too hard to get, was last revised in 1997, and has minimal coverage of practical digital typographic issues.
     
Now, the book I have wanting all these years may be about to appear at last. The Complete Manual of Typography by James Felici has been announced for publication in September. I am really looking forward to seeing this. Felici reportedly writes a column on type for the Adobe website. I haven’t found it so far though.

If you are dying to dip your toes into the waters of CSS, but are unsure of how to style your documents this way, try out the set of core CSS stylesheets that the W3C has provided for free.
     
Use the 8 samples provided as a beginning, and feel free to change the values as much as you like to see what happens. The stylesheets are pretty good—they were written by CSS guru Todd Fahrner. But I have to take issue—ri-shoo—with one aspect of them. I detest web pages where the text stretches all the way across the page, from extreme left to extreme right.
     
Text-heavy pages designed this way are the hardest of all to read, because they make the eye swivel left to right beyond the limits it is designed to. The P tag’s CSS definition should have its width set to an Em value based on the size and nature of the typeface set for the majority of the page’s body text. The traditional term for this is “setting the measure”.
     
The aim when setting the measure is to do it so that there is no more than 68 characters per line, depending on the typeface. Thus the maximum measure varies for each typeface. A good measure for Verdana is 35em. Georgia works well at 33em. Palatino should be set at 30em. Times—yuck, IMHO nobody should ever use Times for designing web pages meant to be read—needs to be set at 27em. And lastly, that ugly and crude bastard of a typeface named Arial should be set at 30em.
     
Here is a sample:
P {
font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
width: 35em;
font-size: 12px;
font-weight: normal;
word-spacing: normal;
letter-spacing: normal;
text-transform: none;
line-height: 1.5em;
}
     
Notice that I have set a font family instead of just one font—Verdana. Verdana is one of the very best typefaces for screen reading, designed by the amazing Matthew Carter, but you cannot count on everyone having it installed on their computer, although most users will, especially those with Macs or Windows boxes.

If I really needed a car, and I am not really a fan of cars (gimme a Segway!), then this is the car I would get. Of course, I like these too. I like small, zippy, fast, safe good-looking city cars. I had one once—it was terrific.
     
The West Australian newspaper reports today that Mercedes-Benz Australia will begin importing the smart city-coupe and cabrio cars next autumn. The city-coupe will cost about AUD25,000, and the cabrio will be about AUD30,000. The smart roadster and the smart 4-seater will follow later.
     
Think of the smart car as the iMac of automobiles. Time to start saving.

The Diamondsoft website states that “Font Reserve 3.1 adds auto-activation for Adobe InDesign 2.0, Illustrator 10, Quark XPress 5, as well as support for OpenType, Windows TrueType, double-byte, and dFont fonts.
     
In addition, the System Font Handler now provides a completely automated method for removing non-essential fonts from the many Mac OS X Font Folders.”
     
Yes, yes, yes! OpenType support! Just what I wanted to hear! Ah luurrvvve OpenType. Especially in conjunction with InDesign 2.0. The best font manager just got better.

I came across this weblog—xBlog: The visual thinking weblog—courtesy of Zeldman. Well worth regular reading.