About the meta IE8 switching tag

Everybody who’s anybody in the standards worlds has had their say in it already. Now it’s my turn, d*** it! It was kind of weird to see Zeldman, Meyer and PPK all agree on something that seems it would have to be appalling to standardistas, in the same way table layouts and font tags do: it separates one browser (or environment) from another.

There have been various points made in the heated discussion, and I consider all but some to be moot points. Let’s reiterate:

• The meta tag is harmless. If that’s the case, then so is the bold tag, since it can be styled in any way you like. Why is strong better? It has more meaning, and that serves the future of the web. But it doesn’t harm anyone, right? Correct. Still the idea of standards is not just to stick to standards for being pricks, but for helping the web to attain it’s full potential in the future.
• Forward Compatibility is no necessity. PPK went as far to say “if the world is not according to your theory, you should change your theory, not the world.” This may be true for quantum dynamics or brain chemistry, but for things we can actually influence the reverse is true. If my car is broken I don’t invent a theory that redefines my car, I just have my car fixed, so I just change reality. Face it: forward compatibility is such an important concept to users that it’s not even mentioned in software specifications. Users expect it, where backwards compatibility is often broken, sometimes even without workarounds or fixes. Look at the file formats of Access 2.0, 95, 97, 2000, 2003, XP. But I can still open a MS Access 2.0 file in MS Access XP!!! And there are workarounds for converting from the old to the new format. Now try to save your HTML page e.g. which uses CSS, XHTML, JavaScript into HTML2.0 format and keep everything working the same way. This doesn’t work, and hardly anyone expects it to work. Nevertheless, the standards movement has helped this issue a lot. I can now disable styles on many websites and keep a functional site or appllication.
• It’s the best of all evils. How could this ‘solution’ possibly be the best if it means again the burden of complying is with the developers, instead of with Microsoft? I’d like to elaborate on this part:

Let’s make a comparison chart of possible solutions:

	Meta Tag	Server Config	Browser Setting	Branched Version
Burden on	Web Developers	Sys Admin	Sys Admin/End user	Vendor
Backward compat.	Partial	Yes	Yes	No
Forward compat.	Partial	Yes	Yes	Yes

I have seen solutions being brought forward that would involve changes for the web developers or sysadmins of intranets. From experience I can tell that this is hardly feasible. The Meta Tag solution is similar, though it doesn’t actually require the change, it’s always optional.

I am in favor of the branched version for several reasons: not only is it a solution that is completely transparent to current internet developers (only intranet admins would download it), it’s also an easy to deploy solution. In the scenario of a browser setting, a user could accidentally have ‘IE6-mode’ switched on, giving support guys and girls all over the world a headache. The server config has to accomodate not just IIS, but any server software in the world. Hardly a good choice, however it’s possible when it’s just a header to be sent. Still, it’s a lot more fiddling then deploying software, something intranet sysadmins are very familiar with.To conclude, in my opinion we should leave the current standards aware environment as we have developed over the past years in it’s status quo: if you’re not a standards aware developer, and your publis internet site fails it’s rendering, it’s your own fault, and you should fix it! If you’re on a user limited intranet, there are more options, since you don’t have to render correctly in all browsers.

See also: the original post on the IE blog

A good plugin these days is hard to find…

But maybe these links will help you!

• WordPress Plugin Database
  good plugins are hard to find. Databases help!
  (tags: plugins wordpress plugin blog tools blogging wp blogs)
• Another WordPress Plugins Database
  good plugins are hard to find (part II). Databases help
  (tags: wordpress plugins plugin database reference blog list blogging)
• WordPress Email Notification Plugin – Watershed Studio, LLC
  not really RSS, but easy to use notifications.
  (tags: wordpress email notification)

mootools tooltips and calendar

• 40+ Tooltips Scripts With AJAX, JavaScript & CSS | Developer’s Toolbox | Smashing Magazine
  tooltips! so hard to choose!
  (tags: ajax javascript css tooltips webdesign tooltip design webdev)
• Tooltips from AJAX, DOM nodes or inline attributes contents — e-magine

