Logoblog: Web Standards, Accessibility & Usability

tester

2006-10-06T22:13:00.000+01:00

test

Moving troubles

2006-09-06T23:34:00.000+01:00

Oh Dear the internet troubles one person can have. Hopefully this will work? maybe?

New Yahoo! Product

2006-07-15T00:11:00.000+01:00

Maybe :P

Busy Busy Busy

2006-06-28T23:14:00.000+01:00

Too much going on at the moment to even get my thought about @Media up. Excuse the brief break. Normal service to be resumed in the next couple of weeks.

Big business failing on accessibility

2006-04-27T22:16:00.000+01:00

The team over at Nomensa have compiled an accessibility report on websites of the companies in the FTSE 100.

Only 24 sites achieve the minimum level of accessibility – and none go beyond that to double A or triple A standards. Out of those 24 sites that met some level of accessibility (single A standard), two companies stood out from the rest: the Daily Mail & General Trust and Xstrata. In fact, these two organisations only failed to reach the next level by one checkpoint.

This report just goes to highlight the importance of the new WaSP ATF Manifesto statement
I just hope big business start to get the message.
Either that or we could just send Bruce Lawson round with a baseball bat and and a hockey mask to kick some ass.

Hey you stole that design!

2006-04-16T15:43:00.000+01:00

I have been working on a personal project of mine on and off for a long time now. It was first mentioned to other people during @Media 2005 and I had been thinking about it and preparing for a few months before that.

I have the domain name already in the bag, quite a sought after one as well I would be willing to bet, and I have the design comps. I always knew how I wanted the site to look and I had a decent idea as to what the sections would be. It was just the mechanics of the concept that were holding me back. In fact I am still quite unsure as to the format of the "competition". (Ed: Shh, don't say too much)

This site still isn't live and still isn't complete for may reasons including the fact that shortly before @Media 2005 my daughter was born and that combined with other work and educational commitments have got in the way.

Anyway, recently I have found enough time, and inclination, to revisit this site and idea in order to finally get it off the ground. I believe in the idea and I think it will work. Hell, if a celeb (web celeb not someone from Heat Magazine) did this site it would be a sure fire hit; I'd be willing to bet the mortgage on it.

I pulled up the old design comps and it reminded me of something. I puzzled it out for a few seconds and realised it was the same layout (bar the logo) as the new WaSP redesign.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The title of the post is a Joke. I am by no means accusing anyone of stealing the design. Please read on before hitting reply and telling me that I suck and Andy Clarke / WaSP Ownz me!

The point of this post is that whenever a new site goes live there will be comparisons with sites that are already out there. Similarities will exist between any new site and one that already exists. It's inevitable.

Aside from the Logo (duh) and the Navigation bar the layout of the rest of the page is very similar (Larger left column, 2 supporting columns dropping to 1 as and when required).

There are major differences as well though. The colour scheme is nothing at all like the one I did and the site, although along similar lines (Pushing web standards and CSS), content will be different

Now my first thought was that the site looks like the new WaSP design. What will people say?

Will I get loads of fanboys filling my inbox with digg style comments of "U Suck!", "My Granny could do better, get your own design loser" etc.

I guess my question is this: Can we be precious about the layout of a page when it is so generic or is it ok to use a similar layout to someone else however unintentional it may be?

Don't get me wrong I am not talking about blatantly ripping off a site that is very unique in design or content like the people that John Oxton discussed or the jokers Matthew Pennell had to deal with, I am talking about using a similar/same layout style as another site.

I have to admit that John Oxton's comments on that old post are what made me think about this.

The other thing to consider is it wasn’t too long ago someone found a design on template monster that you would swear was a rip off of mine but it had been done nearly 12 months before hand; had I ripped that design off? No, it was an unhappy coincidence and I would have been really pissed off had anyone suggested otherwise.

I would also be pissed if people start saying I have ripped the design when I have done no such thing. I don't want to have to redesign a site that I am happy with. Why should I?

