i am a camera

Special Pricing on Expression Studio

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:51:24 GMT

Nineteen months ago I wrote how I felt that Expression Studio is a better design value than the comparable Adobe suite. This price disparity still exists more than a year an a half since I wrote it. On Amazon.com, owners of Photoshop can upgrade to CS4 Web Premium for just $1290. Owners of any Expression product can upgrade to Expression Studio 2 for $330.

But the savings just got even better. US residents can take advantage of special holiday pricing at the Microsoft Store -- the price for Expression Studio 2 Upgrade is now $175 and the full Expression Studio 2 non-upgrade price is $350. These prices are for a limited time only.

But lest we focus on shopping this Christmas holiday, here's an audio clip from my son to all of us expressing the true meaning of Christmas.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

In the Spotlight Again

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:54:13 GMT

Fresh off the attention I received for my Vine Type website, Microsoft now spotlights ... me.

Community Spotlight Interview

Lori Dirks from the Microsoft Expression Team interviewed me for a new feature called Community Spotlight. I described the challenges I faced in switching from Photoshop to Expression Studio and shared my opinion concerning some general web design topics.

All my interaction with the Microsoft Expression team has been great. These folks are passionate about their product suite and supporting web standards. Expression Studio continues to impress me with its capabilities and ease of use. I was happy to provide feedback for this article, and I am grateful to the Expression Team for the opportunity to share my thoughts to such a wide audience. Thank You, Microsoft!

If you'd like to comment on the interview, feel free to add your thoughts below.

Technorati tags: expression studio expression design web design

Inner Shadow for Expression Design

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:08:04 GMT

Expression Design provides several great graphics effects, but one that is sorely missed by me is inner shadow, or inner glow. They're basically the same except inner shadow would be a black glow, I suppose.

I've been using a simple solution to simulate inner shadow by using two rectangle objects and a blur effect and I demonstrate this effect in the following video tutorial. Click on the photo below to view the tutorial.

Blueprint CSS Template for Expression Design

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:40:13 GMT

In preparing for my own design work, I created an Expression Design template for myself based on the Blueprint CSS framework.

There are utilities to customize the Blueprint grid to any number of columns of any width, but I started with the default 24-column grid and created a starting template for my latest project.

Download the template

I thought I'd share the template for anyone who would like to use it. Enjoy!

download blueprint-css-template.zip (344k 352,719 byte zip file)

ASE File Specification

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:36:15 GMT

In creating the ASE Palette Converter, I had to reverse-engineer the contents of proprietary Adobe ASE Adobe Swatch Exchange files. As with anything reverse-engineered, the following file format spec is only my best-guess of the actual, official Adobe ASE file specification. For instance, a field which I indicate is a four-byte field might be perhaps just a two-byte integer with two bytes of unused space.

In addition, this file spec only covers solid color palettes. The ASE file format may support gradients, but gradients are not covered below.

Resources

I've been aided by articles and posts written by other folks on this topic whom I gratefully acknowledge here.

Joergen Bech's post in the Adobe Forums
Darius Monsef's article on his ColourLovers site
Adobe's Kuler palette tool

I'd also like to acknowledge Robert Nyman who kindly exported several palettes from Adobe CS2 for me to study.

ASE File Specification

All disclaimers apply: this file spec is provided as-is with no guarantee or warranty; file specification is subject to change without notice; your results may vary; don't operate heavy machinery while studying this, etc etc etc. For my purposes, however, this has served me well and if you can benefit from it, all the better.

ASEFILE: HEAD [ASECHUNK]

The ASE file consists of one HEAD record and one or more ASECHUNK records

HEAD: ASEF VER ASECHUNKCOUNT

ASEF:   0x41534546
VER:    0x00010000  (1.0)

The HEAD record consists of a four-byte file identifier consisting of the ASCII letters "ASEF" followed two double-byte integer fields indicating the file version and finally a four-byte integer field that holds the number of ASECHUNK records to follow.

ASECHUNK: CHUNKTYPE CHUNK

An ASECHUNK consists of a four-byte CHUNKTYPE indicator followed by a variable-length CHUNK. There are three chunk types:

CHUNKTYPE:  0xC0010000 palette name chunk
CHUNKTYPE:  0x00010000 swatch chunk
CHUNKTYPE:  0x00000000 final chunk

ASE files generated by colourlovers.com contain only swatch (color) chunks and do not contain palette name chunks. Kuler generates a palette chunk with the name of the palette.

CHUNK: CHUNKSIZE CHUNKDATA

The CHUNK consists of a two-byte integer field containing the length of CHUNKDATA that follows.

CHUNKDATA: CHARCOUNT CHARS [COLORDATA]

CHUNKDATA consists of a two-byte integer indicating the number of characters in this palette/swatch name, depending on the CHUNKTYPE. This is followed by CHARCOUNT double-byte character (eg 0x00410042 == "AB") string ending with double-byte null character 0x0000. The variable-length string is optionally followed by a variable-length COLORDATA field.

Note: Palette CHUNKDATAs do not contain COLORDATA. Palette names allow you to have, for instance three named colors SunSunSunny, Azure Sky, and Mediterranean Mango all grouped into a palette named Athens Awaits.

