Buzz Archives for January 2004
XML Basics
Starting last month, Intranet Journal (intranetjournal.com) began hosting a series of articles on the topic of XML. These short articles help to demystify XML. A document authored with XML allows for the transformation and sharing of data or content between various devices and people. The first article, XML Basics and Benefits ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Definition Lists
-
Definition Lists: misused or misunderstood? “There are two points of view about the use of definition lists. Some people believe that definition lists should only be used for terms and definitions. Others believe that definition lists can be used to tie together any items that have a direct relationship with each ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in HTML/XHTML
- The Business Case for Web Accessibility
-
Continuing the subject of accessibility, Andy Budd wrote a good article last week that makes the business case for catering to the widest audience possible. Andy identifies groups of people who have problems accessing the web, and explains how building web sites they are able to use can positively impact ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in Accessibility
- Accessibility: Looking Good
-
Still not convinced that good design can be accessible? Canada has no specific accessibility laws, per se, but that hasn't stopped my fellow countrymen Scott Baldwin and Michael Clarke from leading the way. Announced by Scott last year, a recent press release outlines the Vancouver-based North Shore Credit Union's push for ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in Accessibility
- Online Event: IT Accessibility
-
The Information Technology Technical Assistance & Training Center (ITTATC) Announces An Audio Conference on January 26, 2004 from 2-4 PM ET. ITTATC provides accessibility training and technical assistance related to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act for industry, state officials, trainers, and consumers.
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Accessibility, Training
- XHTML Print
-
W3C has promoted the XHTML Print module to Candidate Recommendation status today. Aimed at low-end printers and sub-optimal printing conditions, the design objective of XHTML-Print is to provide a relatively simple, broadly supportable page description format where content preservation and reproduction are the goal.
By Dave Shea | Filed in HTML/XHTML
- CSS Filters
-
A time will come when you simply can't get a CSS-based design working well across the browsers. While there is still debate on the potential side effects of using them, CSS hacks and filters will frequently get you out of a jam. When used wisely and judiciously, they can be ...
- W3C sets recommendations for mobile Web standards
-
W3C pushes handheld devices forward with its approved technical specs for mobile Web standards. The spec, Composite Capability / Preference Profiles (CC/PP): Structures and Vocabularies 1.0, enables mobiles phones and PDAs to communicate with Web servers. The CC/PP 1.0 spec uses RDF (Resource Description Framework).
By Meryl K. Evans | Filed in W3C/Standards Documentation
- Lunch, Internet Explorer, and You
-
Robert Scoble, a Microsoft employee and prominent weblogger, recently had lunch with Microsoft's Internet Explorer team. You read that correctly: there is an IE team, and they're apparently hard at work. After providing some insight into how the development team operates, Robert asks his readers what they'd like to ...
By Ethan Marcotte | Filed in Browsers
- Developer Toolbars
-
Wouldn't it be nice to have one-click access to the validators? And surely there's an easier way to snap your browser window to a specific resolution without manually dragging a corner? Wouldn't the world be a better place if you could turn CSS off at any time, and back on ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in Authoring Tools
- WaSP Interviews: Ryan Carver
-
This third edition of WaSP Interviews talks to Ryan Carver about the standards-based redesign of Lee Jeans' onetruefit.com. Ryan discusses the Google boost for the site thanks to his clean markup, the heartache of flicker, the heartbreak of licensing creative work, and a brilliant technique for using the cascade part of ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in WaSP Announcement
- Nice Menus!
-
Better late than never. Posted last month, SuperfluousBanter's Didier Hilhorst explores some smokin' menu effects in The Art of Navigation. As noted in the text, some usability and accessibility best practices were harmed in the making of these menus. Proceed with caution (but be prepared to drool).
- Standards On Your Bookshelf
-
As though you needed more proof that 2003 was a great year for standards, check out the Best Books for 2003 compiled by The Designer's Bookshelf. Surrounded by a trove of excellent titles, the only two books listed under "Best in Web Design" are Jeffrey Zeldman's Designing With Web Standards ...
By Ethan Marcotte | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Centering
-
Horizontal and vertical centering, together at last. Joe Gillespie shows us how at Web Page Design For Designers.
