I’ve been incredibly busy lately and have been mostly blogging (along with several of my brilliant co-workers) on the Beaconfirewire. I’ll continue to sporadically update intensely boring personal news and such here. But the dry spells will likely continue.
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8/5/2008
2/8/2007
4/28/2006
Semantics and Design (Malarkey)
Malarkey has posted an interesting article about…well, semantics and design…over on his “Stuff and Nonesense” blog. He has some interesting thoughts about when to place images in HTML as opposed to CSS, and the impact of design on the content you are presenting. It’s a good read and, as usual, the visitor comments are just as interesting.
Filed under: Accessibility | CSS | Work | XHTML
Meeting Sketch #4
This one is from back in November. Here are all the previous Meeting Sketches.
Filed under: Art | Meeting Sketches | Work
4/26/2006
Meeting Sketch #3
And it continues. It started here and then went here.
Filed under: Art | Meeting Sketches | Work
4/18/2006
The first one in the series is 3/10/2006
Meeting Sketch #1
I have found that doodling is a more effective way for me to remember what has happened in meetings. Maybe it’s an ADD thing…I don’t know. Rather than let these works of art languish in spiral notebooks and in the margins of Functional Requirements Documents, I’ve decided to blog them.
You’re welcome.
Filed under: Art | Meeting Sketches | Work
10/11/2005
Campaign for America’s Priorities
Today, I’m splitting my time between attending sessions at the N-TEN Regional Conference (here in DC) and checkng progress on this wicked-cool application we just finished building for a client. I’m really proud of it…especially since we turned it around in less than a week (and that included multiple content and graphical changes by the client at all points in the development process).
We used the Google Maps API to build the Campaign for America’s Priorities (actnow.org), allowing people to add a personalized protest sign to a map and send links out to friends. Pretty cool, really.
I’m not sure if it’s the first virtual march. Let me know about others you’ve seen.
Filed under: Geek Stuff | Politics | Work
7/22/2005
Flyouts Are Fun! And So Are Democrats.
I just finished a 12 hour day getting this site re-fresh ready for launch. It was my first real stab at a CSS-only flyout menu and I’m really pretty nervous. I know that older browser support will be spotty (or non-existent), but it should function in all current browsers and platforms. I’m pretty happy with it, but could probably use an expert review. I mean, in some ways I am an expert, but that just scares me sometimes. I mean, if I’m expert in any aspect of this wild and wolly internet then how the fuck is it still even running?
My main responsibility was the flyout menus under “ideas” and a bunch of image chopping and HTML cleanup. Please, by all that is holy, do not run an HTML validation on this page. We had nothing to do with the core HTML and I would dearly love to spend 10 hours just combing through the code getting it all up to XHTML snuff. Just seeing the thousands of occurances of
Maybe I’ll just FTP to the server on my own time while nobody is looking and just…
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
6/5/2005
Convio Makes a Bad Choice
I work for a company who has partnered with Convio from time to time, and this is a really new story. For now, I’ll let AmericaBlog do the talking.
5/25/2005
One of these days, I’m gonna get myself organazized
While I balk at their hilariously weird “lifestyle coach” kind of approach to helping you develop “missions” and “values” to orient your “compass” with regard to organizing your life, there’s no disputing that the Franklin Covey Plan Plus addon for MS Outlook is a great tool. It extends the standard suite of Outlook tools and introduces ways to more effectively prioritize and link tasks, projects, and calendar items. The projects are new. It’s really fucking cool.
Unfortunately the thing is $99. I’m still playing with the 30 day trial to be sure it’s really gonna fit the bill, but so far I love it. Now, if I can just get me some more methylphenidate. It’s been six months since my last ’script ran out.
Filed under: Geek Stuff | Personal | Work
5/15/2005
How Accessible Do You Want to Be?
I swear, the next time I hear someone ask a client “How accessible do you want your site to be?” I’m going to scream. There is this misconception pervasive throughout the web-dev-consulting-design field that, at some point, you have to sacrifice design or function in order to accomplish some nebulous holy grail of accessibility compliance. For more on compliance, what it is, and what it should be check out Malarky’s post, “Wearing badges is not enough.”
It’s understandable. Prior to the availability of CSS, this was more or less true. These days, there is no excuse to build a site that is not accessibile. Really…It’s not some twisted fundamentalist in me that’s saying that. It’s just the me that codes HTML and CSS. It’s the part of me that spends hours turning a Photoshop design into a streamlined, zero-to-sixty in less than five seconds, complete with a wheelchair lift and assistive steering controls, rocketship of a web site.
Here’s where we shoot ourselves in the foot everytime: The part in the development process where the design gets turned into HTML templates which are, in turn, dumped into a content management system (don’t even get me started on what those things do to my beautiful HTML) by a developer who has neither the time, inclination, or desire to keep an eye on what happens to the code, has become an afterthought. The role of HTML-coder is the first thing to be outsourced. Usually to a designer or developer who cuts HTML in their spare time to help pay the bills. The reason that this happens is simple. Most folks start working on web sites doing everything. They design a site, cut it up, and build it out. As they get more experience, they specialize. Usually in programming, design, or the part I totally don’t get: strategy. Coding HTML is a rung in the ladder that most people see as an inconvenience to overcome rather than a skill to master.
This is where I am now. I’m under orders to freelance out the HTML work at my company. If we were a little bigger I could probably make an arguement to keep it in-house. We’re not, so I can’t.
It’s a fucked up catch-22. I work at a compeny small enough to maintain a culture that I find rewarding and healthy. One in which I’m not just a cog in a machine. But at the same time, the cog that I care deeply about isn’t valued. I’m still trying to figure out how to make it work. More later.
Also of interest from Mr. Malarkey on this subject:
On a shoe-string
Panning for gold
And from A List Apart:
What Is Web Accessibility?
Filed under: Accessibility | CSS | Work | XHTML
6/20/2004
All About Me
I am an mostly sedentary activist who thinks that corporate greed, right-wing politics, and the christian right (is there really a difference?) is turning our world to shit. In my professional life I have actually been known to demonstrate a passing familiarity with competence for hours on end.
I was a rock star once for about fifteen minutes and have nothing to show for it but a few CDs, some videos that are starting to deteriorate, a gold record for a band that I played with ten years before they made it big, loss of hearing in my right ear, and a slight tendency to drink beer.
I can be selfish.
I get too worked up about things I care about, but have a sometimes alarming disconnection with the world around me.
I never, ever, ever get enough sleep.
The right song at the right time can completely change me. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) this effect only seems to last a few hours at the most.