Post Archive

› November 26, 2002

XMP meta data extraction

An online tool for extracting XMP meta data from files generated by adobe products. I imagine this would serve as good add-on functionality with some sort of image gallery software. Found via whump.

Adrian Holovaty

I tried my best to keep a true Atlanta talent Adrian Holovaty from moving out of this fair city. Unfortunately, reminiscing about our old Commodore 64s and an overly trendy lunch didn't sway him. Glad to have met him, sorry it was the first time, he now is preparing to move on to a new job. Watch out Kansas! Read more about his career move here.

Director MX

Apple is helping sell the new version of Macromedia Director (Director MX).

W3's New Validator

The W3C has updated their validator service today!

Changes include improved result pages, accessibility fixes, restructured code and design, and more MathML, XHTML and SVG support.

http://validator.w3.org/

› November 23, 2002

Confessions of a Designer

A good read from StopDesign: "My name is Doug, and I'm a recovering Windows user." in Confessions of a Designer.

› November 22, 2002

Generate ics files with php

Interesting php scripts at this site, including one that creates ics files for iCal and other systems which use that standard.

› November 21, 2002

ONContent - synciation library

Are you currently offering a syndication feed of the rss or rdf variety? Do you wish to incorporate a variety of feeds into your site, but don't have the mojo to write your own system for doing so? If either of these cases are true for you, check out ONContent. It's a free service that serves to collect available feeds in a handy and organized environment. ONContent is the hard work of Bob Sawyer, it welcomes any syndication feeds you may wish to add, feeds are not gathered without permission of the author - so go add yours today. And of course, if you're looking to fold some feeds from ONContent into your site, there is now no longer a reason to wait.

› November 20, 2002

DOM Tests

Liorean was nice enough to point out some interesting discussion going on in the WDF-DOM list, namely tests to see which methods of DOM based table writing are fastest:
PPK's original page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ppk/js/innerhtml.html
Aaron's extension: [lost, url changed? can't seem to find it]

› November 19, 2002

OS X helpers

If, like me, you're new to OS X and slow to optimize your setup, you might like to know about LaunchBar (minimize mouse use, access more through just a few keystrokes) that Dean of Texism describes and / or Ittec (contextual menus for browsing files plus shortcuts, like FinderPop) that Grant of Splorp describes. I tend to lean towards having as few applications installed as possible, but this is probably because I'm used to having to reformat windows boxes every few months.

Hide/Show CSS for Omni Web only

CB found a way to target CSS for the Omni Web browser in: The one bug the Omni Group must not fix. Given the very quirky nature of CSS in that browser, this is a really good thing. Albeit a hack, it's simple enough to warrant doing, even for the very small Omni browsing group. This is via Owen.

› November 16, 2002

ALA: Flexible Layouts with CSSP

New article at A List Apart: Flexible Layouts with CSS Positioning by Dug Falby. ALA is great, not just for the informative articles, but for the discussions attached to each one - check it for further info and opinions on the CSSP topic.

› November 15, 2002

Open-Source For Us?

Skipping Dot Net : Licenses Down, Services Up

A great little essay on the Open Source vs. Closed Source dilemma. Many web designers have been using Open Source software whether they realize it or not for many years. Mozilla, Apache, and a host of other applications are all popular examples of success. More and more large companies are endorsing Open Source for Content Management Systems and backend solutions. I was wondering where do you, the average designer or developers, stand?

› November 14, 2002

Boxes and Arrows Update

From the Boxes and Arrows Email update:

Defining Feature Sets Through Prototyping
by Laura S. Quinn
Defining requirements and features can be a daunting task under the best of circumstances. The Vision Prototype allows the user-centered vision to be seen and discussed by all team members and then easily translated into a set of functional requirements.

Introducing Interaction Design
by Bob Baxley
Well-designed interactive products allow people and technology to carry on a complex and elegant dance relying on multiple, simultaneous forms of communication. A new 12-part series will discuss the activity of interaction design as it relates to the Web, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of the Web as an interactive medium.

