Category: Accessibility

Interesting Links 1.25.08

  • PDF Hammer – PDF Hammer is a website that allows you to edit your PDF files online for free.
  • Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8 – When a new version of that browser comes along and fixes bugs or misinterpretations of the spec (or introduces new ones) or in any way changes behavior, sites break and our clients, bosses, and users get very unhappy.
  • From Switches to Targets: A Standardista’s Journey -This actually makes browser vendors more susceptible to pressure to fix their bugs, and less fearful of doing so. That’s huge, as fundamentally game changing as was DOCTYPE switching, but on an ongoing basis.
  • Better Email Links: Featuring CSS Attribute Selectors  – We can use this similarity between links to our advantage, so that we can apply CSS styling to only email links.
  • Understanding CSS Colour modes – CSS 2 and 3 offer a number of different ways to pick colours. While everyone knows the hexadecimal notation, fewer people know the RGB notation and colour keywords, and the new colour modes that CSS3 introduces are still a riddle to most.
  • Draft of HTML 5 Hints at a Brave New Web – HTML 5 presents a major change from HTML 4, and it will still be a long time before you’re likely to see HTML 5 markup in your browser.
  • HTML 5 – W3C Working Draft 22 January 2008. This is the draft straight from the W3C. Not the easiest thing to read/understand, but certainly a great resource (obviously).
  • HTML 5 differences from HTML 4 – HTML 5 defines the fifth major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web, HTML. This article describes the differences between HTML 4 and HTML 5 and provides some of the rationale for the changes.
  • HTML5 Shiv – Assuming that it’ll be a while before most browsers attempt to implement most of HTML 5 we need to start thinking of ways to tackle the creation and rendering of HTML 5 components in the meantime.

Perhaps you figured out the pattern for these links (except for the PDF hammer link)? The HTML 5 draft was finally released on the 22nd of January. The web has been a twitter with this and the fact that Microsoft has said that Internet Explorer 8 will include a “super standards” mode. The key is that this standards mode will require a particular META tag to enable this type of rendering. This has also sent the web into a frenzy because people are claiming that this will destroy progressive enhancement. The truth of the matter, as Eric Meyer points out, is that this will not be a detrimental change. The key moving forward will be that your websites will theoretically continue to work exactly how you coded them for the foreseeable future. In theory, even if we’re all using IE10 your website that was designed for IE6 will still render just fine. The other point that Eric makes is that browser vendors will be able to implement new web standards much more quickly now that they’d no longer need to fear breaking millions of websites. Essentially current websites would remain untouched by new changes to IE’s rendering engine. Unless the developer specifically codes the website to use the new render engine, which we can assume means that the developer has tested the page for issues, it would default to the legacy rendering engine that has proven to work. This is really a good thing for web designers, web standards supporters, and browser vendors.

Interesting Links 11.10.07

  • To WWW or not and how to redirect your blog – WWW can make all the difference in the eyes of Google
  • Top Firefox 2 config tweaks – Beyond the extensive options available in its menus and dialogs, there’s a lengthy set of advanced Firefox preferences that can customize the browser to your specific needs.
  • APML: The Next Big Thing or the Next FOAF – The concept of APML is that it allows you to share your “attention profile” data with other users, organisations or programs in the same way you might share your OPML file with someone.
  • Source of ‘optimism’ found in the brain – The act of imagining a positive future event – such as winning an award or receiving a large sum of cash – activates two brain areas known as the amygdala and the rostral anterior cingulated cortex (rACC).
  • Explaining semantic mark-up – One problem is that some people don’t understand the difference it makes, so therefore let me humbly make an attempt to explain why semantics is important.
  • POSH – Plain Old Semantic HTML – POSH, in case you haven’t heard of it already, is short for “Plain Old Semantic HTML”, and is obviously much quicker and easier to say than “valid, semantic, accessible, well-structured HTML”.
  • YouGetSignal.com – Open Ports Tool: The port forwarding tester is a utility used to identify your external IP address and detect open ports on your connection.
  • 25 Photographs Taken at the Exact Right Time – Timing is everything, particularly in the case of amazing photography. Sometimes that means waiting through a whole sports game and getting lucky to catch just the right shot.
  • USB Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon install – This tutorial enables you to install, boot and run Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) from USB.
  • Top 100 Mac Apps – I’ve compiled a list of my top 100 Mac apps for your perusal, since so many people have been asking for it.

