Episode 42 of My Browser is Better Than Your Browser
Mark Pilgrim came up with a very cool orange and black design for Halloween. He then wrote Those who emailed me complaining about the readability of said theme have several choices...
The first option is Explore the options of your browser to override the colors specified by the web page. Opera makes this easier than any other browser, as I mentioned on Day 20.
So what would you prefer 1) dig through several different Preference panels looking for the settings any time you need to fix up a page, or 2) set the preference once and then press alt+G whenever you hit a page that needs some tidying up.
Any site I want, in classic black on white with blue underlined links, anytime I want.
A Microsoft representative explained that Office 11 will only run on Windows XP or 2000. In a memo entitled Is Anyone Buying This Lame Excuse? the rep went on to say that the decision relates heavily to the push to improve security in our products. Windows 9x is inherently insecure... We understand that this decision won't be popular among all of our customers [but our shareholders love it!!!], but it allows us to create a better and more stable product. (um... so you built an insecure product, forced fed it down our throats, and have built several more insecure versions since then, and now want us to upgrade to your newest OS so we can have a better and more stable version of your product? So are you saying that even you can't make a stable product for Windows?)
Another statement might have said, Please don't think that this decision was in no way shaped by the fact that Microsoft's illegal monopoly gives them the power to do pretty much whatever the hell they want, because, after all, what are your choices? By the way, the new software will cost $8,000 unless you buy a new computer, at which point we'll only take on $400 to the asking price, or $600 if you don't want Internet Explorer installed on your desktop. And you'll need that new computer, because Word now takes 2.3gb of diskspace, Outlook takes 4.5gb, Excel takes 7.4gb, and the various security patches will take another 1-2gb. You'll also want that new Pentium processor because this thing is going to be dog slow on anything less than 1.4GHz. Awww, who are we fooling, it's going to be dog-slow on a Dual Xeon! New features planned include .Net integration for reasons no one can explain other than we are desperate for .Net to take off and we figure the more times we say .Net the more times people will start to think it's a good idea. Also, if you put your credit card information into your computer, we will sign you up for a free 2 month trial of our new Application Subscription Support program ($49.99 per month after the trial period ends, and cancelling your subscription will be about as easy as deleting Windows Messenger from XP.)
The fake represenative went on to add, As for actual innovation.... err... um... well, Word will now suggest better font-sizes for accessibility purposes, Outlook will still send winmail.dat files but they will now be in XML, and Excel will have even more obscure features that no one needs or uses. Oh, and the file format is changing again, meaning that Office:Mac files are not compatible and will have to upgrade. Have a nice day.
If it's on the Web, can you still say it's private?
Long story short: Intentia International puts information on its website but thinks its private because it doesn't tell anyone where the link is. Someone at Reuters finds the information and publishes it. Did Reuters do anything wrong? My take: Intentia is scrambling to cover its mistake. Don't put anything online and expect it to stay private unless it's behind a password - and even then, don't count on it if someone really wants to get it.
A Swedish company has filed criminal charges against Reuters, claiming that the news agency broke into its Web site to get access to an earnings report.But Reuters that the information was publicly available on the company's Web site, and said there was no substance to the charges. read more at News.com: Reuters accused of hacking
This entry has nothing to do with Opera nor does it tell you when there will be an Opera7 beta. It actually has to do with something a little more important than that.
It's been hot here for too long. (This isn't about the weather either.) A few days ago, maybe a week or so, we had a break in the weather. Finally we could open the windows. During the summer we keep the house at 78F or 79F thanks to the wonderful marvel that is central air conditioning. After the weather broke, it was 71F without any A/C. I joked about "8 degrees of separation" between comfort and discomfort.
A few days ago I read Scott's post about the bombing in Bali. I am shamed to admit that I didn't think much about it at the time. It's being called Australia's 9/11, he wrote. 180 dead didn't seem to compare with 3,000. A tragedy, but not really what I would base a comparison on...
Maybe it's the fact that the world seems more and more insane, or maybe it seemed so far away (I have friends and e-friends from Australia, we did discuss the bombing on a mailing list that I'm on, and I wasn't unsympathetic... I just didn't think much about it.)
Fast forward 11 days, and Scott posts a list of cool CSS sites which I follow. One of the links is to EmptyBottle.org. The site has, no doubt about it, great CSS. Except that I didn't care much about the CSS.
The author, Chris, had a friend, Rick, who was in Bali at the time of the bombing.
More than that, he was injured.
More than that, he died.
As I was reading through the posts, I came across the name of an old friend and former professor of mine (A.K.M.A), who is mentioned in Chris' site.
Tim
AKMA
Chris
Rick
4 degrees of separation.
Checking the dates, I realize that about the same time I was thrilled with some cooler weather, Rick was dying half-way around the world.
We'll now pause while I consider what a self-absorbed life I must be leading to have given more thought to the weather than to people who had been the victims of terrorism.
We're all in this together. It's one not-particularly-big-anymore planet, and it's the only one we've got. We think we're living these independent lives, and we all nod, roll our eyes, and sigh when someone makes the "butterfly flaps its wings" analogy of the cause and effect lives that we're living here.
But as long as we keep thinking of the world in terms of "us" and "them" where we can distance ourseves from "them" by any number of various means at our disposal, we're never going to get very far and this world isn't going to get much better.
I don't know what to do to solve all the problems of the world. I get overwhelmed just trying to sort through hundreds of bug reports.
For me it was important to read Rick's story via Chris' eyes and be reminded of the connection that exists. I encourage you to do the same if it helps you remember the connection we have to each other.... and try to find ways to bring more peace and light to the world. And so will I.
Scale: 7/10
Should you see it? YES, BUT IT'S QUIRKY, NOT YOUR AVERAGE ADAM SANDLER
How's the writing? GOOD
Any gaping holes in the plot? NO
What stands out? Adam Sandler with more depth than he's ever shown
See it in the theater or wait to rent? GOOD DATE MOVIE
That's your 20 seconds, but there's more
This is an off-beat movie. Not the usually ha-ha little off-beat movie, but a comedy that covers over a drama that lingers just under the surface.
One of the little quirks is that Philip Seymour Hoffman and Emily Watson are in this movie together, and I just saw them together in Red Dragon. Emily Watson's characters need some serious help in the dating department, because she's dated a mass murderer in Red Dragon and a social phobic in Punch Drunk Love.
Yes it's a bit odd, but it's a good odd. It's a well-written odd. Sandler, who I've never particularly liked, gives us a glimpse that he has far greater range than he has previously shown.
What is also interesting is to see the recent trend back towards shorter movies. For awhile it seemed that every movie had to be 2.5 hours at least (Dad calls it "Kevin Costner disease" after Dances with Wolves and several other long movies he made). Several movies lately have been 2 hours or less. (Of course the next Lord of the Rings is coming out soon, so the trend isn't completely gone.)
