Your site is just a bunch of pixels. That's it!
Posted Nov 07 '08
Don't worry about anything but what the user sees, because to them, the pixels are literally the application.
blog
Less: A new way of thinking about web applications
Posted Oct 23 '08
Learn about an idea I call "less," an approach you can use to build better web applications. Check out the video and find out what all this gibberish is about.
Color schemes for web applications
Posted Oct 01 '08
Get inspired beyond blue and white, and find an innovative color scheme for your web app. Watch the vid and I'll explain.
A better solution to making Flash embed code validate
Posted Sep 27 '08
As a result of my last post about making Flash embed code validate, my buddy Jim and I decided a tool was needed. The result of our work is Validifier, a simple web service that turns Flash embed code into valid XHTML.
The code it generates is much better than the code I posted yesterday, so before reading what I said, I would go check out Validifier. This will definitely be handy for me when converting my Vimeo embeds to nice, valid XHTML!
How to make embedded Flash code from Vimeo validate in XHTML
Posted Sep 22 '08
I learned something today: the <embed> tag is not valid XHTML.
It's very important to have valid XHTML. It not only has an impact on search engine ranking, but also on accessibility. That's not really what this post is about, so I'll get off my soapbox now. Anyway...
I hadn't ran my site through the W3C Validator in some time, at least not since I created my site. I decided to see if anything had changed in the 100 code revisions I've made since I first started, and unfortunately, I got a little surprise. This is especially embarrassing after my last post about McCain's site not being accessible.
The validator was really choking on my embedded Vimeo videos, particularly with the <embed> tag. It was not, however, having a problem with the <object> tag. I'm still new to Flash, but I noticed that a lot of the data inside the attributes of the <embed> was the same as the data in the attributes of the <object>. This seemed redundant, so I decided to investigate.
Apparently, the peeps over at "A List Apart" had noticed this as well. It turns out that you don't really need the <embed> tag. It was just something that was created by Netscape back in the day (like, 1990's) to add media plug-ins to a page. The majority of modern browsers support the <object> tag, so it's really all that's necessary. I haven't checked in Internet Explorer yet, but being that this is my personal blog, that's something that can wait (maybe forever).
For you coders out there, here's how I modified the normal Vimeo code to make it validate. Feel free to steal this, no credit required:
<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1734703&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=879dff&fullscreen=1" width="438" height="330">
<param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" />
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" />
<param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1734703&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=879dff&fullscreen=1" />
</object>
The attributes in the <object> and <param> tags are almost analogous to the attributes in the <embed> tag, so I won't explain how to convert the default Vimeo code. However, if you have questions, feel free to ask!
Hope this helps someone. :D
John McCain doesn't care about the visually impaired
Posted Sep 15 '08
There are a lot of articles out there claiming that presidential hopeful John Mccain has taken great strides for the disabled, but the code behind John McCain's website says otherwise.
Tables are a well known feature of HTML, and about a decade ago, they were commonly used to lay out websites in ways that were more visually appealing than just plain text. Modern browsers, however, support the separation of style and content, and it's generally good practice to only use tables for tabular data.
Why? Most web developers avoid tables so that search engines can more easily index their websites, but there are other benefits as well, such as faster load times. The biggest downside to tables is the havoc they wreck on screen readers and braille displays, utilized by people who are blind or visually impaired. Tables, when used for layout, are very difficult for machines to parse in the way the designer intended, so the output tends to be all over the place.
Here's a screenshot of John McCain's website using the Web Developer toolbar, a plugin for the Firefox web browser. The areas outlined in the red and green lines are tables and table cells:
So what about Senator Barack Obama's website? Here's a screenshot, with tables and table cells outlined. Can't see the outlines? That's because Barack Obama's site doesn't use tables for style:
It's pretty clear who's winning the tech vote.
Why you should practice drawing
Posted Sep 15 '08
Drawing is a powerful tool that can benefit anyone, especially people in the digital media space. Watch the video, and find out why I think you should doodle more.
New direction for vlogging and blogging to come
Posted Sep 11 '08
nickpettit.com has been a little bit random up until now. Check out the video to find out about the site's new direction.