Three Circles

Be grateful

25-01-2012 in topic : Self-development

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” – Epictetus

if you are going through a rough time , struggling with your busy life , always achieving less than what you are looking for ? have an incompletion feeling , realizing at a point of time how your life wasn’t designed the way you like it , yet you are drifted with it ?

you must have been through one of the past situations in your life , and you know how hard it can be to cope with this stress

“Be Grateful” approach

I have a magical advice for you , “Be grateful ” , think of anything that you are grateful for in your life , make a list or just what you come up with , make it a habit to remind yourself with this list before you go to sleep , it need not to be a big fancy list , just make sure it really matters to you , consider the following list as an example.

having a wonderful child
a great movie with the delight it brought to you this evening
your warm and cozy bed
your friends
the friendship you share with your parents

see it doesn’t matter how far the thing can be deep and big in your life , you can feel grateful for small things that bring joy to you at a point of time

this activity is not just meant to soothe the pain , it gives you the courage to develop your life by acknowledging the merits you have armed with thankfulness and a wish to gain more , it helps you to escape the dark hole of depression and inability.

check this site for inspiration on your list

http://thankfulfor.com

have a good day

(Photo credit: my art journal )

Back again

27-12-2011 in topic : Development

well , it is quite a long time since i was here last time , i was very enthusiastic when i launched this blog , and i promised myself to keep it up even if my life went busier or my free time got less…but i have never expected what happened , the most wonderful thing at all… the great “2011 Egypt revolution ” or “ثورة 25 يناير” took place ….i couldn’t write in any other topic , we all were following and participating with all our heart and soul , i had no interest to follow-up in the topics of this blog..it seemed far away back then .

now after almost a year since the revolution began , i believe we are still far away from the desired democracy we all wished for , it needs time and effort to raise people ‘s awareness which is indeed the starting point for any positive change ..

anyway ..by deciding to resume blogging again , it was a shock to discover that my blog was hacked !! , the database was corrupted and my backup didn’t include the last post . so i posted it again..i believe this is a fair banality for my laziness..

after all , i see tomorrow as a new bright sunny day , and i am back with a determination to keep up

update : weeeeeeeeee i found a copy of the blog database includng the last post updated..thank god , the time spent in writing it wasn’t lost

Simply HTML5 and CSS3 – a free theme

27-12-2011 in topic : Development

As a new mom it is still quite difficult to get back to work due to time-limits . i thought of what to do to keep my skills up-to-date and to get my hands dirty with latest web standards, and i came up with experimenting HTML5 & CSS3 capabilities through making a free theme ,and since both HTML5 & CSS3 still have unfinished specifications i would get back to this theme more often to update the code with the latest specifications .

1-The Theme (simply HTML5 & css3)

this is a screenshot of the theme which is named (simply HTML5 & css3) , a very

basic theme with header , navigation menu , right side column and left content column , fluid content fixed width sidebar and a footer .

LIVE DEMO

2-The markup

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Simply HTML5 & CSS3</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/style.css" type="text/css" />
<!--[if lt IE 8]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/ie7-and-down.css" />
<![endif]-->
<!--[if IE]>
<script src="http://html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script><![endif]-->
</head>

<body>

<header id="header">
	<hgroup>
		<h1><a href="#">Simply HTML<span class="coloredNum">5</span> & CSS<span class="coloredNum">3</span></a></h1>
		<h3><a href="#">The future is for web standards</a></h3>
	</hgroup>
	<section id="headerbox">
		<form action="">
			<input type="search" placeholder="search..." />
		</form>
	</section>
</header>

<div id="maincontainer">
	<div id="wrapper">
		<nav>
			<ul id="mainnav">
			<li class="active"><a href="#">home</a></li>
			<li><a href="#">portfolio</a></li>
			<li><a href="#">blog</a></li>
			<li><a href="#">contact</a></li>
			</ul>
		</nav>
		<div id="contentwrapper">
			<section id="contentcolumn">
				<article>
					<h2>First Article</h2>
					<figure><img src="http://localhost/html5/images/babyfeet.jpg"/></figure>
					<p><!--first article--></p>
				</article>
				<article>
					<h2>second Article</h2>
					<p><!--second article--></p>
				</article>

			</section>
		</div>

		<aside id="rightcolumn">
			<section class="asidecontent">
				<!--sidebar panel content-->
			</section>

			<section class="asidecontent">
				<!--sidebar panel content-->
			</section>
		</aside>
	</div>
	<footer id="footer">
	<section class="footercol">
		<h3>About The Author</h3>
		<article><p><!--Footer column--></p></article>
		</section>
		<section class="footercol">
			<h3>Contact Me</h3>
			<!--Footer column-->
		</section>
		<section class="footercol">
            <article>
			<h3>Sample Form</h3>
          <!--Footer column-->
            </article>
       </section>

		<p id="copyright"><!--copyright goes here--></p>
	</footer>
</div>
</body>
</html>

3-Steps I followed

you may ask yourself how to start to make a similar theme ?

