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May, 2003Archives by MonthJuly, 2003

Archives by Month: June, 2003

Listed below are excerpts and links to all weblog, blog entries, posts published during June, 2003.

Possible Benefits for IE6 Backlash: More Standards Awareness and Use?

According to UK ZDNet’s Munir Kotadia in Monday’s article, Will Microsoft’s browser engine backfire?, “Microsoft may have unwittingly started a revolt against its Internet Explorer (IE) browser by discontinuing it as a standalone product and blurring the future of the current version, IE 6.” So many banks and similar companies have created IE-oriented Web support rather than creating standards-oriented support, and this article reports speculation that companies may be forced to reconsider a standards-based approach instead of a browser-specific approach, citing First Direct’s recent warning to its customers to upgrade their IE browsers before June 30th due to Microsoft discontinuing its... (695 words, 6 links)

10:11 pm, pdt30 June, 2003

Friday Feast #50: FeedDemon Beta, WaSP and Microsoft, Weblogs and RSS

Lots has been going around the weblogging posts all week, including all the flames back and forth related to the Echo Project Roadmap’s project to work toward a vendor-neutral, extensible weblog format that can be used by anyone. This project happens to include syndication format, and the flames around the Web about RSS are quite distracting from the task at hand. I certainly hope that stops soon. In an ideal world there would instead be healthy debate and discussion, but we’re all human and this isn’t a perfect world. I’d love to raise a big friendly flag and ask for... (783 words, 30 links)

09:38 pm, pdt27 June, 2003

CeBIT, Technology, Keyboards, and Mice

Robyn Peterson shares his opinions about The Sad State of Keyboards and Mice from CeBIT America. I agree with Robyn that keyboard design improvements have been slow from larger companies, such as Logitech and Microsoft. Smaller companies are doing quite a bit, though, and last April Robyn tried several keyboards and mice and provides helpful reviews and photos, outlines the pros and cons and provides his preferences of the best and why he feels that way in his helpful article Keyboard Kraziness & Mouse Madness.... (88 words, 5 links)

10:28 am, pdt26 June, 2003

It’s All About the User, Including Moms: Lindows and Windows

June 17th PapaScott wrote about installing Windows 2000 Pro on his mom’s computer. He’d love to install Linux for her but he also understands his mom not wanting to learn a second OS. On the other hand, a few days later over at ExtremeTech Jim Lynch wrote about having his mom try Lindows 4.0 in Mom Meets Linux - A Lindows 4.0 Review. Jim’s mom, who hadn’t previously worked with Linux, found her way around Lindows pretty easily. PapaScott’s mom works in Excel and Windows daily at work. I’m thinking that Jim and PapaScott ought to pow-wow about this, as maybe... (327 words, 4 links)

07:13 am, pdt26 June, 2003

An RSS Feed When There Isn’t One?

While many of my favorite sites have RSS feeds, some don’t yet offer them. Revjim.net has provided a free tool to help, an RSS Update Checker that checks for a webpage change, informing you via RSS feed when a webpage has updated. He states that it’s not perfect but that it can help fill in the gap for those sites that don’t yet offer RSS feeds. See his post, UpdateChecker: RSS based update notification. I’ve been using the RSS Update Checker for a few sites and this tool has worked great for letting me know via RSS when a site... (179 words, 12 links)

08:42 pm, pdt24 June, 2003

Weblog Format Standards?

Mark Pilgrim asks about A fresh start? with weblog formatting standards. You’ll find plenty of comments at Mark’s site, of course, especially around RSS. But head over to Sam Ruby’s wiki, Log Format Roadmap where people have been discussing the details and adding comments, and you’re welcome to join in if you wish. See also The Conceptual Model of a Log Entry. I think a vendor-neutral extensible approach that can be easily implemented by anyone is a good way to go.... (83 words, 4 links)

12:15 am, pdt24 June, 2003

Friday Feast #49: CSS Approaches to External Links

All around the Web you’ll see quite a range of approaches to handling links to external sites. Some force a new window to open, some give visitors a choice of opening in a new window or not, some sites provide visual cues to identify external links, and some treat internal and external links visually the same. What if you’d like to visually identify external links for users without having to change your existing markup in any way and without knowing a programming language? Today’s Feast explores user-friendly options for external links, including possibilities with CSS. (667 words, 21 links, 2 images)