Maybe I'm being paranoid but there are a lot of people out there quick to criticise. Just check out these comments on CSS Beauty. The guy had to go back and display an old version of the site to prove that he hadn't ripped the PGA design off.

The sad thing is that if I am honest I am still not sure I believe him, which is kind of what I am worried about.

OS X App: Tinker Tool

2006-03-26T22:48:00.000+01:00

I have been toying with the idea for a while of switching 100% to Mac. General day to day stuff is no problem at all. office is available, as are alternatives, I can check my emails yada yada. The one thing that has been holding me back is web development which is obviously quite important to me and my job. No worries I though and I have even convinced myself to switch from my native ASP programming background to the realms of PHP.

Before I start I should point out that I am a Mac newbie so if I say something stupid then please correct me. I have managed to "turn on" Apache, Install PHP, Install mySQL and CocoaMySQL (Similar to phpMyAdmin I am lead to believe) and set up Wordpress. Before now I have used Windows, ASP and IIS exclusively and I have looked into Apache and most of the "magic" is done in 2 files: httpd.conf for general settings and .htaccess for specific directories.

The first problem on the Mac is that you cant get to either of these files. .htaccess files are hidden by default as in UNIX any filename that begins with a period is hidden. The httpd.conf file is in a hidden directory that you can't get to either. I tried using Spotlight but it doesn't find either of these files as it doesn't show hidden or system files :/

Also, It seems that there is no option in system settings to display hidden files and folders. Basically I needed a way to get to these files and make changes in order to take advantage of mod_rewrite and the clean URL's it can produce.

I googled the problem and it came up with an app called Tinker Tool:

"TinkerTool" is an application that gives you access to additional preference settings Apple has built into Mac OS X. This allows to activate hidden features in the operating system and in some of the applications delivered with the system."

There is a full list of features that you can "tinker" with available on the page. Some pretty neat stuff, but the part that interests me most is it's ability to show and hide hidden files and folders by checking or unchecking a box. Simple enough even for a windows user to manage!

I still haven't managed to get mod_rewrite to work properly yet though, but thanks to Tinker Tool I am a little closer. So if your a Mac newbie like me then I can recommend you try it.

iPod Tip: Pod Player

2006-03-19T20:19:00.000Z

Today I came across a piece of software called Pod Player :

"Pod Player is a freeware application to be used with your iPod. It allows you to play music from your iPod while it is connected to your PC. When launched, it will look for an attached iPod and when it finds one it will read the music database on the iPod. You will then be able to views your songs in a similar way as in iTunes (by artist, genre, album, playlist, etc). You can now also extract songs from it. There are a few little extra features such as iPod Hacks, checking for duplicates etc. You can play your music on any computer when you iPod is connected without the need to install any programs such as iTunes."

Now thats all well and good but if you have an iPod already then it's more than likely that your PC has iTunes or one of the other various programmes that perform the way iTunes does.

The beauty of this programme is that it's in a single exe file that can be stored on your iPod itself as it's only 454kb. It also allows you to extract songs from the connected iPod to the computer for all your backup needs ;) Now that makes it useful!

All you need to do is enable disk access on your iPod and copy the exe across then hey presto you have a portable solution to allow you to play your iTunes on any PC that has a spare USB port. The only snag is that the machine playing the files needs the right codec in order to be able to play the files. So in the majority of cases the files will be in MP3 format and there shouldn't be a problem although you may have problems with your AAC audio.

Quite neat though.

I'm not dead!

2006-03-06T22:36:00.000Z

Just a quick note:

The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead

From Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Just incase anyone cares...I'm not dead!
Just busy with real work and real life at the moment.

MacBook Pro!

2006-01-10T21:16:00.000Z

People that know me will know that I have been saving up for a Mac. I have a small bundle of cash at the moment which I have been itching to spend on either an iMac or a Powerbook. I have been looking at them for ages, even visiting the new Apple Store at Meadowhall to stare at them through the window in the same way some kid called Charlie stared at the Wonka Bar.

