Category Archives: Standards

Standards

Internet Explorer 8: Progress!

By Dougal | Published: March 6, 2008

It seems that Microsoft has reversed their previous decision to make Internet Explorer 8 crippled by default. They will be enabling the standards compliant mode by default in IE8, and webmasters will have to use the X-UA-Compatible header to force it into IE7 mode, for sites that can’t be updated immediately. Huzzah for progress!

And on that note, I’ll mention that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is available for download. [...]

Also posted in Browsers, CSS, Community, Design, Development, Tech, Web Design | Tagged Browsers, CSS, forwardcompatibility, futureproof, ie8 ie7, InternetExplorer, Microsoft, pleasesirmayihaveanother, Standards, webstandards | 6 Comments

Internet Explorer 8: This is progress?

By Dougal | Published: January 23, 2008

Internet Explorer 8 passes the Acid2 test. Huzzah!

But waitaminnit… What’s this stuff about forward compatibility by adding some new X-UA-Compatible header to my pages or my server? Am I reading this right? Are you telling me that in order for IE8 to use its fully compliant rendering, we have to add something new to our pages? And that if we don’t, it will fall back to rendering pages just like IE7? Is that what this means?

That’s just dumb.

Screw their stupid “don’t break the web” motto. [...]

Also posted in Browsers, CSS, Community, Design, Development, Tech, Web Design | Tagged Browsers, CSS, forwardcompatibility, futureproof, ie7, ie8, InternetExplorer, Microsoft, pleasesirmayihaveanother, Standards, Stupid, wasp, webstandards | 16 Comments

WP-Cache fix for Content-Type in feeds

By Dougal | Published: June 19, 2007

If you run a busy WordPress site, or even if your site just has a lot of processor-intensive plugins, then you probably already run the WP-Cache plugin (plugin directory, original announcment, recent security update info). Even though my site isn’t super busy, my server is a little light in the RAM department, and using WP-Cache helps the box keep up with requests better.

One minor annoyance, however, is that with WP-Cache enabled, my syndication feeds aren’t delivered with the correct Content-Type. [...]

Also posted in Plugins, Software, Syndication, WordPress | Tagged Atom, Feeds, PHP, plugin, Plugins, Syndication, WordPress | 12 Comments

WordPress.com supports OpenID

By Dougal | Published: March 6, 2007

The word just went out today that the WordPress.com blog hosting service now supports OpenID, ~~both~~ as a server ~~and a consumer~~. Supporting it as a server means that if you have a blog on WordPress.com, you can use your blog URL as an OpenID. ~~Supporting it as a consumer means that you can use any OpenID to login to your WordPress.com account (once you’ve associated your OpenIDs with your regular login)~~. [...]

Also posted in Community, OpenID, Services, Tech, WordPress | Tagged Identity, plugin, SingleSignOn, SSO, WordPress | 6 Comments

OpenID News

By Dougal | Published: February 13, 2007

Since my WordPress upgrade and theme change, the OpenID sign-on functionality here has been a little iffy. I think I’ve got all the kinks worked out now, and it should be working correctly again. There seems to be a buglet in the functions that attempt to automagically add the OpenID login fields to the comment form. So I had to disable that option and manually edit my comment template file to insert the appropriate bits. I don’t like having to modify the theme files (it’s going to make it harder to upgrade when a new version of Sandbox comes out), but that was my best solution, short-term.

In other news, Microsoft is working on interoperability between OpenID and their CardSpace™ framework. [...]

Also posted in Microformats, OpenID, Services, Tech, Themes, WordPress | Tagged FOAF, hCard, Identity, Microsoft, PHP, plugin, Sandbox, SingleSignOn, SSO, Web, WordPress, yahoo | 4 Comments

Dougal 4.0

By Dougal | Published: January 30, 2007

Today I turn the big Four-Oh. I’m not sure how I should feel about that. Since I’m a web development geek, how about we consider some possible responses in terms of HTTP 1.1 Status Codes:

I suppose the expected response would be 406 Not Acceptable. How could I possibly be forty? Where did the years go? Many people’s reaction is 416 Requested Range Not Satisfiable, also known as a “mid-life crisis”. As Adam from Mythbusters would say, “I reject your reality, and substitute my own!”

I don’t really feel any different, though. [...]

Also posted in Fun, Humor, Personal, Semantics | Tagged Birthday | 6 Comments

CSS: The One True Layout

By Dougal | Published: October 27, 2005

I had recently been using Alex Robinson’s 3-column CSS technique called “ordered columns, float-margin/float-margin” for some website designs. But he has superceded that with the One True Layout. OTL combines methods for source-ordered columns, techniques for equal-height columns, and “vertical grids” to provide a flexible method of creating complex page layouts, while maintaining a minimum of markup clutter. [...]

Also posted in Browsers, CSS, Design, Tech | Tagged CSS, Perl, PHP, Web | 6 Comments

IE7 and the demise of CSS hacks

By Dougal | Published: October 13, 2005

As mentioned previously here and elsewhere, Microsoft is working on Internet Explorer 7, which will have greatly improved CSS support. The IE7 team has posted an article about the demise of CSS hacks and broken pages, warning that the hacks often used to target CSS specifically to work around old IE bugs may be unnecessary under IE7 when in strict mode. [...]

Also posted in Browsers, CSS, Design | Tagged CSS, InternetExplorer, Microsoft, Web | 18 Comments

Free Opera Registration

By Dougal | Published: September 20, 2005

You can now download the Opera 8.5 web browser license-free and ad-free. Other sources are saying that this is for today only, but I don’t see any indication on Opera’s site that it’s a limited time offer…

via: Weblog Tools Collection

Also posted in Browsers, Software | Tagged Free, Web | 12 Comments

Microformat for media descriptions

By Dougal | Published: July 26, 2005

I’m interested in coming up with a good metadata system for describing various sorts of media. Obviously, this ties in to my recent work on my “now playing” feature, and also into my interest in microformats. And I plan to expand this with links to books, DVDs, and perhaps other media or products. I asked about it on the microformats-discuss mailing list, and they pointed me to a page on the wiki about media-metadata.

This seems to be primarily aimed at electronic media, but I’m hoping that the primary authors might be willing to expand the scope a bit. [...]

Also posted in Microformats, Semantics, Tech | Tagged Media | 2 Comments