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Wicked Wild Web

All the rage nowadays is using your high speed Internet connection for telecommunications purposes, instead of using the good old phone company and their possibly overpriced services. There are even devices out there that you can plug one end of into your computer’s USB port and the other end becomes a common phone jack. It’s all pretty cool, except for one major downside — the latest new threat. Here’s what it is…

Continue reading “Hacking Telecom: What’s Next?!” »

The doomsayer said the end of XP is near and the doomsayer foretold correctly. On April 14th, 2009, Microsoft plans to end mainstream support for the Windows XP operating system (OS). Even though critical support — whatever that means — will still be offered until 2014. This leaves me with some choices, none of which may be as good for me, or Microsoft, as just continuing the needed free mainstream support would be. Here are my options:

Continue reading “Hey Microsoft, Don’t Push Me Away” »

As I did in 2006 and in 2007, I have created a “best of” post highlighting certain articles that I published in 2008. As I mentioned last year, some of the articles were chosen because I really liked them, others because you really liked them. If you want more of the latter let me know what you’d like to see. Sometimes I get stuck for ideas — though I usually think of something — but requests help.

Continue reading “The Best of the Beast in 2008” »

A while back I mentioned I made a AAA web site that conformed to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0. The site was for California disability rights attorney, Lainey Feingold, who works primarily with the blind and visually impaired community on technology and information access issues. She is nationally recognized for negotiating accessibility agreements and for pioneering the collaborative advocacy and dispute resolution method known as Structured Negotiations. That’s from her site — a site which is one of just two AAA implementations (the other being Vision Australia).

Continue reading “My WCAG 2.0 AAA Implementation” »

That question is hot on the mailing list run by the Guild of Accessible Web Designers (GAWDS) right now. Specifically Accessites has been called on to explain why it is has one submission criterion demanding support for an 800×600 monitor resolution — meaning that it must be viewable without side-scrolling. Apparently more than a handful of developers at GAWDS feel that 800×600 support is a bit out-dated and no longer needed as it once was. I’ll answer this, not for Accessites, but rather for myself. I’ll explain why I feel it’s important to support that smaller resolution — or maybe I should say window size, since not everyone computes or browses with their windows maximized.

Continue reading “Should Web Developers Support 800×600?” »

This article is about the pros and cons of writing a script, then freely sharing it with others via distribution on the web. Specifically I’m focusing on a script, but believe me when I tell you the points raised in this article are equally applicable to open source templates, themes, widgets, and more. I’m writing this so that you, as a script author to be, will be better informed and prepared for what’s involved if you want to do it right. The information herein is based on my own experiences as a script writer, both good and bad.

Continue reading “Writing a Freely Distributable Script” »

I’ve been trying to find the time for a post — and I have a couple of good ones in draft form — but nothing is ready to go. Then again, I have been trying to cut my hours to something resembling a normal person’s, so less time is being devoted to… well, everything. That is why this post is so strange in my opinion. It’s really out of the blue. Conception to completion happened in the blink of an eye. I rewrote the lyrics for Mad World, the Gary Jules/Michael Andrews version (originally it was written and performed by Tears for Fears). I gave the song an angle a web developer might appreciate. Here’s Mad Web:

Continue reading “Mad World to Mad Web” »

Semantics, schemantics, right? If that’s your view, you might want to start questioning it now. The importance of web semantics may be on the rise. Semantics is meaning. On the web semantic HTML conveys this meaning to the user and his or her user agent. It lends itself to web accessibility, and the clear content organization is extraordinarily helpful to being properly indexed by search engines. Someday this fact may be more important than ever thanks to an interesting new approach to search.

Continue reading “Web Semantics and Search” »

Worldwide email spam volume has grown to unprecedented proportions and something must be done. Something will be. Beginning August 1st, 2008, an action initiated by the International Consortium of Email Regulation (ICER), of Geneva, Switzerland — supported by leaders in all continents — will be effected. Precisely this action will be the application of outbound email charges levied by major telecom and cable communications carriers, billed to users (per email or in bulk mail lots) by Internet Service Providers (ISP), and metered at the mail server level.

Continue reading “Goodbye Free Email” »