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Eric Meyer Go to the source

…that having been the original working title for “ Prefix or Posthack “, my latest article for A List Apart . (Sort of like Return of the Jedi had a working title of Blue Harvest .) In a fairly quick read, I make the case that vendor prefixes are not only good, they have the potential to be great and to deliver greater interoperability and advancement of CSS. So far the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, which frankly came as a bit of a surprise. The annoyance factor of prefixes is undeniable, and it’s been my experience that annoyance dramatically hardens opposition regardless of whether or not there are good reasons to oppose. … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

While I agree with Neven Mrgan’s Walled Gardens , I feel like the whole imagery of walled gardens is a bit of a metaphorical stretch—not because it’s inaccurate, but because it’s fundamentally unnecessary. We don’t need metaphors here. That’s because the iTunes App Store is just what its name states: it is a store. That has a fairly specific and intentional meaning in the world of commerce. It means that the stock is not infinite and that someone has screened it. … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

Following on my “HTML5 vs. Flash” talk of a couple of weeks ago, I’m hoping to do a bit of blogging about HTML5, Flash, mobile apps, and more. But first I need to get some terminology straight. As I did in my talk, I’m going to refer to the collection of front-end web-standards technologies—(X)HTML (of any flavor), CSS, and JavaScript—as “the web stack”. I’ve seen the term used here and there and it makes the most sense to me as a condensed verbal shorthand. It beats writing out the specific technologies every time or trying to use similarly clumsy constructions like “front-end tech”. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

In 01992, Tim Berners-Lee wrote a document called HTML Tags . In September 02001, I started keeping this online journal. Back then, I was storing my data in XML, using a format of my own invention. The XML was converted using PHP into (X)HTML, RSS, and potentially anything else …although the “anything else” part never really materialised. In February 02006, I switched over to using a MySQL database to store my data as chunks of markup… Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

Every so often I’ll read something on the web that somebody else has written and I’ll think Yes! That! That’s what I’ve been trying to say! I’ve already told of experiencing just that whilst reading Raiding Eternity . Now I’ve experienced it again. This time the culprit is Ben Ward , the talented bastard. He reeled me in with the synopsis of his latest article. It’s called Understand The Web : Perceptions of the web are changing. People are advocating that we treat the web like another application framework. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

A Day Apart in Seattle was more like a seminar than a workshop. Rather than being an intimate gathering in a small room, it was more lecture-like in an amphitheatre setting. But that didn’t stop me interacting with the attendees. There were plenty of great questions throughout, and I also had everyone complete an exercise. I reprised the exercise I gave at dConstruct back in September. It isn’t a test of the audience… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

This second contest, much like the first , offers you a chance to win an iPad 16GB Wi-Fi (valued at $499 USD). It requires less cash but more effort. Contest #2: Win an iPad 16GB To have a shot at winning, here’s what you need to do: Using the content publishing method of your choice (Twitter, Tumblr, any blogging or CMS software, or even just straight HTML), write something that will be indexed and rank well for the Google search “ cameron moll colosseo ipad martian giveaway ”. Your text must contain a prominent link to colosseotype.com . A photo of the artwork may also increase your chances of winning. … Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

I’m pleased to announce Ethan and I are bringing the Handcrafted CSS workshop to Nashville ! We’ll reprise of the one-day course we organized last September here in Salem, Massachusetts and again last November in London with Carsonified . As always, each attendee will get a copy of the book ( Handcrafted CSS: Video Edition including the DVD ) and we’ll spend the day walking through much of its content and more. This event was a great success in New England and Old England, and we’re thrilled to bring it south, to Tennessee. So join us on June 21st at the historic Hermitage Hotel right smack in downtown Nashville (steps away from the famed Ryman Auditorium and other sights). For more info on the event and to book a place (there’s a max of 100 spots), visit the Handcrafted CSS Workshop site . … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

I hereby declare April to be HTML5 Month …at least for me. I’m about to embark to on a month of markup pedagogy. I’ll be expounding on the language features of HTML5 at various locations across meat- and cyberspace. It all starts on April 7th in Seattle . That’s where I’ll be delivering one half of A Day Apart . … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

Leave it to PPK to come out with a bold statement like, " CSS vendor prefixes considered harmful ". Moreso, It’s time to abolish all vendor prefixes. They’ve become solutions for which there is no problem, and they are actively harming web standards. The problem is that they are necessary. Look at Safari’s implementation of border-radius compared to the rest. I still can’t remember if it’s border-radius-topleft or border-top-left-radius . … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

On Banknote Design for Wired’s “The Future of Money” : Aegir Hallmundur: The design of banknotes represent something I find gloriously poetic — imperfect perfection — if it was perfect by our usual standards, it would be imperfect. Wonderful. So tried to capture some of that in my design, overlaying colours with an offset, adjusting the lettering a little bit to reflect the kind of oddities on real dollar notes and creating the odd layer of extra guilloche-work barely fine enough to see. I’m glad Wired is well printed and that it all came through. I read the Wired article just a couple weeks ago, not knowing the illustration was Aegir’s handiwork. I’ve been following Ministry of Type for some time now, and in my opinion, it’s one of the best design blogs to read sans RSS reader. … Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

