This past week I have encountered people asking about testing for Internet Explorer browser versions in real life, on Twitter, via email, and spray-painted under a bridge (along with the phrase I don’t want the world, I just want your half). I have seen response after response directing web developers…
I spent about a thousand words explaining RSS before I realized that, for the most part, if you are reading this blog I have to guess you have some familiarity with it (at least by just having heard of it). If you need some background, Wikipedia has a pretty good…
A recurring problem I find is when web developers, their support teams and their managers try to evaluate who is using their site(s) by reviewing their web logs (or Google Analytics) in a vacuum. It is far too easy to simply look at statistics reporting what browsers use a site…
Developers are starting to lean on the features of Facebook outside of the walled garden of Facebook itself, and there are implications for us as users that we might not be considering. The current trends of web design include giant footers, social media icons, extensive background images, and the omnipresent…
When Adobe released InDesign it included a novel feature that was otherwise unheard of to the average agency — the ability to import content into its page templates from XML data. Having developed a web content management system (QuantumCMS for those of you interested in hiring us), we had selected…
In November I wrote up a post (How Many Users Support JavaScript?) outlining the process and results from Yahoo’s study about how many users have JavaScript disabled (How many users have JavaScript disabled? and Followup: How many users have JavaScript disabled?). The Numbers In those articles, Yahoo stated that even…
Forrester Research is an oft-cited source by businesses when making decisions or declarations about trends and technologies. In many circles Forrester is something of a de facto standard for analysis. As such I fully expect to start dealing with a recent statement from its CEO claiming that the web is…
URL shorteners are in your web logs, stealing your clicks. Ok, maybe not in all your logs, but certainly they can show up in reports, tricking you to click on them, potentially exposing you to spam or viruses. If you aren’t familiar with URL shorteners, they evolved as a method…
Apple has released a revamped version of its web site today, ostensibly in HTML5. Except it doesn’t use anything from HTML5. That Apple wants to move to the platform that it touts as the Flash-killer is not surprising. Apple refuses to allow Adobe Flash on its mobile devices and claims…
There is so much buzz now and in the past week that it’s hard to pick out only a few items to address. I still have an opinion on just about everything going on with the spec, W3C, WHATWG, additional specs, the “pundits,” and many other things that could lead…
The W3C has rolled back its definition of what the new HTML5 logo represents: This logo represents HTML5, the cornerstone for modern Web applications. In case that isn’t clear, which it might not be, the FAQ gets far more specific on the inclusion of CSS3 in the logo definition (emphasis…
Start Rant With all the debate about elements, attributes, semantic meaning and who really owns HTML5, it’s thrilling to see that the W3C has risen above all the chaos to release something which should truly unify HTML5 and foster its widespread adoption (as soon as it is finished) across the…