Buzz Archives for July 2004
Netscape Lives!
It doesn't have the cryptic appeal of 'Frodo Lives!' scrawled on a subway station wall, but it does have the advantage of being true: an updated version of Netscape — version 7.2 — is due on August 3rd. Based on version 1.7 of the Mozilla suite, Netscape 7.2 won't be ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- Defenestrating Tables
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Fellow WaSP Douglas Bowman has posted a analysis of the benefits of tableless design. It's based on his presentation at Digital Design World in which he made-over Microsoft's home page using only CSS for layout. What's makes this post especially interesting is Bowman's focus on real-world business benefits: I thought it was ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in CSS, Training
- The Value of Samaritanism
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Inspired by the Odeon debacle, former WaSP extraordinaire Jeffrey Zeldman holds forth on the value of good samaritans who build accessible, standards-compliant versions of popular web sites for free. Zeldman also gives an excellent analysis of the accessibility and usability problems with Odeon's official site and how samaritan Matthew Somerville addressed ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Accessibility, Browsers, Usability, Web Standards (general)
- CSS to Go
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CSS guru Eric Meyer has announced the release of the CSS Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition. My copy of the first edition is among the well-worn pile of books I lug around in my laptop bag on all extended trips. Looks like it's finally going to get a well-earned leave of duty.
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in CSS
- Web GUIs: Brendan Eich and Miguel de Icaza on Avalon & XAML
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Jon Udell recently discussed XAML and Avalon, Microsoft's next-generation GUI development technologies, with chief Mozilla architect Brendan Eich and Ximian, Mono and GNOME leader Miguel de Icaza . XAML and Avalon represent the future of Windows applications. The fact that XAML is a declarative markup language — an implementation of XML, ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Adaptive accessibility
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IBM has a new service called WAT that promises to help make web sites — even those that aren't standards-compliant — more accessible. WAT accomplishes this feat by manipulating web pages before they are displayed to the user. SeniorNet, one of the organizations working with IBM on the service, has ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Accessibility
- Popular Magazine Not Cool with Us
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Family Circle Magazine's Web site gives you the upgrade your browser message when viewing it in Mozilla v1.7, Safari, or FireFox v0.92. Opera v7.5, however, does work. Ah, after more than double my coffee in take due to a bad night's sleep, I have woken up to why it doesn't work. ...
By Meryl K. Evans | Filed in Browsers
- Honey. Vinegar. Flies.
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While I'm quite sure this post won't be seen by the folks who most need to read it, I feel the need to speak up. In a post discussing his new fan site, Robert Scoble notes the surfeit of vitriol directed at the IE Team in the comments to their blog. ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- Web Standards and IA: A Match Made in Heaven?
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Christina Wodtke and Nate Koechley have done an admirable job describing how today's web technologies make sense for process as well as application. In their recent presentation at WebVisions 2004 (which from all reports was a fantastic conference), Wodtke and Koechley describe how standards-based development with semantic markup and CSS ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- XHTML 2.0 Draft Update, Debate Ensues
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The W3C has released the sixth (that's right, sixth) draft of XHTML 2.0. Despite its draft status, the release re-ignited the ongoing HTML vs. XHTML debate. Here's a simple little fact: You don't have to use XHTML if you don't want to! The point isn't that XHTML is wonderful and ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in HTML/XHTML
- IE SP2 Preview
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Release Candidate 2 of IE for Windows XP SP, Microsoft's security-minded update of IE, is available. The update promises tighter security, which means potential knock-on effects web developers will need to account for. IE Team member Tony Schreiner has details.
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- Blogging IE
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The recently-reconstituted Internet Explorer team has a new blog. Not much there at the moment but the usual fluffy first posts, a smattering of links to blogs belonging to various IE team members and mentions of the ever-popular IE Wiki. No doubt that'll change soon enough, though. Definitely worth ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- (X)HTML FAQ
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The W3C would like to take a moment to clear up some frequently asked questions. In a brand new FAQ, they address the differences between HTML and XHTML, and what they mean to content authors. If you've ever wondered why XHTML changed things that used to work in HTML, this ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in W3C/Standards Documentation
- The Clue Stick
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After viewing their browser-restricted redesigns, Eric Meyer swings the clue stick at Feedster and allmusic.com: Scott Johnson's response in the case of Feedster is, in effect, "we don't have the resources to support all browsers."Yes, you do. It actually costs less to support all browsers. Well said. Apparently Mr. Johnson thought so, ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Accessibility
- That’s Sir Tim to You, Peasant
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Via Dan Gillmor: Congratulations to W3C founder and 'father of the web' Tim Berners-Lee. TB-L was recently knighted for "services to the global development of the internet." Well met indeed, Sir Tim.
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Macromedia Jumps on the SVG Bandwagon (sort of)
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/. is reporting that Macromedia will support SVGT in it's mobile player. An article from Macromedia explaining the decison has drawn fire from O'Reilly's Antoine Quint for what he perceives as inaccuracies in Macromedia's article. I don't know the technology well enough to know whether Quint has a point or not, ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Happy Anniversary, Moz!
