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Stories and comments across the archive that link to w3.org.

Comments · 6,785

  1. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2 · on Linux Web Browsers Compared
    It does make me miss good Mozilla things, like tabbed browsing. I've also run into a number of pages that Konqueror does not handle all that well, but I'm not sure if its due to standards violations in those pages or in Konqueror.

    In situation like this, use the W3C HTML Validation Service. You can use this URI:

    http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI
    where URI is the URI of the page to validate. (well, duh..)

    I usually get tons of errors while validating most of pages, except for my own sites because I always use my web design rules so they have 0 errors and 0 warnings. But validate /. and you'll see that they haven't heard about my rules. ;)

    I sometimes send emails to webmasters with link to their website validation results, asking they to fix their errors when I can't use their websites. If you view any website which your Konqueror can't render, check out what HTML Validator says about it, and when you find any errors, send the link http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI to webmaster of this website, telling them that you can't access their broken website. That way they won't answer you that your browser is bad, because they website is broken in the first place. You can suggest them to use HTML TIDY to clean up the web pages.

    There's also a W3C CSS Validation Service, but errors in styles are usually less anoying than errors in HTML itself.

    Complaining to incompetent webmasters usually doesn't work, but it can help a lot when many people do that. It's the only way to change the current situation.

  2. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2 · on Linux Web Browsers Compared
    It does make me miss good Mozilla things, like tabbed browsing. I've also run into a number of pages that Konqueror does not handle all that well, but I'm not sure if its due to standards violations in those pages or in Konqueror.

    In situation like this, use the W3C HTML Validation Service. You can use this URI:

    http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI
    where URI is the URI of the page to validate. (well, duh..)

    I usually get tons of errors while validating most of pages, except for my own sites because I always use my web design rules so they have 0 errors and 0 warnings. But validate /. and you'll see that they haven't heard about my rules. ;)

    I sometimes send emails to webmasters with link to their website validation results, asking they to fix their errors when I can't use their websites. If you view any website which your Konqueror can't render, check out what HTML Validator says about it, and when you find any errors, send the link http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI to webmaster of this website, telling them that you can't access their broken website. That way they won't answer you that your browser is bad, because they website is broken in the first place. You can suggest them to use HTML TIDY to clean up the web pages.

    There's also a W3C CSS Validation Service, but errors in styles are usually less anoying than errors in HTML itself.

    Complaining to incompetent webmasters usually doesn't work, but it can help a lot when many people do that. It's the only way to change the current situation.

  3. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2 · on Linux Web Browsers Compared
    It does make me miss good Mozilla things, like tabbed browsing. I've also run into a number of pages that Konqueror does not handle all that well, but I'm not sure if its due to standards violations in those pages or in Konqueror.

    In situation like this, use the W3C HTML Validation Service. You can use this URI:

    http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI
    where URI is the URI of the page to validate. (well, duh..)

    I usually get tons of errors while validating most of pages, except for my own sites because I always use my web design rules so they have 0 errors and 0 warnings. But validate /. and you'll see that they haven't heard about my rules. ;)

    I sometimes send emails to webmasters with link to their website validation results, asking they to fix their errors when I can't use their websites. If you view any website which your Konqueror can't render, check out what HTML Validator says about it, and when you find any errors, send the link http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI to webmaster of this website, telling them that you can't access their broken website. That way they won't answer you that your browser is bad, because they website is broken in the first place. You can suggest them to use HTML TIDY to clean up the web pages.

    There's also a W3C CSS Validation Service, but errors in styles are usually less anoying than errors in HTML itself.

    Complaining to incompetent webmasters usually doesn't work, but it can help a lot when many people do that. It's the only way to change the current situation.

  4. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2 · on Linux Web Browsers Compared
    It does make me miss good Mozilla things, like tabbed browsing. I've also run into a number of pages that Konqueror does not handle all that well, but I'm not sure if its due to standards violations in those pages or in Konqueror.

    In situation like this, use the W3C HTML Validation Service. You can use this URI:

    http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI
    where URI is the URI of the page to validate. (well, duh..)

    I usually get tons of errors while validating most of pages, except for my own sites because I always use my web design rules so they have 0 errors and 0 warnings. But validate /. and you'll see that they haven't heard about my rules. ;)

    I sometimes send emails to webmasters with link to their website validation results, asking they to fix their errors when I can't use their websites. If you view any website which your Konqueror can't render, check out what HTML Validator says about it, and when you find any errors, send the link http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI to webmaster of this website, telling them that you can't access their broken website. That way they won't answer you that your browser is bad, because they website is broken in the first place. You can suggest them to use HTML TIDY to clean up the web pages.

    There's also a W3C CSS Validation Service, but errors in styles are usually less anoying than errors in HTML itself.

    Complaining to incompetent webmasters usually doesn't work, but it can help a lot when many people do that. It's the only way to change the current situation.

  5. Re:Front page cache? by J'raxis · · Score: 1 · on Announcing Slashdot Subscriptions

    Yes:

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 20:46:23 GMT
    Server: Apache/1.3.20 (Unix) mod_perl/1.25 mod_gzip/1.3.19.1a
    SLASH_LOG_DATA: shtml
    X-Powered-By: Slash 2.003000
    X-Fry: I refuse to testify on the grounds that my organs will be chopped up into a patty.
    Cache-Control: private
    Pragma: private
    Connection: close
    Content-Type: text/html
    Considering the site is dynamic, this is proper standard behaviour, however I cannot help thinking that using up your subscription as easily as possible is the reason theyre doing it Slashdot is not exactly known for its standards compliance.

  6. Re:It's happened already! by chris_7d0h · · Score: 1 · on ESR Says as PCs Get Cheaper, Windows Will Die
    ..and SlashDot* does support creation of links, in order to avoid the copy-paste syndrome.

    * a ripp-off name of MS. DotNet, waiting to get it's owners sued.

  7. Good Web Design is Hollistic Design by Calum+I+Mac+Leod · · Score: 2, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    Web site design needs a lot of different things, Information architecture & usability, HTML & XHTML, CSS & implementation bugs, search engine ideas and keyword research, Web server techniques & content management, deeziner discussion & tech discussion, good practices & sucky practices.

    I could go on. My point is that you can either be a half-hearted jack-of-all-trades, or do the Web a favour and pick something, learn to understand it and collaborate with people who have complimentary skills.

    Of course a Web site is no use if no one visits it. A link from the /. home page is a good start.

    Calum

  8. Good Web Design is Hollistic Design by Calum+I+Mac+Leod · · Score: 2, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    Web site design needs a lot of different things, Information architecture & usability, HTML & XHTML, CSS & implementation bugs, search engine ideas and keyword research, Web server techniques & content management, deeziner discussion & tech discussion, good practices & sucky practices.

    I could go on. My point is that you can either be a half-hearted jack-of-all-trades, or do the Web a favour and pick something, learn to understand it and collaborate with people who have complimentary skills.

    Of course a Web site is no use if no one visits it. A link from the /. home page is a good start.

    Calum

  9. Good Web Design is Hollistic Design by Calum+I+Mac+Leod · · Score: 2, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    Web site design needs a lot of different things, Information architecture & usability, HTML & XHTML, CSS & implementation bugs, search engine ideas and keyword research, Web server techniques & content management, deeziner discussion & tech discussion, good practices & sucky practices.

    I could go on. My point is that you can either be a half-hearted jack-of-all-trades, or do the Web a favour and pick something, learn to understand it and collaborate with people who have complimentary skills.

    Of course a Web site is no use if no one visits it. A link from the /. home page is a good start.

    Calum

  10. W3C WAI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    It looks like this is going to get buried under the barrage of other posts, but I thought it worth mentioning anyway: go check out W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative. They have a list of guidelines and checkpoints for making sure your web site can be read by the widest possible range of users.

