Posted March 30, 2008 at 2:23 AM in Industry Events, Meeeeeeee, Web Standards | Comments Off
I have a few speaking gigs coming up in May and June, and currently those conferences are offering some discounts. Register soon for early bird savings, and let me know if you’ll be at any of my talks!
WebVisions – May 22-23 in Portland, Oregon: I’ll be giving a talk called Web Site Optimization in Seven Easy Steps on Friday the 23rd at 2:45 PM. Register by March 31st (meep! very soon!) and the cost is only $180 for a conference pass, or sign up for a workshop for $375 and get the conference pass for only $130!
Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference – June 10-13 in Nashville, Tennesee: On Friday, June 13 at 10:15 AM I’ll teach attendees about creating design and development standards in the workplace. Use discount code WDDSPKR to get $200 off any conference package. Early bird pricing is in effect until May 2nd.
An Event Apart – June 23-24 in Boston, Massachusetts: Standing between you and lunch is where I’ll be on Tuesday the 24th at 12:15 PM; hear me talk about standards in the enterprise and then they’ll let you eat. And you can get $50 off with code AEABLESS; with early bird pricing (through May 26) get an additional $100 off.
Posted March 17, 2008 at 10:47 AM in Computing, Geekout, Robots, Technology | Comments Off
Via the Institute for Personal Robots in Education:
We’re pleased to let you know that the robot platform we developed for CS-1 instruction is now available for purchase.
The $149.95 platform includes a Parallax Scribbler robot, with an add on board developed at Georgia Tech. The complete diff-drive robot then includes: a color camera, bluetooth connectivity, a speaker, light sensors, and line sensors.
The robot can be controlled and programmed from a PC in Python using the Myro package developed at Bryn Mawr (included with the robot).
It is all part of our new curriculum for CS-1 centered on a robot context. The new textbook is also available online at our website.
Posted March 7, 2008 at 8:38 PM in Quotations | Comments Off
Of personal relevance: Keep true to the dreams of your youth.
Of professional relevance: Set the right example. It will inspire others.
Posted March 4, 2008 at 2:22 AM in Web Standards, Work | Comments (3)
Right now, the Web Standards community is celebrating. After weeks of telling us otherwise, Microsoft has announced that IE8 will enable standards mode by default.
Like others, I’m very happy about this change and I applaud Microsoft for reversing their decision. However there’s something bothering me about their latest statement…
Developers who want their pages shown using IE8’s “IE7 Standards mode” will need to request that explicitly (using the http header/meta tag approach described here).
You see, originally Microsoft wanted us to add an HTTP header or META tag in order to indicate that a page was compliant with the latest-and-greatest standards mode; now that we get that mode by default, we don’t need the header/tag — except to explicitly indicate that we want the older, IE7-like standards mode.
Don’t see the loophole yet? If you work for a big company that’s not quite so Web Standards savvy, you might. The loophole is that there’s nothing in IE8 that’s going to force anyone to upgrade their code! While you, dear Standards-abiding designer/developer, want this opportunity to clean up your site and trash the old code, The Man is going to tell you that there’s no point investing in this change and they’re going to point you to the HTTP header/META tag solution.
So, now is the time to begin strategizing — how are you going to convince your boss(es) that an IE8 code refresh is necessary? Also, how do you plan to support IE8 and IE7, and possibly even IE6 and IE5.5?
Go ahead and start the party without me… I need to work this one out first.
Hi, my name is Kimberly Blessing. I'm a computer scientist, Web developer, standards evangelist, feminist, and geek. This is where I write about life, the Web, technology, women's issues, and whatever else comes to mind.
