Category: web standards

A Non-Technical Microformat Definition

I was asked by someone at work to come up with a non-technical definition of microformats for some glossary of web terms they’re putting together. Here’s what I came up with:\
bq. Using standards that exist today, microformats take the HTML used to build the web and turn it into powerful, semantic, machine-readable, web-service ready data – without changing the specification or changing how HTML is written or delivered.\
And here’s what the amazing Paul Downey came up with on Twitter\
bq. Microformats for non-techies: colours on a Web page for things such as “date” and “telephone number” which only computers can see\
I like Paul’s better. Oh, and you should check out Paul’s presentation on Web API’s. The man creates the best slides in the business.

AIM Pages

We launched a metric ton of new stuff for AIM Pages yesterday morning (started at 2AM and finishing up around 10:30 with tweaks and mad dashes throughout and after). The changes are definitely noticable. If you go to aimcreate.com, you’ll no longer see the super sexy drag and drop editing interface, although it’s still available. The “wizard”, as I like to call it, is a ummm… wizard. So, if you’re not into the drag and droppyness of the other interface, you can fill out this big form, hit Save Changes and voila, you’ve got an AIM Page like mine (well, not like mine exactly, because yours should be like your page and be about you: if it was about me too, that would be creepy).\
We had no time to completely rebuild the product, faced innumerable technical problems, questions and challenges, and yet we still launched on time. The product included more than twenty-seven individual pieces of software to install, groups on three continents, in four time zones and more moving pieces than I want to remember (although I have to, because I was the tech lead for this round). So, if you were wondering why I haven’t slept in six weeks (five eighty hour weeks in a row, y’all), seemed kind of stressed out and irritable, now you know!\
It continues to amaze me that we’ve launched this product all based around a microformat, and that it works so well. There are still challenges, but everything around the microformat has been relatively smooth and stable. We even have a cool web service built around it that anyone can use to mash up their own page or other pages. More cool stuff is afoot, so keep your eyes peeled.\
It’s launched, it’s cool, there are still some issues that we’re working on, but it’s out there and I can get some sleep now.\
Oh yeah, and this year has been so crazy that I’ve only taken three vacation days so far this year. Yes, three. Since I’ve been at AOL so long, that means I have several weeks of vacation time to use up by the end of the year. Yeah, I won’t be at work much in December.

Unexpected Truths

I was in an interview today (update: not for a job for me, I was interviewing them to do a job for AOL), talking to a design and development shop (who will remain nameless) about their work and other assorted web-nerdery (flash vs. html, accessibility, localization, etc) when I asked them about the different DOCTYPES they use and why they didn’t just pick one and stick with it. Here’s how the conversation went.

  • Creative Director: Yeah, we pick based on client needs and stuff… We’re pretty anal about standards and stuff. We’re geeks, and you know, geeks love anal.
  • Me: That’s going on a t-shirt.

He didn’t get it right away, which is probably a good thing. I wish every interview went that well.

Microformats Presentation at AJAX Experience

I gave a presentation on microformats this morning at “AJAX Experience”http://theajaxexperience.com. Thanks to Molly and Aaron, I didn’t run way under, and I think it went pretty well. The AIM Pages demos went pretty well, but the network hiccuped just when I was trying to publish my page. Oh well.\
You’re welcome to go check out the presentation, and post questions in the comments on the presentation or here, especially if you were in the audience (all 25 of you)!

Slow Recovery

I’m slowly getting better. I’m still congested, but at least I’m off the steroids. I’ve still got the awesome horse decongestants and I still sound pretty bad. But, at least I feel well enough to go to work and actually contribute.\
Today, I did a favor for my old manager and did training for some of his new folks. We talked about standards-based development, markup, CSS and DOM scripting. It was fun going through the old presentations again, but it was obvious to me how rusty I am with the whole teaching thing. There was a time last year when I had those presentations down and could go through them and the explanations were all practiced and came out fluidly. Today, not so much. I blame the congestion and the drugs… but I’m just out of practice. It was still fun, even though now I’ve almost completely lost my voice.\
This weekend is all about recovery… soup, sleep, stupid movies and football. Oh yeah, and I updated the blogroll today. It’s much bigger than it was before, and is still an export of my feeds from NetNewsWire (minus all the Flickr feeds, wikis, work and my stuff). So, it’s actually a pretty decent representation of what I follow.

On Modules and Widgets

I got a couple comments on yesterday’s post about ModuleT and widgets. I don’t post often (another vote against splitting my personal blog, I guess), but all the details about AIM Pages, our microformat or other thoughts on widgets will be over on the Alpha Blog. That’s where Joe, Shawn and I talk about module stuff. We’ve been so busy lately that we haven’t posted as much as we should, but there’s a lot to talk about, so keep your eyes peeled for news.

Truly Semantic Classes and Ids

Just a little thought before leaving for work. How funny would it be if we used truly semantic classes and ids in our XHTML? Instead of pretending it’s a “container” or “event-holder” or whatever other text we use to try to fool ourselves into semantic meaning, what if we were truly honest about the role that element was playing? For example:

  • im-no-css-jedi
  • because-multiple-background-isnt-implemented
  • ie-wont-clear-this-damn-thing
  • i-can-hang-another-background-off-this
  • bottomless-pit-for-my-dom-wickedness
  • should-have-been-a-list
  • because-ive-never-heard-of-fieldset
  • must-have-rounded-corners\
    I think it’ll catch on. Got more?