  11. Re:My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    Great advice.
    Thanks.
    "Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices."

    Too bad your email info was too cryptic for me to add you to my little virtual rolodex of cool people. Maybe that was your intent all along.

    You mean that

    contact shiny at key dot salt after cracking crypt(3)'ed "plfeY04jaJnYI"

    is too cryptic? Or you mean it's too crypt(3)'ic, as a joke? I ask because it would be a very good joke, in my opinion.

    Anyway, I'm afraid that's all I can say... I have to keep my identity in secret, otherwise the phrase "very affordable prices" could be used against me.

    But to brake the encryption, feel free to use this program, Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker version 3.1.9:

    #!/usr/bin/perl
    #
    # Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker v3.1.9
    #
    # Copyright (C) 2001,2002 shiny@key.salt (shiny@output)
    # http://slashdot.org/~Shiny+Metal+S./
    #
    # This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
    # modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
    # as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
    # of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
    #
    # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
    # GNU General Public License for more details.
    #
    # You should have received a copy of the GNU General
    # Public License along with this program;
    # if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
    # 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
    #
    $x=substr$q,q,0,,q,2,if$q=q,plfeY04jaJnYI,;for
    (++$_..$_<<3){qq,$q,eq crypt$_,$x and die
    qq,$_.$x,for q,a,x$_..q,z,x$_}

    When you do, just contact shiny@output. This program is free software released under the GPL (which is (the version from 2002-02-28 08:06:10 +0100 last modified on 2001-07-15 13:13:30 +0200) valid HTML 3.2 and valid HTML 4.01 Transitional (except DOCTYPE which says HTML 2.0 and Character Encoding which is undefined)). Let me know when you find this program useful or otherwise valuable to the community.

  12. Re:My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    Great advice.
    Thanks.
    "Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices."

    Too bad your email info was too cryptic for me to add you to my little virtual rolodex of cool people. Maybe that was your intent all along.

    You mean that

    contact shiny at key dot salt after cracking crypt(3)'ed "plfeY04jaJnYI"

    is too cryptic? Or you mean it's too crypt(3)'ic, as a joke? I ask because it would be a very good joke, in my opinion.

    Anyway, I'm afraid that's all I can say... I have to keep my identity in secret, otherwise the phrase "very affordable prices" could be used against me.

    But to brake the encryption, feel free to use this program, Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker version 3.1.9:

    #!/usr/bin/perl
    #
    # Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker v3.1.9
    #
    # Copyright (C) 2001,2002 shiny@key.salt (shiny@output)
    # http://slashdot.org/~Shiny+Metal+S./
    #
    # This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
    # modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
    # as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
    # of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
    #
    # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
    # GNU General Public License for more details.
    #
    # You should have received a copy of the GNU General
    # Public License along with this program;
    # if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
    # 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
    #
    $x=substr$q,q,0,,q,2,if$q=q,plfeY04jaJnYI,;for
    (++$_..$_<<3){qq,$q,eq crypt$_,$x and die
    qq,$_.$x,for q,a,x$_..q,z,x$_}

    When you do, just contact shiny@output. This program is free software released under the GPL (which is (the version from 2002-02-28 08:06:10 +0100 last modified on 2001-07-15 13:13:30 +0200) valid HTML 3.2 and valid HTML 4.01 Transitional (except DOCTYPE which says HTML 2.0 and Character Encoding which is undefined)). Let me know when you find this program useful or otherwise valuable to the community.

  13. Re:My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    Damn, that was a good post. I'm keeping a copy of it.

    Thanks, that's nice to hear. :) I'm keeping a copy too, and maybe one day I'll make a website from it. It's good to know that people actually find it interesting. These are all important things, but unfortunately most of web designers don't care about them. When my Lynx or Galeon can't render a website which I absolutely have to see (and it's the only place with the information I need), I can always use Netscape and everything is fine (except for microsoft.com which usually crash my Netscape for some reason). But there are people who can't use Netscape or Internet Explorer on their Braille terminal or speech synthesiser and they are effectively unable to use most of the Web. That's very sad. We have 21st century, all the informations they need are there on-line, but they can't reach them because of web designers ignorance. There are no borders for them other than ignorance of web designers.

    Web Pages That Suck is a great site for learning about good design through bad design.

    Very good one, I didn't know it before. It reminded me ESR's HTML Hell Page: How not to design junk Web pages. I see it has changed a lot in the last few years since I last saw it. Now there are many things from my post (or maybe in my post there are many things from HTML Hell), but I'll still tell you about it even if it makes my comment less insightful. ;) So, the HTML Hell Page is surely worth reading, there are also links to other similar websites:

    Here's a list of gripes similar to this one. And there's a fine rant about web page design by C. J. Silverio. Horrible Examples of bad technique are listed at Web Pages That Suck. Jakob Nielsen's column Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design is very good. The Yale Style Guide is worth reading.

    I haven't seen all of the above links yet, but I'm sure they're interesting.

    Regarding disabled access, try Bobbie as your automatic checker.

    Thanks. I knew about it, but I forgot the name. It's a great tool. But there's one thing I don't like about Bobby, it's the license:

    "No Reverse Engineering. Licensee shall not modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Licensed Software or documentation therefor, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation. Licensee shall not remove, obscure, or alter any copyright notices, trademark notices, or other proprietary rights notices affixed to or contained within the Licensed Software or documentation."

    "License Fee. Licensee shall pay CAST or its designee a license fee for each simultaneous user of the Licensed Software ("Single User License Fee") or each server on which it shall install the Licensed Software ("Server License Fee") as set forth at http://www.cast.org/bobby/DownloadBobby316.cfm."

    They say on the main page:

    "Bobby was created by CAST to help Web page authors identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities."

    "Center for Applied Special Technology, CAST is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through innovative uses of computer technology."

    "Above, you can test a Web page using our server version of Bobby Worldwide. This server version gives you a preview of the downloadable version of Bobby Worldwide."

    But the downloadable version costs:

    Single User copy: $99.00
    Site License of server version: $3,000.00 per server
    Multiple server site license: $2,000.00 per server for 5 or more servers

    I think it's exactly the kind of software which should be released as a free software. Yes, I'm a free software freak, so in my opinion every software is exactly the kind of software which should be released as a free software...

    But this is software made by "a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through innovative uses of computer technology".

    I could tell my employer:
    -- Hey, maybe we could install Bobby on the servers?
    -- What's that?
    -- It's a program to expand opportunities for people with disabilities.
    -- Does it cost anything?
    -- It's free-as-in-beer.
    -- Sure, why not.
    but when I tell him that it'll cost him $3k per server... You know what the answer would be even if we only need a single user copy for 100 bucks.

    Bobby would serve its purpose much better if it was released as a free software. I'd be proud to contribute patches to Bobby, as I'm sure would lots of other people, and best of all, much more people would use Bobby. If there is any place for proprietary software, it's not software which "was created [...] to help [...] identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities."

    In other words: great idea, fatal license.

    Keep graphics content (hence download time) low, and always compress images using Gifbot or something similar.

    Good point, it's a very important thing which I didn't say about at all. I noticed that I wait the same time for the average website to load today on 768kb/s DSL, as I waited few years ago on 28.8kb/s modem.

    I didn't know Gifbot. It's great, because people who don't understand the image compression techniques (i.e. most of people making personal webpages) can improve ther graphics and save time and bandwidth. It only lacks PNG output which is important to me, not only because of the GIF problems, but because it's a great format, even recommended by The World Wide Web Consortium and it has Adam7 interlacing feature for great progressive loading on slow connections, very good for the WWW (see this image or this one if your connection is to fast to notice the effect), read more about Adam7 interlacing on stl.caltech.edu Introduction to PNG.

