Disclaimer

What follows is a mind dump. I’m fully into my job. In fact, it’s more than just a job. The web is a way of life for me. I love, love, love it! Tight markup makes me feel good down there and CSS makes me shout ‘w00t!’ several times a day. So before you read this just know that most of what follows is passion driven. If some facts are incorrect please let me know and I’ll endeavor to correct them.

This is going to be a multi-part post as there is simply too much to chuck out in one go so keep an eye on your RSS reader for updates.

Introduction

The next few posts will be dedicated to what web standards mean to me. I’ll be covering five main topics:

• validating code
• accessible and semantic code
• user centered design
• web applications and apis
• the new paradigm (aka conclusion)

The phrase Web Standards is a bit of a broad one…well at least it’s becoming that way.

About two or three years ago Web Standards were simply a set of guidelines (or standards) that browser vendors would use to help build a more standardized browser. They were also a set of guidelines that web site authors would use to to build more standardised code that would ultimately work in these standardised browsers. It’s wasn’t always this way…

The good ole days?

Back in the early days - the days of Netscape 3, 4 and Internet Explorer 3, 4 - browser vendors would make up their own tags willy nilly. Some of these tags you know only too well: <center>, <blink>, etc…Some others have moved into non-proprietary standards, like <div> and <span>. That in itself wasn’t a problem…the problem was what each of these browsers did with the rendering of these tags…Some browsers wouldn’t show blinking text (and good on ‘em for that!), some browsers wouldn’t know what a div tag was…there had to be some sort of governing body to get some standards in place.

So along came the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

“Wait wait!” I hear you say, “the W3C has been around for AAAAAGES!”
“Yes,” you’ll hear me say in response, “but who the hell even knew what it was back then?!”
I’ll tell you - TBL. (I’ve got confused with all this first person/third person thing so I’ll just keep it simple from now on.)

Slowly the voice of the standardites grew louder. More and more people started to realise that standards in this fast growing fledgling industry was a must! Not only for browser vendors but for us HTMLers. Collectively people got fed up with the silly browser wars. It seemed way simpler and smarter to build to a global standard, not a browser vendors standard.

The validating revolution

If you haven’t heard of this revolution then it’s about bloody time you VALIDATE YOUR CODE! Probably the most important part of Web Standards is the physical act of writing code that complies to the standards provided by the W3C.

The first step to writing standards compliant code is to choose a standard to build to. I cant tell you how many web pages I’ve seen that don’t contain a Document Type Definition (DTD). This is step one! These wonderful things tell the browser what markup language you’re writing in. There are several options here, all of which have their pros and cons. I’m not going to get into those - that’s an entirely different blog post.

One should also validate your CSS. This is a sightly different kettle of fish…A vast majority of CSS out there wont validate. The reason for this is because of the CSS hacks people use to get non-compliant browsers to behave. Most of these take advantage of browsers lack of compliance, most of the time that means using some wack combo of comments, made up properties and weird characters.

Valid code makes it so much easier to debug down the line. Most rendering mishaps occur due bad markup. Validating your markup will easily help find those unclosed tags, those incorrect nesting issues and incorrect attributes.

In the next episode…

The next post in the series I’ll be talking a little more about markup and the beauty thereof. In particular I’ll be going over semantic markup, accessibility concerns and source ordering your markup.

Please remember to leave your comments. Tell me what web standards mean to you!

For those of you who cant use google translate (or speak German) the title reads in English: My Eyes!

It’s been about four years since I’ve been to the optometrist…really not good enough. Well yesterday I got off my arse and made an appointment at the local OPSM. Today I went in for the eye test and frame selection…

So what do you think?

I’ll get them in 7-10 days. When I have em I’ll take some photos of them on my face.

Manda-Girl tagged me with this…so meme time it is!

