EBay seller pleads guilty to software piracy charges
Publication date: 2008-05-16
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uBid preps European launch
Publication date: 2008-05-16
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EBay, GE Money Expand PayPal Credit To EBay Site
Publication date: 2008-05-16
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ebay.ca - Now Available: Canada Post-eBay Flat Rate Box With Limited-Time Introductory Flat Rates
Publication date: 2008-05-16
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Zoovy e-Commerce Technologies Forms Strategic Partnership With U-PIC Insurance Services
Publication date: 2008-05-16
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eBay rival OZtion reports 22% growth in listings
Publication date: 2008-05-16
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Yahoo Mail Working Harder to Block Fake eBay and PayPal Scams
Publication date: 2008-05-16
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Softbank and Alibaba.com Create $20 Million Joint Venture in Japan
Publication date: 2008-05-16
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Stupid Google Tricks: How often do you cut your hair?
The other day I realized that I enter my haircut appointments into Google Calendar, so I can search for “haircut OR (the place I get my hair cut)” and see when I’ve gotten my hair cut:
Then I was reading Google Apps Hacks and Hack 25 caught my eye: “Show the difference between two dates”. A [...]
Publication date: 2008-05-16
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New eBay Feedback Changes Scrutinized by Sellers
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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Storefront Service IRUN Integrates with eBay
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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eBay Eachnet Launches Online Auction To Support Sichuan's Rescue Efforts
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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Fair Outcomes: using game theory for honest feedback on eBay
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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Overstock.com Throws New York Affiliates Overboard to Avoid Sales Tax
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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Softbank says in talks to invest in Alibaba Japan
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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eBay.co.uk - Free gallery picture this summer
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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eBay - A Message from Jeff King: The Finding Playground is Back
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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Craigslist fires back in court at eBay
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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Wigix: An Feature-Rich eBay Alternative
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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Starting an eBay business - 5 essentials
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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Auction Sniper Aids eBay Success
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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Overstock Silver Offers Free Shipping On Designer Inspired Jewelry Through Mother's Day
Publication date: 2008-05-15
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Follow me on Twitter, FriendFeed, or RSS
I changed it so that anyone can follow me on Twitter or FriendFeed. The links to follow me are http://twitter.com/mattcutts and http://friendfeed.com/mattcutts .
And of course you can subscribe to my RSS feed if you want. You can subscribe by clicking any of the buttons below:
If aren’t a subscriber [...]
Publication date: 2008-05-14
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AuctionBytes Interviews Google Checkout's Prem Ramaswami
Publication date: 2008-05-13
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eBay.com.au - Upcoming Feedback Changes ? Scheduled for 12 May
Publication date: 2008-05-13
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Life After eBay: An Interview With Meg Whitman
Publication date: 2008-05-13
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eBay - A Message from Kristina Klausen - Shipping Updates
Publication date: 2008-05-13
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eBay Sellers Can Now Instantly Check Their Sales With Their Cellphone Using New AuctionTNT.com Tool
Publication date: 2008-05-13
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Vendio Reveals Top eBay Sellers' Sales Strategies and Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR's)
Publication date: 2008-05-13
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Alibaba plans to launch B2B computer
Publication date: 2008-05-13
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What Google Knows About Spam
If you didn’t attend Web 2.0, you can watch my ten-minute keynote about “What Google Knows About Spam” (and several other keynotes) on blip.tv. I’ll embed the keynote below as well.
The only thing I don’t like about conference speaking is preparing slides. When I use slides at a talk, I almost always make a custom [...]
Publication date: 2008-05-12
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eBay Page Views, Visitors Decline in 2008, Time Spent on Site Rises
Publication date: 2008-05-12
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New Developments as eBay Moves Forward with PayPal-only Plans
Publication date: 2008-05-12
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A clash of 'world views': part owner eBay vs. Craigslist
Publication date: 2008-05-12
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Selling Domain Names on eBay
Publication date: 2008-05-12
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Infopia Launches Professional Services Group
Publication date: 2008-05-12
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Hang Tight, More eBay Feedback Changes Coming
Publication date: 2008-05-10
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PayPal President Discusses Strategy, Safe Payments
Publication date: 2008-05-10
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eBay Holds Annual Stockholders Meeting in June
Publication date: 2008-05-10
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eBay - A Message from Brian Burke ? Upcoming Feedback Changes
Publication date: 2008-05-10
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EBay opens building with largest solar roof in San Jose
Publication date: 2008-05-10
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eBay Inc. Reveals the 10 U.S. Markets Selling the Most on eBay
Publication date: 2008-05-10
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eBay Tests Shopper-Rewards Program
Publication date: 2008-05-08
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eBay.ca - 50 cent listing day for Fixed Price format
Publication date: 2008-05-08
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eBay - Fixed Price Insertion Fees Capped at 50
Publication date: 2008-05-08
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EBay in Oz: Think of PayPal as your methadone
Publication date: 2008-05-08
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EBay to turn on feedback system changes
Publication date: 2008-05-08
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New Version of myibay eBay Bid Sniper Software has Been Released
Publication date: 2008-05-08
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My eBay Script - MeS version 1.5 Just Released
Publication date: 2008-05-08
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eBay stands ground despite user discontent
Publication date: 2008-05-08
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Custom Search Engine adds new features
Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) just announced that they now power AdSense for Search. Another nice new change is that if you provide a Sitemap, Google will use that to improve the coverage of the custom search engine.
Now let me nip one idea in the bud, because I can already feel a few people thinking [...]
Publication date: 2008-05-08
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eCommerce Developers Invited to Sixth Annual eBay Developers Conference
Publication date: 2008-05-07
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National Auctioneers Day - Saturday, April 19, 2008
Publication date: 2008-05-07
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Auction Industry Reports Slower Growth in First Quarter of 2008
Publication date: 2008-05-07
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eBay Eachnet just wants to be free in China
Publication date: 2008-05-07
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QXL.co.uk to close down
Publication date: 2008-05-07
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uShip Announces 100,000th Transportation Service Provider (TSP)
Publication date: 2008-05-07
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PayPal Protecting Users or Stealing Under Guise of Protection?
Publication date: 2008-05-07
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EBay sees more ties with automakers for listings
Publication date: 2008-05-07
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OnlineAuction.com CEO One of Fifty US Business Leaders Invited to Conference in Ireland
Publication date: 2008-05-06
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Craigslist CEO: eBay lawsuit reeks of hypocrisy
Publication date: 2008-05-06
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Turn clutter into cash with eBay: The Real Deal
Publication date: 2008-05-06
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Bay Cancels 2009 Atlanta 'eBay Live' Conference
Publication date: 2008-05-06
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ACCC extends eBay deadline
Publication date: 2008-05-06
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Start-up targets eBay with non-auction sales
Publication date: 2008-05-06
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A Message from PayPal Canada ? New Lower Canadian Dollar Pricing and Foreign Exchange Withdrawal Fees for Canadian Sellers
Publication date: 2008-05-06
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Sell Now organizes eBay listings
Publication date: 2008-05-06
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eBay Does Exclusive Deal with Buy.com
Publication date: 2008-05-06
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Overstock.com outsources new international sales operation
Publication date: 2008-05-06
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Back from Maker Faire
Man, I love Maker Faire. It’s almost as if Burning Man mated with Slashdot. Here are afew of the fun things I saw today.
In the Craft area someone showed the credit cards that they accepted, but the credit card sign was hand-made:
Also in the Craft zone was a “postcard machine.” It was a person sitting [...]
Publication date: 2008-05-05
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Bidnapper Sniping Expands Beyond eBay
Publication date: 2008-05-05
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Upcoming Licensing Hearing Could Impact Many eBay Sellers
Publication date: 2008-05-05
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Maker Faire!
I’m heading to Maker Faire today. It’s a fun event if you like robots, crafts, art cars, flame throwers, Coke ‘n’ Mentos shows, building your own electronics kits, knitting weird hats, Lego creations, plush monsters, power tool racing, or walking around outdoors in the California sunshine. Highly recommended if you’re in the Bay Area today.
Publication date: 2008-05-05
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Review: Google Apps Hacks
Last week at the Web 2.0 Expo I decided to walk the exhibition floor. Niall Kennedy and I checked out the inflatable Google booth, we gave feedback to the WordPress folks, and we came to rest in the Yahoo booth, where it was nice to see Jeremy Zawodny and catch up a little bit.
After a [...]
Publication date: 2008-05-01
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Validation statistics from Nikita the Spider
About a year and a half ago I mentioned Nikita the Spider: a bulk validation and link checking tool as a useful quality assurance tool. Well, Nikita the Spider has received a lot of fixes since then and has recently been taken out of beta. It is no longer completely free, but the first 125 pages it crawls will cost you nothing.
But what may be more interesting is what Nikita finds when it crawls a site. Philip Semanchuk, Nikita's author, has analysed the statistics Nikita collected during March 2008 and walks you through the results in By The Numbers – March 2008. A few highlights:
The most common validation error is neglecting to specify an alt attribute for img elements
The second most common error is failing to escape ampersands
XHTML doctypes are much more common than HTML doctypes
Over sixty percent of the crawled pages use a transitional doctype
Of course these statistics are only representative of a very small sample of the pages that exist on the web. In addition to that, those pages live on sites that somebody has actually asked Nikita to crawl, so it is likely that they are more aware of web standards than the average website owner/author/developer.
It's still interesting reading though.Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in (X)HTML, Web Standards.
Publication date: 2008-04-29
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B2B Internet Auction Site LabX Acquires Magazine
Publication date: 2008-04-28
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Firefox Myibay eBay Bid Sniper
Publication date: 2008-04-28
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Authentic Jobs API and Affiliates program
If you've been looking for a new job or looking to hire a skilled web professional you may have come across Authentic Jobs. You may also have noticed that there have been Authentic Jobs listings on this site for some time.