Sorry, too many links and too little time to talk about all of these individually. I’ve amassed this list over the past 2 weeks. Enjoy.

Interesting Links 10.19.07

  • A beautiful mind – Schizophrenia is potentially a very creative tool which, as yet, has not been understood or recognised and is mistreated and so its powerful symptoms manifest as confusion and destruction.
  • Schizophrenics gain by practice, not meds – A U.S. study suggested cognitive gains in schizophrenic patients treated with newer antipsychotic medications are due to practice effects, not the drugs.
  • How schizophrenia develops: Major clues discovered – Schizophrenia may occur, in part, because of a problem in an intermittent on/off switch for a gene involved in making a key chemical messenger in the brain, scientists have found in a study of human brain tissue.
  • Brain cell growth diminishes long before old age strikes – While other research groups have made similar observations in the brains of rodents, this is the first time the decrease in new cell growth, known as neurogenesis, has been noted in a primate, the biological order that also includes apes and humans.
  • Light shone within brains of mice reveals secrets of sleep-wake cycle – By flickering a special light inside the brains of sleeping mice to wake them up, Stanford researchers have shown that they can induce behavior in a living mammal by directly controlling specific neural cells.

It’s been a crazy week between papers, quizzes, work, running 5 sessions of my independent research…Needless to say, I haven’t had an opportunity to post any of the links before now. The first group is entirely psych related links (mostly Schizophrenia), and it’s very interesting stuff that is worth the read. The article that I thought was particularly interesting/sad was the one regarding individuals with Schizophrenia showing progress based on practice effects, not the wonderful meds everyone thought were so effective. That would really suck if that’s true (which it seems like it probably is).

  • 250+ Tools and Resources For Coding the Web – We’re all living on the web, and we all seem to be starting our own websites, so it’s time we all learned the languages that make it run.
  • CSS Vertical Bar Graphs – Eric Meyer has been keeping a secret since 2005 about CSS Vertical Bar Graphs. Well, not really, but it is good that he has come out with a nifty demo on how to do this.
  • A List Apart: Findings From the Web Design Survey – In April 2007, A List Apart and An Event Apart conducted a survey of people who make websites. Close to 33,000 web professionals answered the survey’s 37 questions, providing the first data ever collected on the business of web design and development as practiced in the U.S. and worldwide.
  • 21 Facts About The Internet You Should Know – You probably use it every day but how well do you know your Internet?
  • Verizon Wireless: If you don’t opt out, we get to share your CPNI call data – Over the weekend, a small storm erupted over new legal language that Verizon Wireless is passing quietly on to its subscribers. It appears as though the cellular provider is changing its terms of service to give the company the right to share sensitive calling data with third parties.
  • BitLet – the BitTorrent Applet – download a torrent without using a desktop application. perfect when you’re at work…

The second group is the normal miscellaneous tech links. The ALA Web Design Survey is worth the read if you’re a web designer. If you are a Verizon subscriber be sure and read the article linked above. Verizon sucks my ass. There I said it. I can definitely see BitLet being very useful. I could have used it a few times in the past…

Interesting Links 10.5.07

  • Colors of the Top 20 Magazine Covers -I’ve always been fascinated with the cover font color choices magazine editors make. …we thought we would look at some of the most iconic covers in history.
  • notMac Challenge – A free .Mac alternative. This is the winning application from a $8,000 competition.
  • Best of Screensavers -In fact, we don’t need screensavers any more, however we tend to use them as eye-candy for our coffee breaks.
  • Liveblogging the big iPhone 1.1.1 hack -By using symbolic links before doing a 1.1.1 upgrade, they were able to gain access to the entire 1.1.1 file tree.

The first link is pretty interesting in my opinion, but then again I am basically a typography nerd who finds this kind of thing cool. The notMac application has possibilities, but I’ve failed to get it up and running so far. Ideally you want to have a separate server to run this from, and then you connect using the client on your Mac. It has potential, but give it a month or two to mature a bit. Screensavers are always pretty, and as the article correctly points out: we really don’t even need screensavers any more, but people like eye candy as we all know. The final link regarding the iPhone v1.1.1 hack is interesting to me just because I have an iPod touch. In theory any hack for the iPod v1.1.1 would also result in a hack for my iPod touch…so that’s exciting. It’s a fairly handy device, but 3rd party applications would be incredibely useful (considering they intentionally maimed the calendar…no add event? really?).

