Text-as-images, SIFR, Cufon… Web designers have been clamoring for more than the default set of Georgia, Helvetica, Palatino and Verdana for ages. And oddly enough it was Internet Explorer, the bane of many a web designers existence, that supported importing fonts first (IE 4!). Though, in true Microsoft fashion, IE only supported (and still only supports) a proprietary format.

Firefox and Safari, in their latest versions, support the more common .TTF and .OTF files. Firefox 3.6 will support .WOFF which hopes to be the new standard in web font filetypes. Chrome supports .TTF and .OTF as well, but defaults with them disabled at the moment as the dev team is looking into potential security issues.

So. The majority of the internet has the capability to view embedded fonts. Now what?

Getting your font on

You’ve really only got two options; go with a hosted service like Typekit, or roll-your-own manually using something like the awesome FontSquirrel @font-face generator.

How these services work

Typekit requires that a bit of javascript be inserted into the head of your HTML. That code is then used to pull in the font files that are in your “kit”. Using the web interface you can sort through fonts, add the fonts you like to your kit, assign them to elements, id’s or classes, and hit publish. That’s it.

The FontSquirrel generator doesn’t require any javascript. Simply upload the font that you would like to use to the generator, check off the types of files you’d like it to make, choose to eliminate any extraneous glyphs, and hit generate. A ZIP file with a HTML example page, CSS file withbulletproof @font-face syntax and all the converted font files is then served up. Drop the generated CSS into your stylesheet, specify your new font on some elements and save it. Upload the CSS along with the font files and you’re done.

My preference is the roll-your-own method. First of all, it’s free. Second, the FontSquirrel generator lets you select what kinds of glyphs you want to be included in your font file. Why would you want to do that? To reduce file size. Unless, of course, you really need all those accented vowels. Third, you don’t need to go to or rely on another site to manage and host your fonts.

Both options are good choices. And damn, does it feels good to finally have choices.

No, that hasn’t changed. I still hate iPods. The Zune never changed the world and it all came back to the same reason: DRM.

Today I digitally purchased music without DRM. This is the day I never thought would come. Mark it on your calendars.

In case you didn’t know Amazon has been selling MP3’s without any DRM or other wonky “gotcha” schemes. They have a fairly large catalog, but its nowhere near as extensive as iTunes. Who fucking cares about iTunes? The MP3’s are high quality, 256kbps, with album art included. The only snag I had was I tried to download them at work on a computer running OSX 10.3 and the downloader tool only supports 10.4+ so I wound up purchasing tracks one at a time. The beauty? I put them on my new Iriver Clix2, my Mac at work, my HTPC and my laptop. No burning to CD, ripping, copying pasting, syncing or any other horse shit.

I’m actually so blown away that I can’t even believe its legal. I still feel like I’ve stolen something. Try it now. If you don’t, you’re letting yourself and the world down.

This is how it should have been done YEARS AGO. BRAVO Amazon. BRA-VO.

Trains have multiple advantages such as; lower boarding time, fewer security checkpoints and less carry on luggage restrictions. By the time you factor in time spent at the gate and waiting in the security line at the airport, the average speed for a one hour flight drops considerably.

So would you ride a high speed train, or would you fly?