tfoot between thead and tbody for summary
When insuring W3C validation on a website lately, I saw that the tfoot tag must come before the tbody tag. From the W3C spec: “TFOOT must appear before TBODY within a TABLE definition so that user agents can render the foot before receiving all of the (potentially numerous) rows of data.” That makes sense but it’s benefit just clicked today. The foot should function as the summary of the table data and thus let the user agent decide if it cares about the body. Screen readers make obvious benefit of this. I can see how search enignes would appreciate useful tfoot summaries as well as mobile applications.
Adobe Hosts iPhone Developer Camp – Flash or Adobe Air
Adobe Flash is not available on the iPhone yet they will be hosting the first iPhone developer conference of sorts called iPhoneDevCamp. What does this mean? There is an FAQ on the site with some corporate speak and this Q and A specifically about Flash:
Q: Does this mean that the iPhone supports Flash?
A: We suggest that folks speak to Apple directly about what technologies the iPhone will support and integrate. Our relationship with Apple continues to be strong. Naturally we believe that support for Flash is essential for any mobile device that wants to deliver a great experience for customers.
The answer about the iPhone supporting Flash, as of the 1.0 launch is no. I do not have one but have it on good authority. This FAQ says that Adobe is hosting the event because they believe that CS 3 is a great tool to develop web apps. And yet they also say that Adobe reps will only be available as participants and will not be there in any official capacity.
It seems to me that Adobe has more plans to getting in good with the early adopters of developing iPhone apps than just schlepping more copies of CS 3.
The iPhone supporting Flash seems like the most obvious want for Adobe but the idea of Adobe Air being ported to the iPhone is really interesting. At some point, development on the iPhone will need to be opened up a bit more than just allowing web pages if the success of the phone is to continue. Adobe Air may just be the route.
Auto Play Video with an Audio Track
It seems like there has been a resurgence in a video file with an audio track automatically starting when a website loads. I see that there are two reasons for this, the first is new video ads, the second is that people think it’s cool. This is really annoying. I was checking on a page on the ColdFusion developers journal just to be blasted with some stupid video ad starting up. I’m listening to a podcast right now! Sometimes I’m listening to music. Eitherway, it’s arrogant to think that someone coming to your site isn’t doing anything else but looking at your site. There should only be one reason that a video file with an audio track or an audio file should start playing right away and that’s when links used to get to the page make it clear that sound is expected. For adverts, this means NEVER! Everyone should know by now that marketing on the internet is a conversation because more interesting stuff is just a click away. When you start to talk at someone without them wanting to talk to you, the best you can hope for is just to be ignored.
Photosynth Demo at TED
Watch this video that came out tonight. It’s well worth the 10 minutes. This new implementation of the Seadragon software is simply incredible. This comes to us from Microsoft though and looks like for the foreseeable future it will only work with Vista. Ha! This new way of smoothly linking public photo data is simply amazing … but I’m not going to get a windows box for it.
Websites That Suck … bankofamerica.com
Last night I signed up for a checking account online at bankofamerica.com. As I was filling out the form, I realized that I needed an account number that I didn’t have handy. So I went to look for it. By the time I got back my session had timed out and I got a message that I was being logged out. No problem, I understand this is a security measure.
Problem 1: As I went back into the site to start my application again, BOA refused to let me start another application because I already had another one started. Wait a sec, you’re the one that dumped me out of that! I had to help BOA clear my session by closing and reopening my browser. Somewhat annoying since I had other stuff open.
Problem 2: Now here’s the big one. I log into the bankofamerica.com site today in order to pay a credit card that is due in a few days. On login, the BOA site says that it’s going to help me hook up my new checking account to my creditcard account and asks me for my debit card number and pin number. Oh you mean the debit card and pin number that I’ll get in the mail in 7 to 10 days. I don’t have that, I’ll cancel. Hmm, that takes me to the homepage. Try again, I’ll continue … homepage again. So there is no way for me to login to my account to pay my credit card bill online until I get this debit card in the mail. Ouch.
XHTML validity, enclose script and style elements with CDATA
I was reading up on the XHTML spec at w3.org and noticed something I haven’t done in years. For valid xhtml all inline script and style elements must be wrapped with CDATA. I don’t think I’ve done that since working with XML and XSLT in Cocoon v. 1. Not that this isn’t required for all XML files, it’s just been that long 
Also on the subject of XHTML validity, this is an interesting article about not using a text/html content type for xhtml but rather application/xhtml+xml. Of course that content type will make the markup even more strict. As the author mentions, and I’m beginning to agree with, xhtml should be avoided in pages for public consumption.
Update your zip code list!
Our washing machine is busted. After a bit of reading on both laundry repair and a refresher on how to use a multimeter, I’ve figured out that we need a new part. Off to the Sears website to see if part 3356465 is in stock at my local repair center. Where’s my local repair center? Oh cool, Sears is just asking for my zip and is going to do a proximity search. The zip code in my area officially changed with the post office 2 years ago now. The post office stopped delivering mail for my old zip about a year ago. And still, Sears isn’t aware that my zip code even exists.
I’m sure that when the site was developed, a zip code table was hooked up and promptly forgotten about. You’d be surprised how often this happens. I’d say still about a 3rd of the time my zip code doesn’t exist. A year ago that was half or more. So in my rough estimation, half of sites that use zip code lookups don’t update their database except once a year. And a third don’t update it at all. More likely I bet the large majority of sites don’t have a zip code refresh in the plans at all and just end up doing it when enough people complain.
Update your zips, it’s annoying your customers right now.
This site has some fair prices for zip code lists and offers several formats.
Standardizing web forms
I think all web forms should look the same. What’s the goal of a web form? Its goal should be to collect information from the user. Whenever possible, we should get things to the point where users don’t need to think about what steps they need to take to perform a task. So why should we as architects, designers and developers ever attempt to reinvent the form. It would be great for us all to settle on a form library.
It looks like there’s a whole movement devoted to design standards like this, Microformats.
Specifically, I really like the direction of Uni-Form. The forms look fluid, error handling is clear and graceful, it’s clear what field you’re on. I love it.
I’m looking to use this library for all form development. Maybe this is worth building a CFC to extend the
