I did it. I uploaded my new site design, and made it live. Now I need to create the blog template using this same style.

I’ve recently been victim to a number of software roll outs that were being managed by other people. Each of these experiences brought a single question to mind…What are they thinking? Either they stopped teaching best practices at the university, or I have had the distinct pleasure of witnessing projects that followed some unique system of development designed to screw everything up. In either case these recent experiences have compelled me to elaborate on what I feel are the cardinal rules for software/web development practices. Continue Reading »

Companies need to check to see if there’s already a solution before solving problems. The new wheel is Tabblo, a slick web based technology for internet users to print blogs, images on flickr, and other web sites. Whoo-hoo now I can print web pages… Hmmm I don’t remember not being able to print web pages before. Well here’s the story. Continue Reading »

In an effort to continue the advancement of web technology it seems that everyone, a panel of industry giants, got together and started formulating the next version of HTML standards. HTML 5 incorporates into the HTML standarda new set of tags that should bring the standard in line with how developers are currently using CSS to structure their pages. I know that statement calls into question the whole standards movement, but it’s true. Continue Reading »

I was browsing through some sports coverage and ran across this link. It’s an amazing (read: bad) site that ignores all the standard rules of engagement in web design and development. Continue Reading »

It’s amazing to me that sites that rely on Flash for their main navigation have not taken the steps to eliminate the “Click to activate and use this control” messages from their sites. If you haven’t seen this message before you must be avoiding flash sites. To recap: Eolas has a patent dispute with Microsoft, forcing them to make activeX controls require users to click the “control” before they can interact with it. Annoying to say the least. If you want to read more go here. Needless to say this article was inspired because of the staggering number of sites I’ve run across in the last month that have not incorporated the JavaScript solutions that are available. Here are the favorites:

• Adobe’s Solution
• SWFobject Solution
• UFO Solution

If you own, or manage a site that uses Flash as a navigation element, fix this, please. Better yet…use CSS navigation instead. As much as I like Flash, does it have to be used for everything?

I just finished watching a webcast discussing the evolution of printing in the digital age. The discussion really centered around the fact that people seem to be printing less in the age of Web 2.0. People read blogs, watch videos, communicate with each other, check prices, and order products online.
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While migrating a site over to XHTML and CSS I discovered a bug in Internet Explorer 6. I was surprised that I hadn’t seen this one documented before, so I thought I’d write something up. Instead of using horizontal rules <hr> I like to create divs with a background color and a small height instead, browser support for styling <hr> is spotty at best, and using a div you can add additional properties to control the width and height, or add a background image.
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