Raible Designs

Flexible CSS Layouts

I feel like I quote Zeldman a lot, but he always has such good things to share that I can't help it! This time it's Issue 155 of A List Apart, for people who make websites: “Flexible Layouts with CSS Positioning.” He also suggests that we read “Accountability of Accessibility and Usability” by Anitra Pavka. The title’s a mouthful but the content is easy to digest. Pavka examines web accessibility in the light of recent legal challenges and invites our industry to create guidelines instead of waiting for Big Brother to tell us what to do.

BTW, anyone know why he uses target="eljefe" in his <a href>'s? I always end up removing them in my source. I say let the user do what they want - if they want to open the link in a new window, right click -> open in new tab. Notice I said tab, not window - who uses IE anymore when Phoenix has it all and more!

Kurt reveals some Dirt

Kurt finally fessed up and told us a little about himself. Thanks Kurt! He also does a little nudging for us to tell about our first job out of school. I already did one post on this and how I worked for MCI Systemhouse out of school, but I didn't tell you about the project. I started with SHL (another name for Systemhouse, now owned by EDS) on August 4th, 1997. I had a two week project in Fort Collins (75 miles north of Denver) creating a Microsoft Access client to talk to an Oracle backend for Larimer County. I didn't mind the commute and the long hours, but the project was certainly stressfull for it being my first. I was working with one other guy from SHL who didn't know squat and was later canned. After that project, I started on a Y2K inventory and assessment at StorageTek. While this project was a little more fun, and the people were great, SHL had a ridiculous methodology for doing Y2K assessments. So we ended up re-writing most of their methodology and used it pretty successfully. It was a cool project because I was doing presentations to all the head honchos at StorageTek and I felt like I was rubbing shoulders with the elite crowd. I met Julie at MCI new-hire training in January 1998, and doubled my salary in March 1998 by becoming a contractor with IBM. The rest of the story can be found in how I started Raible Designs.

SVG 1.1 and Mobile SVG

Erik gave me the link to this slashdot article, which references the W3C's website:

15 November 2002: W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 and Mobile SVG to Proposed Recommendations. Comments are welcome through 20 December. SVG delivers vector graphics, text, and images to the Web in XML. SVG 1.1 separates the SVG language into reusable building blocks. Mobile SVG re-combines them into two profiles optimized for cellphones and pocket computers. (News archive)

You would think that this CNET article would have said something about Mobile SVG, but no dice. I think Mobile SVG will make huge inroads considering that the alternative and how lightweight it is.

RSS Relative Links

Yeah, what he said!

I've invalidated my RSS feed by including relative URL references inside some of the IMG tags. Question: if I am required to include a LINK element in my RSS feed, is there a reason RSS aggregators can't use it to resolve relative links? The $REMOTE_HOST or equivalent? Given that people have been using relative URLs in pages for years, I'd expect RSS tools to be a bit more flexible in this regard. I mean, browsers can handle relative URIs, right?

Scott holds a lot more clout than I do in the web world - I'll be surprised if his post doesn't cause waves. He'll also show you how to parse your site's XML feed with CSS and the DOM.

VW Bugs Rule

I don't know if any of you are into Volkswagens - but I've been a huge Bug fan for many years now. I got my first VW Beetle in 1991 - a 1969. I rebuilt the engine (1835), repainted it (hot pink) and thoroughly enjoyed it. In college, I killed it by driving it from Salem, OR (remember the 1993 story) to Denver. So I bought a 1968, in very good condition, for $600 and swapped engines. I drove that for a couple years until I was cut off on the way to the airport on Christmas Eve 1997. It was snowing and slippery roads, so I found myself wrapped around a tree and the victim of a cut-off and run. Luckily, a undercover cop saw the whole thing and busted the guy. It was probably a good think I wrecked my old bug, 'cause I met Julie 3 weeks later, and she would've hated that thing! It was a POS with a nice engine, nice stereo and nice wheels. You know they kind of car I'm talking about - I didn't have any primer on it though. I waited a couple years before buying my next bug - a 2000 Turbo Beetle. It's been a great car, fast and fun and for sale. But that's not the reason for this post - just wanted to share some cool VW desktops I found from one of my favorite magazines - VWTrends.

It's amazing how much more fun it was to write this post than all the other ones today.

W3C Supports SVG

I found this while using the latest (1.0.2) version of NetNewsWire to surf my RSS subscriptions.

In a development that could help Adobe erode some of Macromedia's vector graphics lead, the Web's most influential standards group issued a draft designed to make its vector graphics standard work more easily on cell phones.

Facing an end-of-year publishing deadline, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) this week also released a flurry of proposals covering linking and querying Web pages and XML documents.

But the consortium reserved most of its enthusiasm for the vector graphics changes, which it hopes will help nudge the industry away from the accepted--and proprietary--standard, Macromedia's Flash technology.

"What we're seeing are some exciting developments on the SVG front," said W3C representative Janet Daly.

SVG, or (Scalable Vector Graphics), is the W3C's method for creating vector graphics, which are more flexible than the common bitmaps that form most of the graphics on the Web. In contrast to bitmaps, which are shipped fully rendered and defined pixel by pixel, vector graphics are composed of mathematical descriptions of curves and forms. This composition results in a more compact file, the ability to render the image to fit television or monitor screens with varying resolutions, and greater ease in animating the image. [W3C sees graphics on cell phones]

SVG is cool - it allows you to draw graphics using XML. It'll certainly make for lighter web pages and flash-type presentations using simply text. Watch this one, it'll be hot!

Later: I found this simple SVG Example and a whole slew of W3C Presentations.

New Domain Name - javawebapps.com

You can now find this site at www.javawebapps.com. Hopefully, this is much easier to remember (and spell) than www.raibledesigns.com. Probably the best $35 I've ever spent and a fairly inexpensive marketing strategy. If you ever need to tell anyone about this site (don't know why you would), you can now use javawebapps.com. Let's see how many times I can type java web apps in this post. I've got to get past Anthony on Google's results - he's on page 2 right now (I'm on page 4).

Can your blog do this?

Lance has added spell checking to Roller! Sweet - nice job Lance. The Roller Editor just keeps getting better and better. Wanna check it out? This site is running the latest CVS build as of 2:10 p.m. MST. The Test Weblog has the spell checker in it. Feel free to test away - and be sure to leave positive (and negative) feedback.

Quotes in HTML

Did you know that just like " = &quot; and ' = &apos; in HTML, there are equivalents for the left and right quotes as well:

• &rsquo; = ’ (right single quote)
• &lsquo; = ‘ (left single quote)
• &rdquo; = ” (right double quote)
• &ldquo; = “ (left double quote)

Your browser should be able to render these properly, if not, please comment so we can figure out why. For a complete listing, check out this HTML Symbol Reference. My reason for posting this is I've been wondering how to do the left and right quote thing, and now I know!

iCal, iPhoto and iTunes Goodies

I found some sweet links in the latest issue of Macworld magazine. If you're a Mac user, check 'em out!

• BetterHTMLExport for iPhoto on Mac OS X [Download]
• Apple's Calendar Library - subscribe to your favorite events
• iCalShare - a whole gamut of cool calendars
• netTunes - iTunes remote control solution for networked users

I've mentioned them before, but I feel it's worth mentioning again: Outlook2Mac ($10) and Outport (free) are great for transferring your Outlook data to iCal and Address Book. I tried Outlook2Mac, but the trial only allows for export of a few contacts, so I use Outport - seems to work great for me. I still experience a problem with Address Book though - my Contact's mobile numbers show up as "Main" numbers. I believe this is an Address Book problem since they show up correctly in Entourage.