2008 (2)

Expertise and the Inverted Parabola

I’m not a mathematician!—but it looks like applying one’s experience and expertise results in an inverted parabola when it comes to the amount of work invested. That is, knowledge or its use, respectively, seem to mean that beginners don’t know what to do and thus don’t do much, while experts…

Published on July 18, 2008, filed under .

Yes, You Can Use HTML 5

You can already use HTML 5: Just use <!DOCTYPE html> as your HTML documents’ document type. This works even though you will not yet benefit from new elements and attributes.

Published on July 8, 2008, filed under .

Compared to What?

…is probably one of the most important questions there is. “Compared to what?” is the question that should be answered every time it is about data, be it through charts, in newspapers, on websites, or in conversations. Yet it is rarely asked, rarely answered, and people end up with less or even false information.

Published on July 3, 2008, filed under .

10 Measures for Continuous Website Maintenance

Website maintenance and quality assurance constitute the backbone of high-quality offers of information, and they make the difference between amateur and professional web design.

Published on June 24, 2008, filed under .

When Validation Becomes Unimportant

Validation becomes unimportant only once you’re ahead of the game. Even then, truly mastering HTML and CSS, it’s best to stick with valid markup and styling. Improving latency might constitute the only exception—if at all.

Published on June 16, 2008, filed under .

Thoughts on Email

Email was, is, and will remain the Web’s true killer application, but spam, top-posting, incompetent use of newsletters, and the HTML email problem mean serious challenges.

Published on June 10, 2008, filed under .

Web Design: 10 Additional Research Findings You Should Know

Following up on last year’s post on web design research, here’s another collection of research findings, this time featuring further reading.

Published on June 5, 2008, filed under .

Optional Tags in HTML 4

For your convenience, here’s a list of all optional tags according to the HTML 4.01 Strict DTD. Omitting these tags allows to save markup and thus file size—if you choose to. I created this list because even nine years after release of the HTML 4 specification…

Published on June 1, 2008, filed under .

Ăśber-Semantics

Premasagar recently published a great demonstration of what can be considered “über-semantic” code. I guess we can thank the microformats community here, which carefully avoids to rely on the semantics of HTML elements but…

Published on May 27, 2008, filed under .

Tip: vi Configuration

Long story short: It’s easy to modify the vi editor’s standard configuration. The most useful changes probably relate to encoding (UTF-8) and display of line numbers…

Published on May 25, 2008, filed under .

Less Is Still More

Time and money spent on making things worse is something I find absolutely fascinating. Let me elaborate, beginning with HTML newsletters: Hours are spent writing supposed content, creating and decorating mockups, working around email client limitations…

Published on May 21, 2008, filed under .

CSS: Simple Rules for Better Organization and More Efficiency

“Organization is not everything, but without organization, everything is nothing,” one of my teachers used to say. Almost everything benefits from organization, and so does work with CSS—especially when working with many people.

Published on May 15, 2008, filed under .

Website Optimization Measures, Part IV

Once again, though already covering a few weeks of various improvements, some of which have been implemented in Bremen, others in Zurich, all on some of my sites. Enjoy additional optimization tips, this time touching typography, usability, SEO, and performance.

Published on May 5, 2008, filed under .

The World’s Best HTML Template

…again, exclusively, and as long as HTML 5 is in progress.

Published on April 29, 2008, filed under .

Why “Reset” Style Sheets Are Bad

Jonathan set the pace, Eric countered, a few people chimed in, and I, having criticized reset and undo style sheet criticism back in January, feel obligated to repeat that reset style sheets are bad: A novice should not use them, an expert would not use them…

Published on April 19, 2008, filed under .

CSS: All Properties From CSS 1 to CSS 3

What would HTML be without CSS? And what is an index of all HTML elements without an index of all CSS properties? To address the latter I present a continuously updated index of all properties specified in CSS 1, CSS 2, CSS 2.1, and CSS 3, including their initial values.

Published on March 27, 2008, filed under .

The 10 Design Theses of Dieter Rams

Moving up industrial design on my agenda and studying the work of German top designer Dieter Rams (who was responsible for the great design of Braun products for about 30 years), I deemed it useful to republish his design theses.

Published on March 25, 2008, filed under .

Website Optimization Measures, Part III

Jens on quality assurance again, this week featuring the link density challenge, updated ping service lists, improved WordPress plugins and security, revised layout grids, font karaoke, and more prominent update information. Hot and spicy.

Published on March 17, 2008, filed under .

Great CSS Techniques and the Simple Truth Behind Them

There’s a simple recipe to judge CSS techniques: Does the method in question require HTML additions and modifications (beyond introducing IDs or classes)? If yes, the technique likely isn’t elegant and might be inadvisable.

Published on March 11, 2008, filed under .

The Secret of Maintainability

Keep it simple.

Published on March 7, 2008, filed under .

The 1,000 Dollar Donation

A few minutes ago, I donated the 1,000 US dollars I offered in the 1,000 Dollar Comment Game. I rounded the 1,000 dollars to 700 euros and transferred the money to “Selbsthilfe fĂĽr Wohnungslose e.V.”, Hanover.

Published on March 1, 2008, filed under .

Akismet Plugins Archive

Since no older versions of famous WordPress spam protection plugin Akismet seem to be available anymore, I decided to preserve the collection of Akismet plugins I could get my hands on. Get your API key all excited.

Published on February 27, 2008, filed under .

“helvetica, arial”, Not “arial, helvetica”

Unless you truly want Arial and not the better Helvetica font, use the order helvetica, arial in your CSS font declarations, not the all-so-common arial, helvetica.

Published on February 20, 2008, filed under .

Website Optimization Measures, Part II

Now that we talked about blog cleanups, structure and element revisions as well as search engine verification in part I, here are some additional suggestions, small options for improvement consisting of .htaccess stuff, SEO, and consistency checks…

Published on February 15, 2008, filed under .

Website Optimization Measures, Part I

Focus on QA requires occasional website reviews, not necessarily immediate redesigns or relaunches. This week I spent some time analyzing, refactoring, and optimizing my personal sites. I thought to share a few things for inspiration and discussion.

Published on February 10, 2008, filed under .

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