Also saw a trailer for the new Bond movie which looks very good.
By the way, if you haven't noticed already, I don't talk a lot about the content/storyline, because I think it's better to go into a movie ready to be surprised by where it takes you rather than having pre-conceived ideas. There are plenty of places to get a synopsis if you want one (Hollywood.com or IMDB come to mind)
NYC: Microsoft marketing campaign: illegal, irresponsible and dangerous
C|Net is reporting that New York City has ordered Microsoft to remove butterfly decals which were part of Microsoft's promotion of its MSN 8 launch Thursday. Here's a quote from the letter sent to Microsoft
Inasmuch as your organization is noted on the illegal markings, we intend to hold your firm directly responsible for this illegal, irresponsible and dangerous defacing of public property," the letter said.
Well at least they are in the new for something other than a security problem... I guess that's a step up for them. (By the way Pivx reports currently 32 unpatched security holes in IE which is up from 19 about a month ago.)
Before you know it, I had a review of the book and a trip down a historical-biblio-self-history.
A few mandatory disclaimers.... First, realize that just because someone reads a book about colors does not mean that they are going to be a color expert... that's not a reflection on the book... after all, I could read a book on fixing cars, but that doesn't mean that I'd be any good at it.
Secondly, I learned when I wrote the 30 Days to becoming an Opera lover series that it's important to state up front that I have not be hired (or even asked) to give a review of the book (someone thought that I was an employee of Opera Software, which I'm not... and I don't know Molly other than some emails we have exchanged and I've read some of her books).
So, that said, I have to admit that I really liked this book. First of all, it's beautiful to look at, as near to an art book of the web as I have seen. The dimensions of the book are quite large, the color swatches are rich and full, making it easy for you to see the colors and how they work together.
As with every computer-related book, you can pick up some of this information on the web. So why buy a book? Because the book brings it all together in a cohesive unit, gives you a reference you can keep by your side, and also includes some information that you are not likely to find on the web, at least not without a lot of looking.
There is a section on globalization of colors which is itself worth the asking price of the book. The web is an international space, and colors have different meanings to different people. For example, Molly talks about orange as being associated with things which are inexpensive. Here in Gainesville, however, Orange and Blue are the colors of the University of Florida Gators, so orange is something of a required color, almost a uniform. Then again, wearing orange on St. Patrick's Day sends a message that you had better be aware of before you walk out of Logan airport wearing your brightest orange outfit on March 17th and suddenly wonder why you can't get a cab.
Sometimes its easy to tell when two things don't go well together (like Ethan's outfit and the cover to Molly's book, which could make you go cross-eyed if you looked at then too long). Other times you can work on a site and know that for some reason it's just not quite working well together.
Molly goes through beginner and intermediate color training, giving you insights as to how to work color wheels (something I haven't even thought about since my grammar school days). There are also several pages worth of color bands with the HEX codes for the colors. While I have a sidebar for color code quick reference it will be much nicer to have a real printed reference guide for future work.
For those of us who have not had training in working with colors (and especially for those of us [we know who we are] who tend to haphazardly choose color schemes without much thought) this book will be a handy addition to your web library.
Other Books in my Library
I realized the other day that what started with just a little bit of tinkering with web pages has, obviously, grown to something a lot more intense. A friend, after looking at the website, joked that I needed a hobby. I'm not sure how it escaped her that this is my hobby, but nevermind that...
I looked at my bookshelf and saw something of a timeline, an evolution if you will. There's the now really old Inside Unix for when I was starting to learn the Unix commandline... GNU Emacs book from that month when I was convinced I had to learn Emacs or never achive true happiness. (Only to find out, somewhat paradoxically, that true happiness was, for me, found in not learning emacs or vi, and let those who wanted to deem my soul as lost content themselves to think as such.)
Getting into web design, there was an HTML 3.2 book which is actually gone now... I gave it away a year or two ago to someone who wanted to start learning the basics. I should probably apologize for that, but I didn't know any better at the time. My first serious book was Special Edition Using HTML 4 (also by Molly, long before I knew who she was... in fact it was actually only this year that I put the two of them together... one of the benefits of having the surname Holzschlag, I guess, is that it tends to stick in your mind).
Then there was the tragic mistake of Novell's Certified Web Designer Study Guide. There's nothing wrong with the book per se (although I'm sure much of it is out of date now that it is 4-5 years old). Unfortunately, after reading it I made the mistake of thinking that HTML was far too complicated for me to ever be good at, and so I gave up for a long time after that. Then again, maybe it was a blessing in disguise, because by the time I came back to wanting to work the web, XHTML and CSS were close on the horizon and they are much more suited to my way of thinking and working (read: I hate nesting tables for layout.... it makes the voices in my head very irritable).
Then there are my two FreeBSD books, The Complete FreeBSD and FreeBSD: An Open-Source OS for your PC by Annelise Anderson. Both of these are from around the time when I knew that I was going to have to give up my NeXT and was struggling to deny the reality that I would end up with Windows. I would love/prefer to be running a Unix based OS but FreeBSD was going to take too much time for someone like me. I suspect my next computer will be a Mac, which will give me a great UI around a FreeBSD-like (Unix-like) core. Then again, if the rumors about Apple releasing an Intel-version of their OS come true, who knows....
Ethan's generation will hopefully live to see the day when we can actually drop support for Netscape4
The real turning point came with CSS: The Definitive Guide by Eric Meyer. It was then that I started to say "Ok, this sounds like much more fun than the old way of doing things" and I really started having some fun with it. Cascading Style Sheets are just too cool to pass up.
After that there were a few XHTML books, which all went back because I realized that they really weren't true XHTML books, they were HTML books where the publishers had said "Here, update some of this for XHTML" and I found all I needed online (if you know HTML, XHTML is not that big of a step, it's really just a few simple conceptual differences that we really would have been better off if we had way back when).
Then came PHP. Oh, glorious PHP. Core PHP Programming by Leon Atkinson. I have barely scratched the surface of getting into all PHP can do, and I still love it. The true PHP/MySQL Bible PHP and MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson made me realize that programming and databases are now available to the commoners. Again, I know 1/10000th of what there is to know, and already I'm entralled. I also picked up Relational Database Design Clearly Explained which taught me that, sadly, MySQL is not a true relational database, but for my purposes will still work, and the book was good at explaining the theory behind database design.
But all of that was technical stuff. Then one day, a happy accident occurred. I was going through a bookstore (actually looking for something else) and I saw Zeldman's Taking Your Talent to the Web: Making the Transition from Graphic Design to Web Design. Now I'm not a graphic designer, so I guess you could say the book wasn't for me, but I was interested to see what it was all about, and my pre-sale flip through the book deemed it interesting enough to purchase (must be awful to write books over the course of months and years only to have some schlep come along and thumb through it in 15 seconds to decide whether or not to buy it).