Todays daily visit to the online Mac store frustrated me, It was down. It's still down now as I write this (8:50pm GMT). But when I visited Apple.co.uk I couldn't help notice the huge bright blue banner that was staring back at me. A typical "Steve Jobs style" Microsoft bashing slogan.

"Whats an Intel chip doing inside a Mac? A whole lot more than it's ever done in a PC."

Looks like Apple picked today to launch the new MacBook Pro, the PowerBook replacement by the looks, a new iMac (Yes, another one. Making mine at work now 3 Generations old) and an FM Radio accessory for the iPod Video and iPod Nano.

For now I'm going to concentrate on the new object of my affection. The MacBook pro.

This PowerBook on steroids is now 4x faster with an Intel Core Duo processor (I'll let them do the explaining), a built in iSight camera, Front Row software ~~(no remote mentioned though)~~,Apple Remote and an iLife 06 software bundle (including he new iWeb software) to get you off and running.

More, More you say. Well you shall have it. It also has a "much" brighter screen than the PowerBook and a power adapter.

"The new power adaptor with MagSafe connector is designed to magnetically guide your cord into place and disconnect smoothly if someone (else) trips over it."

The idea looks great, especially as I have a 16 month old daughter who regularly likes to see what daddy is doing with the "shiny" on his lap. I am sure that all of you reading with kids will know what I mean.

All I can say is that I now need to save a little more money as the prices start at £1429 inc VAT but you just know it will be worth it.

Check out the full details over at the Apple website.

@Media 2006

2006-01-10T20:14:00.000Z

Well, I'm back from the Christmas break where finger has not touched keyboard for nearly a month. I have to admit that, like riding a bike, you never forget how to type but it does take some time to get back into it!

I got back to work on Monday to find a nice surprise in my inbox. I am talking, of course, about the @Media 2006 announcement. This year looks set to be as good if not better than last years.

The venue looks great, the speakers look awesome and the website is v.nice indeed to boot. I managed to run down to the office as fast as my little legs would carry me and reserved my place. So all being well I will be there.

What a nice present! It certainly took the edge off having to go back to work.

d.Construct Experiences

2005-11-15T21:49:00.000Z

Well I am back from Brighton now and sitting at home contemplating d.Construct.
The range of speakers was wide and varied and each seemed to have their own take on what web 2.0 actually is. I think this just goes to reinforce what Andy Budd said in his introductory session "What is web 2.0?" - Web 2.0 isn't a thing... It's a state of mind.

My take on the situation is that Web 2.0 is whatever it means to you as a web designer/developer.

The stand out presentations for me were the first 3 of the day. Probably as these appealed most to the geek in me.

To Andy Budd, Web 2.0 is using existing technologies in innovative ways, community features, open data formats and users owning their data.

Andy's presentation was a great pace and scene setter for the day. When he had finished there was a full understanding of the main concepts. Andy didn't try and claim that he knew exactly what Web 2.0 was and he concentrated mainly on giving attendees the facts so that they could decide for themselves. Which was certainly the best way to go about it.

Next up was Stuart Langridge who aside from being some sort of Javascript/DHTML genius is an air guitar/keyboard legend too!

Stuarts presentation content was spot on and so was his presentation style; just the right mix of information and humour.

Stuart talked about DOM scripting, unobtrusive javascript and also highlighted the importance of making sure that there is a graceful degradation when javascript is unavailable or turned off.

Again Stuart agreed with Andy Budd's theme of taking existing technologies and using them in new ways. Stuart said "Stand on the Shoulders of Giants". I am pretty sure he wasn't the first person to say it but it is sage advice.

Simon Willison of Yahoo! was next. Simon's presentation was very focussed on what Yahoo! / Flickr are doing with AJAX and their API (Not really a surprise as the presentation was called "Ajax and the Flickr API").

We all know that Flickr is one of this/last years great success stories. Most people "in the know" have been using Flickr for some time now, but I think that people are just starting to using Flickr in the way that they want to.

This is made possible through the Flickr API and the excellent API documentation
So next time you see clever people using Flickr on their own site you will know how they managed it.

