Web Standards
- Let’s Make the Web Better with Fundamentals
- 02/08/2012
- For 2012, I'm participating in an interesting (and fun) little writing/sharing project: The Pastry Box Project. Run by Alex Duloz, The Pastry Box gathers 30 people who are influential in their field and asks them to share a thought every month about their work. This clever idea results in one thought every day in 2012 from designers, developers and thinkers in the web industry. There are no rules. No specific topics are assigned. Each "baker" just writes whatever he or…
- HTML5
<audio>without all the<video> - 10/12/2011
- As you may have heard, I was lucky to be asked to contribute a few chapters to the HTML5 Cookbook (early release eBook now available). One of the chapters I wrote was on HTML5 <audio>, and as I did my research for the chapter I noticed the vast majority of articles and books "covering" <audio> are actually focused on <video>. It's understandable, really, since the two new media elements share most of the same attributes, syntax and implementation strategies. But…
- Transition to HTML5 with the Newest Web Standards Sherpa (Me!)
- 08/22/2011
- I love markup. Always have. Suspect I always will. With HTML5, my love affair has reached new levels … markup + semantics = swoon. And HTML5 is now my "flavor" of choice. In fact, I've been using the doctype and new structural elements for over two years now! With no issues or problems … just happy clients and interesting, challenging projects. So, when I joined the Web Standards Sherpa crew, I knew that I wanted to write about HTML5 at…
- I’m the New EE Podcast Co-Host!
- 06/23/2011
- After months of keeping mum, I'm thrilled to shout to the rooftops that I'm joining Lea Alcantara as a co-host of the EE Podcast! If you haven't heard of the podcast, it's a bi-weekly podcast about web design and development, with a focus on ExpressionEngine. It was founded back in 2009 by the legendary Ryan Irelan and hosted by the equally legendary Dan Benjamin and 5by5 Studios. Lea joined as co-host last year. Earlier this year, Ryan decided to pass…
- Guest Co-hosting with Web Weekly
- 05/28/2011
- Web Weekly is a podcast from my friend Kevin Dees and his co-host, the ever-snarky, Jonas Flint. And I guess since I tend to go well with snark, Kevin and Jonas have twice asked me to join the podcast as a guest co-host.
- The Beauty of Semantic Markup, Part 3: Headings
- 11/07/2010
- I always find myself drawn to fundamental concepts, because they can be deceptively simple. Headings are like that. You know, <h1>-<h6>. They seem simple until you take time to think … think about structure, semantics, accessibility, search engines and, now, HTML5's sectioning model. And I have, indeed, been thinking about headings lately, especially as I dive into HTML5 and (re?)consider the approaches I've taken in the past. So this series now shifts focus to <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5> and…
- The Beauty of Semantic Markup, Part 2:
<strong>,<b>,<em>,<i> - 08/06/2010
- So, I had planned to focus the second installment of this series on markup for images with captions. The topic was a request from my friend Ian and his birthday was coming up. However, his birthday has passed, and I'm just now writing. Plus, I've been thinking a lot lately about something more fundamental: bold and italicized text. This may seem a trivial thing to be consuming my "markup mind," but after Tantek Çelik's HTML5 presentation, it's been bugging me.…
- The Beauty of Semantic Markup, Part 1: Quotes & Citations
- 07/15/2010
- As I mentioned in my introduction, this series is going to take a close look at the fundamentals of semantic markup. In this first installment, I'm focusing on quotes and citations. Before we get started, if you'd like to know more about semantic markup — what it is, why you should develop your sites with it — check out my article, Meaningful Markup: POSH and Beyond. Now, let's get to it!
