Tuesday, March 10, 2009 –
Debug CSS is nothing new. Eric Meyer has been talking about them since the 1940's. Still, not many developers use them when building and testing.
I just added a debug CSS to a site that we're working on. Its purpose is to visually highlights 5 markup problems.
Images with a blank alt attribute value, i.e. alt="". This won't cause validation errors, but a blank alt doesn't help with accessibility either.
Images with a missing…
Wednesday, March 4, 2009 –
Many of iMarc's clients are technical or research oriented business. These companies tend to have a vast library of white papers or print-friendly research articles formatted as PDFs.
We're building a new site for one such client, who recently asked, "What format do you recommend for our white papers — pdf or html?"
While PDF white papers, sell-sheets, or articles are usually well designed and visually compelling, there is still a barrier to…
Friday, February 27, 2009 –
This week, some colleagues and I flew out for an intensive two-day project kickoff with a new client (grueling but worthwhile, plus they're awesome people). Our reservations were made with American Airlines. I wanted to switch to an aisle seat, so Sunday night I went to check-in online.
I discovered I couldn't, because the flight is "operated by Alaska Airlines". Eventually I figured out that I could check-in at Alaska Air's website. But the reservation…
Wednesday, February 11, 2009 –
This morning Jeff shared a great article about micropayments. Micropayments are a transaction method for transferring very small amounts of money.
The article, Micropayments — It Is Time, brings up excellent points that are hard to argue.
Any micropayment system that would be implemented would need to be flexible enough to work across several platforms. Therefore, the one that I use to access selected content on the New York…
Sunday, January 25, 2009 –
I just read a fascinating article on beating a CAPTCHA using a standards-complaint JavaScript neural net.
It's really neat because it (a) shows how powerful the standard web document model has become, (b) it's a fun, practical bit of CS, and (c) it may stick a fork in CAPTCHAs. They've always been hideously user-unfriendly; now they're demonstrably attackable. While this particular example is nearly trivial, the basic technique is perfectly…
Thursday, January 15, 2009 –
It's a sign of the times I guess, that more than ever, folks are exercising their 'due diligence' in their business deals, making sure that nothing is overlooked in the quest for value and efficiency.
We are doing that ourselves, and it's one of the positive outcomes of this economic environment. We're all going to work harder and be more efficient, or we might not survive. It's the Law of the Jungle, come to the business world. Adapt or perish...…
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 –
Contrary to the media's description of 2008, iMarc had an exceptional past 12 months. Whether we were lucky, or smart, or a bit of both, we're certainly thankful to be working on great projects for some really great clients. We grew to 20 employees and added a whole new production team
Website Launches and Redesigns
In addition to all the little projects, 2008 saw the launching of a number of full-scale websites.
Newport…
Monday, December 22, 2008 –
Over the past 11 years, iMarc has used a number of web analytics tools. Whether FunnelWeb, Webalizer, Urchin, Mint, or Google Analytics, the goal is always to understand how people use the web and make optimizations based on that usage.
Recently, we've been recommending Google Analytics. Of course Google Analytics has its limitation and problems, most notably, Javascript and Cookie-acceptance is required by the end-user.…
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 –
Earlier this year, I commented on Ubuntu's package manager, which duplicates its status in both title bar and main window:
Recently I was helping the lovely and talented Kim Jackson migrate some files to her new laptop, and I noticed that Vista does the same thing:
Note that both title bar and window content say the same thing. But here's how it's different: Vista provides a status update, not just a label. It addresses a use-case that …
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 –
Today I bought myself an M&M — or “Rainbow” — cookie from Starbucks. When I got back to my desk to get down to business, the bag I received had two things in it: 1. my cookie and 2. the piece of waxy tissue paper used by the barista to pick up the cookie.
I assume that the baristas use the tissue paper to maintain the illusion of cleanliness during the transaction. I mean, those same hands are handling my money, and who knows where that’s…
By: Fred LeBlanc
By: Dave Tufts
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