October 2010
4 posts
Decision made: Moving to my own blog
So yea, I’m being kind of fickle. I had a blog for years that wasn’t on my site. And about 18 months ago, I got super busy and just couldn’t get inspired to post in it. Plus, Twitter makes it so easy to discuss issues in quick sound bites that I suppose I got busy and lazy.
About six months ago, I realized that debating and discussing in 140 characters doesn’t always do...
7 tags
HTML5: Native Video, DRM and Plugins
I was reading a discussion on the W3C Bug tracker about native video and whether it should, or should not, provide DRM to protect video content. In the process, the point was made by John Foliot that Apple is presenting their own answers in their browsers and devices to the DRM issue (emphasis mine):
> The question of DRM within the media formats supported by browsers is a
> separate issue...
4 tags
Inner border (content or padding edge) quirk in...
Today on Twitter, Keith Clark (@keithclarkcouk) mentioned he was struggling with creating an element with rounded corners and rgba borders because the background color of the element was showing through. That sounded silly. I mean, modern browsers have background-clip. We can clip to the content, the padding or the border. That should fix it. But Keith was reporting that it wasn’t working.
...
4 tags
Javascript and HTML5
The web is becoming more and more dependent on Javascript. This has been troubling me a bit since I’ve always held the view that all content should be available and usable (though perhaps in a different state) when Javascript is turned off.
Internet Explorer
In Internet Explorer (up to version 9), the only way to use the new structural elements in HTML5 is to use Javascript to insert the...
September 2010
1 post
5 tags
Google—Your balls and periods are all wrong.
Now, before you jump down my throat and tell me, “it’s just a logo, lighten up,” let me give a brief explanation (that’s all I have time for and 140 isn’t doin’ it).
Today, Google launched a really cute little experiment where multi-colored balls fly into the page, assemble themselves as the Google logo and re-scatter any time your cursor gets close. Really,...
August 2010
2 posts
3 tags
How to use a list marker with a definition list
Today, a friend on Twitter posted a frustration he was experiencing. He wanted to set a list-style on a definition list, but it wasn’t cooperating. According to the spec, a list item -li- in an ordered or unordered list has a marker. A definition list, which has two parts—a dt and dd (or multiple dd)—is typically rendered by user agents on two lines, with the second slightly indented, but with no...
6 tags
Box-shadow, Firefox 3.6 & Opera 10.6
I’m currently building a site for a dream client—one whose website user base is built of tech-oriented people, who has almost no Internet Explorer 6 in his stats, and who groks, and even encourages, progressive enhancement. I’m using lots of HTML5 and CSS3 goodness on the site and it’s great fun!
But in certain areas, dealing with new, and still developing technologies is...
July 2010
3 posts
4 tags
Modernizr & the latest browser support for...
Anyone that follows me on twitter knows I’m a big Modernizr fan. There are so many practical uses for it. Yesterday, I finally upgraded my browsers to the latest versions — Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. As I was working on a project, I noticed in my Modernizer string that there were less “no-” properties shown in some of the new browser versions (as well as more properties...
2 tags
Speaker Scam
Yesterday I received a request to speak at an upcoming London Youth Conference. Outside the slightly broken English, it wasn’t unlike other speaking requests. It was written to me by a Reverend Mike Gabriel. He stated where he found my name (through another speaking gig). He promised a contract on request as well as travel and generous honorarium. But my spidey sense went up for some reason...
5 tags
Firefox, HTML5 and an anchor bug
I’m sure someone’s named this bug already. And perhaps it’s written up all over the web. But it just affected a site I was working on today and left me scratching my head for a few minutes. In case you run into it, I’d like to confirm to you, “No, you’re not crazy.” (Well, not for this reason anyway.)
Apparently, Firefox has an issue with the ability...
June 2010
2 posts
Width Bug on iDevices?
Today, I was “unfixing” a footer on a client’s site. One that, last year when we coded the website, they wanted fixed to the bottom of the browser viewport. But with the arrival of iDevices who “don’t do fixed positioning,” this footer placement is now being rethought. (As an aside, this makes me sad because just as Internet Explorer 6 was starting to die enough...
Some of my favorite HTML5 and CSS3 tools and info
http://w3viewer.com/ - The W3C spec (for LOTS of things) made simpler to read and navigate.
HTML5
http://www.modernizr.com/ - One of my favorite tools. Modernizr tests, and then reports back what the user’s browser supports so you can write fallback CSS and JavaScript where needed. It also adds support in IE for most new HTML5 elements (with more being added in vs 1.2). I need to write a...
May 2010
4 posts
5 tags
Aria role attributes as selectors
A note for those at my HTML5 talk at #awdg today. I realized after I turning Skype off that I neglected to mention something important. Remember our discussion of ARIA roles? Perhaps some of you were thinking, “I don’t really care about accessibility—so what?”. Well, there’s another reason to use them. It has to do with styling the overall header and footer of the page.
As...
3 tags
modernizr.js & ie-css3.js—together—or not
I gotta say, I love both these scripts. Modernizr helps me with feature detection as well as forcing Internet Explorer to see HTML5 elements so they can be styled. ie-css3.js allows me to use CSS3 pseudo-class selector emulation for Internet Explorer 5.5 - 8. They’re both extremely helpful for making HTML5 and CSS3 work in browsers today.
Except maybe when you use them together. I just...
5 tags
HTML5 video and YouTube
A site I’m building is written in HTML5 (my idea so that we can take advantage of new features as they are available). It’s a very simple site. One of the requirements however is that the video embedded on one of the pages play in the iPad and iPhone. Currently, many of my clients prefer to use YouTube to upload their videos and then embed that video into their site. It’s a lot...
3 tags
Privacy Matters
There’s been much talk in the techworld recently about the privacy changes at Facebook (FB). I wrote a note on FB for my non-tech friends alerting them to the changes, as well as giving them the steps to take to check, and change, their privacy options. Yet I hear some on Twitter saying, “In this day and age, does privacy really matter?”
Yes, privacy matters—if you desire it. I...