That was really the first foray into Design Think™ where I started to consider how the site looked to people who weren't me (again, don't indict the book for any part of my design that you don't like... People read the Bible all the time, doesn't stop them from being jerks). I followed up with The Non-Designer's Design Book (very good... still want to get the Typography book in that series) and Web Design Workshop by Robin Williams (no, not him, her) and Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience by Jennifer Fleming.
My next venture will be Javascript Bible which is about 3 inches thick and pretty intimidating. If nothing else I can use it to kill spiders (I’m sure it will be quite good, just haven’t had a chance to read it yet).
Whew. And here I thought I never read much any more. Take those and my morning blogs and I’ve pretty much got a full dance card when it comes to reading material.
So I’m going to go read some more. (If you’ve read all the way to the end here, thanks.... and now stand up and let the blood get back to your legs.)
$29 people. There's a world of crappy shareware out there that costs more than that. Plus it comes with a free upgrade to Opera 7 when it comes out.
Is it worth it? Let's see.
Assume for a minute that Opera releases updates for Opera7 for at least a year, so your $29/today will give you a license for Opera for at least 12 months.
That's $2.42/month.
Or $0.56/week.
Or $0.08/day.
That also gives you personal email support. Got a question? Get an answer. Try getting that from Microsoft. Heck, try getting someone @ Mozilla to answer your questions for $0.08/day.
It's a good deal.
(ps - if you have already bought a license for Opera, [it is my understanding that] you will be able to upgrade to Opera for approximately $15/USD so this deal isn't for you unless you want to give Opera some extra money.)
Scale: 8/10
Should you see it? YES
How's the writing? GOOD
Any gaping holes in the plot? NO, but all answers are not given at the end
What stands out? First movie in a long time to actually freak me out a little.
See it in the theater or wait to rent? WORTH THE THEATER
That's your 20 seconds, but there's more...
The Ring does several things really well. First of all, it jumps right into the plot. Within 5 minutes of the opening credits... err, well actually there aren’t any opening credits. You only know the movie has begun by paying attention, so hopefully there aren’t any movie-whisperers behind you or you may have to shush them, which makes me feel older than God’s babysitter, but sometimes it just has to be done.
The movie moves quickly into the plot and pulls you into it. Do not expect to get a refill on that popcorn, because what you miss may very well mean that you won’t understand something later on, and whoever you went to see it with won’t want to tear their eyes away to try and describe it to you.
Most scary movies aren’t really all that scary. They may surprise you, they may gross you out, they may make you say “That’s just not right” but there are very few truly scary movies. The old Friday the 13th movies are more embarassing than anything. Carnage does not equal a good scare.
That’s why The Ring is scary. There is very little to scare you on screen. The few scenes that they do show that are truly scary are shown only for a moment. It’s up to your brain to fill in the rest... and your brain can probably scare you much more than anything a Hollywood crew can come up with.
First, a little background on the slogan. It was on a sign over the Xerox machine at the church where I did my internship. I thought it was one of the better pseudo-Beatitudes that I had heard.
It has been my motto just about ever since. Why? Because we (citizens of the USA, but it is no doubt true in other places in the world as well) are so concerned with control, schedules, and information. Gotta plan, gotta know, gotta go, gotta have a minute-by-minute itinerary.
Now don't get me wrong, I think there are some times when you shouldn't be really laid back about things. Surgery comes to mind. Air traffic controlling. I'm sure there are others.
But for the most of us, we need to chill out and relax a whole great big bunch, and step out of the second-by-second intensive way of life.
Change is inevitable.
Frustration is inevitable.
How you respond is up to you.
If you're wound tighter than the wristwatch of an obsessive compulsive, life will be miserable.
If you can remain flexible, deal with what comes along, and try to make the best of it, then life will be more enjoyable.
Nothing external will have changed, but everything be different.
So anyway, fast forward several years. I took a group of teenagers to the mountains for a few days, and no watches need apply. We came up with a Top Ten list of quotes from the weekend, and one of them was BATFFTSNBBOOS which I quoted as being from the fictional Biblical book "3 Timothy 3:28" (3/28 is my birthday ;-)
A few months later the Director of Christian Education uses it on a sign announcing some changes to Sunday School classroom assignments.
Then I was working with a local funeral home about a service, and the woman called to tell me that the family would like to make some last minute changes, and would that be OK with me. I said sure, and then I apparently quoted my aforementioned favorite aphorism.
Next thing I knew, I was driving past this place in town that puts up humorous little sayings on their sign, and I saw my little slogan up their. (Turns out the woman from the funeral home talked to someone at the company with the sign).
Well I got a chuckle out of the whole thing, so I dropped by with my camera. Then I was thinking about beta testing.
If you want to beta test any piece of software, you need to be willing to be flexible. It may crash. You might even lose something that you were working on.
You can rip out your hair and wail and gnash your teeth.
You can post long, rambling tirades to newsgroups, your web page, and via email.
Or you can say, "It happens" and move on.
Nothing will have changed,
but everything will have changed.
I said yeah yeah (yeah yeah)
The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith,
You take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part
I said yeah yeah (yeah yeah)
The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you get one more yard
You take it on faith,
You take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part
Oh, don’t let it kill you baby,
Don’t let it get to you
Don’t let it kill you baby,
Don’t let it get to you
...
However, this method will not work for documents sent as application/xhtml+xml.
This method works well for hiding CSS from Opera 6.05 and lower, and it also works to hide CSS from IE6.
The method included defining styles this way:
DIV { color: blue ; background-color: red; }
html[xmlns] DIV { color: white; background-color: black; }
This was only valid for documents which have an XML Namespace (generally speaking these would be XHTML files, not just HTML files).
Mozilla (and other browsers based on it) would give you a black background with white letters. Other browsers would give you a red background with blue letters.
This has become my preferred method of hiding styles from Opera 6.05 and lower. However, I just ran into a kink.
If documents are sent with MIME type application/xhtml+xml then even Mozilla will ignore styles which use the [xmlns] method defined above. I do not know enough about the specifications, etc to know whether or not this would be considered a bug, but it is definitely the reality, at least through Mozilla 1.2b (Gecko/20021017).
You should always serve XHTML as XHTML (to browsers that support it, of course). Serving text/html to a browser says 'hello, this is broken crap, please do your best with it'. XHTML is supposed to be a step past broken crap, so you should serve it as such.
While Opera is in the news for true innovation Microsoft is in the news for more lies and deceit. Microsoft has pulled a phony Mac-to-PC "switch" ad after the switcher was uncovered as a Microsoft PR rep.
How dumb is this? The 'switch' ads by Apple are nice, but I hardly see folks flocking to Macs. This PR firm was pretty dumb, since they managed to cause bad PR to respond to a non-threat of major Mac migration.
What's awesome about this from the irony standpoint is that the deception was found out, in part, because the Microsoft Word document that was used contained the information about the author (see Slashdot).
So not only did they lie, but they got caught because of the lack of security of one of their products.