  • A physics model of a physics model
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  • Facebook limits you at 5000 friends
  • Will Readability 2.0 change the web?
  • Why is writing for the web difficult?
  • Why I don’t like the Facebook Like button
  • Cybernetic Programming
  • Adventures in XML land: combining Excel, XML, HTML and JavaScript
  • Rubik’s cube Average formula in Excel
  • Convert Excel date value to SQL date
  • How to remove duplicates from a list
  • How to ruin your website in 10 steps
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  • The Real Sixth Sense – digital meets real life
  • education and CGO
  • How to save the planet
  • Blog Action Day
  • Excellent resource for IE6 bug solving
  • A dead simple, lightweight javascript calendar
  • Awesome list of mootools resources
  • Safe Drinking Water For Everyone, I mean Everyone
  • Orion graduated
  • 5 breakthrough technologies that will go mainstream in 5 years
  • TypePad AntiSpam
  • Stack Overflow
  • my second first ping.fm message
  • my first ping.fm message
  • Automating science itself
  • 10 worst Microsoft Excel practices
  • How to shuffle an array
  • Javascript floating point fix
  • Convert Excel Tables To Lists
  • State of the World
  • JavaScript arrays, functions and objects
  • sIFR reloaded
  • New design
  • Finding Possible Cube PLL Algorithms using an Anagram Finder
  • The world is in trouble, why?
  • The wampapache service terminated with service-specific error 1 (0×1)
  • Stealing music videos from youtube
  • The javascript Date object and how to add days to a date variable
  • Convert simple text to diagrams
  • Yes, we can!
  • Yahoo, winner or loser?
  • Open source project management – learn for free
  • Optimal cube algorithms
  • I hate software provider lock-in
  • Yet Another Pretty Date JavaScript
  • Can you solve it?
  • IE NetRenderer – Browser Compatibility Check
  • Where to get older versions of Adobe software
  • Overview of services that monitor uptime of your website
  • Do a full background check on anyone in the US
  • Virtual presentations and conferences
  • Why do people always want more, and keep this merry-go-round spinning?
  • OTOY Video Demo Video
  • Baby on board
  • MarkMail – a great way of keeping track of mailing lists without subscribing
  • Show delicious bookmarks as screenshots and browse them by dragging
  • Browse to any site in the world, even when your country is blocked
  • Fed up with the TOEFL failures
  • CodePress – Real Time Syntax Highlighting Editor written in JavaScript
  • Internet connection is back
  • E-commerce standard field names every shopping cart developer should know
  • YUI dependencies
  • Tag your world with barcodes that hook to wikipedia
  • Taffy DB – an offline javascript database
  • Sun provides FREE Ajax Course
  • How to create a Class
  • a very useful WordPress plugin to include stuff in pages
  • Contact Form WordPress Plugins
  • some oosefool mootools goodies
  • fancyupload – A cool flash uploader with progress bar
  • How to find out if a variable has been defined
  • How to base64 encode in javascript
  • Design For the Other 90% | Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
  • Joran’s confession
  • About the meta IE8 switching tag
  • A good plugin these days is hard to find…
  • mootools tooltips and calendar
  • Magento – Home – Open Source eCommerce Evolved
  • CSS Gradient Text Effect
  • automatically convert into a robot-crawlable CV
  • this is a very good tutorial on DOM scripting
  • How To Solve a Rubik’s Cube
  • Stupid htaccess Tricks
  • Theme restored
  • vacation-web-cams
  • Happy 2008 to everyone!
  • Merry Christmas
  • The Challenges of HTML Email
  • fun with images: vector magic and google chart api
  • how to download all flickr photos and metadata
  • 27 ways to keep your PC absolutely safe and secure
  • Natalee, can you pass me the spam please?
  • Terrifying? Not really.
  • Compare fuel consumption
  • Rubik’s championships
  • Find out when new software releases come out
  • How to find the length of a string
  • Funniest writing in lolcat
  • NFB is not so blind friendly itself
  • How to solve any problem
  • google video converter
  • Source code
  • convert google video to avi – or any type actually
  • Bush the next American Idol?
  • Busy fighting spam, viruses and spyware
  • More free software, a lot more…
  • These people RULE! (literally)
  • How to find free software on the internet
  • Savannah
  • Yahoo not only good at JavaScript, now they do Flash too
  • gotoAndLearn(Flash)
  • Simple idea, amazing technology: smart picture resizing
  • Full WEB 2.0 API List | Tech Magazine
  • How to make JavaScript tabs
  • The Top Ten Open Source Actionscript Tools – Tuesday Creative
  • Some nice open source flash tools
  • hosting providers offering SSH
  • online service using javascript to integrate ratings, comments
  • You Can Get Arrested for That!? Weird laws in the US
  • shopping for open source
  • videos from the source: Microsoft tutorials on Visual Basic .NET
  • CSS, buttons and links
  • the longest place name in the world
  • huge list of web development tools
  • Rendering, logos and kids programming away
  • float:center
  • cool depiction of of the web 2.0 world
  • CSS for XML in Firefox
  • A site created completely in the kitchen
  • Toot tone – no need to fart anymore
  • confessions, lies and secrets for all
  • font heaven: sIFR tools
  • now what is the font used in this image?
  • Awesome domain tools
  • rubik’s cube tutorial
  • mobile site emulator and APIs
  • Dynamic Markup Language Home Page
  • Natalee Holloway just walked out?
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  • how to validate a date in javascript
  • sIFR documentation. The only page you need.
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  • Website update
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  • “The List”
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  • Fighting spam
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  • floating forms
  • FireFox and the endless growing select (impossible resize)
  • Speedcubing tip
  • Sub 19!
  • sub20!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Using cross browser transparant PNG’s
  • Some pictures of WC 2005
  • Impression of WC2005
  • JavaScript goodies
  • Made the front page
  • Things I have been addicted to
  • Unfinished business
  • This is us
  • Welcome to another place of mine on the web
  And here’s a tooltip that integrates with MooTools. Just what the doctor ordered.
  (tags: ajax javascript mootools tooltips tooltip css)
• Calendar: a Javascript class for Mootools that adds accessible and unobtrusive date pickers to your form elements
  An excellent alternative to the current DHTML calendar
  (tags: javascript calendar mootools datepicker ajax webdesign css webdev)