Simon has forgotten stuff that I will never know. I am also now "in" on the joke that all the speakers seemed to share at @Media when they said that Simon couldn't come as he couldn't get the time off from Hogwarts. Very true, in the nicest possible way of course. I am sure it isn't the first time he has heard it and I am sure that he doesn't mind. Magic would explain how he does all the things that he does though.

Overall the conference was a big success. Based on the amount of time the Clear:Left guys had to organise the event it was very impressive. The social after the event was also great and I got chance to put a few names to faces and meet some people for the first time.

I met quite a few people including Andy Budd, Richard Rutter, Stuart Langridge, Ryan Carson, Paul Hammond, Mike Stenhouse, Ben Ward and Steve Marshall

Finally, A big thanks to Clear:Left for putting on a great (well priced) event and thanks to all the speakers and the people I met for being nice guys.

Same time next year?

Off to d.Construct

2005-11-09T21:30:00.000Z

Tomorrow I am off down past "that London" to a place called Brighton for the d.Construct conference that is taking place on Friday. I am going down the day before as there is no way to actually get to Brighton for 9:30am if you live anywhere past Watford.

For anybody reading in London, Where I live is past Watford. Imagine that, further north than Watford!

I believe my esteemed colleague, and partner in this trip, Patrick H. Lauke said that he caught a glimpse of a map in London when we were attending @Media 2005 and all it said about the north of England is "Here be Dragons"

Some facts about Brighton:

Its a long way away (From here evidently)
Fatboy Slim lives there
Many scenes for cult film Quadrophenia, depicting the Mods and Rockers clashes of the 1960s, were filmed in the city. (Malarkey should like it then)
Swedish super group Abba won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in the Brighton Dome with the song Waterloo.
For some reason 60% of all the UK's web gurus live there

Joking aside though I am really looking forward to it as the lineup is pretty damn good.
Stay tuned for a full report when I return...

When good Mice turn bad

2005-11-05T17:11:00.000Z

In the first case of it's kind that I have heard of a large corporation has turned it's back on a well designed, CSS based, standards compliant accessible website in favour of a "new" web site.

First off I checked the date and it was indeed the 2nd of November and not the 1st of April as I had assumed. Then I saw it with my own eyes.

On first glance the store looks to have suffered considerably in the aesthetics stakes.
Gone are the crisp images and the (dare I say it?) sensible Flash only to be replaced with a main branding image that is poorly optimised that can only be described as "fuzzy" at best.
The rest of the images don't actually look much better. The buttons at the bottom advertising other services/sites provided by Disney are especially poor quality to be honest.

Under the hood is where this site really lets itself, and Disney, down.

The pages take an age to load which is due to the code bloat associated with table based layouts and the fact that they are littered with obtrusive poor quality (Dreamweaver generated?) javascript wont help either.

I wouldn't like to get their bandwidth bill thats for sure. No wonder Mickey mouse talks with such a high pitched voice. The hosting services must have him by the balls.

Apparently they are also using a new tag: (note the mixed case)

It must be in the XHTML 2.0 spec or something as I have to admit I haven't heard of it before. Although they state in their DOCTYPE definition that they are using HTML 4.01 Transitional (allegedly) so that must be a typo ;)

I always associated Disney with quality. Disney has many imitators which, as they say, is the sign of a great company. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery after all.

I really feel that Disney have let themselves down with this one and has delivered a real kick in the teeth of the push for web standards.

Are Disney a quality brand anymore? Undoubtedly they are.

Why then, did they create a "new" site that looks like it is straight from 1998? They already took the plunge and scored a smash hit with a standards compliant, accessible web site which has been held up the world over (literally) as being an exemplary site that should be used as a benchmark for how all websites should be done.

Maybe Disney reached their own 12 o'clock and "Cinderella's coach" really did turn back into a pumpkin.

No Tricks and a lovely treat from Apple

2005-11-01T22:11:00.000Z

Safari is now frighteningly good.

With the latest update released by Apple yesterday (Halloween, to explain the puns) their flagship Internet browser now passes the Acid 2 test.

