Category Archives: News

Things, Goings On, and Stuff I write

XHTML 2.0

As XHTML 2.0 is obviously not too near on the horizon this article is for discussion and further thinking on forward compatibility and standards.

Others have been having a discussion as to why you should have your site in valid XHTML 1.1 or 1.0 or 1.0.1.1.0 markup, which has not borne any fruit (in my opinion). The critical issue comes down, for now, to pragmatic issues such as time and workflow/CMS. I propose a third, more critical issue: XSLT and forward thinking. IF your site is valid XML (which valid XHTML 1.X is) then you can run an XSLT process on it’s code and you’ll find yourself with a WAP version, or an XHTML Basic version for phones. Or you could run an XSLT process on it and turn your XHTML 1.X site into an XHTML 2.0 site. Or you could turn it into plain text and wrap it with a <pre> tag.

An important reason to keep this set of standards is forward compatibility… not for 2005 but 2010. We need to be pragmatic, make it work now, but also be ready for the future. If Zeldman‘s new book on future compatibility doesn’t say this I’m going to be sad 😉

Squealing Like a Stuck Pig

This morning Abigail got her arm caught in the bars of her crib while climbing out. She’s OK, but it has now prompted Jessica to declare, “There shall be a new bed for our daughter, even if I have to sell my internal organs.” To which I replied, “If you sell enough organs we can buy a house.” But in short, Abigail has needed a ‘big girl’ bed for some time, I’ve just been holding out because frankly I want to have her get a bed when she gets her own money.* I think that she needs to get a job and start pulling her weight around here** So hopefully all of the parts and pieces will come together and we’ll be waking up at 6:00 AM because she walks in, not because she’s screaming cause she’s stuck.

* This conversation never really took place
*this is a lie
**not for some time
***I never used this character set in the above paragraphs
****You’re reading it anyway

Count of Monte Cristo

I just finished The Count of Monte Cristo (Buy it at Amazon.com) last night at 12:40 or so. Great book, but I’m incredibbly tired now (that’s a lie, I’m not that tired, but I will be this afternoon). The ending had me realing, I was just wondering “what?!” Not because it was a bad ending, it just caught me off-guard, which is fabulous. In the end you see that even Edmond, who is after revenge, is still susceptable to error and his actions have a weighty consequence. Very good reading and if you don’t want to buy it, it is available at Project Gutenberg as a text file. Also, you could get it at your local library. Whatever the case, after reading this I want to read some more fiction. Jessica and I are considering the ‘Bourne Identity’ since we liked that movie as well.

FireFox 0.9 Installer

The latest Mozilla Firefox browser is just round the corner and I’ve installed the 0.9 beta. The installer is beautiful. It gives me all of the options I want. I’ve recently been thinking more and more about installers and am convinced that they are just as vital a piece of your software as anything else. Witness the wonder that WordPress’s 5 minute Installer instills. It actually does only take that long, and for a web application, that’s a beatiful thing.

The graphics of the Firefox 0.9 installer incorporate the new branding and I’m confident that this branding will increase market share. Why? Because it is attractive. Millions of women surf the net every day and I tell you that as superficial as it sounds, the blue ‘e’ is not sexy enough to hold people while a cute fox is sure to get some attention! Furthermore the installer lets you pick a custom set of options for installable components, whether or not to place shortcuts in various parts of your Windows interface (Programs Menu, Desktop and Quick Launch). This is a great step forward for Firefox!

Disciplers.org Update

The www.disciplers.org site is updated now to use alt attributes for its images so that handicapped users can have their screen readers read them and so that people with their browsers not rendering images can still see where the links are going. The material on this site was really helpful in my spiritual growth.

Shrek Too

This weekend on Saturday night Jessica and I went to see ‘Shrek 2’ AKA ‘The Ogre Movie.’ Why is it AKA ‘The Ogre Movie?’ Because Abby loves the donkey in the movie and if we say, “Shrek,” she runs around saying, “Funny Donkey!” over and over until our ears hurt and we lament having mentioned Shrek. However, we don’t lament seeing the movie, which in my opinion was way funnier than I had expected. Lets just say that when they parody something, they parody with great style. The ‘Sir Justin’ poster in Mrs. Shrek’s bedroom was classic (Cameron Diaz beau is/was Justin Timberlake). It definitely was good and way outranked Ballistic by about 3 million on a scale from 0 to 1.

Usability Testing

I am excited because with one of my clients I’ll get to do some basic usability testing. This means that I get to put my software I’ve been working on in front of someone and say. “Use it.” All I get to do at this point in time is observe them. If the user gets stuck, can’t accomplish a task or runs into an error, I’ll get to take notes, but that is it. I’m very excited about the opportunity to see things in action with a ‘tabula rasa’ [blank slate]. I’m eager to actually get to do some of the things that I’ve only read or learned about because I think that it will 1) help me grow my skills as a designer 2) help me be a better planner 3) help me think like an end user. I often approach things as a designer (yes, including online ordering and administration) which is a weakness. I may post what happens just for fun (since a few readers of this blog are also developers).