Web Standards, Accessibility and Other Stuff

Here are a few useful web tools that are definitely worth recommending:

• Google Docs & Spreadsheets - write documents online and even collaborate with other authors
• Shopify - easy shopping cart service
• MarkupMaker - cool tool for creating structure of an XHTML document
• FavIcon From Pics - make FavIcon’s right on this web-based service

Blaugh.com is pretty good. I had to post this one. Seems like computers as well as digital cameras are like this these days…the salespeople totally oversell the average user…

So Microsoft finally released Internet Explorer 7. I have mixed feelings about it, but overall I’d say it leaves a lot to be desired…even for an early Microsoft product release. IE7 is available now, but won’t be ready for Automatic Update Distribution until November 1.

The Bad stuff

• Still some security issues (It took them less than 24 hours to find the first security hole in IE7.) (http://secunia.com/advisories/22477/)
• The new interface may confuse most “regular” Windows users who are used to certain conventions (like the menu bar for example, which is hidden by default).
• Still not standards-compliant.
• No extensions available (whereas Firefox has a plethora of extensions for users and developers.)
• Only runs on Windows XP Service Pack 2
• It’s still closely tied to the Windows operating system
• Difficult to run multiple versions of IE

The Good stuff:

• The User Interface has a new, clean ‘minimalist’ appearance.
• RSS features greatly enhanced.
• Anti-phishing features (protect users from divulging personal information to fraudulent Web site)

Also, on Firefox:

The Mozilla Firefox is currently scheduled to release version 2.0 on October 24. Improvements include integrated search, spell-checking feature, and enhanced tabbing. FF2 and IE7 will both have Anti-phishing features.

If you follow the web design industry, you are probably familiar web celebrity Paul Boag. He is co-founder of a British company Headscape, and runs a very popular site boagworld.com. So, Ross Johnson and I interviewed him at 8am last week, but didn’t actually start until 8:30 because of technical difficulties. I was late for my day job, but it was worth it. Paul is a very fun and knowledgable guy, it was great speaking with him.

Listen to the Paul Boag Interview in Web Axe podcast 31 (practical web design accessibility tips).

What a wild Monday Night Football game! The Chicago Bears were losing 20-3 to the Arizona Cardinals towards the end of the 3rd quarter. Their offense stunk the whole game; they scored 3 points and had 6 turnovers! How could they come back and win this? With DEFENSE, that’s how. They scored two defensive touchdowns in the fourth quarter to win the game, and big thanks to a game-ending missed field goal by Arizona. The Bears won 24-23. Well, at least Arizona has an awesome new stadium.

Well it was another great sports evening this Saturday night. First, in Major League Baseball, the Detroit Tigers finished the sweep of the Oakland Athletics! The Tigers have lost over 400 games in the last 4 years (152-game season), so that makes a trip to the World Series even more spectacular. The relatively new Tigers’ stadium, Comerica Park, had never seen a playoff game until this series.

The Tigers haven’t even been to the playoffs since 1987. They won the World Series in 1984. I remember that very well as I followed baseball more than the others sports back then. I also painted my mom’s face for one of the World Series games, and she brought back Tiger Stadium sod which we planted in the back yard!

The second game was University of Michigan football. The Wolverines beat Penn State in Happy Valley, 17-10. They are now 7-0, and should be moving to #2 in the polls. (They are currently #4.) Ohio State is #1 so it looks like an extra special showdown between the two powerhouses at the end of the season.

“Don’t be an Internet Fool” is a great article from Mike Cherim at Beast-Blog. It’s about all the email scams out there, and how conniving and sometimes silly they are (hopefully you haven’t fallen for any of those listed). It’s quite the amusing read.