Web Standards, Accessibility and Other Stuff

As I mentioned a few months back,  my personal project this year is Accessible Twitter, a web-based Twitter application. It was originally written specifically for web accessibility (optimized for disabled users) and still is the main goal. But I discovered that if I want more users, I’ll have to continue working on the features.

I’m pretty happy with the progress so far. The app is still in Alpha, but hope to take it to Beta in the next few weeks. Updates are made fairly regularly, and more recent updates include the following:

• Added a URL shortening feature.
• Enhanced Direct Message page and funtionality.
• Added Popular Links page and categories, too.
• Add (limited) functionality to update user profile. (More to come.)
• Add more data for Tweeps on the Following and Followers pages.
• Add user data to bottom of single status page (the tweet’s PERM page).

If you haven’t tried Accessible Twitter yet, or if you haven’t been there lately, please go check it out. Oh, also, the Twitter username for the app is @AccessibleTwitr.

Looking for a good, free code/text editor? I’ve gone through this quandary several times (due to new job, second home computer, suggestion for a friend, etc.), so I figured I’d list my favorites here. Hope you find this, and it serves you well!

Windows

• Notepad++ (highly recommended for the PC)
• TextPad
• Edit+

Mac

• TextMate
• Text Wranger
• Xcode (Apple)
• BBEdit (awesome, but just a free trial)

The U of M Dentists web site went back up last month after an extended period of downtime. The site is an  “Online Network of University of Michigan Dental School Graduates and their Practices”. Here’s the strange story…

Last December, I noticed a few web sites of mine were completely down. The reason was tragic. A former co-worker of mine in Florida was hosting the sites, and he died suddenly. His computer business was sold, and the plug was pulled on the web servers (literally).

It took me a week to figure out what happened, then a several weeks more to track down the new company and get some domains transferred into my name. What a mess that was. When I finally had time (after reviving other higher-priority sites), I converted the old ASP code (yes, Classic ASP!) into nice, simple PHP. And the Access data to MySQL. It was a tedious but worthy effort.

I’m glad I decided to re-launch the site instead of ditching my pet project. And since its return, a few dentists have requested to be added to the network.

Here are some awesome web development resources I’ve come across lately:

• 110+ Massive WordPress Video Tutorial Collection
• HTML, CSS, PHP and jQuery Killer Tutorials
• 10 Cool Things We’ll Be Able To Do Once IE6 Is Dead
• Alltop – All the info you need for Web Design

So I recently created a dental blog site for my brother’s business, General & Cosmetic Dentistry (I used WordPress, which is awesome). It’s part of a marketing effort to gain more patients, and in response to the poor economy and people just flat out leaving Michigan, where his dental practice is located. Using Web 2.0 in today’s economy is surely a sign of the times!

Anyway, my brother was very smart by initiating a web-based marketing plan. He asked me for help, so this was a perfect opportunity to exercise some of my Search Engine optimization (SEO) skills! Besides setting up a professional blog, I also suggested these things in order to help traffic to his dental office web site:

• Tweak keywords in Meta data, page titles, etc.
• Create a dental blog entry (consistently) once a week, and on the same day.
• Publish press releases once in a while.
• Submit his site to search engines once every 6 months.
• Change his Twitter account name from personal to professional, and balance tweets about both sides of life.
• Create LinkedIn and Yelp profiles (actually his great idea!).
• Put Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, and Blog links on his office web site.
• And of course, ensure accessible, semantic HTML markup with web standards!

So far in only a couple weeks, his position on Google search has risen considerably!

Digg this article!

Many people have seen Twouble with Twitter, as it was somewhat “viral” for a while. But have you seen “Twitter Whore“? It’s kinda cheesy and silly, but for some reason I find it hilarious. Over the top.

PS:
Here’s Part 2. Not as good as the first one, though.

Addendum:
You can now purchase a Twitter Whore t-shirt!

I recently updated my personal home page at dennislembree.com (I like to call it a “vanity” site). It’s my usual minimalistic, user-friendly, standards-based, accessible design, and I’m liking it.

Changes include removing the bio, organizing in three categories, and a fresh appearance. Check it out and leave me some feedback if you’d like.

The new web page renders wonderfully in the good standards-compliant browsers (Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome), but IE has a couple issues of course (peek-a-boo and left margins on unordered lists). I fixed the IE7 issue and one of two IE6 issues. I’m feeling thankful for conditional comments!