The news is that now anyone can display job listings on their site. You can also make some money when someone you refer posts a listing on Authentic Jobs.
To display job listings you will need to apply for an Authentic Jobs API key, and once you have that you can start doing all sorts of with the job listing data. Find more details on that in The Authentic Jobs API Documentation.
Even if you don't want to display job listings you can become an affiliate by applying for The Authentic Jobs Affiliate Program. Once you're approved you will get a personal code that you can use when referring people to Authentic Jobs. For each new full-time listing posted as a result of your referral you will get USD 75, and for each freelance listing your award will be USD 25.
If you're completely new to Authentic Jobs, it is "a targeted destination for standards-aware designers and developers and the companies seeking to hire them." In other words, it is a place where companies looking for modern web professionals can find talent.Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Job openings.
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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Trip report: Domain Roundtable Conference
This weekend I did a Q&A session at the Domain Roundtable Conference. It was an hour and a half of answering various questions. Rand Fishkin and John Andrews both did write-ups of the session. Rand and John were both on an SEO panel after me, which I enjoyed.
This was my first domain-related conference, and the [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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Google Hacks: Pacman graph with Google Charts
This link was cool, but it generates a graph like this:
With a little modification, I made this graph:
I like my picture a little better. It was quite simple to make this diagram, and Google provides a free graph-drawing tool that you can use on your own site with a single url — no account or [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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New WordPress version 2.5.1 includes security fix
Read about WordPress 2.5.1 and download the new version here. It includes a security fix, so you’re going to want to upgrade. It’s well-known that older versions of WordPress get attacked by malicious bad guys, so I absolutely recommend upgrading as soon as you can to be safe.
By the way, if you subscribed to the [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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GRID To Feature eBay Motors Marketplace
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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eBay Tells Sellers, Shape Up or Ship Out
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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PayPal says it won't block Safari
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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Infopia Launches New Search Marketing Services
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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Online Classified, Vertical Ad Spending Boom Predicted
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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eBay.com Listings Up 23 Percent, Says Citigroup
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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uBid.com Holdings, Inc. Announces New Business Focus to Serve Growing Excess Inventory Markets
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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eBay's Lorrie Norrington Keynote Transcript
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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NGO wins grant from former eBay head
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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Get Jesse: Sued for 'OK' eBay feedback
Publication date: 2008-04-26
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eBay Flip Flops on BayEstimator Tool for Optimizing Best Match
Publication date: 2008-04-24
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eBay: PowerSellers: Pay Only 10 Cents for Auction-Style and Fixed Price Listings on April 22nd
Publication date: 2008-04-24
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eBay: Stores Sellers, Create ?Free Shipping? Sales - Plus a New ?Free Shipping? Icon for All Sellers*
Publication date: 2008-04-24
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EBay Files Suit Against Dilution Of Its Minority Stake In Craigslist
Publication date: 2008-04-24
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Craigslist fires back, says eBay lawsuit smells fishy
Publication date: 2008-04-24
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Infopia Launches Newest Version of its eCommerce Platform
Publication date: 2008-04-24
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The eBay treatment: Homebuying online
Publication date: 2008-04-24
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Reserve Bank could scuttle eBay's plans
Publication date: 2008-04-24
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Baywatch 1.5.1 adds eBay Auctions to iCal & sets an reminder Alarm
Publication date: 2008-04-24
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eBay + PayPal = Restraint of Trade
Publication date: 2008-04-24
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Paypal & eBay To Rule The World? Part One: Australia The Pawn For A One Sided Game Of Chess
Publication date: 2008-04-24
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Recording an IRC channel on Linux/Ubuntu
There are a ton of Interney Relay Chat (IRC) clients for Linux/Ubuntu, e.g. Gaim (now called Pidgin). One IRC client that makes recording an IRC conversation pretty easy is Irssi. Install Irssi on Ubuntu with a simple command:
sudo apt-get install irssi
Then run the program “irssi” from the command line.
Now suppose you want to record what’s [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-21
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Proxibid Is Alternative as eBay Closes Live-Auctions Platform
Publication date: 2008-04-21
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iOffer.com, the 'Make Me an Offer' Ecommerce Site
Publication date: 2008-04-21
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Beautify eBay shots with Bling It
Publication date: 2008-04-21
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eBay Struggles to Rebuild Traffic
Publication date: 2008-04-21
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Technology moves fast
Sometimes I feel like the technology space moves slowly. Cool new devices appear every few months, but I want neat new things every day! When I feel like this, it’s tough to remember that technology moves quite quickly compared to most industries. I was recently at a book sale and picked up a techno-thriller from [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-19
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Two Search Interviews
Popular Mechanics asks 20 questions of Udi Manber, who is a VP of Engineering at Google on core search quality. My favorite:
There have been a lot of fads in search of late, such as Human Assisted Search and contextual search. Do those get folded into search as a whole? What are real trends in search [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-19
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Socially exhausted
I communicate with people in lots of ways: face-to-face, email, via my blog, leaving comments in the blogosphere, conferences, etc. At SMX West a couple people asked “I sent you a friend invite on service X but you haven’t responded. Do you not like me?” Please don’t feel bad, because it’s not that. I’m letting [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-19
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Nice
Google just announced a cool addition to Google News. If you search for a person’s name on Google News, you can see statements where that person has been quoted by a news source. For example, search on Google News for [Arnold Schwarzenegger] and you’ll see
It’s like how smart the feature is. It can correctly [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-19
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EBay Handily Beats Q1 Estimates, Raises 2008 Guidance
Publication date: 2008-04-18
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eBay is most searched for brand
Publication date: 2008-04-18
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eBay: 2008 Best in Stores Contest ? Vote for your favorite eBay Stores!
Publication date: 2008-04-18
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eBay: A Message from Lorrie Norrington ? Join my next Town Hall on Thursday, April 17
Publication date: 2008-04-18
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PayPal Plans to Ban Unsafe Browsers
Publication date: 2008-04-18
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eBay Applauds Romanian and U.S. Law Enforcement for Arrest of Alleged Cyber-criminal, Vladuz
Publication date: 2008-04-18
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eBay Motors sells three millionth vehicle
Publication date: 2008-04-18
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eBay Australia Sellers React to PayPal-Only Policy
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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eBay.ca - eBay Motors Free Listing Week for Canadian Residents Only
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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eBay.com.au boosts safety � PayPal will be required on all listings
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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eBay.co.uk - New Requirements for business sellers from 1st May
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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Taking better photos for online auctions
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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Liquidity Services, Inc. to Acquire UK-based Geneva Group
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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eBay Axing Live Auctions Platform
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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LiveAuctioneers.com Announces Plans to Launch Independent Online-Bidding Platform
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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ACCC to probe eBay policies
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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eBay: Did listings change make a difference?
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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eBay Pulls BayEstimator Tool for Optimizing Best Match
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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eBay: Get Value Pack for 25
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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eBay.com.au - Protecting members with identity verification
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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eBay: A Message from John Canfield ? eBay Security News
Publication date: 2008-04-16
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EBay Motors Makes a Bid For Gen Y Gamers with 'Grid'
Publication date: 2008-04-14
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PayPal ? Another (bad) example of the way things are in the United States
Publication date: 2008-04-14
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Stupid Postage Errors on eBay Canada
Publication date: 2008-04-14
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Please don
The title pretty much says it all. A while ago, someone saw my call for good summer vacation reading and the resulting pile of Amazon books that I bought, and they sent me a couple free books, maybe to get a review or a mention. I appreciate the creativity, but please don’t send me any [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-14
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Larry Phillips Discusses eBay's Best Match in New Podcast
Publication date: 2008-04-13
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German Roma Outraged by Nazi Slurs on EBay Items
Publication date: 2008-04-13
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New feedback rules to test eBay's law-and-order style
Publication date: 2008-04-13
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A Practical Approach to Managing Phishing
Publication date: 2008-04-13
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eBay to Meet with Australian Users over Controversial PayPal Policy
Publication date: 2008-04-13
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How to Sell Books in Lots on eBay
Publication date: 2008-04-13
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More on Selling Book Lots on EBay
Publication date: 2008-04-13
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Learning the eBay way
Publication date: 2008-04-13
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eBay/Craigslist praised by Congressman for efforts to curb sales of stolen military equipment on their sites(?)
