Or as a like to call it: podcasts that have caught my eye in the past week or so. And they differ in several ways, so there’s sure to be something for everybody. Take your pick:
Confession: It took me a while to realize that this podcast is actually the previously-named You Suck at Web Design, relaunched as a new brand with a new site design. This show isn’t so much a bag of tricks on web design as it is a quirky, personal storybook told by Matthew D. Jordan, but still a must-listen.
This is not just one but seven shows tackling different topics, from photography to Ruby programming, founded just last year by Dan Benjamin. I love the idea of a whole network of shows about the internet, on the internet, and here we have a whole suite for people who make websites. I can think of few things better than that. More networks and more topics, perhaps?
In light of the “circuses” happening in both the Hollywood late night talk show circuit and the web working groups, standardista slash comic strip creator Kyle Weems aka CSSquirrel announced this:
I am in the process of devising a “late night” talk show that the Squirrel will host, featuring interviews with cartoon representations of various web designers/developers/standardistas. It’ll draw from the mighty traditions of the Tonight Show, The Daily Show and Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, and in theory will be a plug-in free experience brought to you in part by HTML5, JavaScript and vector tree-climbing rodents.
Check out the podcast over at SitePoint, titled HTML5 is a beautiful mess:
The podcast touches on that matter, and spins out to the state of the actual implementation of HTML5 itself, whether there’s a challenge in getting designers and developers to start using it, the issues of accessibility in <canvas>, and how delightful it’d be to move past plugins.
Truthfully, I’m trying to avoid getting caught in the sticky details of how HTML5 is developing at the moment because it only adds to the anxiety (isn’t stressing over Internet Explorer enough?) and diminishes hope (we’re supposed to be moving forward with these technologies already). But it also helps to stay realistic not just idealistic, and drawing back the curtain on how the working groups are actually working on the HTML5 standard is a good way to do that.
Haven’t gotten into the holiday spirit quite yet? Perhaps these design and development focused advent calendars will do the trick. Come to think of it, it should do even more than that; you get a treat every single day for 24 days straight. Sounds even better than Christmas day? Almost.
This site may not have started the “geeky” advent calendar trend, but it has certainly built an excellent reputation and tradition for web designers everywhere. The design continues to be cutting edge and inspiring as well.
All PHP, all holiday season long. See also the Perl Advent Calendar. (There’s a Rails one too, but the original post seems to be missing now.)
Few things are better than a holiday sale, and this advent calendar themed bazaar by SitePoint looks great. The format is pretty clever too: each offer lasts for only 24 hours, and you won’t know what products come on next.
Here’s one for the WordPress lovers, made by no less than WP Engineer. I hope that next year this becomes a community-wide effort as with the PHP Advent Calendar. Archive here.
A great crash course, if you will, into everything about social media. Not quite for designers or developers, but a great resource nonetheless.
Lists done better?
Writing this article made me realize this could actually be a way to create better list articles. Instead of cramming everything in and bombarding your readers with one long, heavy post, create a series. Exercise patience and restraint on your part and theirs. Keep them coming back for more.
Once you’ve reached your quota, do a round-up, and store the past articles in a safe place. They can even be realigned or revisited (hopefully not like recycled fruitcake, mind you) when the holidays come around again. Of course you can write all year long, but the idea is also avoiding predictability and knowing when to make things special.
And speaking of which, may you all have a special holiday season this year!
Here’s a great deal you don’t see everyday: SitePoint is letting you purchase 5 e-books for the price of 1 (that’s $29.95) and one hundred percent of the proceeds will be donated to the victims of the bushfires in Australia.
So we’re taking one day, working around the clock to plan, package, and execute our best book deal ever in order to raise funds for the Red Cross as soon as possible. Our ambitious plan is to raise over US$50,000. Every single cent generated from this promotion will go directly to the bushfire relief effort—so if you spend $29.95 purchasing 5 books from SitePoint, the whole $29.95 will go directly to supporting this cause. We feel that’s the least we can do.
The bushfires have already taken hundreds of lives just these past few days. But admirably enough, the SitePoint folks have come up with this selfless deed and at the same time managed to reward others who contribute to it. All in record time—this promo launched only a few hours ago.
It helps that digital products like e-books (and other downloadbles like songs and movies) cost practically nothing to distrbute. Of course one would rather leaf through real paper in a book, but getting hold of the information contained in the book matters more.
More importantly you’re donating to charity and getting rewarded for it. And unlike other products, all of the proceeds go straight to the victims. Not just a fraction. Which means you don’t even have to be interested in the books they’re selling; you can always find someone else who is.
So the customers get books, the victims get help, and SitePoint gets what, exactly? The satisfaction that it’s helping people in deep trouble. And, eventually, the reputation that it’s that kind of company. And knowing that, wouldn’t you want to do business with them again?
The offer ends on February 13. Buy now!
(Disclaimer: I’m not being paid by SitePoint to write this.)
All the hoopla over Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong!, a book by Rachel Andrew and Kevin Yank (see also the Digital Web article) is making me feel uneasy.
We’re not wrong; the title is wrong
I detest the title of the book. No, I don’t think “everything” I know about CSS is wrong. I “know” about the display:table technique for months now (thanks to Sitepoint, again).
Neither do I think it’s a good idea to go around belittling people by telling them they are wrong, whether in printed book or online article format. It’s harsh and misleading.
We’ve got issues
As for the CSS Tables technique presented in the book, these are some of the issues plaguing it:
- tag soup
- lack of source order control
- the question of semantics and presentation vs. content: is making
<div>s behave like tables/table cells any different from using tables as layouts?
- IE6 and IE7 incompatibility (no surprise there!)
And not too long after the uproar, the authors have addressed the above problems:
Andrew Tetlaw responds to #1 and #3:
No one is negatively affected by the overuse of structural div tags. The same can’t be said for the use of HTML tables for layout.
And here’s an interesting quip which points out the very valid woe of web developers, who have had to adjust to all these changes in coding conventions because of our “flakiness”:
Congratulations on years of punishing web devs for using common sense. Finally the circle turns, but somehow you think that you were ‘right all along.
Matthew Pennell of Digital Web has this to say about those who question semantics and standards:
I must say that I’m surprised that an audience of (presumably) conscientious, standards-aware developers are almost all declaring that they will not use new features of CSS when they are available and supported. Are you all so short-sighted that you cannot see any application for the techniques discussed here beyond wholesale replacement of site layouts?
And Rachel has written this regarding #4:
Some commentators have suggested that we shouldn’t have put a book out about a technique that can’t be used immediately, that will require workarounds to still provide support for older versions of Internet Explorer. I disagree. Something I point back to in the book is how the web community began to use CSS for layout even though support in Netscape 4 was limited and buggy. If those of us who were building CSS layouts right in those early days had said, “nah, it doesn’t work in Netscape, can’t do it”, then our recent history would look very different.
Are we hesitant about change and innovation?
In a sense, browser usage does “cripple” our ability to look towards a future of web design innovation (and bliss) when IE6 is finally disappears. But are things right now are exactly the same as when Netscape Navigator 4 was the stumbling block?
More importantly, will the CSS Tables technique actually push our level of innovation by a significant degree? The past few months of new websites tell me innovation is not too hard to come by still.
And what about next-generation HTML5, which will have new structural tags like <header>, <section>, <article>, <footer>? Can one not feel guilty using all those <div>s in the midst of these elegant new tags? Perhaps that’s another debate for another day—in 2022.
