Web Standards, Accessibility and Other Stuff

You probably don’t remember O.D. Mag, and I doubt you know of Screenplaze or U of M Dentists.com. But you may want to become familiar with my latest personal project, TimeTracker. It’s a standards-compliant, accessible web application, even with some “web 2.0″ jazz sprinkled in. It’s written out of need of a friend who’s a music therapist, but may be used in many other fields and professions. Here’s a description from the site:

TimeTracker is a web-based application designed to track and report sessions between professionals and their clients. TimeTracker is designed for social workers and psychologists, but can also be used by countless other professions including counselors, teachers, consultants, and physical therapists.

I eventually hope to sell this application, but contact me if you’d like the info for a free trial account.

So I’ve become familiar with questions that tech companies ask when interviewing candidates for web developer positions in “Silicon Valley” in California. So if you’re interviewing, you should prep yourself for the following interview questions that always seem to come up:

• What JavaScript libraries have you used? (And for YUI, which seems to be popular, which components have you used?)
• What’s the difference between “if (a==x)” and “if (a===x)”?
• Have you developed CSS for different browsers and versions? What are some examples of issues you’ve had? (i.e. box model)
• How do you keep up on web technology? (books, blogs, etc.)
• Use this text editor to properly properly markup this form from memory (with XHTML, CSS, JavaScript).
• Use this text editor to properly properly markup this table from memory (with XHTML).
• What’s the difference between “visibility:hidden” and “display:none”?
• What’s the difference between using var inside and outside of a JavaScript function? (or an exercise involving this)
• How would you write the HTML and CSS for a standard three-column layout with header and footer?

Guess what? Adobe’s Dreamweaver CS4 Beta is available! And I’m just getting used to CS3! New features include:

• Live View
• Code Navigator
• CSS best practices
• Code hinting for Ajax and JavaScript frameworks
• HTML data sets
• Photoshop Smart Objects
• Subversion integration
• AIR support
• New user interface

Yes, Yodlee is still hiring here in Redwood City/Shores, California. And you or someone you know can be my boss! Yodlee is seeking a Director of Mobile and UI Engineering (UI Engineering is me). My groovy manager left the company a few weeks ago and we need a replacement. Anyone interested please use my name as a reference or contact me directly at “dlembree at NOSPAM yodlee dot NOSPAM com”.

CSS Naked Day is this Wednesday, April 9. Promote web standards by removing the CSS (the style) from your web site! This is your chance to show off your proper use of (x)html, semantic markup, a good hierarchy structure. Thanks for Dustin Diaz for putting on this web event.

I’ve listed some open job positions previously, but here are the top 3 5 jobs for which we are recruiting at my day job employer, Yodlee. We also need some Java/Web Programmers. The location is Redwood City, California (Silicon Valley). Anyone interested please use my name as a reference or contact me directly at “dlembree at NOSPAM yodlee dot NOSPAM com. View all open positions/details

• Director/Senior Director of Usability and Design
• Director, Client Advocacy
• Senior General Ledger Accountant
• User Interface Manager/Java Programmer (Added April 4)
• Marketing Consulting Director (Added April 7)

jQuery is a great JavaScript library for fast, easy development. I met the creator John Resig at a conference last year. He’s a great guy, and I even “won” a nice jQuery book.

jQuery is a fast, concise, JavaScript Library that simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to your web pages

Here’s a good overview slide show on jQuery:

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