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Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the Mozilla Foundation, Happy Anniversary to you! Mozilla has been around for a long while, though the Mozilla Foundation is one year old today. It has been a great year for the project. On their anniversary page today at Mozilla...It's already been a year ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Browsers
- Desperately Seeking Clue
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About a year ago, UK web accessibility activist Matthew Somerville worked up an accessible, x-browser version of UK cinema chain Odeon's web site. His work won acclaim from such disparate sources as the Guardian and snarky IT industry newsletter NTK. Even Odeon themselves seemed pleased, as they allowed Mr. Somerville ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- All Music Lovers, Listen Up!
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If you've visited allmusic.com recently, you may think you're experiencing a flashback to the 1990s. (Remember those "Best Viewed in Browser X" notices?) Check out their recent redesign using something other than IE 5.5 or above on Windows and you'll get this browser alert message: "Notice: You are accessing allmusic.com with ...
By Kimberly Blessing | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- WHAT’s going on?
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Over on the WHAT WG front, Ian Hickson has posted an update on the progress of WHAT WG in their efforts to develop backwards-compatible extensions to HTML. Ian’s post includes some very interesting background to the formation of WHAT and the impetus behind their efforts. Joe Gregorio has some other ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers, HTML/XHTML, W3C/Standards Documentation, Web Standards (general)
- What’s in a namespace?
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Following up on Anders Pearson's Safari post, Dave Hyatt has decided to use namespaces for the Apple's HTML extensions. The move seems to have largely satisfied Eric Meyer and Tim Bray, though Eric would still like to see a different DOCTYPE used. Personally, I agree with their ultimate conclusion: things ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers, HTML/XHTML, W3C/Standards Documentation, Web Standards (general)
- safari extensions
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Dave Hyatt and the Safari team have been busy lately adding support for a number of extensions to html to be used by the upcoming Safari RSS reader and Dashboard. On the list is IE's contenteditable, along with a slider widget, search fields, a composite attribute on the <img/> ...
By Anders Pearson | Filed in Browsers
- Tell it to the IE Team!
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Ever wished you could give your opinion directly to the IE team at Microsoft?Here's your chance! They're making themselves available for an online chat Thursday, July 8, at 10:00 am Pacific. See you there?
By Dori Smith | Filed in Browsers
- What’s that object?
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The object element has long been a subject of mystery and frustration. How do we use it? How well is it supported? As part of the WaSP asks the W3C project, we consult the W3C about the correct way to include multimedia elements such as sound, animation and video into our ...
By Steph Troeth | Filed in WaSP Asks the W3C
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
A New Direction and a New Project
By Aaron Gustafson | February 2nd, 2010
In an effort to increase adoption of web standards, we’re going to try something new.
A lot of you are probably wondering where the WaSP of the late ’90s or even the early ’00s has gone. Where are the actions? Where is the advocacy? Who should we be mad at today?
The truth is that this organization is evolving. For the last two years, a large amount of our focus has been placed on education, realized in our creation of the InterAct curriculum framework and the birth of the Open Web Education Alliance. With the lion’s share of our talent and energy devoted to these efforts, things have been noticeably quiet on this blog, but that’s not an excuse…we can and should be doing more to promote the understanding and use of web standards. After all that’s what we were formed to do.
For the last two or three years, WaSP’s relevance has definitely diminished. With a few exceptions, browsers are doing a darn good job of promoting standards. Techniques we championed, such as Unobtrusive JavaScript and Progressive Enhancement, have become engrained in the methodology of many great web agencies and in-house web teams. In many ways, it seems WaSP has won the war for web standards, but has it really? There are still a ton of small web companies and small to mid-sized businesses building websites with little or no regard for cross-browser /cross-device compatibility. Inaccessible sites and applications, especially in this age of Ajax, seem to pop up every few seconds.
These projects have been put together by web designers and developers we’ve never reached and, for the last few years, we’ve been trying to figure out how to change that. Sure, our education effort is a logical means of teaching the next generation of web designers and developers to do things the Right Way™, but what of the practicing professionals who either have not been exposed to web standards or have been reluctant to upgrade their skill set? How do we reach them?
One way we hope to move this group in the right direction is by doing an end-run around them in reaching out to small businesses.
Small businesses drive our national economies and are responsible for millions of websites worldwide. Of course, most small businesses don’t know (or even want to know) about the technical aspects of web standards, but they do want to know what will save them money and help them run their businesses more efficiently.
As the first project in our small business outreach effort, WaSP will be developing a resource to be used when interviewing individuals and teams to do web work. The focus of this effort will be a series of questions that, when asked of applicants, will help a small business determine whether or not they have the skills necessary to build a modern website. Each question be coupled with background on the associated topic that outlines why it is important and tips for determining how well the question was answered.
Our goals for this project are two-fold:
- To support small businesses by protecting them from bad developers and making sure they get the best websites possible; and
- To expose individual designers and small web shops to web standards when they go out to bid on projects in hopes that they will choose to upgrading their skills in order to continue getting work.
In order to make this project a success, we need your help. Whether you are interested in helping us collect and organize the content or are keen to promote the resource once it’s complete, we want you to be involved. If you can lend a hand, please say so in a comment on this message and I will be in touch at the beginning of next week.
Filed in Education, Outreach, Training, WaSP Announcement | Comments (38)