- The Beauty of Semantic Markup, Introduction
- 07/15/2010
- Ever since I started writing Microformats Made Simple, I've been distracted … from this blog, from my career goals, from my personal life. And even though the book is long since finished, I'm still distracted. It is getting better, though. I'm gaining a bit more focus each day. I quit my job to pursue freelance work in hopes of reconnecting with what I love about my career: making great web sites. I'm letting go of some of my responsibilities with…
- Doing a Little Writing for the New ScriptJunkie
- 06/16/2010
- In case you missed my shameless self promotion on Twitter (and Buzz and Reader and Facebook), I've been doing a little writing for a new MSDN site, ScriptJunkie. ScriptJunkie is a new site aimed at client-side developers and focuses on cross-browser information and resources. Yes. Cross-browser. From Microsoft. So far, two four of my articles are live and ready for your enjoyment: Be a CSS Team Player: CSS Best Practices for Team-Based Development Web Accessibility & WAI-ARIA Primer Meaningful Markup:…
- Feeling #00f
- 11/30/2009
- It's that time of year again. When web geeks get even more geeky. When standardistas pat ourselves on the backs. When I take to my all–too–comfortable soapbox to preach the good word about web standards. It's the 3rd annual International Blue Beanie Day to promote web standards and accessibility!
- Getting Semantic With Microformats, Part 8: Value Class Pattern
- 06/02/2009
- Update: 2009-10-20 Tantek Çelik requested that I add inline examples of the value-class pattern markup in this article, so people working on applications to parse uses of the pattern can reference this article as a live example. I finally obliged, and you will see those inline examples below, each of which is indicated as an update. No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. It's another installment of my Getting Semantic With Microformats series (with a special thanks to Ben Ward for…
- Webuquerque: Standards & Accessibility With Dreamweaver
- 05/12/2009
- Last Wednesday, Webuquerque hosted "Standards & Accessibility With Dreamweaver," presented by Virginia DeBolt and Emily Lewis (that's me!). The presentation had a great turnout with over 20 attendees and, once again, several folks from Santa Fe. If you weren't able to join us, here's what you missed.
- The Next Level
- 04/23/2009
- Ever since I started this blog and became active on Twitter, my professional life has taken some dramatic (at least to me) turns. Before, I just had a job. A rather unsatisfying job. And while I still have that same (soul-sucking) job, I'm much more satisfied in my professional life. Why? Because I actually have a career now. Just looking for the presentation details? Feel free to skip right to them.
- BarCamp Albuquerque 3 Recordings Now Available
- 02/10/2009
- Back in September 2008, Reid Givens helped organize the wonderfully successful BarCamp Albuquerque 3. We had an amazing line-up of talented speakers who presented on a wide range of topics. And now all of the audio recordings from the presentations are available online, once again, thanks to Reid who is hosting the following on his blog:
- Microformats, hAccessibility & Moving Forward
- 01/26/2009
- Last week, Andy Clarke posted a design solution for the hAccessibility issue in microformats. It's an interesting workaround, combining the current standard for marking up dates in microformats with the broadly-accepted use of skip links. But Wait, What Is hAccessibility? Before I get too far into this article, though, I should probably explain hAccessibility. As I've mentioned previously, hAccessibility was coined by The Web Standards Project to describe an accessibility issue related to the use of the abbr design pattern…
- Rockin’ a Blue Beanie for Web Standards
- 11/28/2008
- Today is the 2nd annual Blue Beanie Day to promote the awareness of web standards and accessibility. Of course, as a self-professed standardista, I just had to participate.