I got the software update popping up and down looking for my attention this morning telling me that there was an OS X update. Namely update 10.4.3. I clicked for more details and found a little surprise:

Safari, Internet, and networking

Safari can now pass the "Acid2" test.

I downloaded the update and unsurprising they were right.

Safari 2.0.2 / 416.12 is the first (non beta, non preview) browser to do this and therefore the Mac community can be even smugger.

Not content with the best looking equipment and the best OS, Apple now have the best (Well technically the most standards compliant) browser too.

This is probably the reason I will be getting a mac for home soon. More on that later though.

Time to cull the hacks?

2005-10-13T23:26:00.000+01:00

No, not a call to arms against poor journalism. Info from the IE blog.

"We’re starting to see the first round of sites and pages breaking due to the CSS fixes we have made. We would like to ask your help in cleaning up existing CSS hacks in your pages for IE7. It is has been our policy since IE6 that under quirks doctype we will not make any behavioral changes so that existing pages will continue to render unmodified, but under the strict doctype we want to change behavior to be as compliant as possible with the web standards"

Whats affected then?

html > body - http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=ChildHack
* html - http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=StarHtmlHack
head:first-child + body - http://centricle.com/ref/css/filters/tests/owen/
head + body - http://www.dithered.com/css_filters/css_only/head_adjacent_sibling_body.html
body > element - http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=ChildHack

What do Microsoft Suggest then?

We ask that you please update your pages to not use these CSS hacks. If you want to target IE or bypass IE, you can use conditional comments .

UPDATE: What does the godfather of CSS think to these suggestions?

Read all about it

d.lighted

2005-10-12T23:25:00.000+01:00

I was one of the lucky 100 who managed to secure themself a ticket for the upcoming d.construct conference in Brighton.

d.Construct 2005 is the UK’s first grassroots Web 2.0 conference. It is an affordable, one-day event aimed at those building the latest generation of web-based applications. The event will discuss how new technology is transforming the web from a document delivery system to an application platform. Internationally renowned speakers will discuss hot-topics such as Ajax, using the power of API’s and the future of the mobile web.

According to the site the event sold out in 30 minutes and, to be fair, I'm not surprised at all. It's a great price and a great lineup including Andy Budd, Stuart Landridge and Simon Willison .

It's not all bad news for the (many I would guess) unlucky people who missed out on tickets as it has been suggested that the whole even may be podcast.

Anyone else going?

iPod Nano - Mine all mine!

2005-09-20T22:10:00.000+01:00

Well I did it. After a few days trying to convince myself that I didn't want one I finally succumb to the charms of the iPod Nano.

My Nano should be winging it's way over from Ireland as we speak. I have heard reports that the Apple online store takes an age to deliver items that you order from them, but it seemed a lot easier than having to go down to "that London" and purchase one from the bricks and mortar Apple store.

Unfortunately for me, and other British citizens, the Nano is not scratch resistant. Apple quoted me 4-6 weeks delivery time on Nano tubes which seem to be the only product out there at the moment that will ensure that my little darling doesn't get all scratched. Whats a guy to do?

Well, you could always enter the competition over at Malarkey's gaff. The generous Mr.Clarke is offering one of his Nano tubes that he procured whilst ~~on a jolly~~ teaching in Cupertino. Where, evidently, it doesn't take 4-6 weeks to get your hands on them.

EDIT: Evidently Amazon can supply you with them faster than Apple (1-2 weeks) can which seems a little strange.

If you do enter don't try too hard because I want to win ;) I don't think my little Nano will last 4-6 weeks "naked"

Clagnut's new recruit?

2005-09-06T23:36:00.000+01:00

As recently reported over at The Watchmaker project, Clagnut.com and Richard Rutter have become so popular that both author and site made it into the top 10 on Technorati.Not bad going in over 16 million blogs.

Anyway, it looks like with the new popularity Richard Rutter has had to hire other people to write for him on his site.

As exclusivley revealed in Professional CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design Clagnut have hired a namesake to help out Mr.Rutter in producing the high quality articles Clagnut are famed for.