Publication date: 2008-04-13
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Solved: another common site review problem
Okay, go read this post on the Google webmaster blog. In fact, if you read my site, you really should add the Official Google webmaster blog feed to your list of subscriptions, because that blog is almost 100% SEO/webmaster-related posts, and it is official. Done reading? Okay, I’ll give you my personal take on why [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-12
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I wanted to blog, but
Honest. I wanted to write a big, in-depth blog post about X (pick whatever X you want), but then Emmy came and sat down beside the keyboard with a forlorn face. This is what she looked like:
Emmy was just waiting patiently for me to get off the computer so that we could play or hang [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-11
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Bookselling Marketplace AbeBooks Aquires Chrislands
Publication date: 2008-04-11
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PayPal mandatory, says eBay Australia
Publication date: 2008-04-11
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On eBay, A Little Less Conversation
Publication date: 2008-04-11
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Alibaba to Launch Website Establishment Services Tomorrow
Publication date: 2008-04-11
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Newegg Invites Third-Party Sellers to New Marketplace
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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Omaha-Based Proxibid Experiences Record Growth in March
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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You've been faked: How eBay's 'designer' bargains are just too good to be true
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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eBay Now Available On Orange
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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Ecommerce Study: Free Shipping Is Out, Social Networking Is In
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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Amazon Resumes Test of Feedback Page
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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eBay.ca - 5 cent listing day for Fixed Price or Auction format
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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EBay narrows payment options
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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Ebay fraudster dupes hundreds
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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IronPlanet's next Australian online auction to be held on March 13, 2008
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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PESA eBay Group, A Nonprofit of Convenience
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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Debbie Levitt of As Was to Speak at Five Sessions at eBay Live! 2008
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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Call center provider LiveOps names former eBay exec head of technology
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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Grow Your Biz--From eBay and Beyond
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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eBay Increasing Their Selling Fees - Affects AuctionWave of Sayville
Publication date: 2008-04-09
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Google App Engine: Launching a startup gets even easier
This is pretty cool. Google launched App Engine, which lets you write code for a web application, then Google takes care of the scaling/failover/logistics-type issues. You can store your data in a Google Bigtable using the Google File System (GFS). There’s a bunch of App Engine APIs to simplify things like sending email and fetching [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-08
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Reported Dollar Loss From Internet Crime Reaches All Time High
Publication date: 2008-04-08
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eBay.com.au: Introducing Emma - the Virtual Agent
Publication date: 2008-04-08
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Alibaba.com Selects Blue Coat to Secure and Accelerate One of the World?s Largest Online Marketplace Sites
Publication date: 2008-04-08
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How to use a notebook: 7 quick tips
You never know when your brain is going to flash on an idea, a great gift, or something you need from the store. That’s why I carry a small notebook around with me most of the time. Here are some productivity tips on how to use a “hipster PDA” effectively.
Get one. I got mine for [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-07
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Shipping Tips for eBay Sellers and Online Merchants
Publication date: 2008-04-07
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eBid Founder Goes from Stockbroker to Auction Entrepreneur
Publication date: 2008-04-07
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PlunderHere Auction Site an 'Up and Comer'
Publication date: 2008-04-07
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Frustrated home owners selling on Ebay
Publication date: 2008-04-07
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Craigslist bullies unofficial blog over domain, trademarks
Publication date: 2008-04-07
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Online Auction King eBay Also Big In Classifieds
Publication date: 2008-04-05
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Orange announces eBay as partner
Publication date: 2008-04-05
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eBay Going 'Retail,' Expect More Change
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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Selling on eBay: 12 tips to help you earn more
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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TameBay's Chris Dawson on eBay UK
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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Buy.com and ChannelAdvisor Announce Strategic Alliance
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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Rubylane.com Lower Maintenance Fees Benefit Sellers & Buyers
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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eBay: Automation Rules in Selling Manager
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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eBay hires Webcredible as accessibility consultants
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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Government says money lost in Internet scams and auction fraud hits new high
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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JetBlue Airways Travelers Take Flight With PayPal
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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Amazon.com's TextBuyIt Allows Purchases Via Text Message
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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iPhone can connect to anything!
Update: This was an April Fool’s day joke.
I recently discovered something really wild: the iPhone has a secret SATA interface. Using the SATA interface, the iPhone is much easier to hack because it looks just like a hard drive to a computer, so you can replace individual executables and symlinks with no effort. Readers know [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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Google to spin off search marketing side of Performics
I’m crunching on a bunch of work stuff today, but I wanted to point out this official Google blog post briefly:
Since we closed the acquisition of DoubleClick on March 11, we
Publication date: 2008-04-04
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eBay appoints Komli to sell banner ads on its Indian site
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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Why the Vista hacker turned to eBay
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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Alan Marks to Join eBay as Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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PayPal Debit Card Glitch Blocks Transactions, Users Say
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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Craigslist Revenue in 2008 May Top $80 Million, Could Reach $100 Million
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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How Not to Commit Cyber Crime: Lessons from the Craigslist Bandits
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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Grow Your Biz--From Ebay and Beyond
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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EBay lobbied on online child safety
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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Ad2One wins
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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Meg Whitman, eBay President and CEO, Addressed Utah Executives at Utah Technology Council (UTC) Annual Members? Meeting
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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Shopster Now One of Only 28 eBay Certified Solution Providers
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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CompUSA Chooses PayPal for eCommerce Payments
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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Ableauctions Announces 2007 Financial Results
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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ebay.co.uk: Sell more for less ? Insertion fees are 5p on 3rd April
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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eBay Motors Vehicle Purchase Protection Increased to $50,000
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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eBay: A Message from Stephanie Tilenius -- The International Site Visibility listing upgrade for US, Canada, UK and Ireland sites
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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Daylight saving confusion continues on eBay
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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Introducing ProStores 9.0, Plus A Special Offer for eBay Stores Sellers
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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eBay Rolls Out Three New Blogs this Week
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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Can eBay?s new regime tackle its credibility gap?
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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ChannelAdvisor Adds Over 170 New Retail Customers
Publication date: 2008-04-03
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I
I’ve decided to skip April Fool’s Day this year, and I’ll tell you why: I’m April Fools’ed out. I’ve done a bunch of April Fools jokes in the past, and this year I’m just too tired to do it. Plus I’m worried that if I escalate the jokes much further, things will get out of [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-02
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My tattoo
As I mentioned in my last post, I got a tattoo this past weekend. Several people have asked about it by email, so I’ll go ahead and post a couple shots of it. I decided to get a Firefox tattoo because it’s a cool design and I really like what Firefox is doing these days. [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-02
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iPhone has a hidden SATA interface
I recently discovered something really wild: the iPhone has a secret SATA interface. Using the SATA interface, the iPhone is much easier to hack because it looks just like a hard drive to a computer, so you can replace individual executables and symlinks with no effort. Readers know that I’m a bit of a storage [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-02
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Okay, enough foolishness. Back to work.
Okay, I admit that my “I’m tired of April Fool’s” post was just a ruse. A couple people almost fell for the bait.
I did a couple April Fools posts this year; one about getting a Firefox tattoo (it was a temporary stick-on tattoo) and one joke about how the iPhone has the magical power to [...]
Publication date: 2008-04-02
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What does Acid3 mean to you and me?
So, last week two browser vendors proudly announced that their rendering engines now achieve a 100/100 score on the Acid3 Browser Test: Opera (Opera and the Acid3 Test) and Apple (WebKit achieves Acid3 100/100 in public build).
Getting a 100/100 score does not mean that the browser has completely passed the Acid3 test, since there are other criteria as well - the animation has to be smooth and the final page has to be a pixel perfect match of the reference rendering. Despite that, it's great news to see browser vendors in a battle to implement standards first. Too bad the biggest two in terms of market share - Firefox and Internet Explorer - didn't take part in the Acid3 race.
What I'm wondering is if, how, and when, this will help Web designers and developers like you and me. How long will it take for the other vendors to catch up enough that the standards that are tested by Acid3 can be used reliably? And what parts of the Acid3 test checks stuff that we really can't wait to use?
What's your thinking on this?Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Browsers, Web Standards.
Publication date: 2008-04-02
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Verisign increases .com fee to $6.86
It looks like Verisign is increasing fees to $6.86 for a .com domain and $4.23 for a .net domain. Around this time last year the fee went from $6.00 to $6.42 for a .com domain and from $3.50 to $3.85 for a .net domain. The new fees become effective October 1st.
Publication date: 2008-03-28
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BALUG: Mark Shuttleworth and Digital Tipping Point
Last night I drove into San Francisco for a meeting of the BALUG (Bay Area Linux Users Group). I’d never been to a BALUG meeting before, but Mark Shuttleworth (the founder of the Ubuntu distribution of Linux) was speaking and I wanted to size up Mark in person. He acquitted himself well. He spoke about [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-27
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EBay on the Prowl
Publication date: 2008-03-27
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Boosters turning to online auctions
Publication date: 2008-03-27
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Alibaba to launch new project to subsidize SMEs
Publication date: 2008-03-27
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Amazon Alliance Becomes 'Seller Performance'
Publication date: 2008-03-27
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Who Wins in eBay's New Shipping Cost Requirements?
Publication date: 2008-03-27
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Leaving eBay: Not as Easy as It Sounds
Publication date: 2008-03-27
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eBay Watch: Strategies for Wholesale Sourcing
Publication date: 2008-03-27
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eBay: Making It Easier to Recover Listings
Publication date: 2008-03-27
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eBay Sellers' Boycott: Sound And Fury, Signifying a Strong 1Q
Publication date: 2008-03-27
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Ebay Wholesale Store ? Buy Wholesale For Ebay Sellers
Publication date: 2008-03-27
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Daffodil Hill weekend
This weekend my wife and I drove up to Daffodil Hill in Eastern California. Daffodil Hill is six acres of daffodils (my favorite flower) and it’s only open for a few weeks in the springtime. It’s free — just drive right up, park, and walk around. It looks like this:
And if you get really close [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-26
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eBay: New Policy Update: Digital Downloadable Goods in Classified Ads Format Only
Publication date: 2008-03-25
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eBay: Have Good DSRs, Specified Shipping, and a Low Starting Price? Pay 1
Publication date: 2008-03-25
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eBay: A Message from Kristina Klausen - Shipping Update
Publication date: 2008-03-25
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Will eBay Create a Perfect World for Online Sellers?
Publication date: 2008-03-25
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Version 1.5 of Firefox eBay tool released
Publication date: 2008-03-25
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Overstock Enhances Car Shopping Portal
Publication date: 2008-03-25
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Alibaba.com to Enhance Domestic Business
Publication date: 2008-03-25
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Alibaba, Foshan Government Ally on E-commerce
Publication date: 2008-03-25
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RedRoller Appoints New CEO
Publication date: 2008-03-24
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eBay UK to Sellers: PayPal Required
Publication date: 2008-03-24
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Zoovy Integrates with Shipwire Fulfillment Service
Publication date: 2008-03-24
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Amazon announces Changes to Marketplace order numbers
Publication date: 2008-03-24
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eBay DevCon 2008 Registration and Star Developer Noms are Open!