Magento – Home – Open Source eCommerce Evolved

• Magento – Home – Open Source eCommerce Evolved
  I thought I would never see this: an open source e-commerce system, written on LAMP, and totally web standards compliant. Go take a hike, osCommerce and zenCart!
  (tags: ecommerce opensource php e-commerce CMS shopping business)
  And in other frivolous news:
• Mousetrap Technology – Times Online – WBLG: Game over? Scrabble takes on Scrabulous
  Oh no! Don’t take down my favorite game online (next to scramble). The facebook copyright story….
  (tags: games Scrabble facebook Scrabulous)

CSS Gradient Text Effect

• CSS Gradient Text Effect
  Interesting technique, though at work the lead designer has something against gradients. I don’t know why…
  (tags: css text design gradient webdesign techniques html graphics)

automatically convert into a robot-crawlable CV

• http://hresume.weblogswork.com/hresumecreator/
  excellent. I have to create a lot of pages on ‘about us’ sections. And then it’s nice when these sections automatically convert into a robot-crawlable CV.
  (tags: microformats resume hresume tools cv xml web2.0 generator)

this is a very good tutorial on DOM scripting

• this is a very good tutorial on DOM scripting, It is in Dutch though, yes, that weird language
  (tags: tutorial dom script scripting javascript xhtml)
• This is one of the fastests ways to create buttons for the web.
  Since they already look like web2.0 buttons, no need to change anything. If I’d need a custom button I’d fire up Photoshop anyway.
  (tags: button web2 generator Web2.0 webdesign Design tools Graphics)

How To Solve a Rubik’s Cube

“Great beginners guide to solving the Rubik’s Cube. Has step by step instruction with animation and images. Now you can solve any old cube laying around and impress your friends.”

I wish I understood Digg. I don’t see how this pretty standard tutorial on howtodothings.com is so much better than other ones (mine? Boohoo I didn’t get dugg).

read more | digg story

Stupid htaccess Tricks

• Stupid htaccess Tricks • Perishable Press
  I will have to plan a rainy Sunday for this (doesn’t happen a lot on Aruba though).
  (tags: htaccess tricks server unix linux)

Theme restored

I removed the Christmas theme today. I am happy to be back at my original ‘Connections’ theme.