    What I would add about the graphics is to first of all, always use JPEG for photographs, and always use PNG for computer generated graphics (logos, headers, text, screenshots). Of course there are sitiations when it's better to use PNG for photo or JPEG for something generated (like rendered landscapes), but for most of situations (especially for usual homepages) this rule works great: JPEG for photos, PNG for logos.

    People sometimes use JPEG for flat few-color logos, which looks terrible on the hard edges and solid color areas. People also (however not so often) use PNG or GIF to save photos, and they are ten times larger than JPEG of the same quality.

    My personal choice for editing web graphics is The Gimp, it's a great tool especially for web designing purposes. It has a great JPEG saving dialog, where you can set different quality values and see the real-time preview, so you can save at the lowest quality (highest compression) when you don't see the difference, You can also set subsampling type or DCT method and restart markers for more advanced users.

    I almost forgot! See the Cooltext.com:

    "Cooltext.com is an online graphics generator for web pages and anywhere else you might need an impressive logo without a lot of work. We provides real-time generation of graphics customized exactly the way you want them.

    Simply choose what kind of image you would like to create. Then, fill out a form and you'll have your own images created on the fly.

    Cooltext.com will always be available for use free of charge."

    They use Gimp as the backend so it's a great introduction to Gimp power as a web graphics authoring tool. Everyone should check out Cooltext, you can make great logos in few seconds. Great for lazy webmasters who want to have nice websites with no effort. Great preview of Gimp.

    Speaking about the software, another great tool I use daily is ImageMagick. The best set of programs I've seen for conversion, optimizing and compression of lots of pictures at the same time. Once I used it to automatically scale, stretch contrast, add logos, compress and save over 10,000 pictures. It took over two days to my PC back then, but it was two days of rest for me. It would've taken me weeks if I'd had to do it manually.

    Important links: PNG home, PNG at W3C, JPEG home, JPEG at W3C, The Gimp, Cooltext, ImageMagick.

    Great, I wrote another comment for ten screens, while I should work instead... But what can I do, when I have a subject which is one of the main areas of my interest? Actually I didn't realize that I have so much to say about web design, maybe I should write a book, teach or something... It reminds me a funny situation I had few months ago:

    A friend of mine phoned me once and asked:
    -- Tell me, how do you make websites?
    I saw all of my life scrolling before my eyes. I was trying to figure out where to start my answer, and after ten seconds of my silence, he said:
    -- But hurry up, I'm using a cell phone.
    Here I started to laugh like a mad man, and I couldn't explain him why I laughed when he kept asking me, because I couldn't stop laughing.

    He really thought that I could explain everything to him in few minutes... Later I told him, that I had been learning how to make websites for many years, and now he's proud that he's the man who asked me to summarize many years of my life in few minutes. I tried to give him few books but he thought it'd be faster and even when I suggested Netscape Composer, it wasn't worth the effort for him... :) Great story, I always laugh when I remember it.

    That's about it. I say again, Damn that was a good post. 5++ (Moderators please mod original post up).

    Thanks once again. It's good to know that there's someone who likes it more than the moderators. :)

    From the last minute: I just found The greatest WWW page ever!

  14. Re:My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    Damn, that was a good post. I'm keeping a copy of it.

    Thanks, that's nice to hear. :) I'm keeping a copy too, and maybe one day I'll make a website from it. It's good to know that people actually find it interesting. These are all important things, but unfortunately most of web designers don't care about them. When my Lynx or Galeon can't render a website which I absolutely have to see (and it's the only place with the information I need), I can always use Netscape and everything is fine (except for microsoft.com which usually crash my Netscape for some reason). But there are people who can't use Netscape or Internet Explorer on their Braille terminal or speech synthesiser and they are effectively unable to use most of the Web. That's very sad. We have 21st century, all the informations they need are there on-line, but they can't reach them because of web designers ignorance. There are no borders for them other than ignorance of web designers.

    Web Pages That Suck is a great site for learning about good design through bad design.

    Very good one, I didn't know it before. It reminded me ESR's HTML Hell Page: How not to design junk Web pages. I see it has changed a lot in the last few years since I last saw it. Now there are many things from my post (or maybe in my post there are many things from HTML Hell), but I'll still tell you about it even if it makes my comment less insightful. ;) So, the HTML Hell Page is surely worth reading, there are also links to other similar websites:

    Here's a list of gripes similar to this one. And there's a fine rant about web page design by C. J. Silverio. Horrible Examples of bad technique are listed at Web Pages That Suck. Jakob Nielsen's column Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design is very good. The Yale Style Guide is worth reading.

    I haven't seen all of the above links yet, but I'm sure they're interesting.

    Regarding disabled access, try Bobbie as your automatic checker.

    Thanks. I knew about it, but I forgot the name. It's a great tool. But there's one thing I don't like about Bobby, it's the license:

    "No Reverse Engineering. Licensee shall not modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Licensed Software or documentation therefor, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation. Licensee shall not remove, obscure, or alter any copyright notices, trademark notices, or other proprietary rights notices affixed to or contained within the Licensed Software or documentation."

    "License Fee. Licensee shall pay CAST or its designee a license fee for each simultaneous user of the Licensed Software ("Single User License Fee") or each server on which it shall install the Licensed Software ("Server License Fee") as set forth at http://www.cast.org/bobby/DownloadBobby316.cfm."

    They say on the main page:

    "Bobby was created by CAST to help Web page authors identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities."

    "Center for Applied Special Technology, CAST is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through innovative uses of computer technology."

    "Above, you can test a Web page using our server version of Bobby Worldwide. This server version gives you a preview of the downloadable version of Bobby Worldwide."

    But the downloadable version costs:

    Single User copy: $99.00
    Site License of server version: $3,000.00 per server
    Multiple server site license: $2,000.00 per server for 5 or more servers

    I think it's exactly the kind of software which should be released as a free software. Yes, I'm a free software freak, so in my opinion every software is exactly the kind of software which should be released as a free software...

    But this is software made by "a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through innovative uses of computer technology".

    I could tell my employer:
    -- Hey, maybe we could install Bobby on the servers?
    -- What's that?
    -- It's a program to expand opportunities for people with disabilities.
    -- Does it cost anything?
    -- It's free-as-in-beer.
    -- Sure, why not.
    but when I tell him that it'll cost him $3k per server... You know what the answer would be even if we only need a single user copy for 100 bucks.

    Bobby would serve its purpose much better if it was released as a free software. I'd be proud to contribute patches to Bobby, as I'm sure would lots of other people, and best of all, much more people would use Bobby. If there is any place for proprietary software, it's not software which "was created [...] to help [...] identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities."

    In other words: great idea, fatal license.

    Keep graphics content (hence download time) low, and always compress images using Gifbot or something similar.

    Good point, it's a very important thing which I didn't say about at all. I noticed that I wait the same time for the average website to load today on 768kb/s DSL, as I waited few years ago on 28.8kb/s modem.

    I didn't know Gifbot. It's great, because people who don't understand the image compression techniques (i.e. most of people making personal webpages) can improve ther graphics and save time and bandwidth. It only lacks PNG output which is important to me, not only because of the GIF problems, but because it's a great format, even recommended by The World Wide Web Consortium and it has Adam7 interlacing feature for great progressive loading on slow connections, very good for the WWW (see this image or this one if your connection is to fast to notice the effect), read more about Adam7 interlacing on stl.caltech.edu Introduction to PNG.

    What I would add about the graphics is to first of all, always use JPEG for photographs, and always use PNG for computer generated graphics (logos, headers, text, screenshots). Of course there are sitiations when it's better to use PNG for photo or JPEG for something generated (like rendered landscapes), but for most of situations (especially for usual homepages) this rule works great: JPEG for photos, PNG for logos.

