Archive for March, 2007

Operator for Firefox 2

Operator is a Microformats detection toolbar for Firefox 2. The toolbar makes developing and using microformats much easier and more intuitive. You could export hCard data on any Microformatted page to standard vCard format by selecting it in the toolbar, no copy & paste necessary. And hCalendars could be exported in a similar fashion to your favourite calendar package. Here's a good introductory piece on Operator by Alex Faaborg, a User Experience Designer working on Firefox 3.Microformats are growning in prominence and the Mozilla team is hot on it's tail. Most of the functionality you see in Operator now is likely to be part of the Firefox 3 core!

18th Mar 2007 | Comments (0)

What are Microformats?

To start with, here's my stab at a Microformats definition:"Microformats are bits of code you add to your XHTML markup to define a piece of text and by doing so you make that bit of text semantic."

As you could see it doesn't make much sense to the average punter. When I first looked into Microformats I noticed the apparent lack of good definitions. After further reading I could see why. Microformats are not easily defined in simple words due to the diversity of the concept, but in practise it's very simple. Therefore the best way to teach someone Microformats is to show them some code.

Take a quick look at this simple Microformats hCard:

<div id="hcard-Ca-Phun-Ung" class="vcard">
  <div class="fn">Ca Phun Ung</div>
  <div class="org">Yelotofu</div>
  <div class="email">harvest-me@yelotofu.com</div>
  <div class="adr">
    <div class="street-address">X Street</div>
    <div class="country-name">Hong Kong</div>
  </div>
  <div class="tel">+852 xxxx xxxx</div>
</div>

And the output looks like this

Ca Phun Ung
Yelotofu
harvest-me@yelotofu.com
X Street
Hong Kong
+852 xxxx xxxx

It doesn't look like much on the surface but that's the whole point, Microformats do not interfer with your sites layout or typography. In essence, it's much like XML but because we're dealing with XHTML, self-defined tags are not supported so the class attribute is used instead.

Microformats are an intriguing progression towards the Semantic Web. This is an area I'm very much interested in so will continue to post my findings as I learn and progress along the Microformats highway. Stay tuned!

15th Mar 2007 | Comments (0)

Browser testing: How do you do it?

Andy Clarke, the author of Transcending CSS, started an interesting discussion on CSS Browser Testing Order. It's surprising how we more or less test in the same order. I place Windows XP first though as I'm primarily a windows user and my clients are usually on Windows too.My CSS browser testing order

Firefox / Opera on Win XP
Internet Explorer 7 on Win XP
Safari / Firefox on OSX
Netscape 7 & 8 on Win XP
Internet Explorer 6 on Win XP

I don't usually worry about browsers older than those listed above unless the client has a specific requirement. I've also found that Safari renders as if it were a cross between Firefox & Opera on Windows XP, so if it looks good in both browsers it should look near perfect in Safari on OSX.

As you may well have noticed, IE6 is last. The rule of the game is to test your browsers in order of most compliant then work around the lesser compliant ones and even use a hack or two for those that refuse to obeyâ€”namely IE6. If you test your work with this mindset, browser testing would never be a nightmare and may even be fun! Well, sometimes fun.

This testing order is by no means a rule of thumb, it's just the way that works for me. I'd be interested to hear how you do it.

14th Mar 2007 | Comments (0)

Rails-like PHP Framework

There are two Rails-like PHP frameworks gaining momentum and amounting a zealous following, both of which have recently gone stable.Symfony and CakePHP, written in pure PHP follow the same MVC (Model, View, Constroller) architecture found on Rails. They've gone at lengths to make it easy and intuitive to use and provide scaffolding tools, buit-in AJAX support and I18n support. The good news for PHP developers is that you only need to learn a new framework not a whole new language! Believe me, I've been there and done that. At one point I was learning Ruby on Rails, I've even got the book to prove it! I'd love to start learning it again though, but as with all things, free time is a priviledge I do not have.

Last but not least, there is the Zend Framework. Though it's still in preview release it's set to become the best PHP framework of all time and will change the way we PHP developers build web applications. From what I've heard it's aimed at being Rails-like too and requires PHP 5. It promises to be all things and cater for everyone. I've got my eyes set on this one!

7th Mar 2007 | Comments (0)

Hong Kong soon a “Wi-Fi city”

The Financial Secretary of Hong Kong, Henry Tang, announced his 2007-08 Budget last week. He stated that due to Hong Kong's economic growth and excess revenue amounted from previous years the Government is adding measures to give back to its people, one of which is to invest HK$210 million (GBP 13.8 million) to provide free Wi-Fi access in public libraries, parks and government venues. There are about 1,000 free hotspots in HK currently and it's estimated that with this new investment it will increase to about 3,000!** On top of this Hong Kong has no shortage of premium serviced and non-government hotspots such as those you get at Starbucks and Pacific Coffee. Additionally PCCW launched its free Wi-Fi service at Chek Lap Kok Airport a.k.a. Hong Kong Int. Airport earlier this year with 100% coverage of the terminal.Soon, a Wi-Fi hotspot will never be more than a short walk away, Work from home would soon mean Work from Anywhere to me!

Time to find a comfy hotspot! Hotspot hunting here I come!

Articles that may be of interest: