backtick
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of encountering the Hawaiian language, it’s a very simple but elegant language. The written form is largely phonetic (cooked up by American missionaries in the 1800s) and makes use of two diacritical marks: the ‘okina, and the macron (also
A while back, I posted my method for defeating spambots that harvest email addresses. This post is an update to that original method. It explores cleaner, less obtrusive code approaches and more accessible/usable HTML markup. If you’re impatient and want to jump to some working examples, here you
ramblings
Note: This blog entry predates responsive design. All modern websites should be built using responsive design principles. While working on a recent web project at work, I wondered if I should go for a fixed-width layout or stick with my preference for fluid layouts. Fixed-width layouts are certainly easier to
accessibility
The talented Cameron Moll has posted a link to a Web Accessibility Checklist prepared by Aaron Cannon, a (blind) member of his web development team. Aaron’s checklist is an easy-to-understand list of accessibility _do_s and _don’t_s. Most of these are so simple and easy to implement
Microsoft
In case you hadn’t already heard: The “click to activate” behavior, formerly required for ActiveX controls embedded in some webpages, is now permanently removed from Internet Explorer. You’ll need to get the April 2008 Internet Explorer Cumulative Update. I believe the proper response is “woot!” [ Read the full
Adobe Flash
Geoff Stearns and Bobby van der Sluis have finalized SWFObject 2.0. It is no longer beta, and SWFObject 1.5 is now considered deprecated. SWFObject 2.0’s home is located at Google Code, which includes full documentation and downloads. I believe support will be handled by the SWFObject
accessibility
There are a great set links for free development tools (validation services, browser toolbars and plugins) posted on the Web Access Centre Blog today: Looking for alternatives to Bobby and WebXact? Try these! Anyone familiar with accessibility should already know about Cynthia Says and a few of the web-based validation
Industry News
The WCAG Samurai Errata for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 (link no longer available) were published this week by the WCAG Samurai group. They don’t contain anything I’d consider Earth-shattering, but there are some very solid guidelines that bring the 1999 WCAG 1.0 specs a
best practices
Understanding that we should be using standards and best practices throughout e-learning development, the question becomes “what standards and best practices should we follow?” Here’s my attempt at outlining some basics. Please feel free to suggest additional items in the comments section. Follow established “web” best practices. Separate presentation
ramblings
Today Rapid Intake announced a new service named Unison. Not having used the service, I won’t pretend to know whether it’s a worthwhile service or not. It’s certainly an intriguing idea, and with its oft-mentioned low price, it’s guaranteed to get some industry buzz. Out of
CSS
I just saw something interesting I thought I’d pass along. In the new HTML 5 proposal, the strong element is being modified to represent “importance rather than strong emphasis.” The WHATWG gives the following example: <strong>Warning.</strong> This dungeon is dangerous. <strong>
Tools
You might be looking at the title of this entry and say “Well, DUH! JavaScript’s prompt() is already cross-browser!” While working on a project earlier today, I discovered a nasty little problem… Internet Explorer v7 (IE7) disables prompt() by default! This means you can’t rely on prompt() being