Web Standards Presentation

I came up with this really lengthy presentation on XHTML, CSS, Accessibility and Web Standards at work. In the end, it was so-so, but I never felt like it had the cohesion I was after. It seemed so monotonous that I included a brief intermission clip of a squirrel on waterskiis just to lighten up the mood.

In walks the Web Standards Workshop, offered by the ever-cool Max Design. It is a comprehensive, well-planned, understandable presentation on how everyone should be doing web development.

Read it now for true enlightenment. What are you waiting for?

Where Have I Been?

Sometimes I could kick myself. I had no clue the original Dinosaur Jr. had reunited and were on tour until someone told me last week. Yes, I have missed seeing them.

What hurts worse is that in London on June 21 they played all the songs from You’re Living All Over Me in order, from start to finish. This is my all-time favorite album!!!.

Argh!!!

In other music related news, Mr. Geer seems to have his web site going in the right direction.

IE7 Preview

Neowin.net has a good review of Internet Explorer 7 beta1. The article goes into detail about the pros, the cons, and the bass-ackward interface changes.

“Microsoft is playing the catch-up game with IE7. Nearly every feature included with this build has already been successfully implemented in most alternative browsers. Crucially, the interface is still not up to par with Firefox/Opera; can we honestly back a new version of IE when there are alternative products on the market offering so much more?”

Interesting.

Web Services

I signed up with a basic account at Blinksale.com a couple of weeks ago. They provide online invoicing services geared for freelancers. I tested it out, and found a couple of limitations in the Invoicing that I didn’t care for. Specifically, I desired a way to add notes to invoices, and hoped there would be a way for invoices to automatically recur. Both of these concerns I expressed in an email to their support staff, to which I received a prompt reply. They told me they hoped to add these things in coming months.

Since Blinksale did a lot of cool stuff and made invoice management easy, I was prepared to stay with them, with the strong possibility of upgrading my account.

Enter Side Job Track, another new kid on the web services block. I learned about them from somewhere (can’t remember now) and signed up.

Looks like I am going to be cancelling my Blinksale account, for Side Job Track offers a lot more, at the cost of absolutely nothing. Side Job Track gives you a way to track your projects, time spent, send invoices as needed, and keep your client info organized. I hope to see Side Job Track stay around, for what they provide is definitely valuable and is done quite nicely.

Check em both out and let me know what you think.

Firefox and Popups

People who have been using Firefox know that the web surfing experience is so much nicer, but there have been grumblings in the geek circles about the increasing amount of unwanted popup windows Firefox is missing. As the browser has grown in popularity, so has interest in finding ways around its popup blocker.

Well good news recently came from this guy, who found a way to block one of these newer popup techniques.

Turns out that by using the Flash plugin, creepy web site owners could generate popups that Firefox couldn’t block. Not anymore.

1. Type about:config into the Firefox location bar.
2. Right-click on the page and select New and then Integer.
3. Name it privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins
4. Set the value to 2.

Hopefully Firefox developers will build this into the next version.

Thank you, Pete Bevin!

Good News from Microsoft

Ever since Microsoft announced it was releasing an Internet Explorer version 7, web designers and developers have been sitting on the edges of their collective chair, biting their nails, and crossing their toes in hopes that this time, Microsoft will get it right.

So far, it appears they are listening, and through the help of the Web Standards Project’s Microsoft Task Force, the IE development team has announced all of the things they will be fixing in IE7.

Tonight, I shall rest.

Poop

Poop is great. That’s what I have to keep telling my two-year old, who is potty training. I never imagined I would ever be so involved in someone’s bodily functions so intimately. It’s kinda strange how you don’t really find it that gross when it your kid’s poop.

He has not been wearing a diaper during the waking hours for well over a week now. The accidents have stopped over the last few days, partly because we ask him if he needs to tinkle every 10 minutes, and partly because he has started telling us when he needs to. Hopefully the former will be replaced by the latter more and more.

The only remaining challenge is the pooping, which he is still scared to do out of his diaper. I don’t blame him. We have read him Everyone Poops countless times, and he likes it, but we haven’t passed over that hump yet, and he hasn’t passed that hump in the potty yet, if you know what I mean.

We aren’t in too much of a hurry. The goal is to have him off diapers by the time the next baby comes in November, but if he isn’t quite ready, it’s OK.

So how’s that for a blog post? Eh?

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