06:56 pm, pdt20 June, 2003

Weblogs and Permalinks: Reflecting Back

Tom Coates of plasticbag.org wrote an interesting article last week On Permalinks and Paradigms... exploring how permalinks work, who coined the term 'permalink' and how the permalink started in the first place. Just as interesting to read is the comments section for Tom’s article where you’ll find quite a few pioneers of the early blogging days commenting and sharing stories and links. Tom’s article got my brain thinking back in time, too. When I started my weblog during December 2000 and used the 'permalink' term for my post links I remember a few people were concerned that others might... (206 words, 4 links)

03:29 pm, pdt18 June, 2003

More Interviews with Jeffrey Zeldman

This week’s WebReference Update includes Andy King interviewing Jeffrey Zeldman about cause campaigns, web standards, the recent news about IE6 Win/IE5 Mac and how that may impact web designers and standards, and more. Also this week is the second part of Jeffrey Zeldman’s interview with Brian Alvey at Meet the Makers. In this second part, Jeffrey talks about the history of his websites, writing a weblog, connecting via the Internet, and more.... (72 words, 6 links, 1 image)

05:27 pm, pdt17 June, 2003

Friday Feast #48: Bookmarklets, CSS Charts, RSS, Stock Photos, Wi-fi and Wireless

Today’s Feast, as usual, covers a variety of topics, including more bookmarklet resources, a helpful CSS chart, using definition lists, a new stock photo and art site, several links about RSS use, wi-fi and wireless news, and other tidbits. More on Bookmarklets When I mentioned some bookmarklet resources in last week’s Feast I figured most folks reading my weblog already knew about Tantek Çelik’s favelets and bookmarklets.com; however, even if you already know about them, both sites have updates and are more than worth a revisit. CSS If you haven’t yet visited MacEdition’s Abridged Guide to CSS2 Support, check... (705 words, 23 links)

07:06 am, pdt13 June, 2003

Zeldman, Standards, and Meet the Makers Interview

A Conversation With Jeffrey Zeldman On Web Standards is a new and insightful interview with Jeffrey Zeldman by Brian Alvey. Jeffrey talks about how and why the Web Standards Project (WaSP) started, Huey Lewis and WaSP today, web typography and pixels vs. ems, the practicality of standards, CSS, XHTML, government guidelines, Designing with Web Standards, and helpful resources.... (65 words, 10 links, 1 image)

10:31 pm, pdt11 June, 2003

New CD Release Despite Vandross’s Stroke, Hospitalization

Luther Vandross, king of the velvety romantic voice and R&B, remains hospitalized but is finally semi-conscious now after suffering a serious stroke almost two months ago.[1] Just before his stroke Vandross was working on the final touches for his new CD to be released tomorrow, June 10, 2003, entitled “Dance With My Father.” You can listen to three of the songs from his new CD at the official Luther Vandross website. Vandross also shares some of his thoughts about this new CD, and you can read more about his music and his life. The title track from the new CD,... (548 words, 14 links, 1 image)

09:05 pm, pdt 9 June, 2003

More on FeedDemon and Bradsoft

Last week I wrote about my alpha version testing first impressions for the upcoming FeedDemon, created by Bradsoft’s Nick Bradbury. Oskar van Rijswijk is also testing FeedDemon’s alpha version and has a few thoughts about FeedDemon. For those not familiar with Bradsoft, TopStyle is another software product created by Bradsoft. TopStyle started out as a standards-based CSS editor but is now a full-blown HTML/XHTML/CSS editor. In addition to using TopStyle for those purposes, I also use TopStyle to write my daily weblogs, which I then copy/paste into Blogger’s web form to upload. Nick Bradbury, the creator of TopStyle and... (217 words, 17 links)

02:05 pm, pdt 8 June, 2003

More on Bookmarklets

After reading this past week’s Friday Feast that included links to helpful bookmarklets, Oskar van Rijswijk kindly sent me an email about LucDesk’s Useful Bookmarklets. I immediately added it to Friday’s post, but I wanted to be sure to mention it separately, too. Thanks, Oskar!... (47 words, 4 links)