these are the steps i followed to make the theme

plan a mockup of the theme using pencil and paper
write the markup in divs as i used to , then after making sure it works i turned them semantic wise to HTML5 elements like section,aside,footer, article,figure (you may disagree with me on this addtional unnecessary step , but i found that easier as i this was my first time to discover HTML5 new code)
for CSS3 i simply picked CSS3 effects i want to add to the theme (same way you add flavors to your cook) , so i picked box-shadow , rounded corners ,transform and transition for animation and added them to page elements .
added a form to experiment new HTML5 Form elements and enhancements (Opera currently is the best at supporting it as it is the only browser supporting datepicker and form auto validation) , and i gave a cry on seeing the datepicker and how simply it was rendered with a line of markup with no need for javascript
Finally i ran tests , it was tested on Firefox 3.6 , Chrome 7 , Opera 10.63 , IE 7 , IE 8 . I took a look at IE6 and the layout was working to my astonishment but there was a bug in the top navigation has nothing to do with HTML5 nor CSS3 but i didn’t bother fixing as i don’t want to support this legacy browser version .

4-Resources

Tutorials introducing you to HTML5 & CSS3 features

and although web tutorials are handy and easy to have , books remain a more in-depth source giving you references from A to Z check my earlier post about HTML5 & CSS3 new books

For Test :

html5test

For inspiration :

any suggestions or ideas about the markup are welcomed .

bugs week

25-10-2010 in topic : Development

last week i had a weird bug in this site , occasional 404 error was raised all over the site , sometimes the site was working fine but other times i was getting 404 errors as a result theme files were not loaded and i even couldn’t login to dashboard nor cpnael .

I went through and tried every thing like checking file permissions , deactivating all plugins , reviewing .htaccess file and even reinstalling wordpress files (which was 2.9.2+ by the way ) , but nothing helped at all and i began to suspect that the host is the cause , but lately i came across this thread in wordpress support which wasn’t solved but indicated that wordpress version might be the cause…

i upgraded to wordpress 3.0.1 and i will keep checking the site from time to time , i hope that the upgrade has solved this bug ..i wonder if anyone else found the cause for this bug?

First time mom

18-09-2010 in topic : Development

and here we are i am a first time mom to a lovely boy called “yahya” who came on 30 th of may 2010 , 3 months passed fast changing my life style completely , i struggle to have enough sleep , needless to say to keep up with my normal activities ..working , studying , checking the web and reading …i think it will take some time to come back gradually ..even though , the sweet smile on his face compensate me

9 Essential routines for your soul

10-04-2010 in topic : Self-development

essential routine

A routine is not always boring , it is not necessarily gathering dust to your life , trapping you in a web of repeated tasks , this prospect is not always true , sometimes routine is essential for keeping your life more organized and healthier enabling you even to progress and be more creative..these are some routines i follow in my life which i thought of sharing with you , Here they are :
1 . Daily reading
Feed your spirit by reading books or articles on topics you love (i love to read one self-development article at least daily), the main benefit is that it sways your attention from your burdens and problems to other worlds even if temporarily , we get wiser by reading , it is a long-term self building plan you will reap its fruits by time .

2 . Holy book reading
(If you are a none-believer skip this step ), there is no more effective soul-maintenance technique than this step , i tend to think of myself as a machine needs to be checked regularly at by its creator , reading Holy book is like rechecking the regulations that were set to make my life happier , i feel great comfort when reading Holy book daily , 2 pages is sufficient , if you wanna read more do it , but start small and don’t take over your capacity .

3 . Weekly exercise

Well all self-development experts say that exercising relieves stress , after exercise you will feel light , fresh , open minded and full of energy , in addition to having a good physical image , this routine is not implemented yet in my schedule , but i am going to subscribe soon in a gym and pay a weekly visit to it .

4 . Favorite place visit
I keep a list of the places i like to be in most , every week i pick one and go to it , i don’t have to take a company , sometimes i enjoy going by myself , some examples of these places could be a library , cinema , mall , used-antiques markets , galleries..etc .

5+ new books introducing you to css3 and HTML5

24-03-2010 in topic : Development

css3 and html5…. two zinging words capturing the attention of those involved in web development and design , there is yet some time for them to be fully supported by web browser vendors , but those who work in the web field have to accommodate to new technologies fast and Stay ahead of the curve , there are many articles , videos and websites tutorials out there to put you on the road , but in case you are one of those who still like books , these are the major css3 and html5 dedicated books in the market , some of them are yet to be published .

Handcrafted CSS by “Dan Cederholm”

This book comes in 7 chapters , covering aspects of using new techniques and tools to build flexible designs , css3, jQuery , fluid layouts using grid-based design ,RGBA color for transparency with an alpha channel , typography and shifting backgrounds

HTML5: Up and Running by “Mark Pilgrim”

The author of this book writes the weekly digest for the HTML5 Working Group, and represents Google at conferences on HTML5′s capabilities , this book gives you introduction on new HTML5 elements like video and audio support , offline storage , and canvas usage