Digital Web Interview with Jakob Nielsen

New at Digital Web:An interview with Dr. Jakob Nielsen, usability expert by Meryl K. Evans and Nick Finck. An informative read, this interview differentiates itself from the multitude of press Nielsen has received because of the caliber and perspective of the interviewers, more like the questions you or I would ask (if we were good at interviewing).

› November 12, 2002

Content to Code Ratio Tool at Holovaty.com

I'm sure many savvy readers ran into this already, as I've been out to lunch again and missed it last week: Adrian Holovaty put together a tool for measuring a content to code ratio he calls getContentSize. It measures page size with and without markup (no images or attached CSS, javascript measured in either case). It raises interesting questions because the tool does not reward good coding practices, but takes a wholesale look at how much of the data you're transfering is what folks are reading, and how much is markup related. Ostentiably it does favor less bloated code, in that heavily nested table sites are more likely to have higher non-content ratios, but it also give poor marks for a long list of links (which raises the question of how valuable a blog roll is when considering content for instance).
So how does this site fair? A pitiful 28.5% content! I am greatful for this tool, it has caused me to take a good look at why 71.5% of this site is markup, where and why all the bloat? Two main reasons: presentational markup which is really not necessary (and will be updated), and because I've flanked the weblog with two columns of links.
Kudos to Adrian for providing this thought provoking tool, and thanks to Meryl for linking to it.
[11/13 - fixed Mr. Holovaty's Name, incorrectly reported because I tend to be a bonehead]

› November 11, 2002

Macromedia Contribute

We have been discussing this pre-release last week, now the info, details, demos, etc are available. It's Macromedia's website content management system: Contribute. Anyone who is/will test out the trial version is encouraged to leave their thoughts as a comment, let us know what you think.

› November 9, 2002

Flash and XHTML validity

Important issue of A List Apart for those wanting to combine the advantages of Macromedia Flash within a valid XHTML page: Flash Satay. Especially interesting is how the author shared the analysis and experimentation process with the embed and object tags in an effort (well spent) towards cross browser compliance and XHTML validity.

Tips to make sure ease of use happens with your project

Why many web development projects don't end up with an easy to use interface, and tips to help avoid these problems at: The list of reasons why ease of use doesn't happen on engineering projects - uiweb.com, via beandizzy

› November 7, 2002

Request for a Weblog Entry Validator

I just finished validating my entire personal website, which is mostly comprised of my weblog. There were only a handful of pages outside the weblog, so they were relatively easy to validate and fix. However, the weblog contains over 250 entries, so it took some time to correct every error. To validate my weblog, I ran my monthly archives through the W3C validator, analyzed the validation report and then corrected the validation errors. Most validation errors were caused by unknown entities in URLs. I fixed these errors by running the URLs through the Hivelogic URL Cleaner.

I'm very happy to have a completely validating website, but fixing 50+ validation errors isn't something I want to do again anytime soon. That made me think about validating weblog entries on an individual basis within the Movable Type interface. Ideally, I'd like to type my post, and then before I save/publish it, click a button that would open a popup window and tell me if any validation errors existed in my text. Does anything like this exist? If not, is there anyone in the Movable Type community willing to create a new entry validator?

I previously started a thread at the Movable Type Support Forum on this topic. If you have any thoughts that might contribute to a solution, I encourage you to also reply in the support forum.

Accountability of Accessibility and Usability

This month's theme for Digital Web Magazine is usability. Kicking things off is a great article by Anitra Pavka that covers the lawsuit over Southwest's website and the "Accountability of Accessibility and Usability." For those who are still wondering why usability is important, you should read this article.

› November 6, 2002

DSpace

MIT and HP have unveiled a new web site, DSpace, to store the massive amount of information their two research centers churn out every year. Complements of ZDNet. This isn't a small web site either.