Publication date: 2008-03-24
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Turmoil at eBay
Publication date: 2008-03-24
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Learning Your Way Around eBay's New Seller Dashboard
Publication date: 2008-03-24
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Download, slice and dice podcasts on Linux
I’m trying to replace my Windows applications with Linux applications. On Windows, I use I use Juice to download podcasts as MP3s. Recently I decided to switch over to Linux for receiving podcasts. After looking around at various podcast catchers (especially ones that ran on the command-line, so that I could automate them with a [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-24
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Users Report PayPal Debit Cards Being Declined
Publication date: 2008-03-23
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Alibaba.com gives UK route to China
Publication date: 2008-03-23
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Seller Circle Launches Social Networking Site for eBay Sellers
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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Experts: Tiffany Case Loss Could Alter EBay's Business Model
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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eBay: A Message From Lorrie Norrington ? Updates for Sellers
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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eBay.co.uk: Extra discounts on Final Value Fees for qualifying sellers
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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eBay.co.uk: Issues with PayPal buyer notes
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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China's Alibaba 2007 net more than quadruples
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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Top five weirdest eBay items
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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eBay scripting trick used to boost seller ratings
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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eBay exec: It's all about the platform
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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Nilaam Launches Pakistan's Very Own eBay
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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2008 Best in Stores Contest ? Enter to win $1,500 and a trip to eBay Live!
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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eBay.co.uk: Add a Gallery picture for free
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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Ebay restructuring worldwide, cutting some jobs
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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What are the Ebay Seller Tool Websites Really Doing with Buyer Information?
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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iSOLD It on eBay Moving Out!
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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UBid.com Promotes Vice President Miguel Martinez As CFO; Announces Senior Executive Changes
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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Is eBay going to the dogs? Don't bet on it
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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Software group files lawsuits against eight eBay sellers
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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The only thing saving eBay is no competition
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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Bye-Bye, Alibaba?
Publication date: 2008-03-22
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The best business card ever
Okay, this is my favorite business card of all time:
In case you can’t read the image, it says:
USED CARS — LAND — WHISKEY — MANURE — NAILS
FLY SWATTERS — RACING FORMS — BONGOS
ENTERPRISES, Un-Ltd.
W. W. GREEN, President
Wars Fought
Stud Service
Revolutions Started
Tigers Tamed
Assassinations Plotted
Bars Emptied
Governments Run
Computers Verified
Uprisings Quelled
Orgies Organized
I found this business card in an old book [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-21
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Designing Web Navigation (Book review)
What? An entire book just about designing navigation on the Web? Yes, that's right. And if you think about it for a while you'll probably realise that there is a need for a book on that subject. Heck, considering the number of sites out there that are incredibly hard to navigate, there is room for plenty of books that explain how to create Web navigation that works.
And you're very likely to have run into problems more than once when trying to figure out how to make a website or Web application easy and intuitive not only for yourself, but for your own or your client's end users, to find their way around. Designing Web Navigation by James Kalbach aims to help you master the fundamentals of navigation design. While there is no guarantee that you will master the subject, reading this book will definitely give you a lot of insight into the problems that you encounter in navigation design as well as possible solutions to those problems.
The way Designing Web Navigation is structured makes it usable not only as a book you read from cover to cover, but also as a reference to keep handy for the next time a tricky navigation problem shows up. It can also give you arguments to use in discussions with clients or other team members when there is something that doesn't feel quite right about the solution somebody is suggesting but you can't put it into words. In fact, it may also make you look at the problem from a different angle and realise that maybe your solution isn't the best one.
The author starts the first part of the book by explaining the foundations of Web navigation. Those foundations include why we even need navigation in the first place, how we use Web browsers to interact with websites, the most common types of navigation on the Web, and how we can label navigation to make it easy to understand.
The second part of the book is called "A Framework for Navigation Design", and is focused on providing you with a systematic approach to designing Web navigation. It does that by describing a number of phases that you will often move through while turning a concept into a working navigation system.
In the third and final part, James Kalbach takes a closer look at navigation in special contexts, such as before and after searching, in social tagging systems, and how Web applications can be navigated.
Throughout the book there are many references to accessibility and internationalisation issues that can be caused by some types of navigation. It's great to see that those two very important aspects of Web navigation aren't overlooked here as they are in many other places.
Overall this is a great book that I enjoyed reading. The examples and references are current and credible. One area that has room for improvement is the layout and typography, which I think could be more usable. Line-length is a bit too long for the book to be a really comfortable read, and page numbers are smaller than the text on websites designed by ad agency art directors.
But don't let that discourage you from picking up a copy of this book. My impression is that there is a lot of research behind this book, and I think all web designers and front-end developers can learn something from it.
Designing Web Navigation
Author: James Kalbach
ISBN-10: 0596528108
ISBN-13: 978-0596528102
Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Reviews, Usability.
Publication date: 2008-03-20
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OnlineAuction.com: Lower Fees, Fewer Bids
Publication date: 2008-03-17
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OnlineAuction.com Founder Is an Optimistic eBay Competitor
Publication date: 2008-03-17
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How PayPal Keeps E-Commerce Humming in 15 Languages at Once
Publication date: 2008-03-17
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Bibit offers merchants PayPal option
Publication date: 2008-03-17
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March Madness 2008!
March Madness is here again, baby! The brackets have been released, and the University of North Carolina is a #1 seed. The wonderful thing about attending the University of Kentucky for undergrad and then UNC in grad school is that I’ve always got great teams to root for in March.
If you’re a fan, [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-17
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Former eBay chief Whitman joins McCain campaign
Publication date: 2008-03-16
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eBay suffers a traffic drop, but is still the No. 1 shopping destination
Publication date: 2008-03-16
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eBay?s New and Improved Checkout
Publication date: 2008-03-16
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Boycott Fever II: More eBay Alternatives
Publication date: 2008-03-16
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Amazon.com Launches Shopping Apps On Facebook
Publication date: 2008-03-16
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Oodle Helps Consumers Avoid Scams in Online Classifieds
Publication date: 2008-03-16
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Overdoing accessibility
Sometimes when people first learn about Web accessibility they look for quick ways of improving the sites they build. This often leads to misuse or overuse of certain HTML features that are meant to aid accessibility, but when used wrongly have no effect and can actually have the opposite effect by making the page less accessible and less usable.
Many of the commonly misused accessibility features are HTML attributes. It is my feeling that they get misused either by developers who mean well but don't quite understand how the attributes help end users, or by developers who add them simply to be able to tick "accessibility" off their to-do list and shut up their manager, client or whoever is pestering them about making the site more accessible.
Here are a few examples of HTML attributes that are often misused or overused:
The accesskey attribute. A potentially useful attribute, the accesskey attribute creates a keyboard shortcut for a link or form control. However, it is so badly implemented in most browsers that it's safest to avoid using it. Very few users are aware of it, and with current implementations it can conflict with shortcut keys used for other functions in the browser.
That said, accesskey can be useful to some people if many sites use the same shortcut keys. Many public sector sites use the same shortcut keys since they follow a guideline which states which keys to use for what. It doesn't solve the user agent problem, but at least it makes the use of accesskey consistent.
It is quite common to see accesskey use go completely overboard though, with just about every link and form control having an accesskey attribute, especially in the administrative interfaces of CMSs and other tools that claim to be accessible.
The tabindex attribute. Changing the order in which elements receive keyboard focus from the order they appear in the markup can perhaps be useful in some hypothetical cases. I can't really think of any such cases, but that is not how the tabindex attribute is normally used. Instead it is often used to define the tabbing order of elements that are already in a logical order in the markup. This wouldn't really be noticed or cause any problems if it weren't for the fact that elements with a tabindex attribute take precedence over all other elements when using the keyboard to navigate.
A good example is the comment form in a default WordPress installation. The form controls (input fields and submit button) all have tabindex attributes despite already being in a logical order in the source. The effect is that keyboard users will skip straight to the comment form when they start tabbing through the page. Very annoying and completely useless, though probably well-meaning.
The title attribute. The developers of several CMSs that are popular in my part of the world have apparently learned about the title attribute and that it can be used to clarify the target of a link. So they want to use it for all links that their CMS creates, mindlessly repeating exactly what is already in the actual link text, sometimes with "Link to: " prepended. That is completely useless and does nothing to improve accessibility. All it does is increase document size.
The alt attribute. Overly explicit and verbose alt text is a nuisance. One of my favourite examples used to be csn.se, the website for the Swedish National Board of Student Aid. Until a few weeks ago, the site consisted of old-school nested tables and spacer GIFs.
Somebody, probably a well-meaning person, added alt text to the many spacer GIFs and other presentational img elements that were used on the site. So far so good. But unfortunately the alt text should have been empty to indicate that the images were purely decorative. Instead, the text "Typografisk luft" ("Typographical space") was used for spacer images and "Webbplatsens hörn" ("The website's corner") for images whose only purpose is to create rounded corners.
There wasn't just one or two of them either. On the English About CSN page I could count to no less than 185 spacer GIFs with alt="Typografisk luft". Take that, screenreader users! It makes for a superb example when demonstrating what not to do, so in a way it is unfortunate that they have now updated the site to get rid of the spacer GIFs. They do misuse the title attribute though.
In early August this year, Patrick H. Lauke held an excellent presentation where he brings up many of these overused accessibility features. The presentation slides can be downloaded in several formats from Too much accessibility. There is also an audio recording of the presentation, which is really great since you can listen to Patrick talk while going through the slides.