    People sometimes use JPEG for flat few-color logos, which looks terrible on the hard edges and solid color areas. People also (however not so often) use PNG or GIF to save photos, and they are ten times larger than JPEG of the same quality.

    My personal choice for editing web graphics is The Gimp, it's a great tool especially for web designing purposes. It has a great JPEG saving dialog, where you can set different quality values and see the real-time preview, so you can save at the lowest quality (highest compression) when you don't see the difference, You can also set subsampling type or DCT method and restart markers for more advanced users.

    I almost forgot! See the Cooltext.com:

    "Cooltext.com is an online graphics generator for web pages and anywhere else you might need an impressive logo without a lot of work. We provides real-time generation of graphics customized exactly the way you want them.

    Simply choose what kind of image you would like to create. Then, fill out a form and you'll have your own images created on the fly.

    Cooltext.com will always be available for use free of charge."

    They use Gimp as the backend so it's a great introduction to Gimp power as a web graphics authoring tool. Everyone should check out Cooltext, you can make great logos in few seconds. Great for lazy webmasters who want to have nice websites with no effort. Great preview of Gimp.

    Speaking about the software, another great tool I use daily is ImageMagick. The best set of programs I've seen for conversion, optimizing and compression of lots of pictures at the same time. Once I used it to automatically scale, stretch contrast, add logos, compress and save over 10,000 pictures. It took over two days to my PC back then, but it was two days of rest for me. It would've taken me weeks if I'd had to do it manually.

    Important links: PNG home, PNG at W3C, JPEG home, JPEG at W3C, The Gimp, Cooltext, ImageMagick.

    Great, I wrote another comment for ten screens, while I should work instead... But what can I do, when I have a subject which is one of the main areas of my interest? Actually I didn't realize that I have so much to say about web design, maybe I should write a book, teach or something... It reminds me a funny situation I had few months ago:

    A friend of mine phoned me once and asked:
    -- Tell me, how do you make websites?
    I saw all of my life scrolling before my eyes. I was trying to figure out where to start my answer, and after ten seconds of my silence, he said:
    -- But hurry up, I'm using a cell phone.
    Here I started to laugh like a mad man, and I couldn't explain him why I laughed when he kept asking me, because I couldn't stop laughing.

    He really thought that I could explain everything to him in few minutes... Later I told him, that I had been learning how to make websites for many years, and now he's proud that he's the man who asked me to summarize many years of my life in few minutes. I tried to give him few books but he thought it'd be faster and even when I suggested Netscape Composer, it wasn't worth the effort for him... :) Great story, I always laugh when I remember it.

    That's about it. I say again, Damn that was a good post. 5++ (Moderators please mod original post up).

    Thanks once again. It's good to know that there's someone who likes it more than the moderators. :)

    From the last minute: I just found The greatest WWW page ever!

  15. Re:My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    Damn, that was a good post. I'm keeping a copy of it.

    Thanks, that's nice to hear. :) I'm keeping a copy too, and maybe one day I'll make a website from it. It's good to know that people actually find it interesting. These are all important things, but unfortunately most of web designers don't care about them. When my Lynx or Galeon can't render a website which I absolutely have to see (and it's the only place with the information I need), I can always use Netscape and everything is fine (except for microsoft.com which usually crash my Netscape for some reason). But there are people who can't use Netscape or Internet Explorer on their Braille terminal or speech synthesiser and they are effectively unable to use most of the Web. That's very sad. We have 21st century, all the informations they need are there on-line, but they can't reach them because of web designers ignorance. There are no borders for them other than ignorance of web designers.

    Web Pages That Suck is a great site for learning about good design through bad design.

    Very good one, I didn't know it before. It reminded me ESR's HTML Hell Page: How not to design junk Web pages. I see it has changed a lot in the last few years since I last saw it. Now there are many things from my post (or maybe in my post there are many things from HTML Hell), but I'll still tell you about it even if it makes my comment less insightful. ;) So, the HTML Hell Page is surely worth reading, there are also links to other similar websites:

    Here's a list of gripes similar to this one. And there's a fine rant about web page design by C. J. Silverio. Horrible Examples of bad technique are listed at Web Pages That Suck. Jakob Nielsen's column Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design is very good. The Yale Style Guide is worth reading.

    I haven't seen all of the above links yet, but I'm sure they're interesting.

    Regarding disabled access, try Bobbie as your automatic checker.

    Thanks. I knew about it, but I forgot the name. It's a great tool. But there's one thing I don't like about Bobby, it's the license:

    "No Reverse Engineering. Licensee shall not modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Licensed Software or documentation therefor, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation. Licensee shall not remove, obscure, or alter any copyright notices, trademark notices, or other proprietary rights notices affixed to or contained within the Licensed Software or documentation."

    "License Fee. Licensee shall pay CAST or its designee a license fee for each simultaneous user of the Licensed Software ("Single User License Fee") or each server on which it shall install the Licensed Software ("Server License Fee") as set forth at http://www.cast.org/bobby/DownloadBobby316.cfm."

    They say on the main page:

    "Bobby was created by CAST to help Web page authors identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities."

    "Center for Applied Special Technology, CAST is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through innovative uses of computer technology."

    "Above, you can test a Web page using our server version of Bobby Worldwide. This server version gives you a preview of the downloadable version of Bobby Worldwide."

    But the downloadable version costs:

    Single User copy: $99.00
    Site License of server version: $3,000.00 per server
    Multiple server site license: $2,000.00 per server for 5 or more servers

    I think it's exactly the kind of software which should be released as a free software. Yes, I'm a free software freak, so in my opinion every software is exactly the kind of software which should be released as a free software...

    But this is software made by "a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through innovative uses of computer technology".

    I could tell my employer:
    -- Hey, maybe we could install Bobby on the servers?
    -- What's that?
    -- It's a program to expand opportunities for people with disabilities.
    -- Does it cost anything?
    -- It's free-as-in-beer.
    -- Sure, why not.
    but when I tell him that it'll cost him $3k per server... You know what the answer would be even if we only need a single user copy for 100 bucks.

    Bobby would serve its purpose much better if it was released as a free software. I'd be proud to contribute patches to Bobby, as I'm sure would lots of other people, and best of all, much more people would use Bobby. If there is any place for proprietary software, it's not software which "was created [...] to help [...] identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities."

    In other words: great idea, fatal license.

    Keep graphics content (hence download time) low, and always compress images using Gifbot or something similar.

    Good point, it's a very important thing which I didn't say about at all. I noticed that I wait the same time for the average website to load today on 768kb/s DSL, as I waited few years ago on 28.8kb/s modem.

    I didn't know Gifbot. It's great, because people who don't understand the image compression techniques (i.e. most of people making personal webpages) can improve ther graphics and save time and bandwidth. It only lacks PNG output which is important to me, not only because of the GIF problems, but because it's a great format, even recommended by The World Wide Web Consortium and it has Adam7 interlacing feature for great progressive loading on slow connections, very good for the WWW (see this image or this one if your connection is to fast to notice the effect), read more about Adam7 interlacing on stl.caltech.edu Introduction to PNG.

    What I would add about the graphics is to first of all, always use JPEG for photographs, and always use PNG for computer generated graphics (logos, headers, text, screenshots). Of course there are sitiations when it's better to use PNG for photo or JPEG for something generated (like rendered landscapes), but for most of situations (especially for usual homepages) this rule works great: JPEG for photos, PNG for logos.

    People sometimes use JPEG for flat few-color logos, which looks terrible on the hard edges and solid color areas. People also (however not so often) use PNG or GIF to save photos, and they are ten times larger than JPEG of the same quality.

    My personal choice for editing web graphics is The Gimp, it's a great tool especially for web designing purposes. It has a great JPEG saving dialog, where you can set different quality values and see the real-time preview, so you can save at the lowest quality (highest compression) when you don't see the difference, You can also set subsampling type or DCT method and restart markers for more advanced users.

