Entries filed under 'Internet'

Is it time to re-introduce sound to the web?

Filed under Internet, Musings on 29.04.08

So why can’t web pages have sound effects?

It was probably one of the first things you did when you first started playing with HTML, but background music, and funny sound effects when you clicked buttons, went the way of the spacer gif—web design matured, and web standards took over.

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Mobile Web Development research

Filed under XHTML, Internet on 10.01.08

I’ve been doing some WAP development this week, which has been an opportunity to learn about a new area that I’ve not previously looked into in much detail. Luckily my client only wants WAP2.0, so I’ve not had to learn WML, just XHTML-MP, so the learning curve has been pretty shallow, but I thought it would be helpful to list some of the resources I’ve found useful.

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HTML element quiz

Filed under Internet on 19.11.07

Can’t believe I missed IMG! I couldn’t be bothered with the similar CSS quiz—typing out every single permutation of the various border rules didn’t sound much like fun.

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Dammit

Filed under Internet on 4.09.07

I had a post drafted and almost ready to go. It was titled ‘Spot The Difference’, and talked about how it was a pity that, despite bemoaning the cookie-cutter design and lack of art direction on blogs, designers are not willing to put in the extra work to create a new and unique design for their carefully crafted articles. We may spend hours drafting and rewriting a lengthy piece, but we won’t spend an extra hour or so coming up with a different treatment for the heading, or switching the layout around a little?

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XFN, relationship minefield

Filed under Internet, Events on 29.08.07

Although I’ve been aware of the XHTML Friends Network microformat, XFN, for some time—and was only recently reading about its genesis in John Allsop’s Microformats book—I’ve not previously had the need to use them. This site lost its blogroll somewhere around the second design iteration, and client work doesn’t offer very many opportunities to tag your nearest and dearest, so my first real hands-on experience came courtesy of this year’s dConstruct backnetwork, “the online space for d.construct 07 delegates”.

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What's on your clean machine?

Filed under Technology, Internet on 20.07.07

I’m configuring a new PowerBook for work (and a bit of personal use)—so far my download routine has been:

Firefox
Firebug
Quicksilver
MAMP
Code Igniter
Aptana
Cyberduck
Twitterific
Chris Pederick’s Web Developer Toolbar
VPN software for work
Copy 13GB of music across from my desktop machine ;)

What are your first stops when faced with a clean install?

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Wiisources

Filed under Games, Internet on 10.05.07

Mashable has a great list of sites optimised for the Wii today, including search, video, radio and online games.

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jQuery == 'undefined'

Filed under Javascript, Internet on 6.05.07

UPDATED 05/08: Apparently they were subject to a DDOS attack and then booted by their host – you can contribute to their server fund on the site.

The jQuery JavaScript library website seems to be dead this morning, which means the DNS that allows them to serve their latest build from Amazon’s S3 service is also kaput. Hope nobody’s using the code.jquery.com URL on their live site, as jQuery have just broken all your functionality…

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Refresh Cambridge 07/02 - accesskey, usable forms, Google Maps and dropdowns!

Filed under Refresh-Cambridge, Internet on 13.02.07

The Refresh Cambridge crew held another discussion-filled meeting last Wednesday, with four speakers covering topics spanning accessibility, usability and Google Maps.

Accesskeys

First up, GAWDS member Karl Dawson gave a short talk on the hows, whys and—more importantly—the ‘why nots’ of the humble accesskey attribute. While easy to implement, and therefore often employed as an accessibility “quick win”, accesskeys can cause all sorts of problems for users of various assistive technologies; they can also get in the way of typing foreign characters, especially if you follow the UK Government’s accesskey recommendations.