Patrick also brings up several other features that can improve accessibility if used correctly, so I highly recommend that you take the time to go through the entire presentation. You will come away with a much better understanding of why the HTML attributes I mention here can be problematic when used wrong, and how to use them well.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Accessibility.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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DOM Assistant updated to 2.5, adds CSS selector support
Last week I posted a brief article about what you might want to think about when Choosing a JavaScript framework, and mentioned Robert Nyman's DOM Assistant as one of the JavaScript libraries that I have used in production.
It's been just three months since Robert released version 2.0 of his library, but since then he has been working hard on improving DOM Assistant even more. And that hard work has led to this week's announcement: DOMAssistant 2.5 Released - CSS Selector Support, New AJAX Methods And More Goodies Added!.
If you read Robert's post you will notice that there are plenty of new features and performance tweaks, but the most useful addition to me is definitely support for CSS selectors. As anyone who has used a library/framework that has support for CSS selectors will testify, it is often a lot quicker to write a CSS selector that matches the elements you want to work with than doing it "by hand". So thanks for adding that feature, Robert. I'm sure I will be using it a lot.
For a few months I've been using DOM Assistant 2.0 almost daily, and I have been happy with what it does. Unfortunately I have only had limited time to beta test version 2.5, but I'm looking forward to putting it to the test once I manage to find some time.
Anyway, if you're interested in a comparatively lightweight JavaScript library that focuses more on helping you out with the tedious parts of scripting than adding cool effects and UI widgets, give DOM Assistant a try.
And please, no "my library is better than yours" trolling. There are many libraries to choose from, and to each his own. No need for a war.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in JavaScript.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Internet Explorer 8 announced, passes the Acid2 test
A couple of weeks ago, after a long time of silence on what will come after Internet Explorer 7, it was revealed on the IEBlog that the next version of Microsoft's web browser will be Internet Explorer 8. The name isn't too much of a surprise I'd say, but it's good to find out that the IE team still exists and are still working on IE.
But a couple of days ago much more significant news came from the same source: internal builds of IE 8 now pass the Acid2 test. The significance of the Acid2 test may not be obvious to everyone, but in practice this means that IE 8 will support display:table and generated content, among other things.
I know that I sometimes complain about IE. I also think I have the right to do so, since over the years I have spent countless hours working around bugs in IE. But I think this is great news. Fantastic. Beyond what I had hoped. Thanks for continuing to work on improving standards support in IE. I hope you can deliver something that is at least as good as the competition with IE 8.
Now where's the Mac version?
IE is the only major browser that is only available on a single platform. If Apple, Mozilla, and Opera can all make their web browsers available on multiple platforms, why can't (or won't) Microsoft?
Or should we be happy that it is only available for Windows? Perhaps if IE was available for multiple platforms we would be seeing more sites that tell us that we have to install IE before they will let us in? I know a lot of developers who are locked into using only Microsoft technology would love that.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Browsers, Web Standards.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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456 Berea Street highlights of 2007
Time for the annual look back at what I've written here during the year that is almost at an end. I've been doing this recap since 2004, and it's always interesting to browse through my archives looking for articles that received many comments, were linked to a lot, or caused a bit of discussion. I always run into one or two that I had almost forgotten about.
This year I haven't posted quite as many articles as the previous couple of years. I simply haven't had the time to write. It is partly due to the size of my family being increased in June – having a baby to take care of consumes a lot of time and energy, though it's also a lot of fun. I have also been very busy building websites at my dayjob. So busy that when I get home I don't feel particularly excited about spending another couple of hours in front of the computer.
Anyway, I have managed to write a few articles that I think are worth reminding regular readers about and pointing new readers to. Not as many as some years, but enough to keep you occupied for a little while if you read them all, including the comments.
Thanks for reading, everybody! Here's the list:
Learn JavaScript before tasting the library kool-aid: Learn how to code JavaScript instead of how to use library/framework X to create cool animations and other visual effects. Then evaluate whether you should use a library.
Styling form controls with CSS, revisited: Screenshots from 8 browsers on 4 operating systems showing the effects of CSS applied to form controls.
Poll: Do you maximise your browser window?: Looking for answers to three questions: 1. Do you maximise your browser window? 2. What is the resolution of your screen? 3. Which OS do you use?
Lame excuses for not being a Web professional: Excuses that may be valid in some circumstances are too often used to cover up somebody’s lack of knowledge about modern Web design or development.
Creating bulletproof graphic link buttons with CSS: How to use CSS and two images to create flexible, shrinkwrapping, image based link buttons.
Are we designers or developers?: If you do not do graphic design, but work with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and accessibility, are you a designer or a developer?
JavaScript interaction must be input device independent: Make your JavaScript device-independent and accessible to all by assigning user interaction event handlers such as onclick to links instead of non-keyboard focusable elements.
10 colour contrast checking tools to improve the accessibility of your design: A list of tools that help make your design readable to all users by checking if text has sufficient contrast against its background.
How to create an unobtrusive print this page link with JavaScript: How to create an unobtrusive print this page link that does not confuse users whose browsers do not support JavaScript.
Scrap text resize widgets and teach people how to resize text: Instead of wasting time and resources on building JavaScript widgets that resize the text on your site, teach people how to resize text in their browser.
Autopopulating text input fields with JavaScript: When you cannot display a label for a text input field, use placeholder text in an unobtrusive way. This article explains how.
Mac OS X Web browser rundown 2007: A rundown of the Mac OS X Web browsers that occupy space on my hard drive in late 2007.
Keep browser lock-out a thing of the past: Browser sniffing and deliberately preventing people using a so-called unsupported browser from entering a site is a thing from the past that we do not need these days.
Use the label element to make your HTML forms accessible: By using the label element to associate form controls with their label text, you improve the accessibility of HTML forms and make styling and scripting them easier.
Choose an accessible image replacement method: When you have to use image replacement for text, choose a method that causes as few problems as possible for as few people as possible.
Choosing a JavaScript framework: There is a large number of JavaScript libraries or frameworks available. But how do you choose which one to use?
And while you read those articles I'll be taking a couple of weeks off from working, blogging, and responding to email. Instead I will be spending some time with my family and my game consoles.
See you next year!Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Web General.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Authentic Jobs New Year Promo: 50% off
Most readers who, like myself, have been in the position of trying to find skilled people to hire during last year will probably agree that talent is hard to hire in the web industry right now. Most of the people you would want to hire seem to have good jobs that they're happy with already.
Well, it doesn't hurt to extend your reach if you're hiring, so why not start 2008 by giving Authentic Jobs a try if you haven't already done so in your hunt for talent. You'll reach the best of the best when it comes to modern, standards-aware web design and development.
Use the promo code BEREA08 and you will get a 50% discount if you place your job listing no later than January 15. The discount applies to both full-time and freelance listings, and you still have the money-back guarantee.Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Job openings.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Simply JavaScript (Book review)
A book that is sub-titled "Everything you need to learn JavaScript from scratch" is obviously not aimed at experienced JavaScript developers. However I don't think Simply JavaScript is suitable for absolute beginners either, since it contains programming examples that aren't all that easy for someone without at least some programming or scripting experience to wrap their head around.
The authors, Kevin Yank and Cameron Adams, get off to a great start by explaining the three layers the Web is built on (presentation, content, and behaviour) and how CSS, HTML, and JavaScript should be used for each separate layer. When a JavaScript book starts by talking about unobtrusive scripting and even mentions that perhaps JavaScript isn't always the best way of solving a problem, you can be reasonably sure that it's been written by someone who knows about modern Web development.
Since this book is not aimed at JavaScript experts, there is a whole chapter devoted to explaining the basics of programming with JavaScript. Variables, statements, conditions and loops, functions, and objects are all talked about in an easy-to-understand way, accompanied by plenty of code examples and illustrative figures.
After the first two introductory chapters, the authors dive into some actual programming for the next several chapters. The DOM, events, animation, form scripting, finding and debugging errors, and Ajax are all discussed in one chapter each. The final chapter takes a look ahead at the future of JavaScript.
Throughout the book, the Core JavaScript library is used to make some common DOM scripting tasks easier. I hadn't heard of Core before, but it seems to do the job and is very lightweight. It's so small that the entire source is included in the book.
Overall I think the authors do a great job of explaining JavaScript. The examples and code are easy to follow and explained well, and the book is written in a friendly and inviting tone. I picked up a few tips and tricks from reading this book, which for me makes it worth the time it took to read it.
Revisiting the sub-title of this book, I think the audience that will get the most out of it falls somewhere in between the novice and expert levels. To me it seems best suited for designers or developers with a decent knowledge of HTML and CSS and some familiarity with JavaScript. If that describes you, I can recommend Simply JavaScript.
As with all SitePoint books, there are sample chapters you can download to find out if the book is right for you.
Simply JavaScript
Authors: Kevin Yank, Cameron Adams
ISBN-10: 0980285801
ISBN-13: 978-0980285802
Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in JavaScript, Reviews.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Standards mode is the new quirks mode
Just in case you haven't already read the companion articles Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8 and From Switches to Targets: A Standardista's Journey at A List Apart, I suggest you do so now.
Back? Good. If you didn't read the articles, here is an executive summary: Because of their immense fear of making broken websites that should be fixed look broken in Internet Explorer, Microsoft are going to make developers add a particular meta element to any page that IE 8 should use its "really, really standards mode, and we really mean it this time" to render.
Now, this is one of those subjects that if you have an opinion on it, it doesn't matter what that opinion is. It will be the wrong opinion to a lot of people anyway, and people will become rude and call you names. Come to think of it, most web related subjects seem to be of that kind these days.
When I first read the articles I just mentioned I shrugged, finished my breakfast, and drove to work. Yawn. Big deal. But after several people have asked me what I think about it, I re-read the articles and the comments posted on them as well as a lot of other people's opinions. And now I have an opinion which will be the wrong opinion to many people. What else is new...