- Getting Semantic With Microformats, Part 7: Themes & Issues
- 11/20/2008
- According to what I planned when I introduced this series, we are at the end of this thrilling and exciting journey into the world of microformats. And after spending all this time reviewing specific implementations of microformats on A Blog Not Limited, I didn't want to just end the series without some sort of conclusion. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I'm not ready to conclude this series. There are still more microformats that…
- WTF Is the Big Deal? Don't Use
<table>for Layout! - 11/12/2008
- Yesterday, Chris Heilmann threw together Should I use tables for layout?. It gave me a nice chuckle and I shared it on Twitter. Not even 12 hours later, I stumbled across this "gem" on Twitter: Give Up and Use Tables. Yes, I do have a sense of humor and, yes, I do appreciate that CSS can be a challenge, even for seasoned professionals. But what the fuck is the big deal with learning to do one's job well using the…
- Getting Semantic With Microformats, Part 6: hResume
- 11/10/2008
- I began this series a little over two months ago. I wanted to share my love of microformats and detail how I've implemented them, in hopes of encouraging more people to embrace them. So far, I've covered a lot: Rel-based microformats in Part 1 XFN in Part 2 hCard in Part 3 hCalendar in Part 4 hAtom in Part 5 And now, as I conclude this series, it is time to talk about the hResume microformat which is used to…
- Getting Semantic With Microformats, Part 5: hAtom
- 10/15/2008
- Over the course of this series, I've discussed the various microformats I've implemented on A Blog Not Limited: rel-based, XFN, hCard and hCalendar. Now, it's time to talk about the hAtom microformat, which adds semantics and structure to web content that could be syndicated, such as blog posts or news articles.
- Getting Semantic With Microformats, Part 4: hCalendar
- 10/01/2008
- Here we are again, delving into the exciting (for me, at least) world of microformats. Based on what I planned at the outset, this article is about mid-way through the series. So far, I've discussed three implementations of microformats on A Blog Not Limited: Specifying link-based relationships using the rel attribute in Part 1 Giving a "human face" to links using the XFN microformat in Part 2 Describing people, companies and places with the hCard microformat in Part 3 Not…
- Getting Semantic With Microformats, Part 3: hCard
- 09/22/2008
- I began this series by detailing the microformats for link-based relationships using the rel attribute in Part 1. I then followed up in Part 2 with a discussion about extending the rel attribute with XFN values to connote social relationships on the web. Both XFN and the rel-based microformats are relatively simple, requiring only the addition of the rel attribute to links (<a>) and the proper value(s) to provide semantic context. Now it is time to take this microformats discussion…
- Getting Semantic With Microformats, Part 2: XFN
- 09/17/2008
- In Part 1 of this series, I explained various implementations of the rel microformat on A Blog Not Limited. While explaining rel-me, I briefly touched on the XFN microformat. It's now time to spend some more time on this very cool microformat, which was one of the first.
- A Great Time at BarCamp Albuquerque 3
- 09/14/2008
- BarCampAlbuquerque has come to a close, and it was a great experience for me. And as I posted previously, I spread the good word about web standards. My Contribution Here's my presentation for your enjoyment and edification: Web Standards Primer. I can't wait to listen to the recording to hear just how much of a total dork I sounded like.
- BarCamp Albuquerque 3 Around the Corner
- 09/10/2008
- Yes, it's short notice, but mark your calendars: BarCamp Albuquerque 3 is this weekend. When: September 13–14, from 9am–6pm both days Where: CJW Cafe on 4801 Alameda Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87113 What: A two-day event all about the web — design (visual, experience, information architecture), technology (infrastructure, programming), social and new media, and other stuff that is just plain cool. Even better, yours truly is presenting.
- Getting Semantic With Microformats, Part 1:
rel - 09/09/2008
- As I mentioned in the introduction to this series, I'm a freak for microformats. I love the semantics, the structure, the simplicity and the potential. I decided I must share this love with the world (or at least my four readers) by detailing how I've used various microformats on A Blog Not Limited. This first installment of the series focuses on microformats for link-based relationships using the rel attribute. Let's get started, shall we?
- Getting Semantic With Microformats, Introduction
- 09/05/2008
- I'm an organizer with a sometimes frustrating need to pay attention to the smallest details. It shows itself in my home: my DVD collection of over 500 is organized alphabetically, as is what's left of my CD collection. I spend hours in iTunes assigning genres (because the defaults just aren't good enough for me) and creating playlists for over 10k songs. My books are organized by genre. My dresser drawers and closets are pristine. It is just me. This personality…
- Web Accessibility Is Important
- 08/28/2008
- The National Federation of the Blind v. Target lawsuit was settled this past Wednesday on the following key terms: By February 28, 2009, Target.com will be fully accessible to blind users. Target will pay $6 million in damages to claimants.
