The competition to become the next markup language for the Web is heating up. This article takes a look at what’s cool and what’s uncool about the competing technologies.
Interesting comparison of the two coming standards. I don’t know if the article is biased, though I think the author(s) is(are) trying to be fair, or maybe I’m biased, but it looks to me as if XHML 2 is the clear winner. I suppose I’ll have to look into this sometime… but judging on what’s gone on so far (e.g. CSS adoption and implementation) I don’t think this is going to be an issue for another 10 or 15 years… Hmmm, maybe I can manage to retire before then…
Clearing a float container without source markupPosition is Everything — This is insane – if you’ve ever wondered why people get so annoyed with Internet Explorer (IE) read this. A float is a block of HTML that has been told to, crudely put, position itself relative to stuff around it (e.g. float right). Floating something breaks the containment relationship, so its container doesn’t ‘know’ about it and so doesn’t adjust its height so that it still looks like a container. The problem is that the standard trick is to add an HTML element to fix it – this is, rightly, felt to be just wrong. Now there is a technique that can do this strictly in CSS if you account for browser bugs, in this case IE. Accounting for the bugs is the insane part. This is a wonderful illustration of why, as I reported the other day, some people charge extra for supporting IE.
Rails Plugin: Exception Notifier
The Exception Notifier plugin provides a mailer object and a default set of templates for sending email notifications when errors occur in a Rails application.
by Jamis Buck at Agile Web Development — This looks very very useful. I’m going to have to check it out. There might be some problems with Rails 1.2.x but Raconteur is still Rails 1.0.x
Desclaimer... so please bear with us during this trying time
Be aware that most of the demos in this site employ the Holly hack to work correctly in IE, but now IE7 fails to read the old star-html hack which was the vehicle for feeding the Holly hack hasLayout fix. Further, IE7 cannot be shown a small height to trigger hasLayout as has been customary. These changes require that modifications be made for the demos to work correctly, and these mods are detailed here. As time permits we will be correcting all the pages on PIE, along with numerous client pages, so please bear with us during this trying time.
Position Is Everything — Sigh.
Defense Of Pharmaceutical Patents Still Not Adding Up
And, as for the biggest question about how pharmaceutical companies can make back money if exact replicas in the form of generic pills are on the market, it appears that’s not quite as big a problem as the pharmaceutical industry (and patent system fans) would have you believe.
Techdirt
David Byrne: Who needs music labels?
[David Byrne] details his predictions for the future of the music industry: digital downloads will be the norm, and labels will either be reduced to marketing firms or will focus only on megastars.
by Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing — David Byrne has always been aware and ahead. Interesting.
eMusicSo I joined. There is a 25 free downloads promotion happening now. There is a desktop application or you can use the browser to locate and download music. About half as expensive as iTunes. Works on a subscription basis (so you are paying in advance) but there is a two week no charge no obligation trial.
Later the same day… Okay! this is looking really good!
Wobble and Laswell: Radioaxiom
Best appreciated with the help of a decent subwoofer.
by Tim Bray at ongoing — What an understatement. This is my first eMusic download. Okay, I’m happy! Purely coincidence that the next thing in my reading queue was this article… really!
I have been on a bit of a language binge lately. I have been playing around both with Factor and Erlang. I’m greatly impressed with both languages, though for completely different reasons.
by Dave Roberts at Finding Lisp — So have I. This is a very nice overview of Factor and Erlang.
REST Tips: Prefer following links over URI construction
When putting together a table to describe your REST service … there needs to be a distinction between the server view and the client view.
by Joe Gregorio at BitWorking — I agree. Also note the use of JSON in the example.
What's Wrong with Ruby? Hah Yeah, It's Me!
These are such great points and so well-put. See, actually, I’ve known since birth that I’m a problem, so this is no surprise to me … And now I’ve ruined Ruby. Uh. Oh. … The problem here is: the author of the article is trying to do academics, to gain knowledge, to build a career. And my cartoons and stories have patronized him, belittled him, by treating him as if he wasn’t a real professional. This is a terrible breach of conduct.
by Why at RedHanded — I chose to ignore the original article, unfortunately Why’s response is wonderful…
A new breed of worker, fueled by caffeine and using the tools of modern technology, is flourishing in the coffeehouses of San Francisco. Roaming from cafe to cafe and borrowing a name from the nomadic Arabs who wandered freely in the desert, they’ve come to be known as “bedouins.”
San Francisco’s modern-day bedouins are typically armed with laptops and cell phones, paying for their office space and Internet access by buying coffee and muffins.
by Dan Fost at SFGate.com — This has happened and it’ll continue. Long article but very interesting.
Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design
When one of world’s best-known usability experts, Jakob Nielsen, conducts eyetracking research to test what his usability work has shown, the results generate some beneficial tips for online editors.
by Laura Ruel and Nora Paul at Online Journalism Review — This is the article that got linked to about a billion times last week because of the eye tracking results of men near the bottom. There is more to this article than that. This is all fairly well understood information but it is presented here in one place.
But Digg’s ubiquity and influence doesn’t mean it’s perfect. A number of startups are tackling the same problem as Digg - sharing of good content via link submission and some form of voting. One of them, stumbleupon, actually has more registered users than Digg. … But many of them are worth looking at…
by Nick Gonzalez at TechCrunch
Scott also got the answer right, but instead of bidding the expected $2,601 (which would have assured himself the win), he bid $2,600. Wahoo! Three-way tie! … CBS Television Distribution … claims a statistician they hired calculated the odds of a three-way tie on the show as one in 25 million.
Heaneyland — Interesting story. Asks a good question asked: on what basis were the odds calculated given that this tie resulted from a deliberate act?
Disclaimer: I’m SO in the minority on this one… it looks like about a hundred-to-one in favor of Twitter, so I’m most likely way wrong on this one (but it doesn’t stop me from trying). And this post is mostly a mashup of a variety of earlier posts I’ve made on related subjects.
by Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users — I agree with Kathy, and I’m happy to just ignore Twitter… but then, I don’t carry a cell phone either.
Canada's Biggest Economic Challenge: Improving Workplace Learning
government support for workplace learning - which the report recommends - should be in the form of infrastructure and support for individual learners, not direct payments to companies. And the objective should be to enable workers to manage their own learning, not to help managers tell people what to learn.
by Stephen Downes on Stephen's Web
Cocoa Browser is a browser for the reference document of Cocoa API … This release can browse CoreData API, CoreImage API, WebKit API and many other additional APIs, as well as Foundation API and Application Kit API.
Numata Designed Factory — Looks really handy.
I’ve been collecting unusual objects for quite a few years and have just recently started posting them on this site as puzzles for visitors to figure out what they are. Most of the items are mine but a few belong to others, if you aren’t interested in tools there are plenty of other type objects that have also been posted.
via Core77 — This is great!
How Much Does the Terror Confession Change Our View of Terror?
Although there are many reasons to doubt the veracity of his claims, if he is responsible for even half of what he says, how much does it change the American perception of the ongoing Islamic threat against the U.S. and, subsequently, the U.S. war on terror? That is, if so many of the most damaging terrorist acts of the past decade were conceived and/or shepherded and/or financed by one man, does the idea of a huge worldwide army of American-hating Islamic fundamentalists begin to seem out of date, or at least out of focus?
by Stephen J. Dubner on Freakonomics Blog — I don’t know that any of his confession is true. But, setting that aside for the moment, what does this argument do? Nice bind!
