The following entries were made in the “November, 2007” time-frame.
Archive for “November, 2007”
How About a Little Spam-Busting?
It really saddens me when I read some of the spam that passes though my inbox on its way to Deleteville. It makes me think that society is really more f’ck’d up than it should be. I do try to put it all into perspective, though. I remind myself that what I see is all crap and that it represents the thinking of an inconsequential percentage of the world’s population (or so I hope). But still, when you see enough of it — in concentrated doses — it’s sort of pathetic. In this post I will share two spams I see a lot and I will try to set the record straight, at least as I see it.
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The Joys of Consistent Web Practices
Ever since I have been flying the web developer pennant in my occupational corner I have been trying to develop my own best practices based on existing web standards and accessibility requirements, and then applying them consistently. My goal is to gain the ability to perform a task the same way time and time again without having to think about it, meanwhile ensuring my works conform to standardized usability practices to guarantee at least satisfactory experiences for my site’s users. Consistency, after all, can be a very good thing for everyone. Let me explain.
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A Blue Beanie Day for Web Standards
I figured I’d pass this along, albeit a little close to the eleventh hour. There is a Facebook event called “Blue Beanie Day 2007” that you can easily attend. After all, it is being held in your location. All you need is a Zeldman-like blue beanie hat (real or Photo-Shop’d), a photo of you wearing it, and an appreciation of web standards and accessibility. This event, which is scheduled for November 26th, is the brainchild of Douglas Vos, the fellow behind the Facebook Designing with Web Standards Group.
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Insights Into Screen Reader Usage
Most developers who design sites to be screen reader friendly, aren’t actually screen reader users. I am no exception. Sure I’ve heard recordings of screen readers reading my pages, and I use Opera Voice, and I have a very good idea of what most content will sound like when read by screen readers so I’m not completely blind to the concept, but never have I plunked myself down in front of a computer with screen reader software and played around with it. But I am interested.
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Green-Beast.com v5: An Atypical Reboot
In case you might not have noticed, I completely rebooted my my site’s main pages. The styling didn’t really change — I may do some tweaks in that department soon — but the underlying markup changed dramatically. I also completely rewrote all the scripting used to make the thing easier to upkeep. A complete rebuild, yet still a standalone as it always has been (the site is pre-blog), but now it’s tapped into the power of my blog’s style sheet as I did borrow the structure, throwing in a couple of new styles where needed. I think it was a sound decision.
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Making Fireworks with Fireworks
If you found this post because you’re a pyromaniac, sorry. This is a simple image-making tutorial using the Abode Fireworks image editing software. I will specifically be making fireworks with Fireworks, as the post title implies. You could, however, use the program of your choice. I’m won’t be using tools you can’t get with most mid-level image editors. This tutorial assumes you know the basic tools that will be mentioned. If you don’t, ask in a comment. Okay, let’s get started.
Note to Dial-up Users: This post contains just over 175 kilobytes of images.
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Some Web Domain Security Tips
I was informed by Mike Jolley that my name appears in print in issue 169(?) of .Net Magazine — which apparently goes by the name of “Practical Web Design” in the United States but I wasn’t able to confirm this, even with Google’s help. When Mike told me this and kindly furnished me with a scanned copy I recalled being interviewed some time back. Others interviewed for this article were Dave Barter for Legatio.com and Marcus Graichen for MogMachine.com. .Net spelled my name wrong and didn’t publish my domain properly (no hyphen), but the info was hopefully sound all the same.
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Doing Business Unto Others…
Imagine how you, as the customer, would feel about what you’re contemplating.
Inspired by a print magazine article I could relate to closely, I wrote another similar article on my company’s Bug Blog called “What Business Experience Do You Give?” In a nutshell it offers a couple of customer-business relationship experiences — with me being the customer — that went bad, why they went bad, and a little advice to prevent it happening with your business. After all, creating ill-will isn’t that good for a business’s long-term future. Moreover, it just isn’t right.
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Semantic Use of Bold and Italic Elements
The “bold” and “italic” HyperText Markup Language (HTML) elements, expressed as <b> and <i>, respectively, aren’t illegal. In fact they’re legal to use and have distinct semantic purposes. Whether to use them or not should be dictated by said purposes, and nothing else. Right from the start I must say the “bold” and “italic” element names are deceiving because they shouldn’t be used to make “bold” and “italic” text solely for the purpose of making “bold” and “italic” text. That would be a presentational thing and that’s what your Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) is for. Right?
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