Professional CSS page 333 exclusivley unmasks the new employee by stating:

"..an ingenious method to gain greater control over web typography comes from the clever Richard Butter's excellent tutorial, "How to Size Text Using Ems"(see http://www.clagnut.com/blog/348/)"

Who is this new web guru? Feel free to send in pictures.

Bulletproof Web Design Review

2005-08-29T15:46:00.000+01:00

After reading, and loving, Web Standards Solutions I was quite excited when I learned that Dan Cederholm was writing a new book. I had Bulletproof Web Design on order pretty much since it was announced, and I received it a couple of days ago. I started reading straight away, hoping that it would live up to the build up I had given it, I wasn't disappointed.

First off Bulletproof Web Design is really well written, did you expect anything else from Dan Cederholm?. Cederholm has a knack of making complicated subject matter simple enough for beginners to understand, whilst still maintaining enough detail for advanced readers to get their teeth into. Reading this book will teach everyone something.

My one criticism, well not really a criticism so much as a disappointment, of Web Standards Solutions was that it was all printed in black and white. There were references to colour in the text but this was not accurately portrayed in the example screenshots / figures. Bulletproof Web Design makes up for this and then some.

The examples / figures are beautifully crafted, and in a apartness from other web design books, useful. Dan acknowledges Jon Hicks' 3D Box Model illustration as the inspiration for the examples and I must say that Dan has taken the concept and put it to good use. The visuals in the book are of an excellent quality and actually add to the book rather than being a token afterthought. This book is really visually pleasing, right down to the side notes with the unmistakably SimpleBits icons. These little touches give Bulletproof Web Design an extra finesse, much like the attention to detail give SimpleBits that extra edge website wise.

The format of the book is excellent and the examples will be familiar to readers who are faced with updating sites that don't currently use web standards. Each chapter starts with a "non-bulletproof" example and instead of just shunning it as being "wrong", tells the reader why it is not optimal and what can be done to improve the structure and "bulletproof" the design. The design is then restructured using XHTML and then we are taken step-by-step through the CSS. Each step is described well and
where necessary is accompanied by one of the affore mentioned excellent illustrations.

The book's level is stated as being intermediate / advanced but as I mentioned earlier, everyone reading this book will learn something. I think that this book is well written enough and uses such a good format that beginners would benefit from this book too as it's neither patronising of the reader, or too aloof to be relevant to "real world" beginners.

Overall, This is a great book that covers a wide range of real world issues that will apply to something that you are doing or have done. If you have already done it, this book will show you a better way. If you haven't done it yet, read this before you start.

If you are waiting for the reviews of this book before you decide whether or not to buy it, don't waste time; Just go get it now, you won't be disappointed.

gVisit

2005-08-22T22:51:00.000+01:00

Following hot on the heels of Mr.Pennell over at the excellent Watchmaker Project I have registered for gVisit.

Seen as I stole the whole idea from the afore mentioned Mr.Pennell, I will let him do the talking (and hopefully take home the award for the laziest blog post of the year):

I signed up with gVisit, a new site that uses the Google Maps API and a little bit of Javascript to generate a geographical map of recent site traffic.

Thats it really. Could turn out to be an interesting idea. If anyone is interested my gVisit link is underneath the atom feed link.

Firefox: the new and better web browser ?

2005-07-28T22:07:00.000+01:00

Cross posted from the Accessify forum, a classic:

Monday afternoon my boss indicated me about a problem with the company website I builded. It seemed it didn't showed up like it should in Firefox, some kind of new web browser. So I did what was expected, downloaded the new web browser and looked full of expectation to the screen. And indeed the stylesheet didn't work as expected, checked out some newsgroups and the problem was known. It seemed that I was using a stylesheet that was not in accordance with the standard stylesheet specification. So I ran it through the W3C stylesheet verificator, no problem there except the gradiant specification, which is specific to IE. So why is it not showing correctly, well because there is no support to specify the width of an A tag.

