Want to embed real fonts on your web page without creating graphic texts? Try Typeface.js. Being able to use any fonts for web texts and style it with CSS is on many web designer’s wishlist. No more creating images to have decent fonts on pages. How nice!

There are still a lot of improvements needed before Typeface.js can be widely adapted and fully functional. Most importantly full support for all font-face styles. But it’s already useful in some ways and it certainly is something to look forward to.

I played with it for a bit. It is so simple to use. A few javascript links, a standard css class name and that’s it. You can read all about the usage here.

Here is a test with Optimer TrueType that can be downloaded from Typeface.js site. This is not an image!!

Finally in the last presidential debate education made an appearance. Want to find out more about what Obama and McCain stands on this very important issue?

Diane Rehm recently hosted a segment on “The Presidential Candidates’ Education Proposals.” Some guests include Michelle Rhee and Lisa Graham Keegan.

(disclaimer: I work for Edweek.org.)
Edweek on Tuesday (10/21) carried a live webcast of a debate between the education advisers of both the Obama and McCain camp. The turn out was great. The debate itself was very informative and at times testy. You can see the archived webcast or read the transcript from this page.

Or, stay tuned to Edweek’s Youtube channel for clips of the debate broken down by topics. And check Edweek’s Vimeo Channel for full archived videos.

Also, who can miss out on the twitter fun? If you search for #tcdebate or tcdebate on twitter, you should see all the related tweets - which were shown here during the debate (bottom of page now after debate ended).

Speaking of fun, can’t miss out on Wordle either! Here’s the word cloud generated from the debate transcript. BIGGEST word is “education.” (seriously? there’s a shocker…not.)

(updated 10/23 17:05)
Edweek’s reporter/blogger David Hoff actually used another Wordle cloud to blog about the focus of the debate. I created this alternative version stripping out some common words (as you can see from the first cloud) that do not help indicate the focus (i.e. “education, senator”).

Ok, this is the end of my self-promotion of the day!

Take a look at this new addition to the Artists for Obama gallery by renowned typeface design Jonathan Hoefler.

It’s not surprising the campaign would ask Jonathan Hoefler to contribute a poster. Obama’s campaign official logo and other texts use fonts that were actually designed by Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Obama’s logo is in the Requiem font. Everything else including tagline signs are in Gotham.

“Possible”

Artists for Obama is a fundraiser effort by the candidate’s campaign. “Possible” is for sale at $60 with a limited quantity of 4800.

Hoefler & Frere-Jones has some of my favorite sans serif fonts, Gotham and Topaz. And I’m beginning to like Requiem, a serif, too.

I wanted to only show full contents for the first 5 posts and display titles for the rest - regardless of how many is set as the total number in the admin console. Came up with two VERY simple lines of code to use in the wordpress template. Thought I’d share.

After this line of code if (have_posts()) : in the Main Index template…

//Insert this piece of code to set display for the first 5 posts:
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php if ($wp_query->current_post <= 4) { ?>
ENTER YOUR TEMPLATE CODE TO DISPLAY FULL CONTENT
<?php }; ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>

“4″ sets the number of posts to 5 since the counter starts with 0.
Change it to anything your heart desires.

//Insert this right after the last code for the rest:
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php if $wp_query->current_post > 4)) { ?>
ENTER YOUR TEMPLATE CODE TO DISPLAY TITLE
<?php }; ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>

That’s it. Simple!!

The issue of congressional earmarks continues to make the news after McCain’s attack on Obama’s “projector” earmark during the second presidential debate.

McCain has long been an opponent to earmarks spending. But his singling out (and what seems to be a mischaracterization) of the projector as an example to criticize Obama soon drew some defensive responses from the scientific community (Chicago Tribune story, and Science News story.)

But what are earmarks anyway?
More importantly how much were spent and how are they really being applied?
Here are some good online sources to find out for yourself.

2005 earmarks
Visualizing 2005 Earmarks, Sunlight Labs

Visualize earmarks spending:
• Most by state per capita = Alaska
• Most by state total = California (change “bubble size” selector choice to see this)
• Most by agency total = Department of Defense
• Most by type of organization = For-profit organizations

2007 & 2008 defense earmarks
The Favor Factory Year 2008 and Year 2007, Seattle Times.

This resource shows who received and who gave in the 2008 defense bill.
It is part of an extensive investigative project by the Seattle Times with some really detailed stories, reports and analysis from the newspaper.

This resource enables user to search by state and by lawmaker - very user-friendly and accessible. The database only includes defense earmarks, by far the largest category of earmarks spending.

Of interest since it is election season:
• Obama’s 2008 and 2007 defense earmarks records.
• McCain’s 2008 and 2007 defense earmarks records.

Official database
Earmarks records, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget

This is the least user-friendly resource I found (certainly met my expectation for government web applications). However, it is supposed to be the most complete. If you are interested in siffing through tons of data, this one is for you. Data included in this site:

• Estimates of FY 2009 Appropriations Earmarks
• FY 2008 Appropriations Earmarks
• FY 2005 Appropriations Earmarks
• FY 2005 Authorization Earmarks

Higher Education earmarks
Congressional Earmarks for Higher Education, 2008, the Chronicle of Higher Education

Users can search by state, federal agency, keyword, institution and member of Congress to see all higher education earmarks.