On a personal site I am developing, I started out with the intention of working just with standards.
There would be no browser-specific code at all. Not for MSIE, not for Opera, and definitely not for Netscape4.
A few days went by and my resolve weakened... I cheated. Just a little bit. I can stop whenever I want to. Really.
What followed what a short course in why we need to follow standards, and why those who ignore web history are doomed to repeat it.
The idea was pretty simple.
It's a personal site.
I use standards-supporting browsers (Opera and Mozilla).
Make it strict.
As strict as it can be.
At first I was just thinking about CSS really. I had grown tired of the ever growing list of browser specific hacks (including ones for Opera).
"The next time I build a site, I'm going to forget all this hackery and just do it like it is supposed to be done," I said to myself in the luxury of knowing this would be a largely personal venture, not some client I wanted to hire me.
Then there was a comment about using application/xhtml+xml [see previous entries], and I decided that I wanted to use that.
It took mere seconds to run into the first bump in the road. MSIE provided the bump, as it does quite often. MSIE can't handle application/xhtml+xml or any other XHTML MIME type. Some it wants to display as source. Others it wants to download.
I was a little happy. I had something that MSIE couldn't handle that Moz and Opera could. Yet more fodder for the "MSIE is crap" file.
But then I realized something.
If MSIE couldn't handle it, that was actually OK. I didn't mind that, except that the site, although personal, was something I was hoping would turn into a resource for others. Three problems then:
1) if MSIE couldn't handle it, people who wanted to learn wouldn't be able to access the site if they were using that browser.
2) Search engines probably wouldn't be able to index the site.
3) It would be inaccessible to folks using Lynx (and I assumed it would also be inaccessible to others using assistive technologies
Of the 3, only the last two really bothered me, but I decided I needed to do something.
I could use the HTTP_ACCEPT header, and send XHTML to browsers that said they could handle it, and send HTML to the others. I could do that using Apache, if I understood Content Negotiation (which I didn't, and still don't).
Or I could take the easy way out. I could cheat. It would be a good cheat after all.
I knew that Mozilla based browsers (Phoenix, Moz, Netscape 6+ and others) all used the word 'Gecko' in the User Agent string.
Likewise, I knew that Opera uses the word 'Opera' in the User Agent string.
After all, I already knew that the browsers I was testing could handle what I wanted to send them. And the other browsers would get content suitable for them. What could go wrong?
I tried my best to ignore the little cracks in the glass.
I was sniffing for 'Opera' but what about older versions of Opera? Could they handle it? (tough nuts, I said, it's their fault for using an old browser... then I went and tested Opera 5.12 [which did OK] and even tracked down a copy of Opera4 [which tried to save it, understandable])
What if someone changed their UA string? (too bad, I said, they knew the risks.)
But then it hit me. Hard. Like a slushball on a cold winter day against that tiny bit of exposed skin between your scarf and your hat.
What about other browsers that can handle application/xhtml+xml that I don't know about? What happens when Internet Explorer 7 comes out and can handle application/xhtml+xml? Wasn't I about to do exactly what I hated? What so many others had done before that caused the whole terrible situation we found ourselves in for HTML and CSS and Javascript and all the others?
My feeble attempts at arguments had failed. When you can't even convince yourself, you pretty much have to admit you're wrong.
I hate it when that happens.
The standards way of doing it would be to use the HTTP_ACCEPT header. That's what it is for. I had spent all of this time trying to avoid using it because I didn't know how, and it was easier to use the User Agent string. I felt dirty. Worse, I felt hypocritical.
Fortunately I had found that PHP could access the HTTP_ACCEPT string just as easily as the User Agent string. A little bit of PHP and voila, it worked.
Sort of.
Opera, it turns out, doesn't list application/xhtml+xml in its HTTP_ACCEPT. I wanted to cry. I could use Mozilla, but I like Opera much better. So I compromised and sniffed for any browser that said it could handle application/xhtml+xml OR any browser that said it was Opera.
But what about older versions of Opera?
The heck with it. I adapted the PHP code again to only even think about application/xhtml+xml if the browser was coming from my home IP.
So the PHP read:
0) If the IP matches my home IP, then
1) If the browser says it can handle application/xhtml+xml then give it. This would handle any new browsers that might come along.
2) elseif the browser says it is Opera then give it application/xhtml+xml
3) else, give text/html
Perfect. My little test case worked fine. I put the script into effect on the rest of that site.
And Opera immediately stopped showing my CSS.
My little test case didn't have any CSS. After all, it was only a little test case.
I went around and found the answer on Google. An obscure little bug in Opera 6 dealing with application/xhtml+xml and linked CSS files. There was a workaround.
I spent about 30 minutes banging out a hack that would fix it in Opera 6.05 before I said "Enough." It wasn't working, and I was spending all of this time on a browser specific bug to use a feature that the browser itself did not advise (hence the absence of application/xhtml+xml from the HTTP_ACCEPT).
So I gave up on Opera 6.05 and hoped Opera7 would fix the bug and list application/xhtml+xml in the HTTP_ACCEPT.
I removed the code that looked for Opera at all, and cut the script down to just look for my home IP (for now) and application/xhtml+xml in the HTTP_ACCEPT.
After several hours, I had come back to using the standards for the purposes for which they were intended, mumbling incoherently and realizing that instead of spending the evening learning something new (which was the purpose of this new 'strict' site) I had wasted the entire night learning something old.
Browser sniffing (aka UA sniffing) is bad.
Browser sniffing is a waste of time.
Browser sniffing is far too imprecise.
Browser sniffing means less time spent on actual content and more time spent on administration (and who needs more administration in their life?)
Browser sniffing may work today, but you will have to come back tomorrow to make sure something hasn't changed (new release of MSIE or some other browser, new obscure bug in old browser that you formerly thought you could accept, etc)
Standards are good.
Standards save you time.
Standards let you be precise and it's up to the software to work properly.
Standards mean more time creating and less time maintaining.
Standards let you write today and have it work tomorrow, probably to an even wider audience than you have today.
I learned what I already knew, but I shan't forget it again.
(Note: be sure to keep the */* at the end, otherwise you will restrict what Opera will accept to only those MIME types listed therein.)
Just a warning, however, that you might run into unexpected situations or obscure bugs if you do this or any other esoteric tweak... but you knew that already, didn’t you?
However, if you do, then you could simplify the script below to look simply for the application/xhtml+xml in HTTP_ACCEPT
(Note: I have found an obscure bug in Opera 6.05 when dealing with linked style sheets and application/xhtml+xml, so I have chosen not to use this myself for my copy of 6.05)
If you have just forwarded yet another bogus email to a friend and they sent you here, welcome, because we are here to help you. Please repeat the following list 100 times or you will be eaten by a large red space alien in your sleep.
I will NOT get bad luck, lose my friends, or lose my mailing lists if I don’t forward an email!