COLORDATA: CSPACE VAL [VAL] EOD

COLORDATA consists of a four-byte colorspace indicator (RGB, CMYK, Gray, LAB) followed by a series of IEE754 floating-point color values, followed by a two-byte end-of-data marker.

Gray COLORDATA consists of a four-byte CSPACE value "GRAY" followed by one VAL
RGB COLORDATA consists of a four-byte CSPACE value of "RGB " followed by three VALs
CMYK COLORDATA consists of a four-byte CSPACE value of "CMYK" followed by four VALs
LAB COLORDATA consists of a four-byte CSPACE value of "LAB " followed by three VALs

Spaces in the RGB and LAB CSPACE fields are hexadecimal 0x20.

VALs are IEEE754 floating-point values between 0 and 1 inclusive. Think of these values as percentages. CMYK values are normally between 0 and 100 so multiply those floating-point values by 100. RGB values lie between 0 and 255 so multiply the percentage values by 255 to convert to the proper RGB scale. Gray is represented by a single value in the RGB colorspace. Multiply this single number by 255 and use it for all three RGB values.

The color values are followed by a two-byte end-of-data marker, 0x0002.

Additional Comments

Kuler does not export in HSB format, so it is unclear whether the ASE format supports it directly. When I save my Kuler swatch with the HSB colorspace selected, Kuler will export it to an ASE file with RGB values.

I have not pursued understanding Adobe LAB color values, but it is included in the specification for completeness. These values range above and below zero so there would need some sort of multiplier, but what that multiplier is, I am unaware.

Microsoft Spotlights Vine Type

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 07:57:36 GMT

It's been said that nothing breeds success like success. That appears to be the case for me right now. The folks at the Microsoft Expression Studio website have taken a liking to my Vine Type redesign and are currently featuring it in their Expression Studio Gallery.

What caught their attention, of course, was the fact that no Adobe products were used in the making of the Vine Type website. In the Vine Type write-up, they refer to the site's success on CommandShift3 as "award-winning." I wouldn't characterize the success in quite the same terms, and any success at an anonymously-based community portal must be taken with a grain of salt.

At the Expression Studio Gallery, however, Vine Type sits beside several excellent websites, and being asked to be featured on the site is an honor. The Microsoft folks I've communicated with -- Anna, Lori, and Annie -- have been great to work with, and I would enjoy opportunities to participate even further in building up the Expression Studio Community. Thanks, Microsoft, for the attention and praise.

Video Encoding Demystified

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:19:25 GMT

I've been slowly working my way through the Mix08 videos, which on the whole have been great. Today I watched Ben Waggoner's presentation Encoding Video for Microsoft Silverlight Delivery Scenarios and I was puzzled, then surprised and amazed over this slide...

Match aspect ratio of cropped source
- 4:3 720x480 to quarter size
  - Right: 320x240
  - Wrong: 360x240
- 16:9 720x480 to quarter size
  - Right: 432x240
  - Wrong: 360x240

... and Ben's accompanying comments (@55:20) ...

A canonical problem you see people make is: I've got a 720x480 source and I want to make it smaller. Then I'll make it shorter so I'll make it 240 tall -- that makes sense -- and then I'll make it thinner so I'll make it 360 wide -- divided by two -- and that's always wrong. Because your image is really either four by three or sixteen by nine, 720x480 is a non-square pixel video frame. So if it's four by three, 320x240 is a good size. If it's sixteen by nine, then 432x240 is a good size. But 360x240 is never the right size for any video.

I don't encode video often, but I've certainly made this mistake. Ben's presentation also contains this tip for folks who create screencasts: (@39:30) Turn ClearType off when creating the screencast. Cleartype smooths out screen text on LCDs by generating different color pixels around characters. The encoder will detect and attempt to faithfully render these pixels. Ben's advice is that your output video will be crisper if your original source video starts with crisp pixels. I can't argue that point either.

Ben's presentation provides explanations for several heretofore (for me at least) cryptic settings found in most modern nonlinear video rendering programs. The Microsoft Expression Encoder product is showcased prominently, but even if you're dealing with Final Cut Pro or Premiere, there's good information in Ben's presentation.

SXSW 2008 In Six-Word Summaries

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 09:59:58 GMT

My follow-ups to South By Southwest are getting shorter and shorter each year. Mostly this is because what you read elsewhere would be repeated. The folks are the reason for attending and four days at one conference means many opportunities to meet people informally.

In Six Words

Here are my six-word synopses of the most memorable sessions and events I attended

Design is in the Details: Just throw stuff together; magic happens.
Getting Unstuck From Desktop to Device: Still many hairy mobile development challenges.
ABX Bowling / Team VCWear: Dollarsign eyes belie Andrew's genuine kindheartedness.
General Theory of Creativity: Creative magic in associating two things.
Great Design Hurts: Common request - I want a pony.
Godbit Dinner: Wonderfully talented folks all around me.
Design Eye for South By: Design rationale will follow; trust us.
Emotional By Design: Appeal to all your users' senses.
30 ways to delight your users: Users want to rock; be helpful.
Designing for Freedom Every product decision impacts user freedom.
Scalability Boot Camp: Add hardware now, software redesign later.
WASP Annual Meeting: What should we focus on now?
Video Blogging from Iraq: Entire squad watches fellow soldier's surgery.