Now, when I should be building a new and better web browser than the most used web browser in the world, I would make sure I at least supported the features of that web browser. I have a message to all that coders on Firefox, before you start shouting at IE, first try to write a product that is as good as IE, then you can build new features in it.

This is the problem with all kind of open source products written by a bunch of people hoping to defeat the biggest software company in the world. They concentrate on destroying the competetion instead of first building a product that as the same features and then improving it. They look like poor "Civilization" players, going to battle with a stick while the enemy is using nuclear force.

And you guys that are giving the software away to make my life easier, remember this : because you wrote a web browser that doesn't support the features of IE, I need to rewrite the website. And don't argue that IE doesn't support the standard, if there are new features then the standard is lacking and that can't stop progress.

Back to the drawing board, Firefox coders !!!

From http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/wimdc/archive/2005/07/28/131532.aspx

Microsoft Betas

2005-07-27T22:52:00.000+01:00

Looks like the guys over at Microsoft have been busy.

The beta versions of Windows Vista and IE7 that have just released should be interesting to developers and IT professionals. For this reason, the beta is available to MSDN subscribers and a pretty small set of pre-enrolled beta test participants. Our goal is to get feedback from this group, do a bunch more work around quality (performance, security, reliability, etc.) and some features (e.g. additional standards support beyond what’s in beta 1, additional functionality around tabs and RSS, etc.), and release Beta 2 much more broadly.

Most interestingly to web developers are the "benefits" we will get by using IE7:

New tools to take you directly to the information you want through support for Web feeds (RSS) that includes automatic discovery of web feeds (RSS) on Web pages, basic Web Feed (RSS) reading capabilities, and basic support for saving Web feeds (RSS) as a new kind of favorite.
Platform enhancements for developers to improve compatibility and manageability, including improved support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) as well as transparent PNG support.

I won't hold my breath...

Tutorial: Serve a PNG to anything but Internet Explorer using CSS

2005-07-14T23:32:00.000+01:00

Whilst making the latest changes to the seemingly perpetual redesign of my portfolio / company site I became even more annoyed with the problem that Internet Explorer has with PNG files.

I am sure that this isn't news to anyone but for completeness sake the problem is that PNG images with alpha transparency have a shocking grey background in Windows versions of IE. This is because IE doesn't natively support alpha transparency.

Anyway, the new design looked good in anything apart from IE (Whats new?) and I remembered something that I had read about 6 months ago in the excellent Web Standards Solutions by Dan Cederholm.

In one of the chapters Mr.Cederholm explains that he serves a different logo to people viewing with styles and those that use styles:

One reason for swapping an image with another image would be to serve varying site logos - one for browsers that handle CSS properly (Referenced with the background property) and one thats served to old browsers, handheld devices, screen readers etc.

Dan goes on to show an example of serving a "lo-fi" and "hi-fi" logos using a form of image replacement.

This wasn't exactly what I was after as IE thinks it displays CSS properly and would substitute in the background image, thus defeating the object, but the principal was a good one.

What was needed was a way to use this method (swapping out an image and replacing it with a background image) that IE wouldn't be able to get it's mucky fingers on.

Enter the CSS child selector.

PPK over at Quirksmode.org explains child selectors much better than I can but basically IE doesn't understand them. And in true Microsoft style, anything they don't understand doesn't exist.

Therefore if we use child selectors in the CSS we can "Filter" out IE and only serve the PNG image to browsers which understand alpha transparency.

Put together what we have learned from Dan Cederholm and PPK and we have our solution. We can now serve a PNG to everything except IE using just CSS.

Check out the accompanying demonstration page and don't forget to view the source for the tutorial notes.

I Know that I am by no means breaking new gound here, but I just though I would try and promote this as a method as it wasn't easy to find anything that explained to me what I wanted to know. I guess this is why Simplified Standards will be such a hit when it launches in the near future.

I also know that this solution probably has things wrong with it (please let me know), what solution is perfect?, but it does the job quite well in a way that will be familiar to people who have used any popular image replacement technique.