I will NOT hear any music or see a taco dog, if I DO forward an e-mail.
Bill Gates is NOT going to send me money, Victoria’s Secret doesn’t know anything about a gift certificate they’re supposed to send me, and Ford will NOT give me a 50% discount even if I forward my e-mail to more than 50 people.
I will NEVER receive gift certificates, coupons, or freebies from Coca-Cola, Cracker Barrel, Old Navy, or anyone else if I send an e-mail to 10 people.
I will NEVER see a pop-up window if I forward an e-mail ... NEVER!!!!
My phone will NOT MYSTERIOUSLY ring after I forward an e-mail. There is NO SUCH THING as an e-mail tracking program, and I am not STUPID enough to think that someone will send me $100 for forwarding an e-mail to 10 or more people.
There is NO kid with cancer through the Make-a-Wish program in England collecting anything! He did when he was 7 years old. He is now cancer free and 20 years old and DOESN’T WANT ANY MORE POST CARDS, CALLING CARDS, or GET-WELL CARDS.
The government does NOT have a bill in Congress called 901B (or whatever they named it this week) that, if passed, will enable them to charge us 5 cents for every e-mail we send.
There will be NO cool dancing, singing, waving, colorful flowers, characters or program that I will receive immediately after I forward an e-mail.
The American Red Cross will NOT donate 50 cents to a certain individual dying of some never-heard-of disease for every e-mail address I send this to. The American Red Cross does RECEIVE donations.
I WILL research new virus alerts and other security warnings using Google and Snopes before I send it on to anyone.
I WILL learn that major companies like AOL, CNN, MSNBC, anti-virus companies, and any other company that might be related to any sort of virus or security alerts WILL ALWAYS post an official notification on their website, and they will NOT rely on the haphazard scheme of asking you to forward the message to your friends to get the word out. If you get an email claiming to be from CNN, go to CNN’s Web Site, et cetera.
And finally, I WILL NOT let others guilt me into sending things by telling me I am not their friend or that I don’t believe in Jesus Christ. If God wants to send me a message, I believe the bushes in my yard will burn before He picks up a PC to pass it on!
Now, repeat this to yourself until you have it memorized, and send it along to at least 5 of your friends before the next full moon or you will surely be constipated for the next three months and all of your hair will fall out!!
"I think it's absolutely phenomenal technology," said Michael Gartenberg, analyst with Jupiter Research.
Meanwhile, I still think that C|Net's continued insistence on using the smallest possible font size has to rank them among the worst designed sites out there. They started using FONT SIZE=-1 way back when, and now they are using x-small and xx-small in their CSS.
One of the things that I love most about Opera is the ability to use Sidebars / Panels.
I've made about 12 of these now, and they are one of the most popular destinations on the site (and the #1 site for 'sidebars' on Google).
So how do you make a sidebar?
It's actually very easy. If you can make a web page, you can make a sidebar, there are just a few things to take into consideration.
First of all, the page needs to be lean. That means not only the width (so it can fit in the rather tiny space of a Sidebar) but also page weight. Sidebars are used as tools or reference materials. You (and hopefully others) will want them to be fast, so we're going to avoid page "wait" as much as possible.
Given these restrictions, your two main guiding principles are:
- Avoid tables
- Avoid images
Avoid tables whenever possible because they don't work well in narrow spaces, and it generally slows rendering.
Avoid images because they take up space (which is at a minimum) and require another connection to the server, which can slow things down.
Now sometimes you have to use a table. I've done it twice, when the data required it. Once for a listing of character encodings and again for a list of color codes.
Another advantage is to use CSS for styling. CSS reduces page weight to remove FONT tags and tables for formatting.
Since you are not going to use image tags for logos, etc, you will want to use correct HTML markup such as H1 for page title (not the <title> tag) and use CSS to control the font size.
If your panel includes INPUT fields for a FORM, be sure to make it clear what each field is for. Remember that due to the narrow width, there may be wrapping. Here is an example of bad design:
Address
Street
City
because you can't tell without looking closely which field goes with which label. If you look closely you will notice that there are four input fields above, but only 3 labels. If this were an actual Sidebar, that would tell you that there was more information not visible, meaning you have to scroll up or down to see which label goes with which field.
However, if you space out the fields (use CSS: input { margin-bottom: 1em; }) and labels, you can eliminate the visual guesswork. Compare this:
Address
Street
City
Just by looking at that I can tell that the input field under Address is where I put my address, and so on, and it is clear that there is one label that must be above the viewable area, meaning I will have to scroll up to see that.
Another common technique is to use color to group related items. The Google Advanced Search Panel (GASP) is an example of this. It uses background colors to show users what input fields are related to one another. This is especially useful when your sidebars has several related input fields.
Good sidebar design uses space and color for visual cues, while working within the confines of a narrow window.
That sidebar uses color headers to separate each week, and uses short titles to guide people who are trying to find a quick reference.
TARGET audience
Most usability folks will tell you that you should avoid creating new windows whenever possible in web design. I agree with that guideline. However, Sidebars are a very specific type of web page, and in the majority of the cases, you will want to have your links (or FORM actions) open a new window. Otherwise the resulting page will open in the Sidebar window, which will probably be much too small to be useful. Since Opera6 lacks a built-in refresh mechanism for its Sidebars, you can actually be stuck without being able to get back to the actual sidebar. (If this happens, select a different Sidebar, then press F4 to close the Hotlist. Press F4 again to reopen the Hotlist, and re-select the original Sidebar, and it should correctly reload. If not, restart Opera.)
Therefore, you will need to tell the webpage that you want the links to open in a new window. This can be done two ways. First, use 'target="_blank"' or 'target="_new"' in your A tag. _blank tells the link to always open in a new window, and _new tells the link to open in a new window, but subsequent links with target="_new" will also open in that window. The other alternative is to use the BASE tag in the <HEAD> of the document to tell the document that all of the links on that page should open in new windows. The BASE tag is used like this:
<base target="_blank" />
(Note that BASE and TARGET are deprecated tags in XHTML 1.0 Strict, so you have to use XHTML 1.0 Transitional or earlier as your DOCTYPE. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it right now.)
Note: if you do not use the BASE method, it is important to remember that FORM tags also need a TARGET, for example:
The second tip for making a list of links is to use CSS to make them into block level elements. This is done by:
a { display: block; text-decoration: none; }
It is very important to add the 'text-decoration: none;' as Opera 6 has a bug which causes an Overline to appear on links which are set to 'display: block;'
Why 'display: block;' ? Because if you have a list of links, setting them to BLOCK means that a user can select the link by hovering their mouse anywhere on the line for the entire width of the line and have the link selectable. (To see this in action, checkout the Table of Contents for the Opera Lover series and mouse over the link and then go all the way to the right margin and notice that you can use the whitespace as well as the link text area).