Interesting Links: 8.12.07

It’s been another one of those weeks where way too much is going on during the week so I collect bookmarks to read and post about individually, but we know that doesn’t happen. So here is a week in review:

  1. Regular expression can seem scary, but they can be very useful in the right situation.
  2. If the default system applications in Windows can’t do something that you’d like to do then look for alternatives. You will find a plethora of great alternatives (and they are usually free too).
  3. Cygwin is an interesting thing, and I won’t lie: I still don’t think I have quite got my head around when/why I’d use it. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve tried to do a “ls” at the Windows crapline command line.
  4. CSS layouts can be an easy thing to code, but the initial planning to decide which type of layout to use is always the biggest challenge. This is a great summary of the trade offs for each type of layout.
  5. HTML 5 is still a ways off in the future, I realize that, but I am still intrigued by the possibilities that it might will bring when it’s ready. Mark my words, Microsoft will join the development effort eventually.

Interesting Links: 7.2.07

  • 7 JavaScript Techniques You Should Be Using: One thing to keep in mind as you go through these examples is that there is definitely more than one way to accomplish these tasks—the goal here is to shed a little light on how things can be done in a smarter way.
  • Coding for Content: It all started with one simple goal—an almost obsessive focus on content. That quickly translated to design ideas, but the visual framework was merely the tip of the iceberg.
  • NoFunc Javascript files: Why include ten .js files (ala Yahoo UI) to create one simple effect? Nomadic functions are small, optimized, and fairly specific.

I’ve been sitting on these links for nearly 4 months…oops. This is what happens when my OCD kicks in, and I file several bookmarks in my “Read Later” folder and then promptly forget about the folder. Anyways, very interesting links, well worth the read. The NoFunc site is particularly useful.

Microsoft Surface Thoughts

I didn’t want to clutter the previous post (the one with all the videos) will my thoughts so I figured I’d write this separately. I will just start off with this, Microsoft Surface is ridiculously cool. Not only is this technology cool and interesting, it will also be very useful.
Side note: My big dream job is working on ways to improve the human/computer interaction because frankly, it sucks right now. The way in which people interact with computers is so far from intuitive that it’s almost laughable considering the kind of technology we now have available to us.
What I previously said leads me to say this, I think this Surface technology is a HUGE step in the right direction for improving this human/computer interaction. I’ll base most of my comments on the videos posted in the previous post so if you’re confused then watching a few of those videos may help to illuminate what I’m talking about.
Continue reading “Microsoft Surface Thoughts” →

reCAPTCHA: Fight Spam, Read a Book

reCAPTCHA: the official website
reCAPTCHA: A new way to fight spam

You might notice that reCAPTCHA has two words. Why? reCAPTCHA is more than a CAPTCHA, it also helps to digitize old books. One of the words in reCAPTCHA is a word that the computer knows what it is, much like a normal CAPTCHA. However, the other word is a word that the computer can’t read. When you solve a reCAPTCHA, we not only check that you are a human, but use the result on the other word to help read the book!

A very interesting idea, and I think it might just work. Two problems I see here, 1. someone could just as easily mistype the second word (because that is the one you’re helping the computer “read”). This would lead to the computer related OCR recognition being completely wrong. Correctly me if I am wrong, but I’d like to hope these words that we are helping computers to “read” should be compared with the other responses from so-called humans. In theory if 95% of people say a particular word is “the” and 5% of people say the word is “then” well then the choice of “the” should win out right? 2. CAPTCHA, the original CAPTCHA, still haven’t really taken off all that well. I don’t have any exact numbers, but I’d imagine the proliferation of CAPTCHA is somewhere around 25-35% of web forms. That really isn’t a huge number. Based on that, I can’t imagine web developers are going to promptly leap over to a new (or evolved) technology in any kind of mass migration. This sounds like a great idea, and I may just get around to add this to my blog. That being said, I definitely will not be in any kind of hurry to implement this.