I'm not convinced enough that I can say my opinion will never change, but for the most part I think introducing this switch is a bad idea. If other browser vendors than Microsoft also introduce it I think it's a really bad idea. As do others – read The Internet Explorer lock-in and <META HTTP-EQUIV="X-BALL-CHAIN"> for starters.
So, please tell me why those of us who think this is not a good idea are wrong.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Browsers, Web Standards.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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The Art and Science of CSS (Book review)
The Art & Science of CSS is not a very thick book, and it doesn't have to be since it is not a reference book on CSS. It is a rather quick read, but it contains useful and practical tips on how to create certain design elements with CSS. These are tips that you can adapt and use in your own projects.
Five authors have contributed to this book: Cameron Adams, Jina Bolton, David Johnson, Steve Smith, and Jonathan Snook. Bolton, Johnson, and Snook have written one chapter each, while Steve Smith and Cameron Adams have both written two chapters. It's an author line-up that raises expectations.
There's not a lot to say about the general structure of the book. There is no introduction to CSS or HTML in here. Instead you jump right in and get working on the examples. During the course of the seven chapters you will find new or different ways of styling, creating, or manipulating headings, images, backgrounds, navigation, forms, rounded corners, and tables. Those are the main topics of each chapter, but in each chapter you will pick up other tips as well.
So, what do I think of this book after reading it? Well, it's not bad. Plenty of good tips and useful techniques are described in it. It's not perfect either. I guess it's partly down to personal preference, but I am not too fond of books that have multiple authors unless there is one main editor that makes sure all chapters are at least reasonably similar in style. I can't quite put it into words, but to some extent the different styles distract me from the actual content.
Apart from the difference in writing style between the authors, there is also the difference in coding practices for both CSS and HTML. It's ok for someone who is experienced and can see that the differences are often just personal preferences, but this book is meant for people who aren't CSS or HTML experts. I can easily imagine how confusing it is to see different approaches to font sizing in different chapters of the same book, with no explanation of why. I think consistency would have been good here.
With that in mind, reading The Art & Science of CSS will teach you how to use CSS to accomplish a number of useful design tasks, so I think it's worth its price unless you already know most of what there is to know about CSS.
As with all SitePoint books, there are sample chapters you can download to find out if the book is right for you.
The Art & Science of CSS
Authors: Cameron Adams, Jina Bolton, David Johnson, Steve Smith, Jonathan Snook
ISBN-10: 0975841971
ISBN-13: 978-0975841976
Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in CSS, Reviews.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Helping others understand web accessibility
When I hold workshops for people who want to learn more about web standards and accessibility, I often notice that the attendants really have tried to improve their accessibility knowledge. But they get overwhelmed when they go to the official documentation from the W3C and try to understand it.
Mike Cherim brings this up in Making Web Accessibility Accessible, an article that is over a year old but still just as relevant. He notes that accessibility is harder to get into than it should be for several reasons, one of which being that the documentation (WCAG 1.0) is hard to understand. And it doesn't look like things will get much easier when WCAG 2.0 is released and becomes the norm.
In addition to the documentation problem, Mike also mentions the unhelpful attitude held by some people who seem like they don't want to help the less experienced, the misguided or the misinformed, and instead choose to criticise them. I see it too sometimes, and I have probably been guilty of doing that myself. But I really try to help where I can by sharing what I've learned about web accessibility so far. And I'm still learning, so I really appreciate when other people share their knowledge.
Over the years I've spent countless hours writing articles, responding to email and comments, and participating on discussion forums. No matter how much I would like to, there is no time for me to do more unless I quit my dayjob. And since my dayjob is how I pay the mortgage, well, that's not very likely. Writing articles takes lots of time, for me anyway.
Going back to Mike's article, he suggests a few things to think about when you talk about accessibility with other people who work in the fields of web design and development:
Be a translator: Learn the specs and translate them into English.
Be willing to give back: If somebody asks for your help, try to find time to respond.
Accessibility is happy: Give accessibility a smiling face.
Encourage don't admonish: When somebody makes progress, acknowledge that instead of criticising what they do wrong.
Good suggestions, Mike. I will try to get better at each of them. For instance, I guess I could be a little less grumpy sometimes when I come across bad examples or implementations. But not always... ;-).Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Accessibility.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Looking for open source CMS and portal software options
Over the past year or so we've seen a definite increase in the number of questions we get about open source content management and portal software at NetRelations. I'm not quite sure of the reason for this trend, but nevertheless it's refreshing to see people beginning to "think different" in the otherwise very Microsoft-dominated country that Sweden is.
It may be a welcome change, but I find choosing a CMS incredibly difficult, and evaluating them is very time consuming and often frustrating. There are hundreds of options, one worse than the other. To date I have never come across a CMS that doesn't have serious flaws. Even if a CMS looks good at a glance, once you start digging deeper you will always encounter problems with usability, accessibility, and front-end code.
Content Management Systems
A couple of times in the past I have asked my readers for CMS suggestions, but it's been a while now. Last time we ended up using Plone, which was a real pain to work with. I don't know if the situation has improved by now (it's been three years), but just thinking about working with it gives me a stomach ache. So we want to look at other options, and I'd like to ask what you all think.
We've been looking around for a while and two of the very few systems that look like they could be worth spending more time with are ModX and Drupal. Their approaches to content handling are quite different, so they would most likely suit different kinds of clients.
The first thing I would like to get some input on is how good ModX and Drupal really are. I'm thinking both for developers who will need to customise the CMS to fit the clients' needs and for the end users who will work with the admin interfaces to create content and structure sites. I'm looking for answers to the following questions:
How easy (or hard) are ModX and Drupal to develop for?
How easy (or hard) is using them to create content and administer websites?
Are there any problems creating fully standards compliant and accessible websites with either system? Do they allow full (and I really mean full) control of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript or do they contain uncustomisable black boxes?
Are their admin interfaces reasonably accessible? If not, can they be made accessible?
That's one bunch of questions. Next, the vague topic of "portals".
Portal Software
Some large organisations are asking about open source portal software to use instead of commercial solutions like IBM WebSphere (WPS) or Microsoft Sharepoint (MOSS). I have some experience with both WPS and MOSS, and while making a public-facing website based on either system standards compliant and accessible is achievable with a bit of work, fixing the interface presented to a logged-in user seems more or less impossible. In other words, to be better than either of those two in the web standards, accessibility and usability departments should be really easy.
It seems that most open source portal platforms are Java based. Liferay, JBoss Portal, and Apache Jetspeed are some. They all seem like incredibly complicated pieces of software that are beyond my capability to understand. That has got me thinking... would it be possible to use Plone or Drupal as a portal? Yes, I know I complained about Plone being hard to develop for earlier, but compared to others it is pretty good at web standards and accessibility.
Does anyone reading this have experience from open source portal software? The questions I'm looking for answers to are the same as for the content management systems.
Their standards aren't our standards
As a sidenote it's pretty fascinating to note that when CMS and portal software vendors boast about "Standards compliance", "Open standards", and "Interoperability" they do not mean what you might think they mean.
To them, those terms have little to do with the front-end, so having a "Standards compliant, interoperable" portal solution does not mean that it outputs valid HTML and CSS and will work in any browser. Instead, it means it will run on any server that means the requirements. Huge difference.
To summarise this little call for input: any suggestions, hints, and recommendations on open source content management and portal software are welcome.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Content Management.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Make sure your website works with or without www
Being a little lazy at times, I tend to skip typing "www." before the domain name when I enter a URL in my web browser. No, it doesn't save me a whole lot of typing, but bear with me here. Most of the time it works fine and I end up on the site I expect.
But it really surprises me how often typing in a domain name without "www." in front results in one of the following:
My browser displays an error message such as "Safari can't open the page "http://example.com/" because it can't find the server "example.com"."
My browser finds a server but nothing happens because there is no website configured.
I am redirected to a parked domain.
I get a "Directory listing denied" message.
This happens with all sorts of organisations, from the tiniest single-page websites to huge online presences of multi-national corporations.
You can add "www." in front of the domain name and all is fine. But should you really have to do that? What I think should happen is that the web server either responds on the address I entered or redirects me to the www host. Unlike the no-www and yes-www folks I'm "www-agnostic" in that I don't really care if the preferred host is the bare domain name or "www." + domain name. Just make both work and redirect all traffic to one of them, I don't care which. I do however think that it makes a really bad impression when any of the above happens when you try to access an organisation's website without typing "www.".
I'm no DNS or web hosting expert, so there may well be technical reasons that I am unaware of that make it hard or impossible to configure all web servers to work with or without the "www.". But when this sort of thing has happened to clients, it usually turns out that whoever is hosting the site has simply forgotten about it.
Considering how many use their bare domain name in advertising, and looking at colleagues and relatives, I know I'm far from the only one who skips "www." when manually typing in a URL. And do you really want to risk your clients losing visitors due to a misconfigured web server? I thought not, so remember to check this with the persons or companies responsible for the servers your clients' sites are hosted on.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Usability.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Beware of id and name attribute mixups when using getElementById in Internet Explorer
It is probably old news to the JavaScript experts among you, but since I recently ran into this problem myself and pulled my hair in frustration before a coworker hinted at the solution I think it's worth mentioning:
When using getElementById to get a reference to an element via the id attribute, Internet Explorer for Windows (and some versions of Opera) will also match an element whose name attribute contains the same value.
This doesn't always cause any noticeable problems since in most cases you're not all that likely to have identical name and id values for different elements, but when it does happen it can lead to errors that are very hard to debug.
