Sunday, November 09, 2008

Validation: Why bother?

If you give your web page a doctype, then you can make use of a validator to see that the markup is in good condition.

Smarten up your act. Validate your web pages so that web browsers know what they are getting and can interpret your HTML correctly.

Validation is an important part of web site implementation because if a page validates it means that the main browsers will be getting well formed markup and (in theory) should be able to render your design as expected.

Continue reading

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Start of the Page Navigation

Where pages are very long, like a list of events or news items, we might want a way to quickly move back the top of the page.

You will have seen ‘back to the Top’ or some such phrase used on web sites. I have always hated seeing that phrse, because ‘top’ doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Words lke this just distract from the real content.

There are often times, though that pages become very long when lots of items (like in a blog) are listed, and it really does help if there is a quick way to get back to the navigation and menus etc.

Here is what I am doing on a few sites.

Continue reading

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

New BBC Website for wider display

Ho hum. The BBC have delivered a new web site and it sits in the middle instead of ranged left.

I think this looks really good. It really is just plain simple and the layout is not too busy. The best feature has to be the customisation. It is possible to change the colour scheme and choose alternative categories for the site.

One important change; this is set up as fixed width - fitting into a 1024 pixel wide display. Most sites I work on are still kind to users with 800 pixel widths.

You can find the BBC web site here.

Continue reading

Monday, February 04, 2008

Public or Private

I have set up a few forums and blogs with commenting and I have had some thoughts and issues about what should be private and what should be public. This can often lead to confusion. Why should things need to be kept private and how do you manage different levels of privilege?

Continue reading

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Cables Cobbled

Internet links to the middle east and beyond are broken because of 2 broken undersea cables.

We don't tend to think about it that often but our connections around the world are actually reliant on cables laid on the ocean floor. It turns out that 2 cables running side by side have been severed by a ship's anchor off the coast Egypt.

There are conflicting reports about the cause but what seems strange to me is that the cables are near enough to one another to have sustained the same damage. 

Continue reading