April, 2008

The World Wide Web turns 15

Happy Birthday WWW.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Broadband 2.0 Poised to Reshape Web, TV

How long till this hits the shores over here?

Popularity: 2% [?]

My own-branded OpenID

As Marshall Kirkpatrick mentioned earlier this month on ReadWriteWeb, myOpenID now allow you to create OpenID accounts through your own domain.

I’ve already covered this briefly as an aside however as I regularly use OpenIDs for both work (Basecamp) and pleasure (ClaimID) I decided to give it a go. My current OpenID provided by ClaimID, who were at the forefront of implementing OpenIDs, is not very aesthetically pleasing, and the premise of myOpenIDs new feature is to allow me to have my own .scottmallinson.com OpenID.

Popularity: 4% [?]

WAVE – Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool

WAVE – Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool, a great, free tool for checking the accessibility of your web work.

Popularity: 2% [?]

CSS Frameworks

I guess this really continues on from my previous blog article about Grid-based layouts. A number of CSS frameworks have emerged over the last few months making it somewhat easier for front-end developers deliver consistent interfaces across web browsers.

A personal favourite of mine is to use the YUI Reset CSS along with the 960 Grid System I mentioned in the earlier post. This ensures that all elements; type, layout, input etc. are stripped back to their basics across all browsers through which you build on to. It means that any browser-specific padding applied to elements such as input buttons are removed and by declaring your own settings you know that you are getting a true value across web browsers.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Grid-based layouts

Grid-based layouts have become something of a phenomenon across the web design community over the last few months. Whilst the principles have been around for many, many years in the print media it is only recently that the approach to layout has been adapted for screen and the internet.

Following my recommendations we have recently started using grid-based layouts at MyKnowledgeMap on which we construct interface designs and develop the code. The framework that we are currently using is the 960 Grid System which we have found to be lightweight, well documentated and supports both the designer and developer.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Microhoo!/Yasoft

Wouldn’t it be interesting if Apple decided to enter the Microhoo!/Yasoft wrangle?

Popularity: 2% [?]

myOpenID

myOpenID now allow you to create OpenIDs using your own domain name.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Asus Eee PC vs. HP Mini-Note

Despite the charm, cheapness and compact nature of the Asus Eee PC, I am somewhat tempted by the more ‘designer’ HP Mini-Note.

Popularity: 2% [?]

OpenSearch

Yesterday, whilst working on a client’s Wordpress website I took the opportunity to implement a ‘quick search’ search feature. Using the OpenSearch standard, the ‘quick search’ is supported by Internet Explorer 7 and the latest versions of Firefox and the likes of Wikipedia, Google and Amazon already take advantage of the technology.

Popularity: 4% [?]

FeedBurner and Google

Since I redesigned this website I have paid more attention to the traffic that it receives, how well it gets indexed by the main search engines; Google, MSN and Yahoo and also what the visitors are looking at when they get to my website. This is all with the intention that I can improve the content on my website and make it more relevant if necessary.

Popularity: 4% [?]

High Contrast mode in Windows XP

An interesting problem arose in the office yesterday. For some unknown reason background images in webpages were not appearing on one computer. The eventual cause of the problem was that the computer was running Windows XP in High Contrast mode, though it didn’t seem apparent from looking at it.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Flickr Video

I have to agree with Fred Oliveira. No video in my Flickr, please.

Popularity: 2% [?]

CSS Naked Day ‘08

If you’ve come to my website and have noticed that things don’t look as they should, don’t be alarmed. It’s all in honour of CSS Naked Day ‘08.

Pledge your support and get naked with us!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Firefox instabilities

Has anyone else found the latest ’stable’ version of Firefox (2.0.0.13) to be anything but stable?

Popularity: 2% [?]