Here is a simple example HTML document that is susceptible to this problem:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta name="description" content="A brief description of the content on this page.">
<title>The name and id attributes in IE</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="description">
<p>A description of something.</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Now imagine that you want to use JavaScript to do something to div#description. For simplicity's sake, let's say you write the following script that hides the div element by setting its display CSS property to none when the page is loaded:
function hideIt() {
var obj = document.getElementById('description');
obj.style.display = 'none';
}
window.onload = hideIt;
That works as expected everywhere except in Internet Explorer, where nothing happens. The reason for that is that in IE, getElementById finds and returns the meta element whose name attribute has the value description before it gets to the div element.
You can avoid this either by making sure that there are no name and id conflicts in your document or by using a script that fixes the problem by overriding IE's native getElementById method.
If you were aware of this already, good for you. If not, I hope I saved you some frustration.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Browsers, JavaScript.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Design Accessible Web Sites (Book review)
It's good to see more books on Web accessibility being published. More books means different authors and different writing approaches, and a greater chance of there being a book available that suits different people.
I mention this because to some people, words such as standards, regulations, or compliance are huge turn-offs that make them effectively stop listening. Maybe Design Accessible Web Sites will sit better with that crowd, since the author, Jeremy Sydik, presents the information in a gentler way, without getting overly hung up on checkpoints and accessibility guidelines.
I think it's a very good approach. There isn't much sense in slavishly following recommendations just to tick checkboxes without knowing what the benefit is. And I've been seeing quite a bit of that lately...
It seems that often when a client requires their website to be accessible, the task of making sure it is accessible is handed over to a back-end developer who also happens to be the only one on the project who has any sort of knowledge of front-end development. But that developer is very rarely aware of what makes a website accessible, so they turn to checking points off the WCAG checklists and checking checkboxes in whichever IDE they are using. And that often leads to badly implemented accessibility, like the issues I mentioned a while ago in Overdoing accessibility.
Apologies for the long introduction, but it's there since I think Design Accessible Web Sites could actually work for the developers I am thinking of. There is not a lot of pedantery and preaching and "you must follow these guidelines exactly, or else". Instead, the author focuses on the end result – if doing this or that actually makes the site more accessible. And in the end that is a lot more important than ticking boxes in a checklist.
The book consists of five parts and goes through everything from best practices to testing to taking a look at the legal situation that surrounds Web accessibility. It's written in a very easy-to-read and friendly manner that makes it a pleasure to read. The advice it contains is correct and up-to-date, and focuses on how the end user is affected instead of following outdated guidelines to the letter.
Speaking of guidelines, the book teaches how to design accessible sites by following ten principles instead of various guidelines. I won't quote the entire list of principles, but a couple of my favourites are these:
Users' time and technology belong to them, not to us. You should never take control of either without a really good reason.
Progressively enhance your basic content by adding extra features. Allow it to degrade gracefully for users who can't or don't want to use them.
Design Accessible Web Sites is an excellent read that I highly recommend.
Design Accessible Web Sites
Author: Jeremy Sydik
ISBN-10: 1934356026
ISBN-13: 978-1934356029
Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Accessibility, Reviews.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Doctype switching for IE 8
So. A few weeks have passed since the version targeting Microsoft will introduce in IE 8 was made official and I posted my initial thoughts in Standards mode is the new quirks mode. I've had time to read many articles and hundreds of comments that discuss version targeting, and have thought some more about what it means and what I think about it.
After that thinking, my initial reaction holds: I don't buy it. It doesn't matter how many arguments in favour of version targeting I read, it still seems so utterly and completely wrong that standards aware web developers will have to opt in to opt out.
I think version targeting as it has been presented is an incredibly bad idea to force upon the minority of people in the web industry who have a clue and work hard to stay updated. If the switch was reversed, i.e. you'd have to insert the meta element if you wanted IE 7 rendering, it would make a lot more sense to me. If your site breaks in IE 8 and you can't or won't fix it, just insert a meta element and the problem is gone.
The argument against reversing the switch is that the clueless are too clueless to ever find out that there is an easy way for them to force IE back to IE 7 rendering. That may be true, but why should we let people who refuse to keep their skills updated get away with it?
Make doctype switching stricter
An idea that makes much more sense than forcing standards aware developers to opt in to opt out was put forward in WaSP Round Table: IE8's Default Version Targeting Behavior. The idea is to keep using the doctype to switch modes, but require a strict doctype with a full URL for standards mode. I like that.
I don't have any statistics to back it up, but my gut feeling is that most of the sites that accidentally trigger standards mode today (and would be most likely to break in IE 8) have either a transitional doctype or an XHTML 1.1 doctype. So unless there are statistics that prove that theory wrong, why not simply let the absence of a strict doctype (HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0) be what makes IE 8 pretend it's IE 7?
I believe that many of the people who argue against the version targeting switch would say "Yeah, that seems like a good idea, let's do that." I know I would.
Realistically though, I doubt it matters what you or I think or say. In the end we'll all have to do whatever Microsoft tells us to do. Either that or keep pulling our hair out while dealing with CSS and DOM bugs in IE 7 forever.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Browsers, Web Standards.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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DOMAssistant 2.6 released
Last week Robert Nyman updated the DOMAssistant JavaScript library to version 2.6. As always with a new version of anything there are a number of new features and performance enhancements, but this release also marks a couple of other changes for DOMAssistant.
First a couple of words about performance. In DOMAssistant 2.6, the performance of CSS selectors has been improved a lot – run the SlickSpeed Selectors Test to see just how fast it is. Opinions on the usefulness of the SlickSpeed test vary, but no matter how you spin it, DOMAssistant's CSS selectors are really fast.
A new feature is support for plugins, which among other things will enable people to add stuff like animations and superfluous visual bling bling. The plugin model can of course be used to add useful functionality as well :-).
In order to make DOMAssistant a little less of a one man show and more of a community, Robert also asked a few people, including myself, to join the DOMAssistant Team. Sure, the community around DOMAssistant is still small when compared to that of the major JavaScript libraries on the market. I don't think that's a problem really, since I'm not so sure that massive amounts of forum or mailing list traffic automatically means that something is good.
For Robert's own, more detailed, description of the news and changes in DOMAssistant 2.6, read his post on the DOMAssistant development blog: Releasing DOMAssistant 2.6 - overall fastest CSS selectors, plugins and more.
If you're like me and are more interested in building websites than trying to emulate desktop applications in the browser, DOMAssistant should appeal to you. Give it a try. If you like it, great! If you prefer another library or framework, good for you. Just be aware of the options.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in JavaScript.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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The WCAG Samurai Errata are now available
It took nearly two years, but two days ago on 26 February 2008, version 1.0 of the WCAG Samurai Errata for WCAG 1.0 were finally published. As stated in the Introduction, this version is also likely to be the final version.
A quick summary for anyone who is not familiar with the WCAG Samuari or their WCAG 1.0 errata: The WCAG Samurai consisted of a group of accessibility and standards-aware web developers brought together by Joe Clark in 2006. The group's goal was to create a document that provides corrections and updates for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0.
The reason to provide corrections is that since WCAG 1.0 was originally published by the W3C in 1999, both web browsers and assistive technologies have evolved. At the same time, accessibility-aware web developers have learned and invented a lot of techniques for building accessible websites. Developers have also learned that some of the techniques that were useful in the past are no longer needed or even cause problems for users.
The WCAG Samurai errata thus removes, rephrases, and adds information that makes WCAG 1.0 more applicable to today's Web. You might also want to read Joe Clark's WCAG Samurai errata released, where he talks a bit more about the errata and the development process used.
So do the WCAG Samurai Errata actually contain any improvements? Yes, definitely. I don't agree one hundred percent with every word in the errata, but all in all I think they make a lot of sense and match what I strive for in my daily work.
Note that you can't use the WCAG Samurai Errata as a standalone document. It should be used in combination with W3C's WCAG 1.0.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Accessibility.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Specify a maximum width for em-based layouts
As someone who likes to bump up text size a notch or even two on many sites, I often notice that this behaviour is not something that web designers in general anticipate. However, layouts do tend to be a little bit more robust now than a few years ago, at least at a moderate increase in text size. That's good, though I think in many cases it is just a matter of luck that nothing gets obscured as text size is increased.
One technique that can easily make reading a site a lot more uncomfortable is using an elastic, or em-based, layout such as the one I use here (and talk about a bit more in detail in Fixed or fluid width? Elastic!) without specifying a maximum width in another unit. I've come across a few of those recently, which could perhaps be explained by the fact that the preset fixed width layouts created by YUI Grids CSS are of this kind.
Since the em unit is tied to the browser's text size, increasing that size will have consequences. Let's say you have specified that the total width of a layout is 60em. As text size is increased, so is the entire width of the layout. In the absence of a max-width CSS property that uses another unit, like pixels or percent, that will rather quickly lead to horizontal scrolling - and plenty of it - unless you're browsing with a very wide window on a very wide screen.
And how is that a problem? Well, if you need larger text, you're likely not going to appreciate that in order to get larger text you will have to put up with a lot of horizontal scrolling to find parts of the site. It doesn't make the site completely inaccessible or impossible to use, but it does make things harder for anyone who likes larger text and does not use a very wide browser window. Alastair Campbell talks more about the issues this can cause (and why "elastic" may not be the ideal name for em-based layouts) in Elastic layout - wrong term?.
So just a heads-up: when creating an em-based layout, consider using max-width instead of width. As for IE 6, which does not understand max-width, I tend to either use a dynamic property to give it a maximum width in pixels or just give it a fixed width (again, in pixels). I think both options are better than setting a fixed width in ems since they are less likely to cause massive horizontal scrolling at large text sizes.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Accessibility, CSS, Usability.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Surprise of the year: IE8 will use Standards mode by default
When I woke up this morning and checked my RSS feeds I had to rub my eyes and look again. Was I still asleep and dreaming? But no, I was awake, and what I saw reported from multiple sources is that Microsoft has reversed its decision to make IE8 behave like IE7 unless specifically requested.