    I almost forgot! See the Cooltext.com:

    "Cooltext.com is an online graphics generator for web pages and anywhere else you might need an impressive logo without a lot of work. We provides real-time generation of graphics customized exactly the way you want them.

    Simply choose what kind of image you would like to create. Then, fill out a form and you'll have your own images created on the fly.

    Cooltext.com will always be available for use free of charge."

    They use Gimp as the backend so it's a great introduction to Gimp power as a web graphics authoring tool. Everyone should check out Cooltext, you can make great logos in few seconds. Great for lazy webmasters who want to have nice websites with no effort. Great preview of Gimp.

    Speaking about the software, another great tool I use daily is ImageMagick. The best set of programs I've seen for conversion, optimizing and compression of lots of pictures at the same time. Once I used it to automatically scale, stretch contrast, add logos, compress and save over 10,000 pictures. It took over two days to my PC back then, but it was two days of rest for me. It would've taken me weeks if I'd had to do it manually.

    Important links: PNG home, PNG at W3C, JPEG home, JPEG at W3C, The Gimp, Cooltext, ImageMagick.

    Great, I wrote another comment for ten screens, while I should work instead... But what can I do, when I have a subject which is one of the main areas of my interest? Actually I didn't realize that I have so much to say about web design, maybe I should write a book, teach or something... It reminds me a funny situation I had few months ago:

    A friend of mine phoned me once and asked:
    -- Tell me, how do you make websites?
    I saw all of my life scrolling before my eyes. I was trying to figure out where to start my answer, and after ten seconds of my silence, he said:
    -- But hurry up, I'm using a cell phone.
    Here I started to laugh like a mad man, and I couldn't explain him why I laughed when he kept asking me, because I couldn't stop laughing.

    He really thought that I could explain everything to him in few minutes... Later I told him, that I had been learning how to make websites for many years, and now he's proud that he's the man who asked me to summarize many years of my life in few minutes. I tried to give him few books but he thought it'd be faster and even when I suggested Netscape Composer, it wasn't worth the effort for him... :) Great story, I always laugh when I remember it.

    That's about it. I say again, Damn that was a good post. 5++ (Moderators please mod original post up).

    Thanks once again. It's good to know that there's someone who likes it more than the moderators. :)

    From the last minute: I just found The greatest WWW page ever!

  16. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines by Viqsi · · Score: 1 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    One good idea might be to double-check whatever you end up doing against the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines; you can find them here. They've got a lot of good practices to follow there.

    . o O ("Look, Daddy, I can karma whore!" "That's nice, honey.")

  17. Listen [and don't listen] to the w3c by /Idiot\ · · Score: 1 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    The w3c have the good oil on the technical end of things, but they have some shocking design, if you don't believe me, see shockers like:

    http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/#xhtml-basic

    Oh, and don't talk to me about their bad links!

  18. My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    At the risk of being redundant, I'll tell you everything what I find important.
    • Content

      If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

    • Animations

      Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

    • Valid HTML

      Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

    • HTML is not a typesetting language

      HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

    • <NOSCRIPT> tags

      The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

      (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

      If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

    • Remember about other browsers than yours

      If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

    • Remember about people with disabilities

      See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

      "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

      People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

    • Colors

      Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Fonts

      Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • User defaults

      You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

      Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

    • Accept-Language

      If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

      D.2.4 Accept-Language

      The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

      It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
    • See good websites and learn from them

    • Try to learn from the good old books

      Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Hire an expert, like me

      Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

    This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).
  19. My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    At the risk of being redundant, I'll tell you everything what I find important.
    • Content

      If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

    • Animations

      Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

    • Valid HTML

      Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

    • HTML is not a typesetting language

      HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

    • <NOSCRIPT> tags

      The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

      (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

      If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

    • Remember about other browsers than yours

      If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

    • Remember about people with disabilities

      See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

      "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

      People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

    • Colors

      Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Fonts

      Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • User defaults

      You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

      Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

    • Accept-Language

      If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

      D.2.4 Accept-Language

      The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

      It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
    • See good websites and learn from them

    • Try to learn from the good old books

      Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Hire an expert, like me

      Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

    This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).
  20. My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    At the risk of being redundant, I'll tell you everything what I find important.
    • Content

      If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

    • Animations

      Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

    • Valid HTML

      Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

    • HTML is not a typesetting language

      HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

    • <NOSCRIPT> tags

      The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

      (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

      If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

    • Remember about other browsers than yours

      If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

    • Remember about people with disabilities

      See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

      "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

      People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

    • Colors

      Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Fonts

      Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • User defaults

      You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

      Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

    • Accept-Language

      If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

      D.2.4 Accept-Language

      The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

      It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
    • See good websites and learn from them

    • Try to learn from the good old books

      Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Hire an expert, like me

      Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

    This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).
  21. My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    At the risk of being redundant, I'll tell you everything what I find important.
    • Content

      If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

    • Animations

      Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

    • Valid HTML

      Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

    • HTML is not a typesetting language

      HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

    • <NOSCRIPT> tags

      The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

      (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

      If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

    • Remember about other browsers than yours

      If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

    • Remember about people with disabilities

      See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

      "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

      People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

    • Colors

      Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Fonts

      Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • User defaults

      You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

      Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

    • Accept-Language

      If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

      D.2.4 Accept-Language

      The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

      It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
    • See good websites and learn from them

    • Try to learn from the good old books

      Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Hire an expert, like me

      Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

    This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).
  22. My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    At the risk of being redundant, I'll tell you everything what I find important.
    • Content

      If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

    • Animations

      Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

    • Valid HTML

      Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

    • HTML is not a typesetting language

      HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

    • <NOSCRIPT> tags

      The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

      (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

      If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

    • Remember about other browsers than yours

      If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

    • Remember about people with disabilities

      See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

      "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

      People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

    • Colors

      Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Fonts

      Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • User defaults

      You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

      Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

    • Accept-Language

      If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

      D.2.4 Accept-Language

      The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

      It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
    • See good websites and learn from them

    • Try to learn from the good old books

      Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Hire an expert, like me

      Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

    This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).
  23. My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    At the risk of being redundant, I'll tell you everything what I find important.
    • Content

      If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

    • Animations

      Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

    • Valid HTML

      Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

    • HTML is not a typesetting language

      HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

    • <NOSCRIPT> tags

      The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

      (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

      If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

    • Remember about other browsers than yours

      If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

    • Remember about people with disabilities

      See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

      "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

      People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

    • Colors

      Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Fonts

      Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • User defaults

      You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

      Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

    • Accept-Language

      If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

      D.2.4 Accept-Language

      The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

      It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
    • See good websites and learn from them

    • Try to learn from the good old books

      Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Hire an expert, like me

      Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

    This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).
  24. My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    At the risk of being redundant, I'll tell you everything what I find important.
    • Content

      If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

    • Animations

      Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

    • Valid HTML

      Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

    • HTML is not a typesetting language

      HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

    • <NOSCRIPT> tags

      The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

      (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

      If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

    • Remember about other browsers than yours

      If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

    • Remember about people with disabilities

      See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

      "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

      People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

    • Colors

      Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Fonts

      Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • User defaults

      You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

      Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

    • Accept-Language

      If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

      D.2.4 Accept-Language

      The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

      It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
    • See good websites and learn from them

    • Try to learn from the good old books

      Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Hire an expert, like me

      Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

    This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).
  25. My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    At the risk of being redundant, I'll tell you everything what I find important.
    • Content

      If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

    • Animations

      Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

    • Valid HTML

      Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

    • HTML is not a typesetting language

      HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

    • <NOSCRIPT> tags

      The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

      (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

      If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

    • Remember about other browsers than yours

      If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

    • Remember about people with disabilities

      See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

      "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

      People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

    • Colors

      Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Fonts

      Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • User defaults

      You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

      Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

    • Accept-Language

      If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

      D.2.4 Accept-Language

      The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

      It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
    • See good websites and learn from them

