News from June 2009
Memories and articles from back in the day
Good reasons to install Internet Explorer 8
Hmmm, the reader thinks — where is this one going?
At the end of 2008, our State of the Web survey found that somewhat less than a third of the designers and developers responding tested their sites in IE8 (though essentially 90% tested in IE7). Granted, IE 8 was still … Read more »
First Annual Web Industry Awards — nominations close in 1 week
A quick note to let you all know that nominations for the first annual web industry awards, the national version of the long standing WA Web Industry Awards close in 1 week.
There’ll be state by state awards, (with an event Tuesday 6th October in Sydney coinciding with Web Directions) … Read more »
Web Directions South 2009: Early bird pricing extended to July 9
Guess what: you’ve got just two weeks left to take advantage of early bird pricing for Web Directions South 2009.
Getting those training approvals through really is hard. We know this because every year we hear a familiar chorus from people who need just a bit more … Read more »
Andy Clarke at @media
The debate over whether, and to what extent web sites should look the same in every browser continues to rage. To the bemusement of many it must be said.
If you fall into the “yes” camp — then please go and read Andy’s latest presentation from @media. And … Read more »
@media and Web Directions
Maxine and I are really excited to let you know that from 2010, @media, one of the great web conferences in the world will be presented by Web Directions.
@media will stay right at home, in London, and feature the same mix of the world’s leading web designers, … Read more »
Firefox 3.5 accessibility features
A detailed look at the accessibility features of Firefox 3.5.
First FuelWatch, now GroceryWatch Canned
The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the Australian Federal Government’s fabled GroceryWatch website has been scrapped. We wrote critically about the dire accessibility of the site when it first launched. In the meantime, consumer advocacy magazine Choice had taken over the project from the government.
What happened? … Read more »
Fix Outlook
Personally, like other old web curmudgeons (OK so Dave Shea isn’t really old), I’m not a big fan of either sending or receiving HTML email. But, it’s a reality of life, and more importantly if something supports HTML, it should to the extent possible support modern web development … Read more »
Vale Michael Jackson
For all his myriad faults, he was a genius, and a strange broken symbol of our time.
Via Kottke
Australia’s Government 2.0 taskforce
Via Slattery’s Watch, news of the just launched Australian Federal Government’s “Government 2.0 Taskforce”, which (a wordpress blog no less!). From the site:
Its work falls into two streams. The first relates to increasing the openness of government through making public sector information more widely available to … Read more »
Sydney UPA Chapter’s 2nd Birthday Celebration — We’re sponsoring!
On Wednesday July 1 at 6.00 there’s three very good reasons to come along to the Sydney Usability Professionals Association’s 2nd birthday party. Firstly, you’ll get to see a great … Read more »
WDS09 Day 1 closing keynote: Cameron Adams
I actually got a little teary just then when I posted this at the site (not something I normally do while cruising around my Wordpress admin): the day 1 closing keynote at Web Directions South 2009 will be my good friend, Cameron Adams, talking … Read more »
The incomparable PPK on the current state of Internet Explorer
Peter-Paul Koch, curator of “Quirksmode”, has contributed just about as much as anyone to our understanding of browsers, and their quirks, bugs, strengths and weaknesses.
He’s just published his “State of the Browsers — IE Edition”, where he takes a look not at technology, but current market share, and … Read more »
July 24 Web Standards Group Canberra meeting
Web Directions will be sponsoring the next Canberra Web Standards Group Meeting, to be held on July 24, 2.30 to 4.30 at the NLA Theatre. Come along for the chance to win a ticket to Web Directions South 2009, and to hear a couple of excellent presentations.
- Simon Pascal Klein — … Read more »
InfoWorld on HTML5
Usually when you see the adjective “killer” in a tech related story (except about robots I guess), you know you are in for a good dose of hype. Countless stories on Google-killers, iPhone killers and so on have seen to that.
InfoWorld has a quite detailed story on HTML5, which … Read more »
The peer to peer web with Opera Unite
For a few days now Opera software have been promising to reinvent teh interwebs.
Well, the day has arrived, in for the form of Opera Unite. Unite puts a web server inside every (opera) browser — challenging the traditional “client server” model of the web. As Chris Mills … Read more »
Modal web interfaces
Damien Buckley, from Propellor Global, winners of last year’s McFarlane Prize, has some thoughts about the increasingly discussed issue of modality in web design (think lightboxes, registration forms and the like). Damien McCormack, from Vision Australia, one of the speakers at Web Directions South … Read more »
Loyalty discount extended by 1 week — ends June midnight 19
If you’ve been to one of our conferences or workshops in the past you should have received emails over the last month about the extra special loyalty discount we have for you for Web Directions South this year. Just $750 — an absolute bargain for what … Read more »
Web Directions South 2009 — Register now, pay later
With the cut off date for early bird pricing for Web Directions South this year fast approaching, as always, I get a lot of emails about when payment for tickets can be made. The answer is, we’re pretty flexible on this, and, for a start, it’s … Read more »
The leading edge of Web Design
In the leadup to the release of Firefox 3.5, hacks.mozilla.org are publishing dozens of articles show[ing] what’s possible at the edges of web technology.
Firefox 3.5 implements all kinds of HTML5 and CSS3 features, many also implemented in Opera and Safari, so much of what they’ll cover is far … Read more »
The state of open video on the web
Ars Technica has a great roundup of where open video, the HTML5 video element, and open codecs like Ogg are at today, in browsers, and in use on the web. An excellent primer.
Happy Anniversary Mozilla (1.0)
Via Wired, today (US time) is the 7th anniversary of the release of Mozilla 1.0.
While Firefox was still a couple of years off, the release of version 1.0 of the Mozilla browser was a big milestone for open source software, and the web.
The future of development? Palm’s web technology grounded Pre launches next week
We’ve mentioned Palm’s Pre a couple of times here since it was announced in January this year.
Our interest is simple — the way you develop for the Pre and its new webOS is to use CSS, HTML and JavaScript. Now, this was the way Apple … Read more »
Adobe BrowserLab — in the footsteps of BrowserCam and BrowserShots
For years, developers who needed to ensure their sites worked in a broad range of browsers had a couple of choices.
First was to run numerous browsers (and likely operating systems) for testing. Far from fun.
Some year ago, BrowserCam started making life much more pleasant, by offering this service over … Read more »
Opera 10 beta released
Opera Software has today released beta 1 of Opera 10. Opera’s support of CSS 3 in alphas of 10 has been excellent (most selectors, text-shadow, opacity and more), and this beta now sports a new interface by Jon Hicks.
Shaping up as a huge year for browsers — with … Read more »
Announcing Style Master 5 for the Mac, from the folks at Web Directions
The reason for the existence of Web Directions is more or less CSS. But the story starts a long long time before Web Directions was ever dreamt of. And a big part of that story is Style Master, the Mac and Windows CSS development software Maxine and I have … Read more »
Exploring CSS 3
In our other lives, Maxine and I run westciv — and have done for 15 years or more.
Westciv develops tools like Style Master, training courses, and a heap of other things to help web designers and developers.
We’ve just released a number of free web based tools … Read more »
Web Directions speakers on Twitter
As you might expect, just about everyone speaking at Web Directions South this year can be found on Twitter — no surprises there. If you’re planning on coming along to the conference in October, be sure to say hi to the people below, maybe give them … Read more »
BarCamp Sydney #5 coming late June
For fans of BarCamp (and indeed folks who’ve never even heard of them), Sydney’s 5th BarCamp is coming up on June 27th at the Australian Technology Park (a great venue!)
So, mark it in your diaries and get ready to participate.