- PHP and Web Standards Conference
-
PaWS is the PHP and Web Standards conference, scheduled to take place from February 20th to 24th in Manchester, England. The call for papers has gone out, with a deadline for submissions of January 17th. The dual focus on PHP and standards based web development should make for some interesting ...
By Simon Willison | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- :hover in MSIE
-
You may have seen the Pure CSS Menus demo on Eric Meyer's css/edge, it has been around for a while. The premise: pure CSS menus, no scripting necessary. The catch: they don't work in Internet Explorer. Well, not so fast. Thanks to Peter Nederlof, with a slight bit of script-based tweaking ...
- Standards ’03
-
We're back, and we brought presents! The holidays have kept most of us at WaSP away from the nest, but rest assured that 2004 will ring in some big new developments around here. For now, let's look back on the year that was. Here are some highlights (and a few inevitable ...
By Dave Shea | Filed in Web Standards (general)
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
Our Work Here is Done
By Aaron Gustafson | March 1st, 2013
Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality.
When The Web Standards Project (WaSP) formed in 1998, the web was the battleground in an ever-escalating war between two browser makers—Netscape and Microsoft—who were each taking turns “advancing” HTML to the point of collapse. You see, in an effort to one-up each other, the two browsers introduced new elements and new ways of manipulating web documents; this escalated to the point where their respective 4.0 versions were largely incompatible.
Realizing that this fragmentation would inevitably drive up the cost of building websites and ran the risk of denying users access to content and services they needed, Glenn Davis, George Olsen, and Jeffrey Zeldman co-founded WaSP and rallied an amazing group of web designers and developers to help them push back. The WaSP’s primary goal was getting browser makers to support the standards set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
In 2001, with the browser wars largely over, WaSP began to shift its focus. While some members continued to work with browser vendors on improving their standards support, others began working closely with software makers like Macromedia to improve the quality of code being authored in tools such as Dreamweaver. And others began the hard slog of educating web designers and developers about the importance of using web standards, culminating in the creation of WaSP InterAct, a web curriculum framework which is now overseen by the W3C.
Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality. While there is still work to be done, the sting of the WaSP is no longer necessary. And so it is time for us to close down The Web Standards Project.
Many (if not all) of us are continuing to work in the world of web standards, but our work is now largely outside the umbrella of WaSP. If you are interested in continuing to work on web standards-related projects along with us, we humbly suggest you follow these projects:
- A List Apart – The magazine “for people who make websites” is run by WaSP founder Jeffrey Zeldman and is a consistent source of forward-thinking articles and tutorials.
- HTML5 Doctor – A solid resource and discussion forum on all things HTML5, brought to you by Bruce Lawson and his team.
- W3C Community Groups – If you have a passion for a specific web technology, you can help make it better by participating in one (or more) community groups. In particular, you might be interested in one of these: Core Mobile Web Platform, Responsive Images, Web Education, and Web Media Text Tracks.
- WebPlatform.org – A fantastic web standards resource, providing up-to-date documentation, Q&As, tutorials & more. Chris Mills, Doug Schepers, and a number of other standards advocates are involved in this project.
- Web Standards Sherpa – An educational resource founded by WaSP which continues to operate under the leadership of Chris Casciano, Virginia DeBolt, Aaron Gustafson, and Emily Lewis.
- Web Standards + Small Business – An outreach project started by WaSP that educates small businesses about why they should care about web standards. This project is overseen by Aaron Gustafson.
The job’s not over, but instead of being the work of a small activist group, it’s a job for tens of thousands of developers who care about ensuring that the web remains a free, open, interoperable, and accessible competitor to native apps and closed eco-systems. It’s your job now, and we look forward to working with you, and wish you much success.
Nota bene: In the near future, we will be making a permanent, static archive of webstandards.org and some of our other resources like WaSP Interact to preserve them as a resource and to provide a record of our 15-year mission to improve the web.
Bruce Lawson and Steph Troeth contributed to this post.
Filed in WaSP Announcement | Comments (89)
More Buzz articles
| Title | Author |
|---|---|
| Call for action on Vendor Prefixes | Rachel Andrew |
| An End to Aging IE Installs | Aaron Gustafson |
| Beyond the Blue Beanie? | Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis |
| The Sherpas are Here | Aaron Gustafson |