    • Try to learn from the good old books

      Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Hire an expert, like me

      Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

    This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).
  26. My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    At the risk of being redundant, I'll tell you everything what I find important.
    • Content

      If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

    • Animations

      Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

    • Valid HTML

      Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

    • HTML is not a typesetting language

      HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

    • <NOSCRIPT> tags

      The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

      (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

      If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

    • Remember about other browsers than yours

      If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

    • Remember about people with disabilities

      See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

      "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

      People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

    • Colors

      Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Fonts

      Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • User defaults

      You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

      Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

    • Accept-Language

      If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

      D.2.4 Accept-Language

      The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

      It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
    • See good websites and learn from them

    • Try to learn from the good old books

      Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Hire an expert, like me

      Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

    This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).
  27. My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    At the risk of being redundant, I'll tell you everything what I find important.
    • Content

      If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

    • Animations

      Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

    • Valid HTML

      Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

    • HTML is not a typesetting language

      HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

    • <NOSCRIPT> tags

      The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

      (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

      If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

    • Remember about other browsers than yours

      If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

    • Remember about people with disabilities

      See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

      "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

      People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

    • Colors

      Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Fonts

      Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • User defaults

      You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

      Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

    • Accept-Language

      If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

      D.2.4 Accept-Language

      The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

      It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
    • See good websites and learn from them

    • Try to learn from the good old books

      Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Hire an expert, like me

      Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

    This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).
  28. My own web design rules by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?
    At the risk of being redundant, I'll tell you everything what I find important.
    • Content

      If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

    • Animations

      Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

    • Valid HTML

      Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

    • HTML is not a typesetting language

      HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

    • <NOSCRIPT> tags

      The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

      (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

      If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

    • Remember about other browsers than yours

      If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

    • Remember about people with disabilities

      See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

      "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

      People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

    • Colors

      Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Fonts

      Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • User defaults

      You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

      Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

    • Accept-Language

      If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

      D.2.4 Accept-Language

      The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

      It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
    • See good websites and learn from them

    • Try to learn from the good old books

      Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

    • Hire an expert, like me

      Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

    This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).
  29. Subjective by hether · · Score: 3, Insightful · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    Let me say one thing first, the Wow Web Designs site is NOT a good example of web site design. Look at it in Opera and see for yourself how nice the dark blue links look on the dark brown background. Yuck. Try turning the images off. Almost none of them have alt tags.

    Good web site design is subjective. What one person considers good to look at, another won't. Some people actually like those huge flashing animated gifs they put on web sites. Do what you like if its a personal site. If its commercial and you're doing it for a client, then of course do whatever the clients like.

    That aside, I know I might be rehashing a lot of other people's comments, but here are a few of the things I keep in mind when designing sites:

    - Conforms to the W3C accessibility guidelines and validates (HTML, CSS, etc.) If your site does this, it will cover a lot of the other bases and cut down on problems. Also try running your site through Bobby at http://www.cast.org/Bobby/

    - Doesn't use unnecessary graphics or flash. When you have a site about art, movies, or other topics that lend themselves to heavy graphics or when you want to show off something, like a product or your campus - use the images and make sure they're nice ones. In most cases tons of graphics and fancy flash things aren't necessary and just contribute to download time.

    - Looks acceptable on as many browsers as possible. It might not look identical on all, but there isn't anything that's illegible on an older or non-traditional version. Try a site like Any Browser's Site Viewerthat will show you what your site looks like on using other browsers, or older versions of HTML support.

    - Dynamic Content is important if you want to bring visitors back. They come to your site once, find what they want and never come back again unless your content changes. On the same note, when they get there the content must be up to date on things that are timely, like events information

    - Make sure the site downloads fast - most importantly the front page. I now have a 24kbps connection at home and realize just how important this one is.

    I guess those are my main ones. I won't get into all the others because so many people have covered them on here already.

    This site - Any Browser and this site Software QA Test have testing tools that may be of some use to you.

    I'd give you some examples of my work, but I really can't afford for for any of my sites to be slashdotted right now.

  30. Don't Forget Accessability : Section 504 by notCNE · · Score: 1 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    The next major worry for corperate web designers will be accessability -- making pages viewable for persons with disabilities. There are several different browsing methods available for physically and mentally handicapped persons. For the most part, they depend on text-only or well-defined HTML pages.

    Up until the 9-11 attacks, the U.S. Gov't was feeling the pinch of updating their pages for accessability. Pretty soon public universities will be mandated by the gov't to make their pages accessable under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

    And very soon after that, corperations will start getting sued by different disabilities groups for not making their web pages accessable according to Section 504.

    Check out W3C's Web Accessability Initiative for a starting place.

  31. Take a step back by Fweeky · · Score: 2 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    All this talk of simplicity, avoiding flash etc is all well and good, but don't loose sight of the basics when you're coming up with your design.

    Look at your URI namespace; think about what it means; go read about what it means, don't just choose names arbitarily or you'll find you break them in no time. Do your users really need to know all your content is served by index.php? Does that really mean anything outside Apache? If not, remove it; go mod_rewrite it away and when you find you need to move to Java or C# or /bin/sh you can make sure nobody notices. No worrying about 404's, no waiting for search engines to catch on, and if you're lucky and/or smart, you'll get nice clean meaningful URL's the user won't be scared of. Cool URI's Don't Change, and they mean the same to everyone.

    Always remember that HTML is a semantic markup; a <h1> tag, for instance, defines a HEADING, it doesn't define a larger font or anything else; on an aural browser it'll be read in a slightly different tone or gender of voice, on a PDA where space is limited it may just be a different colour, or displayed indented, or any of 1001 different things. With XHTML and CSS2 you can accept all this and still have decent control over how your site looks and lays out on the devices you do know about. A great way to see this in action now is to play with turning off navigation elements, and even things like making copyright notices bigger for print media (@media print { .. } in CSS2); excellent for publishing documents on a site without making multiple versions AND without dropping the niceties of your site.

    Make use of the semantic structure of HTML; surround abbreviations with <abbr>, use title="" attributes to give links and even arbitrary areas of text descriptions; these things add to the user experience and provides them with the rich set of information hypertext was always supposed to without you needing to worry about crap like DHTML bubble windows; they're standard parts of the browser.

    A nice technique for design is to develop your HTML from XHTML 1.1 Strict (think: HTML 2.0 in XML). Build up a meaninful document and surround all the logical sections in <div>'s, then you can use CSS to move them around; you'll probably find a nice natural layout magically appears.

    Er. Better stop now ;)

  32. Take a step back by Fweeky · · Score: 2 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    All this talk of simplicity, avoiding flash etc is all well and good, but don't loose sight of the basics when you're coming up with your design.

    Look at your URI namespace; think about what it means; go read about what it means, don't just choose names arbitarily or you'll find you break them in no time. Do your users really need to know all your content is served by index.php? Does that really mean anything outside Apache? If not, remove it; go mod_rewrite it away and when you find you need to move to Java or C# or /bin/sh you can make sure nobody notices. No worrying about 404's, no waiting for search engines to catch on, and if you're lucky and/or smart, you'll get nice clean meaningful URL's the user won't be scared of. Cool URI's Don't Change, and they mean the same to everyone.

    Always remember that HTML is a semantic markup; a <h1> tag, for instance, defines a HEADING, it doesn't define a larger font or anything else; on an aural browser it'll be read in a slightly different tone or gender of voice, on a PDA where space is limited it may just be a different colour, or displayed indented, or any of 1001 different things. With XHTML and CSS2 you can accept all this and still have decent control over how your site looks and lays out on the devices you do know about. A great way to see this in action now is to play with turning off navigation elements, and even things like making copyright notices bigger for print media (@media print { .. } in CSS2); excellent for publishing documents on a site without making multiple versions AND without dropping the niceties of your site.