01:35 pm, pdt 8 June, 2003

Letterman’s Top 10 and President Bush

I don’t post much on weekends these days, and I don’t discuss politics much at my weblog, either; however, I’ll make exceptions this time. Karlin Lillington’s weblog posted May 6th’s Top 10 by David Letterman, Top Ten President Bush Excuses For Not Finding Weapons of Mass Destruction. For more of Letterman’s Top 10 lists, The Late Show with David Letterman has online The Top 10 Archives, which includes quite a few Top Ten lists about President Bush (for the current Bush and his father), including Top Ten President Bush Excuses For Not Finding Weapons of Mass Destruction. Now I’m going... (131 words, 5 links)

12:43 pm, pdt 8 June, 2003

Friday Feast #47: Web Standards, TypePad, FeedDemon, RSS, Moblogging, and Photography

Today’s Feast covers web standards and TypePad, nifty bookmarklets for web developers and anyone who uses a browser, blogs, RSS, Wikis, moblogging, and photography. This was easily put together with the help of Bradsoft’s FeedDemon alpha version that I’m testing by using the “News Bins” that I mentioned the other day—drag and drop links into organized bins to save for reference. Web Standards and TypePad A List Apart has a new article out today about TypePad, A Standards Compliant Publishing Tool for the Rest of Us? TypePad is an upcoming personal publishing service created by Six Apart,... (631 words, 43 links)

05:21 pm, pdt 6 June, 2003

Upcoming FeedDemon RSS Reader and Organizer

Progress continues with Bradsoft’s upcoming FeedDemon, a Windows desktop RSS reader/organizer. Even in the private alpha version that I’m testing, Nick Bradbury’s trademark of a user-friendly interface and thoughtful features make this RSS reader and organizer one that stands out in a big way. Bradsoft’s Nick Bradbury describes FeedDemon as “a Windows desktop RSS reader/organizer.” This alpha version doesn’t have a Help file or instructions yet, but I haven’t missed them anyway, as Nick tries to create software that’s easy enough to use even without reading the Help files. In addition to organizing feeds easily, I can also click... (523 words, 9 links)

09:44 pm, pdt 4 June, 2003

RSS, Changing How We Experience the Web, Browsers, and Microsoft vs. AOL Time Warner

Last week’s post Friday Feast #46: The World of RSS Explorations was about how my Internet experience has changed for the better by taking advantage of finally utilizing RSS feeds. Little did I know that a few days before that Tim Bray wrote a thought-provoking post, Bye-bye Home Page? that explores how RSS has changed his hard drive’s HTML “home page” experience and ponders how much home pages in general really matter. While I don’t use custom portal pages much and for the same reasons as Tim, I also agree that dressing up the home page isn’t how to keep... (705 words, 12 links)

04:55 pm, pdt 4 June, 2003

Moblogging, GPS, and Mobile Phones

Chatting on IRC at Joi Ito’s IRC channel Monday night was far too much fun, and I met some terrific people there. Check it out sometime if you can. I was also fascinated with what Joi mentioned to me about moblogging and GPS at the Tokyo Bits site. Take note of the “location” links under a couple of the photos and you’ll find the longitude and latitude coordinates and a map of where the photos were taken. GPS Details for Tokyo Tidbits explains the code behind how Tokyo Tidbits does it magic with the photos, GPS, and accompanying maps.... (700 words, 20 links)

06:55 pm, pdt 3 June, 2003

More on What’s a Weblog...

Continuing the topic from Sunday’s post, What’s a Weblog Anyway? Marc Canter has an insightful post about weblogs, wikis, and social software with interesting links, too, of course.... (29 words, 3 links)

09:47 pm, pdt 2 June, 2003

What’s a Weblog, Anyway?

I suspect many of us who write weblogs have attempted to describe what a weblog is to someone who’s never seen one before. I may describe my own as similar to a daily column where I write mostly about web design, technology, and related topics. That barely scratches the surface to describe my weblog or weblogs in general, and that description may not even begin to fit others' weblogs, either, as each one is unique; however, by relating to a term or phrase someone is already familiar with, such as a daily column, the person at least gets an... (452 words, 18 links)

11:11 pm, pdt 1 June, 2003

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