Subtil

A tweet from David Hobbes tipped me off to an article about why code samples can be a good thing when hiring people, or for that matter judging a consultants work before signing them up for a job. Even though I don't do much proper programming myself I do a fair bit of (X)HTML and CSS and the points made in the article are just as true when it comes to that. From a HTML or CSS code sample you can get a good understanding of whether the person is using proper and semantic markup or not, adhers to current web standards, knows accessibility, handles metadata in a consistent way etc. Too often I've seen divitis and classitis all over the place as well as outdated table layouts in code from web companies that should know better.

This brings me to the point of my own site. I'll spare you the trouble of viewing the source code - it's not optimal. I'm using a standard drupal template since I moved operations over a year ago. After some corrections it validates, sure. But being valid isn't necessarily the same as being good. I prefer my code more compacted and would like to see way less classes and div's spread around.

By the way, this might be this years only blog post. I only managed one in 2008. In the mean time I'm trying out twitter again. When it was new, I just didn't get it I guess. Still didn't get it half a year ago. But I must admit i probably wouldn't have written this post hadn't it been for a tweet.

Still undecided btw.

As previously noted, the web site of Swedish Customs has got a new design. The first thing that strikes me is how it feels very much like the design of another Swedish government authority -- The National Tax Board. Is this due to the fact that both use SiteVision as publishing platform? Many other Swedish government authorities use the same platform but have very different design so that's probably not the reason why.

My next thought is that it's a good thing. The likeness to the National Tax Board web site signals Government Authority to me and will probably help me navigate the site with more familiarity if the likeness is more than skin deep.

I managed 40, but then I poured a cup of coffee halfway through..

Take the quiz.

In a column called Dork Talk in The Guardian, Stephen Fry blogs about a meeting with the father of the web -- Sir Tim Berners-Lee -- and wonders if Tim isn't the greatest living Englishman. And a modest one at that.

Sir Berners-Lee is by the way working on a browser application for the Semantic Web called The Tabulator used to browse RDF data on the web.

Anyhow, I have also always been annoyed with "dot co dot bloody uk" everytime I visit a site in Britain...

Just back from the Gilbane conference in Boston where I talked to Adriaan Bloem of Radagio and CMS Watch on the problems of web governance for universities which Adrian just wrote about.

And what about those 95% you ask? Well, universities pioneered the web and their very decentralized web sites have since grown organically, many now containing hundreds of thousands of pages, if not millions. 95% of which could probably be deleted without anyone ever missing them -- but which 95%?

If you ask me, Adriaan also has the best definition of Web 2.0 so far. But I'll let him tell you that one himself.

Guess a lot of you have run in to the problem of Internet Explorer (pre 7) failing PNG alpha transparency. So did I on a recent project. Everything's fine in Firefox, IE7, Opera etc. but an ugly grey background shows up in IE6 where transparency is expected.

There are plenty of fixes to this problem. Most of them rely on javascript or php. I tried a few but no success since they mostly seem to target inline images, my problem concerned an image placed as a background-image with CSS.

I finally stumbled across Christopher Schmitt's PNG Image Replacement Technique that combines the Fahrner Image Replacement technique (FIR) with Microsoft's filter property in order to activate the alpha transparency.

What I like about this solution is that it involves no javascript, no extra php hacks or extra gifs. It's pure CSS and handles only background-images but then that was just what I needed.

Greece is as usual this trip too. It's unusually hot in Athens for this time of year, over 30 degrees Celsius. Very hot and people on strike. Today it's the subway and other forms of communication that stand still.

Waiting in Pireaus for the boat to take me out to Poros where I'll meet up with a bunch of Swedish archaeologists to discuss a project. I've found a cooling oasis with speedy WiFi-access in the form of Starbucks. The last few years internet has become more easily accessible here. Good thing.

A List Apart wants to know who you are? Where you live? Your title, skills, educational background and a lot of other things in their first annual Web Design Survey.

At the beginning of this year I left my old host. They always provided good service, but when you can find hosting services today with equal - well, even better service - at only 10% of the cost, you do the swap. Simple as that. Only downside with the new host is that they don't handle Swedish characters in domain names, so I had to park åkejohansson.com in another garage.

This Sunday (and I'm sure for many more days) I'm also moving my operation to the Drupal CMS. For now I'm using a standard theme, but will look into a redesign of the site later this spring. No more blueberries!

Highly recommended article for all who are struggling to get those rounded corners straightened out. 84 steps might seem a bit much but hang in there - it's well worth it.