Finally, you may want to set a HOVER style for your links so that users can easily tell which link they will select. This case be done with CSS again. For example:
That is what I use on the Opera Lover Table of Contents page. When you bring your mouse over the link, the entire line will turn yellow with black text.
Turning an existing page into a Sidebar
One of the most convenient uses for a Sidebar is to make a quick-access version of a page or form that you frequently use. This is what I did for the Hotmail login page as well as the GASP page. There are several steps involved, but the process is generally quite simple.
Usually when this is done there is a Form of some sort on the page (such as a place to enter a username and password, and then click submit).
Step one is to remove as much of the page as you can. I always begin by commenting out sections I think are unimportant by using comment tags: <!-- and --> (Remember that comments cannot be nested, so if you try to comment out something that has already been commented out, you will run into errors.) The first tags I always get rid of are FONT and TABLE tags.
Step two is to identify the parts of that page that you need. If this page includes a form that you want to use, comment out everything after the <BODY> and before the <FORM> tag, and then everything after the </FORM> tag and before the </BODY> tag.
Now load the page in your browser. It will probably look fairly jumbled up, but you ought to see all the pieces that you need, even if they might not seem in the right order.
Before you can test it, you need to add a <BASE /> tag to the <HEAD> of the document. The <BASE> tag needs to include the HREF for the original page.
Here is an example. Suppose you want to turn a page at www.EXAMPLE.com/some/sub/folder into a panel. If you copy the code from www.SOMEDOMAIN.com to www.YOURDOMAIN.com, the links will break. The <BASE /> tag tells the links on the assume that they were on the www.EXAMPLE.com server. So you would use a tag such as:
Once you have added the BASE tag, test the form to make sure that it still works. If it does, then you can safely delete all the sections which you had previously commented out. If it doesn’t, you will have to start putting things back in.
Use your head, don’t be a dope
Not every site may be glad if you start giving people alternate access to their information. If you are making a Sidebar for your own personal use only, no one will probably care. However, if you are going to put it out there for everyone to see and use, be sure to inform someone at the original domain. For example, I really liked the SelectOracle tool. Unfortunately I could never remember the address of the site, and I really wanted to turn it into a Sidebar for quicker access. I spent some time working on it, and decided that I would like to share it with others.
Before I published it, I contacted the owner of the site and showed it to him. He really liked the idea, but he also made a few suggestions and changes. Turns out he had been planning to change a few things and my work on the Sidebar prompted him to get them done before it was released. This meant that his site would be better able to handle an increase in traffic that would probably come after an announcement. (Again, for a site like Hotmail or Google this is probably not an issue because they deal with millions of hits per day, but especially for smaller sites it is a good idea.)
Also, I would recommend working on the Sidebar and getting it working (or close to it) and showing your work to the owner of the original. If you go and ask for permission, they may not understand what you are talking about and might turn you down before they hear what you are suggesting. If you can show them what you have done, they will know what you have in mind and will also be able to see your handiwork. Once they see that you have given your time and effort to make something that works well and will be a good reflection on them, they are much more likely to give their OK for you to share it with others. (Of course if it is just for you, sitting on your hard drive, they probably won’t care either way.)
Always be sure to make it clear that you are not invoking any sort of rights or restrictions onto the Sidebar. Whatever you have done has been based on the work of others. You should make a clear link to the original version of the document and express your appreciation for the tool that you liked so much you made it into a Sidebar. If the site owner has given their OK for you to make it known, put a thank you on the page as well. Encourage people to support the original site.
Be sure that you have a good reason for making it into a Sidebar. Just because the original page has a ton of ads is not a good enough reason, and in fact if the original site is hoping to make money off of those ads, you should not jeopardize that by giving the public access to their site that bypasses the ads... That’s the stuff that lawsuits are made of, and if I were on the jury, I’d probably vote against you.
For example, the Hotmail login page still takes you to the original Hotmail site, and does not restrict the ads that Hotmail/MSN has on that site. But could Microsoft lawyers complain? Yup. Would I take it down? You betcha. Is it likely they will care about my piddly little site? No, but it’s possible. The same with Google. There are no ads on their original advanced search page, and the results page will be all of the ads just as much as if someone went to www.Google.com and typed in the search words. Again, it’s unlikely they would care, but it’s possible, and I would have no option but to remove them. (Hopefully they would see both of these as an expression of good will and a possibility of sending more users [and potential customers] their way, and they would realize that I’m not out to make any money off of it either. Hopefully.)
Reload Issues
Opera provids no User Interface to reload a panel, so be sure to include a link to do this. The best way is to make a link like this:
Sidebars can be an incredibly useful tool. You can turn your favorite reference resource into a Sidebar with a minimum of effort. I hope this has given you all you need to know, but if not, please post questions via the Comment link below, and I will answer them by reply post.
THE TOUGHEST DECISION: SHOULD MY LOVED ONE BE PLACED IN AN ASSISTED COMPUTING FACILITY?
For family members, it is often the most difficult and painful decision they will face: to accept that a loved one - a parent, a spouse, perhaps a sibling - is technologically impaired and should no longer be allowed to live independently, or come near a computer or electronic device without direct supervision. The time has come to place that loved one into the care of an Assisted Computing Facility. But you have questions. So many questions.
We at Silicon Pines want to help.
WHAT EXACTLY IS AN 'ASSISTED COMPUTING FACILITY? '
Sometimes referred to as 'Homes for the Technologically Infirm,' 'Technical Invalid Care Centers,' or 'Homes for the Technically Challenged,' Assisted Computing Facilities (ACFs) are modeled on assisted living facilities, and provide a safe, structured residential environment for those unable to handle even the most common, everyday multitasks. Most fully accredited ACFs, like Silicon Pines, are an oasis of hope and encouragement that allow residents to lead productive, technologically relevant lives without the fear and anxiety associated with actually having to understand or execute the technologies themselves.
WHO SHOULD BE IN AN ACF?
Sadly, technology is advancing at such a dramatic rate that many millions, of all ages, will never truly be able to understand it, putting an undue burden on those friends and family members who must explain it to them. But unless the loved one is suffering from a truly debilitating affliction, such as Reinstallzheimers, the decision to commit is entirely personal. You must ask yourself:
'How frustrated am I that my parent/sibling/spouse is unable to open an email attachment?'
'How much of my time should be taken up explaining how RAM is different from hard drive memory?'
'How many times can I bear to hear my dad say, 'Hey, can I replace the motherboard with a fatherboard' Ha ha ha!' ?
To make things easier, we have prepared a list of Warning Signs which we encourage you to return to often, or, if you can't figure out how to bookmark it, print out. Also, please take a moment to read 'I'm Glad I'm in Here! - A Resident's Story.'
MUST IT BE FAMILY, OR CAN I PLACE ANYONE IN AN ACF?
Several corporations have sought permission to have certain employees, or at times entire sales departments, committed to ACFs. At present, however, individuals can be committed only by direct family or self-internment. The reason is simple: there are not nearly enough ACFs in the world to accommodate all the technologically challenged. For example, there are currently only 860,000 beds available in ACFs, but there are 29 million AOL users.
HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
ACF rents range from free up to $12,500 per month. The disparity is currently a point of contention in the ACF industry. Many residents are covered through government programs such as Compucaid or Compucare, but reimbursement rates are low and only cover a portion of the fees.
Exacerbating the situation are the HMOs (HelpDesk Maintenance Organizations), which often deny coverage, forcing residents to pay out of pocket or turn to expensive private techcare insurers such as BlueCache/BlueScreen.
Offsetting the costs are technology companies themselves, many of which subsidize ACFs. Firms such as Microsoft, Dell, Qualcomm, and America Online will pay up to 100 percent of a resident's monthly bill, but there is a catch. ISPs, for instance, require residents to sign service contracts lasting a year or more. Microsoft, meanwhile, prohibits the installation of any competitive software, while Priceline requires that residents buy shares of its stock, which seems onerous but saves residents on lavatory tissue.
HOW OLD MUST I BE TO HAVE SOMEONE COMMITTED?
Until very recently, you had to be 18 or older to legally commit a family member. However, the now famous British court case Frazier vs. Frazier and Frazier has cleared the way for minors to commit their parents. In that case, 15-year-old Bradley Frazier of Leicester had his 37-year-old parents committed to an ACF in Bournemouth after a judge ruled Ian and Janet Frazier were a 'danger to themselves and the community.' According to court records, Bradley told his parents about the I LoveYou virus and warned them not to click attachments, then the next day his parents received an I LoveYou email and clicked on the attachment because, they explained, 'it came from someone we know.'
WHAT SHOULD I LOOK FOR IN AN ACF?
First, make sure it's a genuine Assisted Computing Facility, and not an Assisted Living Facility. To tell the difference, observe the residents. If they look rather old and tend to openly discuss bowel movements, this is probably 'assisted living.' On the other hand, if they vary in age and say things like, 'I'm supposed to figure that out' I'm not Bill *!(*# Gates you know!,' this is probably 'assisted computing.'
Also, at a well-run ACF, residents should lead full, independent lives, and should be allowed the use of many technology devices, including telephones, electric toothbrushes, and alarm clocks. However, only a facility's Licensed Techcare Professionals (LTPs) should perform computational or technological tasks such as installing programs or saving email attachments. And LTPs should NEVER answer residents' questions because studies have shown that answering user questions inevitably makes things worse. Instead, residents should simply have things done for them, relieving them of the pressure to 'learn' or 'improve.'
CAN A RESIDENT EVER GET OUT?
No.
OK, THIS SOUNDS PROMISING. HOW CAN I LEARN MORE?
For your enlightenment, we offer extensive information on Silicon Pines and the ACF lifestyle, which can be found by clicking one of the links in the navigation bars found at both the top and bottom of this page. But whatever you decide, keep in mind that due to demand, ACFs now have long waiting lists. WebTV &AOL users alone will take years to absorb.
So it dawned on me that I could pretty safely set the MIME type for Opera or any Gecko based any browser that claims it can handle application/xhtml+xml in its HTTP_ACCEPT.
For now I have limited this to my home IP address.
All it took was a little PHP... and whaddaya know, I just happen to be able to write a little PHP (very little, but it's a start)
Here's what I did. I think it is pretty straight forward, but I've added copious comments. It's pretty slick. I love PHP.
I don't know where any of these 'facts' came from, or if they are all true.
Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache
A Boeing 747's wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public.
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
Pearls melt in vinegar.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
A duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why.
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word 'criminal.' The second' William Jefferson Clinton!
Due to the high risk of danger to women in secluded parking lots, especially during evening hours, the Minneapolis City Council has established a 'Women Only' parking lot at the Mall of America (and what place more clearly needs a Women Only section).
Even the parking lot attendants are exclusively female so that a comfortable and safe environment is created for patrons. Below is the first picture available of this world-first women-only parking lot in Minnesota.
[note: to the several people who have written me angry notes about this picture: it's a joke. No, I don't think women are terrible drivers, etc etc etc. It's a joke.]
This is really big news. A major site, heavy traffic, highly styled.
And the execution is excellent.
You can find plenty of other folks talking about this: DiveIntoMark, Zeldman, EricMeyer,
and no doubt others.... so I'm just going to put out the URL for anyone who missed it, and you can get more news from others.
Meanwhile I'm just hoping someone doesn't manage to turn nit picks into a molehill.
What began as a simple comment has turned into an adventure.
It started the other day with a thread on opera.wishlist about a validation mode in which the browser would stop and inform the user when there was a problem with their webpage.
The other day I was reading diveintomark (as I do most days). On this particular day, Mark was talking about the tilde. I can distinctly remember thinking to myself: a) Mark had a little too much time on his hands today OR Mark had very little time on his hands today and instead of doing what he was supposed to do, he ended up chasing a rabbit, b) only on the web could you find a brief history of the tilde along with your morning coffee (and people wonder why I don't get the local paper... why would I, since I can get the highlights online, and I have a much more interested morning read for my morning routine?) and c) I remember thinking Dang... Mark just managed to make the history of the tilde an interesting read... I could learn to hate him for that. (Jealousy is an ugly thing, but there it is anyway.)
Today, however, I am chasing my own rabbit, blissfully ignorant of the late hour of the day and the fact that I should be sleeping (which I'm not anyway, so why stare at the TV?).
So, it got really interesting when Rijk van Geijtenbeek of Opera Software suggested that I use xhtml+xml (note that he mistakenly said “text/xhtml+xml” but meant “application/xhtml+xml”)
Why would he suggest this? Well because of the limitations of using text/html for XHTML documents, which are explained at the W3C’s note about XHTML Media Types
XHTML documents served as 'text/html' will not be processed as XML, e.g. well-formedness errors may not be detected by user agents. Also be aware that HTML rules will be applied for DOM and style sheets.
Clearly I have been spending too much time at W3C, because these publications are starting to make more and more sense to me as I read them, and deep down in a place that I’m a little afraid to talk about, I’m starting to like them.
Of course I would point out here that all the specification says is that may not detect well-formedness errors. That does not seem to be prescriptive as much as descriptive — that is to say, they are describing how it is, not necessary how it should be. User Agents (known most often to us as browsers) could detect well-formedness errors. Which would mean, getting back to the original suggestion, the idea of having a ‘validation mode’ would be an appropriate option. With regard to Opera, there is already an option to display Javascript error messages, and the existence of such errors might cause there to be problems on the page. Why not follow that example and have an option to display XHTML and XML well-formedness errors? It seems likely to me that eventually this would be a good option to have when dealing with XML.
Opera printed out as much as it could and then gave me the line number and column of the error.
Mozilla did mostly the same, except that it showed me the line in question, and did not show any of the first part of the document which was well formed.
