salt and lemon, with a pinch of css

The Future of the web

admin — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:12:48 +0000

I’m looking forward to seeing Sir Tim Berners-Lee tomorrow at NESTA speak about ‘The future of the web’. The event will be webcast live from the NESTA website. For sure there will also be much tweeting via @innovationedge, too.

I look forward to meeting some of Steve Bridger’s friends - please come a say hello.

WordPress 2.5.1 upgrade

admin — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:40:29 +0000

It was time to sit down and concentrate on the inevitable WordPress upgrade. I always have to dedicate a couple of hours to this task, to allow time for any fixes.

I was looking forward to the upgrade as I knew that there’s been a facelift to the 2.5 interface but my first problem was encountered when I was just about to hit the ‘upgrade wordpress’ link and read the message:

‘Database Upgrade Required
Your WordPress database is out-of-date, and must be upgraded before you can continue.’

Followed by the link ‘Update Wordpress’

My database is out of date? Does this mean I’m not running the required version of mySQL? This confusion meant that I couldn’t carry on with the upgrade straightaway. A message to my hosting provider and to the Wordpress forum and a couple of hours later I was up and running.

The problem was to do with the wording of the message. ‘Your database will be upgraded now…’ or ‘Your database is out of date but you nearly there, just follow the link ‘upgrade wordpress” would have been much clearer. Usability confusion.

Next time I upgrade I will know what it means!

IE8 to ship in standards mode

admin — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:21:07 +0000

Microsoft has announced its decision to ship IE8 in standards mode.

Aaron Gustafson created great controversy on his A List Apart article ‘Beyond the Doctype: web standards, forward compatibility, and IE8′, which led to hundreds of comments against the idea that a meta tag should be used to render IE8 in the new standards mode:

I think MS realised the huge implications for business the new change was going to make. For now we can relax and wait for the inevitable problems ahead that IE8 will bring.

Lost properties: Sitepoint to the rescue

admin — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:30:57 +0000

It’s good to see the guys (Tommy Olsson and Paul O’Brien) at SitePoint launching a new CSS quick guide reference. This comes with a browser compatibility table and comments by users. Already becoming a popular resource. Well done guys!

Coffee break

admin — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:49:51 +0000

I can’t do without coffee; I get my best ideas when I’m sipping a cup of good coffee. Fair trade coffee.

If you are still not convinced of either the quality or the ethics of fair trade products, you might want to think about it during Fair Trade Fortnight.

It was an real eye-opener to watch Black Gold, a film I highly recommend, which creates awareness where the coffee we consume in the west originates from, and the small but significant difference to coffee growers we can all make as individuals.