Web Thoughts

Feb 4

ToddArticle, Design, Programming, Web , , , , , No Comments

Col. Nathan R. Jessep

You can’t handle the truth!

It’s now clear, I have become this man;

Gordon Ramsay

or that’s what some of my peers in the web industry have compared me too.

I find it disingenuous that people in this business do a number of things, one is to sugar coat critiquing a web site. Whether it’s from 2009 or whether it is from 1989. Things in the web today need to change, for accessibility and usability sake.

I also don’t like it when companies or firms;

  • Under cut and provide shoddy service. Pumping out a template in a shoddy CMS (like Joomla for instance).
  • Over charge and provide second-rate service.
  • Don’t do their QA correctly and test on 4 browsers.
  • $99 a page and Google “free web templates.”
  • Sell you SEO services that you need to take a 2nd mortgage out on.
  • Flat designs and exorbitant prices.
  • Stop running scripts that don’t work in everyone else’s browser.
  • Hiring people to code a site and they cannot even nest tags right and nest tables like they’re going out of style.

This site for instance; did not load in Firefox 3.0.6 and threw up a Javascript error. Just because it works in IE and on your machine, doesn’t mean it will run on mine. Also, do you really need to run the script?

Or this site that is a high volume site. Timmy can do great in Dreamweaver, but he can’t hand-code a template to save his life. Either that or Billy forgot that these tags;

<font> and <center> are depreciated and not well-liked anymore by the general design community. It’s 2009, not 1989.

The web as a whole, in my mind, as Gordon Ramsay would put it, is “in the shit.” Literally. taking you, the reader back to this article posted not too long ago, just validating a site just to make sure your designer/developer is writing code that’s going to work, should be a high priority. Long gone is the care that an ampersand is validated. Is that <div> tag in the right place? If not, then your site may look good in IE, but it’s broken in Firefox or Opera.

I hear more and more that small business owners on a tight budget are getting fleeced by these “professional design firms” in this area and around the world. Sure, Studio ABC has this long list of accolades on their “Awards” page, but their Portfolio page looks like an arid desert. They got a couple good pieces, but look at the code and it looks like this;

Did you get all that?

Anyone (like this fellow here) that offers the advice to publish a web page, document or any other content with Microsoft Word ought to have his fingernails pulled from his hands and dipped in gasoline. Worst advice ever.

Let’s stop using interns, let’s clean up our web pages, and please, oh please, keep the word processing programs to just that. Word processing and printing on paper. Please stop using word processors to pump out 1MB web pages that should be 4kb’s heavy.

CSS Notes – Vol. 1

Feb 4

ToddArticle , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I went back in time. Looking at some of the sites I have done and/or collaborated on and cringed a bit. It was all in the evolution of what I can do today I know now, but looking back, I still cringed. From the point in time I started to dabble solely in front-end development, I instantly got hooked and tried to find and do the best methods possible, while getting the job done quickly and efficiently.

My biggest thing back then, about 3 year ago plus, was this;

a {

    outline: none;

    }

* {

    margin: 0;

    padding: 0;

    }

Two of the biggest “no-no’s” in my book today. Again, it was all in the learning process. Especially the turning off of the outlining in the a href. A BIG accessibility mistake. The universal star “hack” (for lack of a better term) or Universal Child Selector isn’t really an accessibility no-no as much as some are calling it unnecessary. To me, it’s not really a big deal.

To each his own.

I have been referring myself to Eric Meyer’s Universal Child Replacement Technique.

There are numerous tips and tricks these days it seems. Many more than I can recall 2-3 years back when I was really immersing myself in (X)HTML/CSS. Alphabetizing everything in your style sheets (something that I don’t think really matters, especially when you have a rule that needs to come before others.), indenting a certain number of tab stops, one line style sheets (something I abhor), and more.

I often refer myself to Roger Johansson’s CSS Tips and Tricks, Part One and Part Two.

Trenton Moss has an article on 10 CSS Tricks You May Not Know over at Evolt and there are four years worth of tips, tricks, and helpful articles and advice over at 24 Ways by a bevy of authors.

I’ve taken bits and pieces and the words from these authors and put them to good use. You should too if you’re reading this. I even learned a little accessibility lesson from Bruce about using a link that says “here.” Thanks to Bruce for that. A more descriptive link like “Link to Article over at Opera” so that people know what they are clicking, or if they have a screen reader, etc.

I’ve been big on accessibility, usability and standards of late. Making a push for sites to change, providing only the best articles for those who have questions, learning myself along the way. I don’t think I will ever stop learning, and that’s not a bad thing to say.

The turning point for me was attending An Event Apart in Boston, in June of ‘07. Meeting the people I met and talking briefly to them (I was a little awestruck at the time) I had not only a great 3 days (got into Beantown a day early), but I had an experience of learning that I will never forget.

I’ve been meaning to contact those I had questions for, but life had gotten extremely hectic. Now that I have a little time, I think I may do so.

As far as what this post is about. It’s about learning. The desire to learn. The desire to read and arm oneself with the tools to make better websites. Something I hope to do by getting my name back out there and jumping back into the world of web design/development again.

I’ve provided what i think are the best articles to learn from to people on Twitter and try to provide helpful hints as to what I have learned and know already. I hope I’m doing a good job. I hope that everyone that makes websites wants to continually learn and provide users with the best experience possible with the newer, more improved ways of coding and making web sites.