Sunday, 08 August 2004, 21:43:14 EDT
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I have converted this web site back to HTML 4.01 Strict. I have been meaning to do it for a long time now but decided to quit putting it off. Why HTML 4.01 and not XHTML 1.0? That is a good question and one that will take a bit of explaining. The first thing you should do is read http://xrl.us/ba4c from start to finish.
Done? Good. Now let me explain what it said.
HTML is marked up text, hence, Hypertext Makrup Language. That means a web page is, or should be, nothing but text marked up so that user agents, i.e. your web browser, can interpret what the text means. A good example is the <h1> and the <p> elements. The first element denotes a heading level one; this is typically rendered as very large bold text by most web browsers. The second element indicates that the text is a paragraph, just like a paragraph in a book. The idea here is that a user agent can pick up certain elements and do magical things with them. Theoretically a user agent could pick out the heading elements, of which there are six, and create a table of contents for the web page. The user agent could then present you with the table of contents and allow you to navigate through the document like a book. Basically, a web page is nothing but plain text with elements describing the text. That is the most basic idea about HTML and if you can grasp that you will better understand why there are standards for web technologies (HTML, CSS, XHTML, et al).
XHTML is completely different. To understand what Extensible Hypertext Markup Language is and why it exists you need to understand what XML is and what its purpose is. XML is a textual representation of data. Let me repeat that, it is a textual representation of data. XML can be used to store settings for applications to describing the visual structure of applications. For example, in a couple of the projects I am idly working on I use XML to store user settings and such; I also use XML to describe the user interface — where the buttons should go and such. XML is very portable and quite human readable. An XML file written on one platform can very easily be used on another platform. The programs just have to be written to read it. This feature lends itself very well to the internet; at least in theory. Writing web pages in pure XML, like this one, would not be very efficient. However, writing normal web pages that can make use of XML is. Imagine for a minute if you could write a web page that works just like a normal web page yet has portions that are much more advanced than just text and images. Wouldn't you like that? Well, that is what XHTML is for. XHTML allows you to write an average run of the mill web page yet take ... (view rest)
Wednesday, 05 May 2004, 19:43:05 EDT
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Earlier today I decided to write an example web page to reference in the web design course I am writing. I came up with a, what I think to be, rather nifty design that shows the advantages of a CSS design. It is a design that would be rather tricky to do effectively with tables but is actually quite simple with CSS. The markup is negligible and much smaller than it would be if done without CSS. So, I had this design all made up and ready to begin writing about it when I decided to check it in IE. It was at this point that I said "what the hell?!?" and began working on a nice little hack that renders the page appropriately in IE and Mozilla. My "hack" is slightly eloquent and works just fine; I went on with the rest of my day beaming with pride at my little accomplishment.
After lunch I went around campus taking pictures hoping to get something useful for a Zen Garden design. After deciding that what I was trying to do wouldn't work right I started browsing through the designs already available. I came across the The Question Why design and was instantly dumbfounded because it works exactly like the way I designed my simple example page. There is one slight difference; the Zen Garden design is positioning e ... (view rest)
Sunday, 02 November 2003, 22:15:41 EDT
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I finally got around to implementing an "archive" system on this site. Instead of the posts section (the section you are currently reading) being generated from all the posts I have made it is now generated based on the current month. This should be a cleaner arrangement. In the process I had to tweak the CSS file a bit so, even though IE likes to make the page "taller" than it should be, the site should look better on all browsers.
In case you all didn't know, the new Indiana Jones DVDs rock. They didn't add new stuff to the movies or take anything out. The movies are just touched up to look and sound their best. And the bonus disc is really cool. It points out all kinds of stuff that I never noticed before. For example, in the heiroglyphics on the column next to Indy when he and Sullah are recovering the Ark there is a scene with C3P0 reaching out to R2D2.
If you haven't seen the new Alien re-rel ... (view rest)