terrill.ca

The future of markup

A series of three articles published by xhtml.com recently came to my attention. They provide good background and great discussion about the future of markup as we know it. They're talking to guys in the know, so listen up.

First the good, bad, and ugly of XHTML 2 and HTML 5 are discussed. Then the two formats are compared head to head in some good detail (with really lame "cool!" comments after every point).

XHTML 2 has my vote. Keep it strict, put the hammer down! It's an investment were making in the future. As with any investment there's a certain amount of principal that must be paid up front. Yes, about 90% of the web would break. 10% would recover quickly. Another 10% would follow within a year. The other 70% is crap, so consider XHTML 2 to be the proverbial garbage man (or "sanitation engineer" 'cause these days everyone's an engineer).

What excites me about most, other than being strict XML, is the <section> and <nl> tags. Sections will help to prevent things like this from happening, where <h1>'s are used for every header, both in the body and in the navigation (that is 9 times, Google). NL, or Navigation List will be used on literally every website. Almost everyone uses a list as their nav structure now, even when its not the best option.

• HTML 5
• XHTML 2
• XHTML 2 versus HTML 5

Vote NO to the bus pass

Vote Today Online at: http://vote.feds.ca/ballot/.

A mandatory bus pass is a bad idea.

The benefits listed should be considered optimistic at best. I don't use the bus, and I'm not going to pay $50.00 for the privilege of walking. At the very least make it refundable (If you want a refundable pass, vote NO now, and wait for a better proposition).

You wont see changes in GRT coverage for at least a year, and even then it will be small. People with cars will not stop driving. They have cars. Anyone who feels the need to drive to school from within walking distance isn't going to jump on a bus – ever – they're lazy.

Think before you vote. More info is available at vote.feds.ca.

Browsing on terrill.ca

A glimpse inside my Mint installation.

This article was planned prior to having my server getting thoroughly abused by Digg.com. I took a screenshot of my mint installation prior, and another just now for comparison's sake.

Pre-Digging
February 9th, 2007

25% are still on IE6 – though it's only been 4 months since launch.

Post-Digging
March 13th, 2007

Well, even though the average Digg user seems dumb(or at least writes like it), they do have good taste in web browsers. Firefox is up about 15% as a result. Surprisingly, IE6 still has a lead over version 7. Anyone else have browser stats they'd like to share? I'm curious what others are experiencing.

Streaming Music Online

Having used Pandora.com to listen to music online for almost a year, change was due. I loved the concept and sheer simplicity of their website. Unfortunately the results always started to suck about an hour into listening. If you like new music, then listen to Pandora.com.

Alas, time's gone by and there's been no significant progress (unacceptable). This week I tried out Last.fm, and today I deleted my Pandora bookmark. At least three times I've said, out loud, "How does it KNOW?". The music selection is their greatest success. That and their site is leaps and bounds above that of Pandora. I mean, just look at these graphs! The sheer number of feautes are a bit overwhelming at first, but with time you catch on. If you like popular music, then listen to Last.fm

Does anyone else use Last.fm? If so add me as a 'Friend', my username is: terrilldent

Vernon God Little

Just finished reading "Vernon God Little" by DBC Pierre, winner of the Booker prize for fiction in 2003. The story was excellently written and I recommend it. Reading a synopsis of the book, you'd probably think it's cliche. And cliche it would be, were it not so colourfully written. It has some Hardy Boys qualities to it, mixed with a few Prison Break story lines, written with a quality similar to that found in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

Without giving too much away; the story is about an anti-social 15 year old Texan boy, wise beyond his years, who gets dragged right into middle of a massacre, lengthy legal battle, and family hell. His name is Vernon Gregory Little, but he jokingly changes his middle name to match the situation. It's set in the middle of fat-small-boring town Texas, which has its' own unique characteristics that'll set it apart in your mind from fat-small-boring town North America. If you want to borrow it, or any of the other books on my "Recently Read" list please ask. If you have one of the books listed, and have finished with it (looking at you, Jason) you could bring it back any time.

So now I am looking for another book to read. Any suggestions?

EmailMe

Spammers are good at their job, but we make it easy for them.

I use this piece of JavaScript on my About page to display my email address. To a viewer with eyes it's fine, but no screen scraper'll be harvest this email. No sir. The main goal is to never store the email address as a complete string that a regular expression could recognize. So, if your email address is yourself@example.com you would plug this in to a JavaScript file, and reference it in the page header.

EmailMe JavaScript

//eat this, spammers!
function emailMe(){
	var email = "<a href='mailto:yourself"
		+ "@example.com?subject=Contact from example.ca'>yourself"
		+ "@example.com</a>";
	
	document.getElementById('emailme').innerHTML = email;
}

window.onload = emailMe;

Then in the HTML you place the container span tag which is to be filled.

EmailMe HTML

<span id="emailme">[ yourself [at] example [dot] ca ]</span>

This means that someone with JavaScript turned off won't see it. I don't worry, those people are either paranoid, visit really sketchy sites, or both.

Oops

Looks like I just deleted all the timestamps associated with comments. Um... sorry.