    Make use of the semantic structure of HTML; surround abbreviations with <abbr>, use title="" attributes to give links and even arbitrary areas of text descriptions; these things add to the user experience and provides them with the rich set of information hypertext was always supposed to without you needing to worry about crap like DHTML bubble windows; they're standard parts of the browser.

    A nice technique for design is to develop your HTML from XHTML 1.1 Strict (think: HTML 2.0 in XML). Build up a meaninful document and surround all the logical sections in <div>'s, then you can use CSS to move them around; you'll probably find a nice natural layout magically appears.

    Er. Better stop now ;)

  33. Just look at the top sites on the web. by NeoCode · · Score: 1 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    All you have to do is to look at the most popular sites on the web. And they are popular for a reason. Good content, easy user interface, quick navigation etc etc etc.

    The best way to do this might very well be the W3C standard described here. Renowned usability guru Jakob Nielsen's site. He has TONS of information on how to design a site effectively. And maybe the most obvious thing to look at is the comaprisons between the top 10 sites on the net including yahoo, msn, google, disney etc (sorry, slashdot is not on the list). It compares the most basic parts of a website (colours, links, navigation bar etc). This gist of it all is, keep is as simple, clean and easy to use as you can possibly make it.

  34. Valid HTML by alanwj · · Score: 1 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    Whatever you do, please try to use some form of valid HTML. You can very easily verify that your HTML is valid using the W3C Validator.

    What is valid HTML? I suggest you check out The Web Design Group web page for extremely useful information on the topic. Also, the W3C web site has the definative specifications of HTML. Don't get tricked into thinking your WSIWYG editor is going to give you anything even close to resembling a valid HTML document. If you are even remotely seriously about doing a good job, you owe it to yourself to learn the standards.

    At this point I would normally insert the comment that knowing the difference between valid HTML and invalid garbage marks the difference between a professional and a kid in a basement with FrontPage, but unfortunately the kids in the basements are producing more valid documents.


    Yes, not many sites use valid HTML, but that is their problem. Don't make it yours. As an analogy -- a whole lot of big name commericial software products contain buffer overflow exploits, but that doesn't mean you should be lax about letting them into your code.

    Finally. Design your content first, then make the web site fit the content. NEVER make the content fit the page, or all you will wind up with is a fancy (usually broken) design that ultimately just wastes everyone's time.

    Alan

  35. Valid HTML by alanwj · · Score: 1 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    Whatever you do, please try to use some form of valid HTML. You can very easily verify that your HTML is valid using the W3C Validator.

    What is valid HTML? I suggest you check out The Web Design Group web page for extremely useful information on the topic. Also, the W3C web site has the definative specifications of HTML. Don't get tricked into thinking your WSIWYG editor is going to give you anything even close to resembling a valid HTML document. If you are even remotely seriously about doing a good job, you owe it to yourself to learn the standards.

    At this point I would normally insert the comment that knowing the difference between valid HTML and invalid garbage marks the difference between a professional and a kid in a basement with FrontPage, but unfortunately the kids in the basements are producing more valid documents.


    Yes, not many sites use valid HTML, but that is their problem. Don't make it yours. As an analogy -- a whole lot of big name commericial software products contain buffer overflow exploits, but that doesn't mean you should be lax about letting them into your code.

    Finally. Design your content first, then make the web site fit the content. NEVER make the content fit the page, or all you will wind up with is a fancy (usually broken) design that ultimately just wastes everyone's time.

    Alan

  36. W3C compliancy by AmiNTT · · Score: 1 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    I strongly believe in 100% W3C compliant web design. Its what the company I am employed with specializes in. It reduces bloat and increases the number of people who can view your site.

    Its simple to follow once you get into the hang of it, and you won't get any (justified) emails from users saying that the site doesn't work on their browser.

  37. Re:Most Important Criteria by flyfishin · · Score: 0 · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

    The cross-platform criteria would also include writing to w3 standards. Instead of testing your website on every possible browser simply write to the standards.

  38. MPEG is not a W3C activity by Ankh · · Score: 1 · on W3C Revises Patent Royalty Policy

    MPEG is an ISO activity, not a W3C one. As far as I can tell, ISO (International Organization for Standardization, not an acronym, www.iso.ch) doesn't have a patent policy a sfar as I am aware.

    Since I work at W3C, and since this is public information, I can tell you that no, the W3C has never wanted to publish specifications (recommendations) that are encumbered by patents or royalties. However, we don't have any authority over the MPEG committee.

    (I am Liam Quin, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin; I am in the XML activity and not directly involved in the patent policy group, so send comments about that to the public list not to me.)

  39. Re:Microsoft's Choice of Protocols for .NET by bartling · · Score: 1 · on HTTP's Days Numbered

    Don Box had a major hand in coming up with the SOAP protocol (http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/). He just recently joined MS. More info at http://www.donbox.com/rumors2.htm. I've seen him bashing on SOAP as of late, which I find somewhat interesting.

    -- chris --

  40. Re:Yeah, but by notfancy · · Score: 2, Informative · on HTTP's Days Numbered

    I quote in full, because the lack of understanding of this Box "guru" guy is appalling:

    Another problem with HTTP [...] is that it is asymmetric. "Only one entity can initiate an exchange over HTTP, the other entity is passive, and can only respond. For peer-to-peer applications this is not really suitable," [...] programmers create hacks to get the limitations of the protocol [...] "It's all hackery, it's all ad-hoc and none of it is interoperable,".

    Last things first, to clear the path: a blatant comission of the sin of conflation (a.k.a. bait-and-switch)! What does interoperability have to do with tomatoes? I guess it's a disclaimer for future incompatibilities ("hey, we already told you, HTTP is not interoperable").

    Then, either I slept through all my classes on Networking, or the guy doesn't really know what he's talking about. You don't need to be Apache to be an HTTP server, the code to be a modest but fully HTTP/1.0 compliant server is not much more than the code needed to be a modest but fully HTTP/1.0 compliant client. So the issue of symmetry is more one of implementation than anything else. P2P is about roles (who's the initiator and who's the responder, as opposed to who's the client and who the server), not code (how do I write the initiating side and the responder side). Anyway, it's obvious that the code implementing the functions defining both roles will be different; otherwise, initiating wouldn't be any different from responding from the operational point of view and thus indistinguishable at any given moment. Let me stress this point: you have to be able to determine the direction of the flow at any given moment in time, even when talking about P2P protocols. It makes no sense to ask for a resource by sending it.

    Among the problems with HTTP [...] is the fact that it is a Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol; something that one program [...] uses to request a service from another program located in another computer

    HTTP is not an RPC protocol, it's a file transfer protocol (as a quick perusal of RFC 2616, Section 5 will show). Anything built on top of that will be, by definition, a hack. So why so much grief?

    Indeed, you can type a GET request as application/x-rpc-call or anysuch, and pass parameters on the URI. But it's cheating, isn't it? So why is using HTTP as a P2P protocol "a hack"? This is a non-issue.

    Lastly:

    This works for small transactions asking for Web pages, but when Web services start running transactions that take some time to complete over the protocol, the model fails. "If it takes three minutes for a response, it is not really HTTP any more, [...] I need a way to send a request to a server and not the get result for five days."

    Well, he's right on this count. But he doesn't know (or doesn't tell) why: as defined by the standard, HTTP is an application-level protocol. You can't build upon it, it's level-7, top of the stack, period. If you build upon it, you're breaking the ISO/OSI model. But aren't cookies a way to implement sessions on top of HTTP? Well, yes and no. Aren't cookies a hack? Of course. Why can't you use something like that to implement IOUs or tickets or return thunks or any other model for delayed responses? Because it would be a hack. Yes, but no more a hack than the eminently acceptable (and widely accepted) cookie hack. You can always reify state (including the result in a RPC); cookies just are a proxy for a lazily reified state.

