This type of improvement isn’t limited to the “8% of the male population” that are colorblind – it creates a better user experience for almost every visitor to your site. Accessibility (and Universal Design) is an integral part of Craftsmanship. (Via Waxy.org.)
In a blog comment, Nate Todd lays out an extensive description of why he switched from a PHP based framework (CakePHP) to Ruby on Rails. The points he makes reflect a lot of what I hear from people coming to rails, and some I’ve made myself – albeit not as eloquently as those you’ll find [...]
Once in a while Dave Winer hits one out of the park – this is one of those times: “ … the posts I’ve written here have served as a calling card, a way of keeping my name and ideas on people’s minds. … And that’s the role of a blog, it’s a way of [...]
The Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol is a little over 10 and a half years old: “The Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP for short) is a protocol for controlling, monitoring, and diagnosing coffee pots. … Although the RFC describing the protocol is an April Fools’ Day joke and not to be taken [...]
Corey Gilmore has a breakdown of how much it costs to run a cab, and a good reminder to tip your cab driver. And tip well. Apparently, even a decent tip leaves the driver paying for income they didn’t get: …the government assumes about a 23% gratuity… Ouch. These days I try and aim for [...]
My friend and colleague Paul Martin writes about the imminent closure of the Canadian Studies office at the University of Vermont (disclosure: I am currently employed at UVM). Near the bottom of the post he offers suggestions on how you can help, as well as a link to a lengthy article on the situation at [...]
Rob Friesel has a lengthy and thoughtful look at GoodReads, complete with wireframe sketches and in-depth interaction scenarios. You know you’re doing something right when you have users that give you feedback like this. Here’s hoping they put his suggestions to good use.
Omnia Computing’s hCardMapper is yet another example (tip of an iceberg, really) of the power of microformats. Think how quickly your users will be able to fill out your registration forms if when they have a public hCard. I’d like to see a greasemonkey script that uses this so I can auto fill other people’s [...]
The distinction between tags and categories is an oft-requested point of clarification. The question has been asked at every blog workshop I’ve run, and yet for some reason I still find myself struggling to find the best way to explain it. Well no more. In the process of posting a killer new release of his [...]
Local alt-weekly Seven Days is in the process of re-publishing their archives: We’re starting with 2001, and working our way back. We’ll also be filling in the holes in 2002-2007. If you want to check our progress, click on the Search/Index page of our site, scroll to the bottom, and click to the last page [...]