Eventually, MIT's system will wield more than a petabyte, or a quadrillion bytes of data.
Enjoy!

› November 5, 2002

A Content Managament System from Macromedia?

Think Secret breaks the story on Macromedia's upcoming announcement of a new dreamweaver-like CMS.

DHTML Table Fun

I've MPL'ed a bit of code from the Uzilla design application that allows a user to reorder table rows. It uses the no DOM whitespace library to deal with differences in IE and Mozilla's handling of spaces. Check it out. Works in IE and Mozilla and takes advantage of the abilities of browsers to read and manipulate arbitrary attributes on HTML elements.

Election UI

It's election day here in the states, and for the first time in my short voting history I had the opportunity to vote using a touchscreen interface. The user interface of this windows (95?, it sure looked old) machine caused me to chuckle a bit. There is even an online demo so I can show you what it was like, check it out here. Unfotunately the demo, in all it's ugly glory, fails to show some significant problems. Selection is indicated by a black X on a dark red background - isnt' that the convention for delete? To un-select, the previously selected must be clicked prior to making a new selection (this might have been done for good reason, I'm not sure). The "cast your ballot" button apears in an i-frame style window with a poorly repsonding scrollbar, below the viewable area - perhaps it would be better suited as a physical button?

On the other hand, there are a couple of really important things that are done right with this system: the blind and visually impared can choose to take an "audio ballot", and apparently there was some sort of "magnify" feature that I didn't notice. These features and the plain truth that I personally found it simple to use (for whatever that's worth), leads me to an overall positive conclusion about the system. There is more information about the specific system (including justification for the whopping price tag) I used here in Georgia at the Georgia Electronic Voting website.

Icon Designer Interview

Click the link because they guy is only 16 years old, but read the article because he knows what he's talking about.

An interview with Michael Matas by Derrick Story at O'Reily. Michael is an OS X icon designer who worked up the icons used in the new Watson interface, and now helps out the Omni group. Found via ranchero.

› November 4, 2002

Mozilla Trumps IE

As if we needed any more reasons to consider using a Mozilla-based browser, Neil Deakin serves up this list of 101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot. Did you know about Caret Browsing, View Selection Source, or the Link Toolbar? [via Ordinary-Life]

A new institute for IA

There is a new IA group that has been formed called The Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture or AIFIA for short. Their mission is basically to promote and educate others on what IA is and how it can be of benefit to practice. They are looking for people to get involved and help the effort. Their members include the likes of Christina Wodtke, Lou Rosenfeld, Victor Lombardi, Peter Morville, John Zapolski and many more.

› November 2, 2002

acronym, abbreviation, and other things

Saila explains the status of all things abbreviated, how to deal with them when typing up your markup, and what the ramifications are, read about it in his: HTML is not an acronym.

webgraphics blogroll

I've been thinking for a while that it would be handy (at least for me) to have the webgraphics blogroll in OPML format so that I could import it into NetNewsWire Lite on various computers. Today I went ahead and set that up (using NNW's handy export feature), and thought it might be nice to distribute, incase you would like to subscribe to the entire blogroll in one shot (not all sites are syndicated, but most are).
Simply download the following file (option/ctrl click and "save as"):
http://web-graphics.com/webgraphicsBlogroll.opml
FYI - I was also hoping to use the same file for the windows based feedreader, but it doesnt seem to have an import feature yet. I don't know to much about the OPML format, but I would hope that this file could be used with other systems that take advantage of the format.

› November 1, 2002

72, 96 and beyond...

Rumor has it that an Apple has been keen on utilizing IBM's technology for rolling out LCD monitors capable of displaying images and text sharper than that of a printed page.

Better yet, iridigm is set to trump IBM's offering by rolling out LCD displays capable of rendering 400-1000 dpi.

My question is, what on earth is going to drive these monster, high-def monitors?