Recently in Web development Category

Useful article on DevCentre on how to overcome the inevitable heartache that IE7 is going to bring.

A pastiche, but still funny.

Webmonkey has a brief look at the new features in IE7 beta 2. Some good things in there, some bad things in there. But then, MS has a hell of a lot of catching up to do. I personally would prefer them to get CSS rendering correct, while still allowing for the hacks necessary in most stylesheets for IE6 compatibility: the last thing we all need is IE7 sticking to the IE box model while finally getting support for more advanced mark-up like “html > body”.

How many web sites would get mucked up if that happened? Rather a lot, unfortunately.

Can it be true? We can only hope that this article on Publish.com is correct and Microsoft is finally backing away from the most hated invention on the Internet after the <blink> tag: ActiveX controls.

Mike Industries, perplexed by the relatively high placement of a badly coded web page in Google, has performed a series of tests to see how HTML coding affects page rank. It gives some interesting results that are worth considering.

Various publishers have decided that search engines are a Bad Thing and are stealing too much of their content. Jakob Nielsen suggested some useful techniques for them a while back, so maybe they could just listen to him? Or maybe they could just stick “noindex” metatags in their pages if they're that fussed?

Useful little guide to blog marketing tools over in WebProNews if you fancy a gander.

Publish.com has a handy guide to some of the Ajax development tools that have arrived on the market over the last year.

Jakob Nielsen starts off the year with a cracking article on how to stop search engines siphoning off your profit through advertising bid wars. I wrote a similar piece on how to keep customers coming back in one of my recent M-iD columns, so I'm glad our opinions seem to coincide.

Updates and related entries
February 4, 2006: Various publishers have decided that search engines are a Bad Thing and are stealing too much of their content. Jakob Nielsen suggested some useful techniques for them a while back, so maybe they could just listen to him?

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just released a new report on gender differences and Internet use. I could break down the report for you and explain why it doesn't show what others claim it does, but someone else has already done an excellent job.

Blogging software WordPress 2.0 has just been released. I use Movable Type, which I find technically superior, particularly once you've installed plug-ins such as StyleCatcher and Blogroll, so I'd recommend you use that instead. In particular, most of the features in WordPress 2.0 seem to be catch-ups to Movable Type. I've also heard that you're better off waiting until 2.0.1, going by the system's development history. But if you can't wait, you know where to find it.

Technorati Tags: WordPress, Movable Type

If you've not come across it, sIFR (scalable inman Flash replacement) is a way of using arbitrary fonts on your web pages. It's Flash-based but doesn't sacrifice accessibility, search engine friendliness or markup semantics.

Simply put, it uses JavaScript to work out whether you have Flash installed then replaces suitably marked text with Flash equivalents of the same dimensions but in your chosen font. If you don't have Flash, everything is rendered as standard HTML.

The designers have spent considerable time making sure it works with Flash-blocking extensions and other technologies, and it's been endorsed by members of the W3C. So hurry on over to the sIFR home page, download the kit and examples and see if it works for you.

Technorati Tags: sIFR, typography, Flash, sIFR

A good article on how AJAX and other developments could lead eventually to universal browser compatibility.

Technorati Tags: AJAX, HTML, web development, WHATWG, XHTML

There's a nifty piece at IBM developerworks on the future of HTML and XHTML. Of interest is HTML 5.0, which is veering into web apps territory through the inclusion of new layout elements, including “a calendar control, an address card, a flexible datagrid, gauges and progress meters, drag and drop, and menus”.

Technorati Tags: HTML, web development, WHATWG, XHTML

I'm glad I'm not the only one hacked off with the pointless hype of Web 2.0. No one's even sure what it is and of the definitions that have arisen, most of them are dumb: social networking, semantic web - they're all flashes in the pan and ultimately doomed as long-term money makers. Look at how the social network that is Friends Reunited is dying. Even Ajax, while excellent for many things, isn't going to destroy client software as we know it.

I'm slightly bewildered by The Register's own choice of definition: “A Huge, Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld”. How many people are going to get that reference?

It puts me in mind a recent article on Slate, about how we'll know when the baby boomer generation will have lost control of the media: headlines will include phrases such as “By the Power of Grayskull” and “I for one will welcome our new overlords”. The Register's definition is a clear indication that in the IT world, the boomers are already gone.

Didn't get the reference? Click the “continue reading” link below to reveal the truth (I'm too embarrassed to add it to the front page)

Technorati Tags: tech journalism, The Register, Web 2.0