Out and about (22:59 pm)…

Thu Nov 24

New words no. 1: Binwind (noun) the waft of smelly air that hits you when you pull a full bin bag out of the bin to tie it up.

The fame list and the shame list…

Thu Nov 24

It’s very nice when you stumble across a website for a large organisation that uses web standards as nicely as the AA do. It’s a joy to behold, clean code, great use of CSS, excellent print layout. Only one or two little errors (and dodgy ad frames) let it down, but in general I like this a lot.

So, that puts me in mind. Is there anywhere on the web that celebrates the websites of big (or biggish) companies who go web standards, a Fame List? Not necessarily for great designs, although that might be part of it, but just to show that it can be done by a larger organisation. And is there a Shame List, of those big companies that should pay attention to the modern way of doing things but haven’t?

If not, there should be.

Cross site scripting…

Thu Nov 24

There’s a bit of a discussion going on at the moment about cross-domain scripting, which is a method of getting information from someone elses website and using it on your own. The advantages to the AJAX way of doing things are that these processes can happen in the background without the user knowing. Perhaps happen a hundred times a second without the user knowing.

You see why there might be a bit of a problem here. There is huge potential for people to do damage to others’ websites with a few lines of JavaScript. So, there is a restriction in XMLHTTPRequest to only allow calls to a page on the same domain as you are currently viewing. That means that if you have a page on abc.com, you won’t be allowed to AJAX some information from xyz.com.

The downside of this is that if you have legitimate reasons for grabbing data from another domain using AJAX, you can’t. Or rather, you can, but you need to do some tweaking. I’ve used one method, discussed here which is to use a server-side script (e.g. PHP or ASP) on your own domain to receive AJAX requests, do the remote call, the post the results back. Easy.

And, seeing as the age of Web Services is upon us, expect to see a lot more of this kind of cross-site scriptery going on.

Buzzworduko!…

Wed Nov 23

Nine different buzzwords: RSS, Web services, XML, Blog, AJAX, WAP, VoIP, Social networking, Web 2.0. One puzzle image (click for larger, printable version. You get the idea :0)

Buzzworduko - click for larger version

Update: Looks like someone had a similar idea

The new amateurs…

Wed Nov 23

The web is an organic place, and people working on the web need to be just as fluid and flexible in their approach to developing websites. However, as we all know, it’s human nature to stick with what you know. It’s easier, more comfortable, doesn’t require any exra work. However on the web, what we know now is not always the best way to do things.

Roger Johansson is mulling over this at the moment, and points to an article by Peter-Paul Koch on that very subject. The challenges are all to plain to see - too many websites are still being built with scant regard for web standards and accessibility.

The challenge is getting the message across - without being elitist or condescending - that web standards are worth the effort. And that is a daunting prospect when you look at a world rushing to web-enable everything in sight.