Internet Explorer? Well, would you believe it prompted me to download the page? Yup, that’s right, the world’s largest company can't even get a browser together that understands application/xhtml+xml.
So I decided to find out what my other options where.
For (geeky) reasons of my own, I am planning a section of this website which we be done to strict standards, meaning 100% compliant markup, including CSS and DOM. I planned (even before the thread about ‘validation mode’) to use XHTML 1.1.
XHTML 1.1 documents should not be served with the ‘text/html’ MIME type.
Whoa.
Here I was planning a site to be the pinnacle of cutting edge standards compliance, and I nearly used the wrong MIME type for the whole bloody thing.
Now some would say that the W3C left wiggle room by using “SHOULD NOT” as opposed to “MUST NOT” which would prohibit it altogether.... but come on, we’re talking about moving towards the levels of advanced über-geekdom.
The preferred media type is application/xhtml+xml. Apache predefines that MIME type to correspond to documents that end with either .xhtml or .xht. So what happens if I try to use that?
In Opera: displays as web page
In Mozilla: displays as web page
In IE6: prompts to Open, Save, or Cancel
Hrm. The next choice is application/xml. Apache has no predefined file extension, so I added my own (.axml) using .htaccess and tried again:
In Opera: displays as web page
In Mozilla: displays as web page
In IE6: displays source to document (no, I don’t know why either)
Well, what about the last choice: text/xml (Apache: .xml or .xsl)?
In Opera: displays as web page
In Mozilla: displays as web page
In IE6: same as application/xml, shows source
So my next thought was to try Apache’s Content Negotiation. This would allow different formats to be served based on what the browser tells you it is capable of handling. This would serve different content to different browsers, based on the expressed information coming to you from the browser itself.
IE6 correctly indicates that it can only handle text/html, and Mozilla correctly indicates that it can handle text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html.
Unfortunately, Opera only advertizes that it can handle text/html (...time passes as Tim shuffles off to file bug report...).
Update: Opera 7.2 fixes this bug
So I’m left with another WDD™ — Web Designer Dilemma — Do I follow the standards and make my life simpler, or do I worry about browser-specific hackery that will take more time and energy?
Well, fortunately for me, the site I was planning was primarily to be a sandbox to learn in, so I don’t need to worry about IE6 if I don’t want to... and guess what? I don’t want to.
So the site will be XHTML 1.1 and will be sent, according to the standards, as application/xhtml+xml.
Which means that it will work in Opera and Mozilla, and not IE. Sorry, Charlie.
Scale: 7 out of a possible 11 (for you Spinal Tap fans)
Should you see it? YES
How's the writing? VERY GOOD
Any gaping holes in the plot? NO
What stands out? Tightly played screenplay, good development without being overly predictable, grabs you from the start
I knew that anything would be better than Manhunter.
I knew that it had to be better than Hannibal.
I wasn't going to ask it to blow me away as much as the original, because that's unfair of any sequel. You go in knowing too much to be blown away.
But I was pleasantly surprised. Red Dragon was much than I had expected, and was well worth the time and money spent.
I was particularly pleased with the writing. Too often the plot in some movies is just an excuse for what happens, and the writing is bad.
Ralph Fiennes is well cast in the "bad guy role" and carries off the understated depth of the character.
Anthony Hopkins is his expected self in the character that made him famous to a large chunk of the population. He does well in the role, although he does not match his performance in Silence of the Lambs.
Ed Norton, who burst onto the scene in Primal Fear (an excellent renter if you haven't seen it) is also very good. I have this nagging feeling that it would have been better cast with someone else in particular, but I can't put my finger on it.
At the end of the day I was very pleased and would recommend it to others who were thinking about going.
The violence was, for the most part, very subdued and largely off-screen - - with a few exceptions of course, but nothing to rival the sheer attempt at pure gross-out of Hannibal.
A friend who went with me said that it was very faithful to the book. Not to sound like an illiterate dullard, but this wasn't a movie where I was particularly concerned about it being faithful to the book. However, for people who might care, there is one vote in its favor.
Basically he was talking about 'ultra strict' mode, where Opera would stop rendering a page when it comes across a mistake.
Of course this would mean that most of the websites in the world wouldn't work, because only a few percent of the websites actually validate.
But for web designers who do want to try to write valid pages, it would be an easy way to validate a number of pages.
Obviously this would not be the default, nor should it be something that could be easily activated by mistake. But it would be an innovative feature that would be in line with Opera's long history of supporting standards compliance.
Of course web designers should be validating their pages, and of course they should be writing clean code... but I hand code my web pages in XHTML 1.0 strict (except for the blog, which I hand-tweaked to create XHTML 1.0 strict pages).
But mistakes happen.
Opera could be the only major browser to provide this feature (I think Amaya might do it, but it fails to support standards enough to be useful).
If you would like to continue to design websites and not have to worry about getting sued over this issue, you might want to checkout my Section 508 / WCAG sidebar which will put the accessibility information that you need at your fingertips.
Zeldman posted a great link to a lecture he gave on accesibility which may help folks start to think about these issues in more useful ways than the narrowminded "I don't design for the blind."
Yeah, I know the colors here are really striking (and you can take that as a positive or a negative, depending on your point of view).
I like strong, bold colors. Not that I can't appreciate subtle colors, but I think every now and again you need some nice, bright, bold colors in life.
Then again, one of these days I'll probably change them all anyway. It'll probably be my first exercise in alternate style sheets.
![[dogs dressed up as ghosts]](images/dogcostumes.jpg)
![[Ethan and Tim reading COLOR FOR WEBSITES]](/opera/beyond30/images/timandethan-400x300.jpg)
![[Ethan and Tim again]](/opera/beyond30/images/timandethan2-400x300.jpg)
![[a high stack of Tim's computer books]](/opera/beyond30/images/stackobooks-300x400.jpg)
![[Ethan reading Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide]](/ethan/gallery/css.jpg)
Ethan's generation will hopefully live to see the day when we can actually drop support for Netscape4![[Marquee Sign with text: Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape]](/opera/beyond30/images/blessedaretheflexible-500x375.jpg)
![[scarecrows with pumpkins as chest, bum]](images/halloweenflash.jpg)
![[Pumpkin throwing up]](images/SickPumpkin.jpg)
![[Guy in fire hydrant costume, wet... dog walking away]](images/halloween_pee.jpg)
![[women only parking lot]](/images/womansparkinglot.jpg)
![[Martha Stewart's Prison Magazine]](images/ms-living.jpg)
![[Sign along side of the road: HIRING ASS MANAGER FOR SUBWAY]](/images/beyond30/subway.320x240.jpg)
![[image of computer mouse skeleton]](/images/beyond30/mousevirus.437x415.jpg)
![[computer screen on copy machine]](images/how-do-blondes-print-email.jpg)
![[an illustration of men versus women]](images/men-vs-women.jpg)
![[his and hers garages]](images/hishers.jpg)