    I'm mystified (and angry) at the lack of understanding the article evidences.

  41. Re:Yeah, but by notfancy · · Score: 2, Informative · on HTTP's Days Numbered

    I quote in full, because the lack of understanding of this Box "guru" guy is appalling:

    Another problem with HTTP [...] is that it is asymmetric. "Only one entity can initiate an exchange over HTTP, the other entity is passive, and can only respond. For peer-to-peer applications this is not really suitable," [...] programmers create hacks to get the limitations of the protocol [...] "It's all hackery, it's all ad-hoc and none of it is interoperable,".

    Last things first, to clear the path: a blatant comission of the sin of conflation (a.k.a. bait-and-switch)! What does interoperability have to do with tomatoes? I guess it's a disclaimer for future incompatibilities ("hey, we already told you, HTTP is not interoperable").

    Then, either I slept through all my classes on Networking, or the guy doesn't really know what he's talking about. You don't need to be Apache to be an HTTP server, the code to be a modest but fully HTTP/1.0 compliant server is not much more than the code needed to be a modest but fully HTTP/1.0 compliant client. So the issue of symmetry is more one of implementation than anything else. P2P is about roles (who's the initiator and who's the responder, as opposed to who's the client and who the server), not code (how do I write the initiating side and the responder side). Anyway, it's obvious that the code implementing the functions defining both roles will be different; otherwise, initiating wouldn't be any different from responding from the operational point of view and thus indistinguishable at any given moment. Let me stress this point: you have to be able to determine the direction of the flow at any given moment in time, even when talking about P2P protocols. It makes no sense to ask for a resource by sending it.

    Among the problems with HTTP [...] is the fact that it is a Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol; something that one program [...] uses to request a service from another program located in another computer

    HTTP is not an RPC protocol, it's a file transfer protocol (as a quick perusal of RFC 2616, Section 5 will show). Anything built on top of that will be, by definition, a hack. So why so much grief?

    Indeed, you can type a GET request as application/x-rpc-call or anysuch, and pass parameters on the URI. But it's cheating, isn't it? So why is using HTTP as a P2P protocol "a hack"? This is a non-issue.

    Lastly:

    This works for small transactions asking for Web pages, but when Web services start running transactions that take some time to complete over the protocol, the model fails. "If it takes three minutes for a response, it is not really HTTP any more, [...] I need a way to send a request to a server and not the get result for five days."

    Well, he's right on this count. But he doesn't know (or doesn't tell) why: as defined by the standard, HTTP is an application-level protocol. You can't build upon it, it's level-7, top of the stack, period. If you build upon it, you're breaking the ISO/OSI model. But aren't cookies a way to implement sessions on top of HTTP? Well, yes and no. Aren't cookies a hack? Of course. Why can't you use something like that to implement IOUs or tickets or return thunks or any other model for delayed responses? Because it would be a hack. Yes, but no more a hack than the eminently acceptable (and widely accepted) cookie hack. You can always reify state (including the result in a RPC); cookies just are a proxy for a lazily reified state.

    I'm mystified (and angry) at the lack of understanding the article evidences.

  42. Here we go again... by NOT-2-QUICK · · Score: 2, Offtopic · on W3C Revises Patent Royalty Policy

    It would appear that revisions of the W3C's patent policies is becoming a frequent task... As you can see here, W3C's patent practices were changed barely more that a month ago of January 24, 2002.

    Additionally, you can see what the Slashdot community had to say about it then in this article posting!!!

    Have fun...and I guess I'll see you all back here in about a month or so for the next revision... ;-)

  43. Re:Ancient Laws... by jesser · · Score: 2 · on Fighting Spam With A 17th Century Law

    Why not just use anti-cracking laws, laws against denial of service attacks, and laws that require (some?) sites to be reasonably usable by a blind person? Note that none of these laws are really "new" or specific to the tech world: there are "real-world" laws against breaking and entering with the intent to steal, breaking other people's toys, and building a store that is unnecessarily difficult for disabled people to navigate.

  44. Re:MIT? Nope - CERN. by damnbillgates · · Score: 1 · on Copyright Law for the Future: Control & Creativity

    perhaps he was thinking of the W3C or the semantic web, which has long been berners-lee's fantasy and a major effort at W3C. Or perhaps that was just a gore-ism.

  45. Re:MIT? Nope - CERN. by damnbillgates · · Score: 1 · on Copyright Law for the Future: Control & Creativity

    perhaps he was thinking of the W3C or the semantic web, which has long been berners-lee's fantasy and a major effort at W3C. Or perhaps that was just a gore-ism.

  46. Re:Navigation? by J.+Random+Software · · Score: 1 · on "The Matrix" Website Updated

    See the intrinsic events module for onchange. Remember that XML is case-sensitive, and that user agents may not implement any particular scripting language or have scripting enabled (due to a history of security and privacy exploits in the standard sub-standard browsers).

  47. Re:Nick Berners Lee made the WWW. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on CNET Interviews John Perry Barlow

    I think you mean Tim Berners-Lee.

  48. HTML as a Universal File Format by Khopesh · · Score: 2 · on Linux *Won't* Fail on the Desktop?

    HTML is not a "page-design" language."
    CSS, OTOH, does provide for specifying the positioning, style, etc. of printed documents

    CSS is part of HTML. From the W3C definition of CSS (in the abstract): "a simple style sheet mechanism that allows authors and readers to attach style (e.g. fonts, colors and spacing) to HTML documents."

    Here's the CSS clarifier for printed media. With absolute positioning, HTML/CSS basically becomes nearly as powerful as Adobe's PageMaker (except publishing ability).

    Recently, Mozilla's printing has improved to a level that actually makes this possible. All of my work processing is now done in a text editor with CSS and HTML. When I need to give a data copy to somebody, due to IE and NS4 still being used (they don't render CSS perfectly), I will print to Adobe's Acrobat PDFWriter in Mozilla and hand that person a PDF.

  49. HTML as a Universal File Format by Khopesh · · Score: 2 · on Linux *Won't* Fail on the Desktop?

    HTML is not a "page-design" language."
    CSS, OTOH, does provide for specifying the positioning, style, etc. of printed documents

    CSS is part of HTML. From the W3C definition of CSS (in the abstract): "a simple style sheet mechanism that allows authors and readers to attach style (e.g. fonts, colors and spacing) to HTML documents."

    Here's the CSS clarifier for printed media. With absolute positioning, HTML/CSS basically becomes nearly as powerful as Adobe's PageMaker (except publishing ability).

    Recently, Mozilla's printing has improved to a level that actually makes this possible. All of my work processing is now done in a text editor with CSS and HTML. When I need to give a data copy to somebody, due to IE and NS4 still being used (they don't render CSS perfectly), I will print to Adobe's Acrobat PDFWriter in Mozilla and hand that person a PDF.

  50. HTML as a Universal File Format by Khopesh · · Score: 2 · on Linux *Won't* Fail on the Desktop?

    HTML is not a "page-design" language."
    CSS, OTOH, does provide for specifying the positioning, style, etc. of printed documents

    CSS is part of HTML. From the W3C definition of CSS (in the abstract): "a simple style sheet mechanism that allows authors and readers to attach style (e.g. fonts, colors and spacing) to HTML documents."

    Here's the CSS clarifier for printed media. With absolute positioning, HTML/CSS basically becomes nearly as powerful as Adobe's PageMaker (except publishing ability).

    Recently, Mozilla's printing has improved to a level that actually makes this possible. All of my work processing is now done in a text editor with CSS and HTML. When I need to give a data copy to somebody, due to IE and NS4 still being used (they don't render CSS perfectly), I will print to Adobe's Acrobat PDFWriter in Mozilla and hand that person a PDF.