5 Years ago somebody wrote something stupid on the Internet that annoyed a bunch of bloggers enough to write about it, including myself. Yesterday I received a contrite email from this person saying that the incident had ruined their life and asking if I’d remove the post. It turns out that my blog post ranked in the top 20 results for this guys name and he was wondering if I’d remove the article. I considered it, as to be honest I’d completely forgotten about the event (as had most people 2 weeks after it happen) and I didn’t really care that much anyway. However it got me thinking about two different things. On the one hand, the Internet can freeze youthful folly and a small transgressions can stick with you for life. … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

Monospace text sizing is, from time to time, completely unintuitive and can be quite maddening if you don’t look at it in exactly the right way. Fortunately, there is a pretty simple workaround, and it’s one you might want to consider using even if you weren’t aware that a problem existed. But first, allow me to lay some foundations. Assuming no other author styles beyond the ones shown, consider the following: span {font-family: monospace;} <p>This is a ‘p’ with a <span>’span’</span> inside.</p> All right, what should be the computed font-size of the span element? Remember, there are no other author styles being applied. … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

Monospace text sizing is, from time to time, completely unintuitive and can be quite maddening if you don’t look at it in exactly the right way. Fortunately, there is a pretty simple workaround, and it’s one you might want to consider using even if you weren’t aware that a problem existed. But first, allow me to lay some foundations. Assuming no other author styles beyond the ones shown, consider the following: span {font-family: monospace;} <p>This is a ‘p’ with a <span>’span’</span> inside.</p> All right, what should be the computed font-size of the span element? Remember, there are no other author styles being applied. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Zeldman: Flash, iPad, Standards : Jeffrey Zeldman: Lack of Flash in the iPad (and before that, in the iPhone) is a win for accessible, standards-based design. Not because Flash is bad, but because the increasing popularity of devices that don’t support Flash is going to force recalcitrant web developers to build the semantic HTML layer first. … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

I was recently honored to be asked to be a judge for the MIX 10k Smart Coding Challenge , running in conjunction with Microsoft’s MIX conference . The idea is to create a really great web application that totals no more than 10KB in its unzipped state. Why did I agree to participate? As much as I’d like to say “ fat sacks of cash “, that wasn’t it at all. (Mostly due to the distinct lack of cash, sacked or otherwise. Sad face.) The contest’s entry requirements actually say it for me. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

It’s been a strange week in HTML5. The web—and Twitter in particular—has been awash with wailing and gnashing of teeth as various people weigh in with their opinions on either the W3C or the WHATWG —depending on which camp they’re in—being irreversibly broken …exactly the kind of ludicrous over-reaction at which the internet excels . This particular round of chicken-littling was caused by the shuffling of some spec components. The W3C HTML Working Group recently decided to split microdata into a separate specification (which I think is fair enough given RDFa’s similar status). Hixie then removed some other parts of HTML5; a move which was seen as a somewhat petulant reaction to the microdata splittage. Cue outfreakage . … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

Keeping up with HTML5 can seem like a full-time job if you’re subscribed to both the W3C public-html list and the WHATWG mailing list . If you have to choose just one, the WHATWG list is definitely the red pill. The W3C list has a very high volume of traffic, mostly about politics and procedure. Sam Ruby deserves a medal for keeping the whole thing on an even keel. The WHATWG list, on the other hand, can get pretty nitty-gritty in its discussions of Web Workers, Offline Storage and other technologies that are completely over my head. The specification itself is shaping up nicely… Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

Yesterday I documented my thoughts and observations on the standard of digital design education. From talking to current and recent students I’ve shared their frustrations as they bemoan being taught out-of-date technologies by lecturers far removed from the daily practices of design. Through visiting degree show I’ve witnessed a slew of substandard work caused by an over reliance of tool based education and a lack of design thinking ( If I witness one more Flash portfolio in the shape of a designers studio I think I’m going to cry.) So where does this problem arise from and what can be done? It’s true that the web is still in it’s infancy and the profession doesn’t have the heritage of architecture or product design. However the web isn’t as young as it used to be and change happens a lot slower than we’d like to think. I’ve been pushing web standards for nearly a decade, yet we’re only now starting to see wide spread adoption. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

Looking through the list of hiccups highlighted by the HTML5 Super Friends and my own personal tally , things are progressing at a nice clip with HTML5. The pubdate attribute has been removed from the article element and shifted to a nested time element instead. The content model for the footer element has been changed to match author expectations —that’s a biggie. That still leaves a few issues: The confusion between section and article that I’ve been researching . … Read the rest here