Four jobs I’ve had:

1. Waiter at Spur
2. Front-end Web Monkey
3. Back-end Webmonkey
4. Web Designer (ok, ok - so I’ve only ever worked in the web industry)

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Dog Town and Z-Boys
2. Eddie Murphy - Raw
3. Sane Man - Bill Hicks
4. Human Nature

Four places I’ve lived:

1. Blythedale Beach - South Africa
2. Durban - South Africa
3. London - England
4. Auckland - New Zealand

Four TV shows I love:

1. Family Guy
2. The Simpsons
3. The Sopranos
4. First season of Eating Media Lunch

Four places I’ve vacationed:

1. Amsterdam
2. Paris
3. Guernsey
4. Shrewsbury, Shropshire

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Good ole roast chicken
2. Chicken Laksa
3. Meat Balls and Spagetti
4. Anything with Chilli

Four sites I visit daily:

1. Flickr
2. Bloglines
3. Google
4. Digg

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. In the ocean *
2. At the Pub
3. On the couch
4. A little closer to the breeze coming in from the window

Four people I am tagging:

1. Dave Cooper
2. Peter Asquith
3. Mike Harding
4. Daniel Hay

(* - As long as it’s warmer than 20°C)

A lot has happened since my last update…I went to that football game, we went to Shrewsbury (where we spent New Year’s Eve), I got a mean cold, I turned 25 and now everyone is back at work and we now have to entertain ourselves.

Football

I had a really great time at the football. It’s more about the audience response to the players and the game than the game itself. There was much singing and standing up and sitting down…very similar to church actually. Arsenal were playing some other team whose name escapes me - but it really isn’t all that important cos Arsenal won 4-0. If I lived here and I could afford the £35 tickets I’d probably go to more games.

New Years

We took a train from London to Shrewsbury (which is in Shropshire - which is really really close to Wales) on New Year’s Eve. We arrived in the tiny Tudor village of Shrewsbury and went directly to the pub. Guiness. The night was spent at a pretty big house party with far too many Welsh people and far too few places to sleep. It was an awesome night, though. Three of my old mates were brave enough to actaully drive from London to Shrewsbury to spend the evening with us. Go Warren, Terence and Sam!!

25

Monday the 9th is my birthday. Those of you in New Zealand have already celebrated it (right?!). On Saturday night we went to a very cool rockabilly pub called Big Red. It was a massive reunion of sorts. I’d seen people there that hadn’t seen in well over 5 years. It was fucken awesome to catch up and get mangled on Wife Beater (this is what the locals call Stella lager…it’s cheap and strong).

I think I’m going to buy myself a 350D for my birthday. It’s all quite exciting - and on that note I’m outta here.

For the past week or so it’s been relatively warm. Temperatures seldom dropping to below 4°C but now things have changed dramatically! It’s fucken freezing out there. Like for real. Car windscreens are caked in ice, and puddles have solidified. And on top of that we got some snow. For about an hour yesterday there was much excitement as Manda, Evan and I ran around in the street giggling and going ‘OOOOOH! I’ts snowing!’

Unfortunately with the snow came the flu. I’m feeling completely shit at the moment. My head is swimming and my nose if stuffed up…it’s most unpleasant. So today instead of going out in the sub-zero temperature I’m going to sit on my arse in Brad’s flat and watch UK Telly. I have to save my energy for tonight when we’re going to a football match at Arsenal Stadium. I’m pretty sure its going to fun…at least that’s what I’ve been told.

I’ll give a not-so-thorough account of the game tomorrow…once I’ve thawed out.

I had forgotten how overcast it is in London. The cold isn’t too much of the problem. It’s the heat I’m having the trouble with. They have one setting on their central heating - extra hot! Especially public transport! I’d rather walk to Angel from my brother’s place than take the bus.

We went to the Tate Modern yesterday. It was excellent! I got to see some really cool art by some of the world’s best artists. We had a massively overpriced sarnies. Mine pastrami, Manda’s tuna. Manda has taken some photos of the huge installation they have the in entrance foyer. It’s 100s of white boxes stacked on top of each other.

Unfortunately I don’t have too many photos of exciting stuff as my camera ran out of space because i took too many photos of the inside of pubs and airplanes.

Now that I’m coming out of that jet lagged slowness I’m hoping to be able to take more photos and write a little more in this here blog. New Zealand is currently having their Xmas - but here it’s still Xmas Eve so everyone is out doing last minute shopping. But after that we’re going to hit the design museum. It sounds rad. The sun is shining, so that’s a total bonus.

Hope you all have a lovely Xmas. I’ll probably post again once the Xmas excitement dies down.