Pay Peanuts and Get Monkeys

2005-07-05T23:19:00.000+01:00

I saw an advert for a job today that caught my eye for all the wrong reasons.

VLE Developer and Technical Support Assistant

Required for September 2005, a suitably qualified person to expand and maintain the school’s VLE in conjunction with teaching staff to create exciting on-line resources for use across all key stages. You will also assist the ICT Technical Support Team in maintaining and administrating a large network and VLE. This is a permanent post, working 37 hours per week, term time only.

You should have knowledge of Macromedia products, HTML, JAVA and be interesting in learning new authoring packages designed to support teaching staff in creating on-line learning.

Salary: £11,286 - £13,458 pro-rata (£9,983 - £11,905)

Now this starts some alarm bells ringing in my head.

First of all, I create learning materials as part of my job. So I know what would be required to create "exciting on-line resources".

This is one of the only times that I would recommend Macromedia Flash. Don't get me wrong I love Macromedia products and I am a Macromedia certified professional, but in general Flash should be kept in a bottle under the sink and not on web sites unless there is a very good reason.

In this case to do their job properly, someone who is creating "exciting on-line resources" should be using Macromedia Flash.

This is because:

It lends itself perfectly to this concept with great potential for animation, interactivity and the ability to have the materials personalised and used to track progress through the database functionality Flash has.
There will be a clear picture of the demographic and any accessibility issues can be dealt with on a per pupil basis which is a much better situation than you could hope to get on the net in general
There will be a certainty about the platform that it will delivered on so cross browser compatibility becomes less of an issue.
There shouldn't be a bandwidth issue as it will probably all run over a LAN (well it will if it is set up like the VLE we use, which in this case I know is true)

I don't want to go into the intricacies of learning materials but as this is a small point in the grand scheme I will skirt the issue and save it for another day.

Any Flash developer worth their salt would be paid considerably more than the salary that this job is offering.

Unfortunately for whoever takes this job, this is not the only thing that they are expected to do.

The successful applicant will "also assist the ICT Technical Support Team in maintaining and administrating a large network and VLE".

This basically means that you will be a makeshift technician and general dogsbody aswell which is obviously a job in itself.

Unless there is exceptional circumstances people always start at the bottom of the scale they are allotted. So it is more than likely that the lucky applicant will be paid the princely sum of £9,983 per year.

That works out at £831.91 per month before tax.

Take away the 20% for the income tax and you are looking at £665.53 per month.

Then you have to take away the national insurance contribution which would be around £45 a month on that salary, leaving our grand total at £620.53

And to think all you have to do for your £620 a month is work 37 hours a week as a technician and create any quality VLE materials that are needed by all the subject areas (FYI: There are on average 12-13 subject areas in a secondary school).

Is there any wonder that, in general, secondary school web sites and VLE materials are rubbish?

A secondary school would never dream of throwing out a prospectus that obviously had no time and effort invested in it but they seem more than happy to do this with their VLE and their website.

I would rather see no website at all than a website that obviously has been given to a HTML virgin who works as an IT teacher, teaching the kids to build web sites with Microsoft Publisher (I know for a fact that this actually happens. Even through the school this happens in has a Macromedia Studio MX 2004 site licence provided to them for free by the people who own the VLE)

In my opinion what is needed is more technical expertise at an LEA level to make sure that the people appointing the staff know what jobs like this entail and then make it one job, not two as in this case, and for christ sake pay the going rate.

It is obvious that the people who wrote the job spec for this thought that the VLE would not fill the 37 hours a week you work and decided to pad out the role by getting some cheap help for the school technicians. Lets face it any help for the technicians is always appreciated.

This proves the point that the people that wrote the job spec have no idea what skills are actually needed and what time and effort needs to be put in to make the job worthwhile doing.

The scary part will be that this job will be filled with someone with no clue about how to be a web developer. They will fire up their copy of Microsoft Frontpage pick the most garish template they can, save the lesson plan from Microsoft Word and do file > save as > whatever.html and the jobs a 'gud un.

But as I said right at the start; If you pay peanuts you get monkeys.