Miscellany
Miscellaneous articles
Why Bother With Web Standards?
Standards make things standard. I know it's an obvious statement but it's meant to be. The reasons for having standards should be obvious too. The web used to be designed for Netscape or Internet Explorer. You either designed to get the best for one browser or you designed a compromise to suit both. The other way around it was do two designs and set a javascript routine to sniff the browser and direct the use to the appropriate files. This is extra work and what happens if you decide to incorporate another browser into your design? Another set of files?
Enough is is enough. The nature of the web is changing. More and more portable devices are connecting to the net. Handheld computers and 3G phones are but 2 examples. Standards based web pages should display
quite adequately on these devices. Moving to a standards based design helps to future-proof your web site. There is also the issue of accessibility to consider. A standards based web site can be rendered by a speech based browser. By not having your web site accessible, you are not only shutting out part of your audience, you could also be breaking the law in some legal jurisdictions. Moving to a standards based design also helps web designers. As part of the redesign of this site, we separated out he content from the layout. The html files
contain the test and graphics. The layout is handled by cascading style sheets. The beauty of this approach is that if I want to change the look of the site, all I need to do is change the style sheet and voila... a new look site.
Rudd Government Propose Mandatory Filtering for ISPs
The Federal government has come good with one of the promises that is to introduce mandatory Internet filtering. They want to introduce what's called a "clean" feed. People will be able to opt out. But will it actually solve the problem?
Avoid the Attack of the Killer Virii
The nature of the computer virus has changed over the years. It used to be that the humble floppy disk was the vector for transmission. Now that has changed . The number one vector is email.
The Scourge of Spam
Spam used to just a nuisance. A little bit of junk email here and there. Hit delete and forget it. Now it is turning into a major headache. Some spam contains viruses. A lot is just plain fraud. The fraud ranges from spam proporting to be from your bank asking you to click a fake link to supply your net banking login and password, to the Nigerian scams, to advertising products that have doubtful claims.
The end of the line for Netscape
In a historic move, AOL has announced the end of the line for Netscape. Support for the browser will cease from the 1st of Feb, 2008.
