hCard parser H2VX not ready for HTML5 yet

January 14th, 2012

Updated January 16, 2012

New frontiers come with unexpected challenges. I like using the hCard microformat in websites to make it easy for people to add contact information to their address books. I also like building websites in HTML5 for the semantics and am confident it is the way forward. Tools like Modernizr make browser support less of an issue with the new tags.

What’s an hCard without a parser?

The hCard format is great for publishing contact info in HTML, but to turn it into a vCard that can be downloaded and added to your address book, something has to do the conversion for you. Read the rest of this entry »

QR Codes should delight you

October 26th, 2011

I love using QR Codes for what I believe their intended purpose is — to transfer a short string of data to somebody’s smart phone. Specifically, a URL for a responsively designed web site. Single-purpose mobile optimized web pages are ok in some circumstances too, but that’s a topic for another post.

There is no more efficient way to get a person to open a specific web page on their smart phone from the physical world. In fact, nothing else comes close. Not augmented reality. Not Google Goggles Search. Nothing can touch QR Codes for sending a person to a specific web page on their smart phone from outside their smart phone.

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Google+ is elegant, but too much hassle

August 9th, 2011

I think Google+ has nailed a lot of useful features, and has a great web interface. No question in my mind that if it launched before Twitter, I would think it is the best way for me to share with others online.

But it did not launch before Twitter, and now I have a list of Twitter-ers that I rather enjoy following and sharing with. I don’t want to pick and choose what I post to Twitter and what I post to Google+. I need to post to both automatically.
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When CSS is !important

July 29th, 2011

If you are reading this, you know the gist of “!important” is to counter-act the normal application of CSS rules based on selector specificity. One way to look at this is that it’s a shortcut to make up for another rule’s selector that is too broad. Another way would be to describe it as getting things done and moving on. We can argue both ways depending on how much time/budget you have — but more importantly — how many places a given CSS file will be used.
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WordPress 3.2.1 — body class changes

July 15th, 2011

WordPress developers take note — somewhere between version 3.1.3 and version 3.2.1 there is a change related to custom themes and body classes that might break your CSS in some certain scenarios.

If you have custom templates with underscores in their names, updating to WordPress 3.2.1 can break your CSS. For example a template file called “template-my_custom_template.php” used to produce body class names *without* underscores prior to verison 3.2.1

<body class="template-mycustomtemplate">

As of version 3.2.1 that body class is now generated with the underscores in place:

<body class="template-my_custom_template">

This is actually the way it should have always been, but can cause havoc if you’ve got any CSS rules that use the old model.

Pitfalls of styling the HTML element

April 13th, 2011

This was fun painful.

On the new ablesense.com website design, I had foolishly applied some styles to the <html> element — specifically my font stack for the website. The particular selection of fonts was very important in making this mistake obscure:

html { font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; }

Browsers have default fonts

The fonts all looked fine in Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Internet Explorer (Helvetica on Mac, and Arial on PC). This lines up with the CSS rule above, so it seemed like everything was fine — but it was not. Read the rest of this entry »

Misleading Analytics Sure Feel Good

March 30th, 2011

According to Google Analytics, one of the websites I’m involved with has a 105,200.00% increase in visits. I imagine the meeting at Google went something like this:

Q: Should we just leave % Change blank until after 30 days of data?
A: Nah, it will make people feel good to see a really huge, albeit inaccurate number for the first month. Read the rest of this entry »