Recent Blog Posts
Blogs » Archive for January, 2007
Rails 1.2: No More Excuses!
In case you’ve been living on another planet and missed it, this month saw the release of Rails 1.2, a major milestone for the framework.
To coincide with this release, SitePoint this week announced the availability of our own Ruby on Rails book, Build Your Own Ruby On Rails Web Applications by Patrick Lenz. This is a terrific addition to the SitePoint library, written specifically for Rails 1.2. If you’ve yet to discover what the fuss is all about (and why Rails has web developers so excited), then you’ve got no more excuses not to take the plunge!
For all its strengths, though, Rails can be daunting for beginners, as coming to grips with the framework requires also learning a set of skills and concepts associated with best practice web development.
Beginning programmers will therefore appreciate the attention that Patrick gives to core topics such as the model-view-controller pattern, migrations, and continuous testing, as well as his explanations of object oriented concepts and in-depth coverage of Ruby syntax.
As technical editor of the book, I’m also very proud of the attention to detail applied to the book–in …
The Hard Facts about Heading Structure
The following is republished from the Tech Times #157.
Something I’ve had to get used to in my work as a so-called web technology expert is having my assumptions proven wrong every now and then. Languages like HTML can seem deceptively simple at times, and even after years of experience there can be important lessons left for you to learn.
Not long ago I learned a hard lesson about heading structure in HTML, one that I suspect many web designers will also be surprised to learn. In a nutshell, heading structure is independent of document structure in HTML documents.
Let’s start with something we can all agree on. If you’re writing an HTML document that is simply an article or other body of text with a single title and a number of subheadings, you should use <h1> for the title and <h2> for the subheadings. If your subheadings themselves contain subheadings, those should be marked up with <h3>, and so on.
<h1>Article title</h1>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…</p>
<h2>Subheading</h2>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…</p>
<h3>Sub-subheading</h3>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…</p>
<h2>Subheading</h2>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…</p>
Looks reasonable so far, right?
Now, if this is a typical web page, it will also have some navigation elements, and perhaps some secondary content, such …
SitePoint Hiring Web Tech Enthusiasts!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: working at SitePoint is my dream job. I get paid to tinker with all the latest web technology, and then share what I learn with developers all over the world. Sound like fun to you? Well guess what—we’re hiring!
SitePoint’s editorial team needs enthusiasts to stay on top of all that’s fresh and new in web technology, and help us produce our range of blogs, newsletters, articles, and books.
If you’re a web developer who enjoys teaching about technology as much as you love getting up to your elbows in a new web development platform, then this could be your dream job too.
To be in the running, just fill out our online survey.
This is a full-time position at SitePoint’s head office in Melbourne, Australia.
Although we would prefer to find someone local, we are definitely set up to offer visa sponsorship if the right candidate comes along.
Be the First Kid on the Block Running MS Ajax 1.0 Final!
This just in—MS Ajax 1.0 Final has been released! Download it here or see Scott Guthrie’s blog post for full details. Note that ajax.asp.net is down at the time of this writing, so Scott’s download link might not work. Presumably the assembly it will be hitting your shared web host shortly.
Probably the coolest part of this release is that they also will be releasing the server-side source code. This has several significant implications:
- Ever wonder how they made the UpdatePanel? Well, now you can see how without resorting to reflector. Want to see how MS codes a flagship product’s web controls? Well, now you can.
- You can compile your own non-GAC version for use with your own project. I suspect this will still require full trust, but it still makes for much more self-contained deployments, which I love.
The release of the source also leads me to ask an interesting question: why not release the sources for the rest of the ASP.NET stack? I would love to be able to walk through the page lifecycle or watch my IHttpModule work in the debugger. …
News Wire: The Secret Origin of Ajax
-
Upcoming CSS3 support in Opera
Just when I’d given up hope on CSS 3, Opera insider David Storey posts this run-down on the features that are up and running in their current internal build. It’s mainly selectors at this stage, but support for CSS2’s text-shadow makes up for that!
(tags: opera css) -
WordPress 2.1 Ella
WordPress 2.1 is out. The most visible improvements center around the WYSIWYG writing experience, but the added goodness is baked right through.
(tags: software php) -
Seven accessibility mistakes you don’t want to make
SitePoint pal Roger Johansson gives a great summary of this two-part article series from Digital Web, offering up advice for web development shops struggling to meet accessibility standards in real-world projects.
(tags: accessibility) -
HTML Standards Process Returning from the Grave
The Safari development team chimes in with detailed feedback on the proposed charters for the W3C’s new HTML working groups. Dan Connolly of the W3C responds in the comments to this post.
(tags: html standards safari) -
Practical, Entry-Level Web Accessibility
Work with developers who don’t know a thing about web accessibility? Point them at this article. Free of hand-wavy notions and idealism, it …
Usability heuristics for web development teams
Often when clients have a relatively low budget for usability testing, or a short amount of time in which to conduct it, an ‘expert’ or an ‘heuristic’ review will be run by an experienced usability practitioner. There are slight differences between the two, with the expert review entailing a less formal evaluation process than the heuristic review. But all things considered, they’re pretty much in the same ballpark time wise… So I suppose that means cost wise too.
There are a number of advantages in conducting either type of review. As I mentioned above, where resources are limited, they can be an effective and efficient method of assessing a site; the time and cost associated with recruiting, interviewing and paying test participants is negated. These evaluation methods can also be conducted very easily and consistently throughout the life of a site, providing a benchmark as well as a periodical health-check.
In conducting an heuristic review, a series of guidelines or checkpoints is used by the usability expert to assess a site (or application). In conducting an expert review however, these specific guidelines may not be utilised, with the practitioner relying on their expertise of general usability principles to review the site …
Page_Load is Evil
.NET’s default Page_Load method is evil. And here is why, and how you can fix it in your code.
It’s That Time Again
When I first launched Outlook this morning I was greeted with a reminder that I’d just as soon forget – tax time is coming.
Because I deal with so many new/growing web development groups in my consulting practice, I spend lots of time talking about taxes, tax reduction, corporate entities, and bookkeeping. I’ve come to enjoy this because so many of our clients can get major tax advantages simply by employing some basic bookkeeping and tax reduction techniques. We also make an effort to improve our own tax situation each year, which helps us to manage growth and preserve our profits as the business grows.
This year is no exception. While we expect to pay more taxes than ever in actual dollars, I am hoping to reduce the percent of net profits that we pay in taxes if at all possible. Around this time last year we added three new ingredients to the tax-reduction mix:
1) Health Savings Accounts
2) Individual 401k’s for principals
3) Conversion to American Express for all expenses
The Health Savings Account (HSA) is a relatively new form of health care plan in the US, and is not to be confused with the older …
PHP Conference London 2007
It’s back! – just doing my bit to support the UK’s premiere PHP event. And hats off to them again for honest pricing – no inflation since last year if I remember right: £50 in advance or £75 on the day. Whether I’ll be able to get there is another story but I’d like to.
A Trip Down Memory Lane, With VS 2003. Oh How I Never Missed Thee.
One project I work on revolves around an annual event. And it just became imperative to do a significant overhaul of the visual bits of it’s website. Unfortunately, said website is a .NET 1.1 application. Granted, that is better than an ASP 3.0 application. But it required getting a trip back into Visual Studio 2003 land. And, having spent the last six months or so in Visual Studio 2005, I was in for a shock.