So we arrived at the airport late Saturday evening ready to depart on our epic 24 hour journey only to be told by the check-in dude that we cannot fly cos our plane is due to stop in LA for an hour and it’s now law that South Africans require a Transit Visa for the US.

Fucken balls!

So Monday arrives and we go to the US consulate to get the visa so we can be on the Monday night flight. No luck. You have to make an appointment to see an immigration officer at the US consulate. The next available appointment is 11th January…so needless to say we have to get a completely new ticket that doesn’t go through LA. We were lucky to have Amanda’s mother to help us convince the travel agent to change the tickets without any extra charge. Score.

So now here I am coming at you live from a flat in North London. Its about 2°C and overcast at the moment. There’s no denying the fact that we’ve finally in London!

Today is the first day of our month long holiday. This is the day we’ve waiting for since July. Today is the day we leave for London Town.

Sofuckenstoked!

I’m going to try my hardest to keep this blog up to date. I’ll try and write stuff at least twice a week. There’ll be a lot going on so at least there’ll be something to write about. If there is no writing on this here blog then be sure to check out my flickr account where I’ll be adding a lot of photos and commenting on them fully.

Four years, several hundred (maybe even thousand) dollars, a bottle of whiskey, x-rays, early morning queuing, waiting, waiting and more waiting the NZ Immigration Services have finally issued me with a Permanent Residence Permit.

What this means is I can work, live and study in New Zealand. I can come and go as I please. Essentially I can live here forever!

This is the one step closer to becoming a true Kiwi - like the rest of my family!

And now about the shopping trolley - this is state of the art grocery transportation. Not only that but oh-so-hot!

It’s always such a mission dragging our two weeks worth of shopping up to our apartment…now we can simply wheel it into the lift and BOSH! Sorted.

Joy! Joy!

I’ll try to avoid starting this post with the ever popular “sorry about the lack of updates” malarkey - oh shit, I’ve done it already. Oh well I’d better get on with it then.

Some Cool Websites

There seem to be quite a few social experiment type sites floating to the top of links-to-look-at-this-week pile. I’ll start by talking about a few you may have already seen.

Firstly, there’s the ever popular PostSecret Blog. Now I know this has been talked about a million and one times, but the reason for that is cause it’s fucken awesome! The whole idea behind the site is simple: send an anonymous postcard with a secret on it. Be creative and be honest. This makes for a fascinating read! So much so, in fact, that they’re about to release a book of the postcards. I’d say it’d be an awesome coffee table addition!

As with most things on the internet (and internerds will be the first to point this out) everything has be done before. This brings me to the next site of interest; Grouphug. This, as far as I know, is the originator. It goes along the same lines as the PostSecret site but without the postcards. People are encouraged to send in dirty (and not so dirty) little secrets for the world to read. It’s anonymous and very addictive to read. You’ll lose hours reading this site. You have been warned!

Next up we have a site along a similar line, called JustCurious. Justcurio.us is an anonymous question and answer system, open to anyone, with one simple rule: to ask a question, you must first answer someone else’s question. Question yields answer yields question, etc. I quite like this one ’cause you don’t have spew out some amazing secret. All you need it a stupid answer and a good question and you’re away! Give it a go - it’s quite liberating!

London Calling

I spent just under three years living and working in London - the big OE. During my time there I made many good friends, and left a lot of old ones behind. Now’s my time to go over for a bit of a catch-up! Amanda and I will be spending a total of 4 weeks in London-town. We’ll be there for Xmas, New Years (well actually we’re going to be partying it up in a barn in Shrewsbury), and my birthday so it’s going to be the holiday of celebration - w00t!

My brother Brad and his child Ethan live there too, so it’s going to be somewhat of a family reunion. Not to mention the added bonus of the rest of my immediate family being there at the same time. My folks and younger brother, Evan, are flying there a few days before us so the whole Wood Family will be chillin’ together (literally!). Hard to believe now that my nephew Ethan is almost three years old. The last time I saw him was when he was three months old so it’s going to be great to be able to speak to the dude and know he understands what I’m banging on about.

I’ll try to make some token posts while I’m away…but if I don’t manage there will always be new photos on my Flickr account to check out.

Bonus Material

Check out these photos of Evan and I that Manda took on Wednesday night. We have exactly the same shirts on. Social death!