Wow. I didn't see that coming. And even more surprising is their reason for making the change. In Microsoft's Interoperability Principles and IE8 on the IEBlog, IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch says:
In light of the Interoperability Principles, as well as feedback from the community, we're choosing differently. Now, IE8 will show pages requesting "Standards" mode in IE8's Standards mode. Developers who want their pages shown using IE8's "IE7 Standards mode" will need to request that explicitly (using the http header/meta tag approach described here).
And in a press release titled Microsoft Expands Support for Web Standards, Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie states that
there is a concrete benefit to Web designers if all vendors give priority to interoperability around commonly accepted standards as they evolve
No, I'm not making this up.
It seems like Microsoft actually listened to the developer community, which is so surprising to me it hasn't quite sunk in yet. As a standards-advocating web developer I have become so used to Microsoft completely ignoring the needs of myself and my fellow standardistas that I could never have imagined them changing their minds on this.
And it doesn't stop there. Dean Hachamovitch goes on to say that:
Long term, we believe this is the right thing for the web. Shorter term, leading up not just to IE8's release but broader IE8 adoption, this choice creates a clear call to action to site developers to make sure their web content works well in IE.
And Ray Ozzie hints at better education for developers who do not use web standards:
we will work with content publishers to ensure they fully understand the steps we are taking and will encourage them to use this beta period to update their sites to transition to the more current Web standards supported by IE8
Sounds great. Thanks for listening!
I hope that this new focus on web standards and interoperability also means cleaning up the horrible, stinking, inaccessible piles of code that are regurgitated by products like MOSS and Visual Studio. I also hope that it means educating Visual Studio cowboys to use and understand web standards.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Browsers, Web Standards.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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First impressions of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1
So Microsoft released the first beta of Internet Explorer 8 to the public the other day. Press releases and documents on the IE 8 site contain plenty of exciting promises of new and improved features, such as:
Full and complete CSS 2.1 support
Partial CSS 3 support
Better JavaScript performance
Fixes for a number of long-standing JavaScript bugs
Built-in developer tools
WAI-ARIA support
It all sounds very promising, but if you're hoping for IE 8 Beta 1 to catch up with other contemporary browsers, you'd better lower your expectations a bit. I had high hopes after reading about the new features and improved support for standards Microsoft are aiming for in IE 8, but after trying out Beta 1 I have to say that I am a little disappointed.
Yeah I know, I know. It's a beta version, so bugs and problems are to be expected. I still thought IE 8 Beta 1 would be more polished than it is. Anyway, here are some of the areas I have looked a little closer at.
CSS 2.1
Microsoft have made it clear that they aren't done with the CSS 2.1 implementation yet and that there is much more to come in Beta 2, so things will improve. After checking a bunch of the sites I've built recently in IE 8 Beta 1 I can verify that CSS 2.1 support is not complete – some things break. Full CSS 2.1 support is very, very promising though, so I really hope the IE team manages to fulfill this promise.
Built-in developer tools
Internet Explorer is in desperate need of a reliable debugging tool on par with Firebug, and IE 8 does have built-in developer tools for CSS and JavaScript debugging. Great!
I suppose it's unfair to compare IE 8's developer tools to the excellent Firebug extension, but it can't be helped. Firebug has set the bar for what any browser based developer tools need to match.
Unfortunately IE 8's developer tools are currently very lacking in features, look very unpolished, and seem quite buggy. They don't come anywhere close to Firebug. Like CSS 2.1 support, Microsoft is open about the developer tools not being finished, so they will hopefully be much improved in the next beta release.
Zoom
Since IE 8 still refuses to resize text sized in pixels, zoom functionality is very important for people who need larger text. Zooming in IE 7 is a mess, and it is supposed to be improved in IE 8. So is it?
Well... yes and no. Zooming is less likely to create massive horizontal scrollbars than in IE 7, but it has major problems on some sites, where zooming just one step completely destroys the layout (try it on this site to see what I mean). Talk about breaking the web... Zoom appears to need more work before it becomes usable.
Looking forward to Beta 2
I realise I may be coming across as being a bit negative here, but I was really hoping for more after Microsoft's surprising move to let IE 8 use its most compliant standards mode by default. I guess I was hoping for too much at this stage.
To end this on a positive note, it's excellent to see the improvements mentioned on the IE 8 website. Beta 2 is sure to deliver much more than Beta 1, and I'm looking forward to it.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Browsers.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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DOMAssistant bundle for TextMate
Like many other Mac users I do most of my coding in TextMate. It has tons of really nice features, one of which is its extensibility – if you need support for a coding language that isn't included with TextMate, you can add it yourself.
Well, I've been using Robert Nyman's DOMAssistant JavaScript library quite a bit lately, and TextMate doesn't support DOMAssistant's methods and syntax. I was getting a bit annoyed at knowing that I was doing a lot of unnecessary typing because of this, so I decided to create a TextMate bundle for DOMAssistant.
Armed with my copy of TextMate, James Edward Gray II's excellent TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac, and the DOMAssistant documentation, I started hacking away. This was the first time I took a closer look at adding support for a language in TextMate, but it turned out that it really isn't that difficult.
After a few hours of work, the result is a DOMAssistant TextMate bundle with tab triggered snippets for all methods, a code completion dictionary, and documentation links for all DOMAssistant keywords.
Google Code project: textmate-domassistant
Direct download link: DOMAssistant-tmbundle-1.0.zip
If you use TextMate and DOMAssistant I think this will save you a few keystrokes :-).
Suggestions for improvement are welcome. Remember that this is my first TextMate bundle, so please be gentle.Visit site to read or post comments…Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.Posted in Coding, JavaScript, Mac, Productivity.
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Blogger Play
http://play.blogger.com/ is really addictive. It’s a slideshow of pictures that are currently uploading to blogger. I remember the first time I realized that the nightly TV news would never play re-runs; if you missed the show that night, you wouldn’t see it again. This new feature has the similar feel: there’s a river of pictures [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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What should NOINDEX do?
Okay, this post will be colossally boring to some people. But I wanted to give you a peek at debates behind the curtain in Google’s search quality group. Here’s a policy discussion about NOINDEX and how Google should treat the NOINDEX meta tag. First, you’ll want to read this post about how Google handles the [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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An easy way to add new features to Google
Have you ever wanted to add a new feature to Google’s search results? There’s a really nice way to do it right now. If you’re not familiar with this functionality, it’s called a Subscribed Link, and it lets you “create custom search results that users can add to their Google search pages. You can display [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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SMX West + Interviews
The Search Marketing Expo (SMX) West conference was a blast, and now I’m trying to recover and catch up on the things I missed at work. It was great seeing a bunch of familiar faces, and I met quite a few new folks as well. One of my favorite activities was the “Lunch with a [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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My 2008 predictions
Danny Sullivan had a big day today. He announced that he’s moving back to California from England this year, and he bought a Mac yesterday. I’m not sure which surprises me more, but it’s probably the Mac thing. I really thought Danny would be the last search/SEO person converted from a PC to a Mac. [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Checking my older predictions
It’s been about 1.5 years since I asked a few questions in my Google Lifestyle post:
So the question is, what is waiting a few more years down the line? Maybe I won
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Busy week: Calendar sync and Contacts API
Lots of stuff going on this week. There were presidential primaries on Tuesday, and sounds like Apple will have some iPhone SDK news in just a few hours. In addition to that, this week saw:
Two-way sync between Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook. Sounds like it works with Google Apps accounts too. I’m sure this will [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Summer of Code 2008: 21 potential projects
Yay! Google is opening up its “Summer of Code” for 2008. Google’s Summer of Code program encourages students to tackle open-source projects over the summer break. For a 2-3 more days, sponsor organizations are invited to apply and then students can apply starting March 24th. I’ve been thinking about some projects that I’d enjoying seeing. [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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How to back up your Gmail on Linux in four easy steps
I really like Gmail, but I also like having backups of my data just in case. Here’s how to use a simple program called getmail on Unix to backup your Gmail or Google Apps email. We’ll break this into four steps.
Step 0: Why getmail?
If you browse around on the web, you’ll find several options [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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SEO Advice: Getting Links
[Note: This post was written in December 2005 (!). I’m going through some of my old draft posts and publishing the ones that aren’t too awful. Some of these “Leftovers” will be rough.]
Okay, here are some ways to get high-quality links without emailing, paying, or even paying attention to search engines:
Provide a useful one-time service. [...]
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Pizarro: EBay's Whitman will focus on charity, not governorship
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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eBay President to Keynote 2008 PeSA Summit, PeSA Expands Membership Criteria to Include All eBay PowerSellers
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Crgslst: The Endangered, Sexy Craigslist Search Tool
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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eBay.ca: 10 Cent Listing Day for Fixed Price or Auction Format
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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eBay now letting Skype be Skype, exec says
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Scientology Given Direct Access To eBay Database
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Perfume Bay Changes Online Names After eBay Battle
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Amazon.com Adds Link to Newer Product Versions
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Watchdog Group Gives Live Demo of eBay Security Vulnerability
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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eBay: Enhancements to Store Inventory Expansion Box Below Search Results
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Is Donahoe Trying to Destroy eBay?
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Malaysians See eBay As Platform To Sell To The World
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Birth of a Sales Tool: LinkedIn Meets eBay
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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BBC Worldwide and eBay team up for recycling push
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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Overstock.com Says PayPal Yields Triple Expected Volume
Publication date: 2008-03-14
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