Just one follow-on paragraph from that last session: Dr. Carlos Brown appealed to those in attendance to send mail to soldiers. You probably know someone who knows a soldier. ~~Alternatively, you can send mail to "Any Solider, Iraq (or Afghanistan)" and the USPS and US Military will see that it gets to a solider.~~ Send them a card or a note or a photo of your dog or your kids' drawings. It doesn't matter really what your send -- it's the "getting something" that is encouraging.

Update: I've been informed by a trusted source that because of security concerns, "Any Soldier Iraq" mail is no longer delivered.

Overall

SXSW 2008: Let's do this again next year.

WiFi was very, very much improved this year. Interactive has expanded to the first floor (three floors now) so bumping into someone in the hall is less likely than when all panels were on the fourth floor. And if you do bump into someone, there's less time to talk because they've got to head to the escalators to get to some other floor.

Shout Outs

Since SXSW is so much about connections, I thought I'd send blog shout-outs to some folks from this year's and conferences past. If I've forgotten to include someone, let me know and I'll include them. I'm not trying to drop names here. I'm including this list for those considering attending next year. This gives you an idea the depth and breadth of talented folks that you might bump into at SXSW.

Old Friends
Stuart Colville, Chris Mills, Nathan Smith, Michael Montgomery, David Seah, Jonathan Snook, Jakob Heuser, Erik Sagen, Matt Heerema, Faruk Ates, Julie Miller
New Friends
Cyril Doussin, Tristan Turpin, Ryan Heneise, Jesse Gardner, Larry Tomlinson, Scott Faris, Frances Berriman, Andrew Hyde, Glenda Sims, Todd Sieling, AJ Penninga, Derek Featherstone, Ben Ward, David Russell
Talked to or chatted with, but they don't know me
Kimberly Blessing, Chris Wilson, Richard Rutter, Jon Hicks, Patrick Haney, Anton Peck, Dustin Diaz, Julia Elman, Norm Francis, and a memorable elevator ride that included Guy Kawasaki (Guy didn't cuss.)
Come Back Soon
Robert Nyman, Eric Shepherd, Shane Shepherd, Summer Shepherd, Khoi Vihn

Technorati tags: sxsw sxswi

Adobe Swatch Exchange Converter

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:29:17 GMT

Starting with the CS2 product line, Adobe Systems introduced a cross-program swatch format called Adobe Swatch Exchange format or ASE for short. The purpose of the swatch file format is to allow different programs to use and exchange palettes.

Kuler the online palette app generates ASE palette files as well, but the palette format purely proprietary, and is not published. Nevertheless, with some help from others who did some reverse-engineering of the format and a bit of my own studying of various binary files generated by Kuler and other Adobe apps, I've gained a very good understanding of the ASE file format.

I've applied that knowledge into an Online ASE Palette Converter that takes in an ASE file, and returns an XML file that can then be imported to Expression Studio line of products. The XML file is quite readable and understandable. Just keep in mind that Expression Studio uses ARGB values -- with an alpha value at the front -- that I hard-coded as 0xFF meaning fully opaque.

Technorati tags: adobe ase photoshop kuler expression

I'd Like to Thank The Academy

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:57:14 GMT

Prompted by a blog post by Khoi Vinh, I was introduced to a little site called CommandShift3 that pits website designs against each other. Having recently rebooted the Vine Type site, I thought I'd play along. Fast forward one month.

I guess folks liked the look of the Vine Type redesign, because they voted it best site for January.

The Shock

I'm quite stunned. I'm not that good and the site is not fantastic. And I'm not trying to be humble here, I think my design aestheic is improving and the Vine Type site is good but, it's not A List Apart good or Clarke good or Shea good.

Okay, it might be better than a picture of a shoe and I put a lot of effort into it, so I'll just make my little acceptance speech and get it over with. I'd like to thank the inspiration for the reboot. Specifically,

Inspiration Details

All of the artwork is my original work but I drew from all of these sites in differnt ways. Of course grid design is inspired by and promoted by Khoi and Mark Boulton at SXSW. I used the default blueprint css framework to assist me in layout.

I've been struck with the beauty of Sven Kils site since I first saw it and I used the concept of a large graphic sprouting from the side of the page. I had intended to use something other than a gray background, but the flower is so colorful, a gray background seemed to be the right choice. I think I need to say here that I am a software developer and not formally trained in design. Everything I learned from books, blogs, SXSW, and internet tutorials.

The banners are a variation that Jonathan Snook uses and no one can enhance a page with little icons as well as Veerle Pieters.

The Shocking Truth

Okay, I'll let the astounding news out right here: no Adobe products were used in the creation of the Vine Type website. Not Photoshop. Not Illustrator. Not Fireworks. Not Dreamweaver. Nothing Adobe. Just these:

Microsoft Expression Design
Microsoft Expression Web

And I'm not ashamed to blog about why I am using Microsoft design products. My last three websites were created with Expression Suite exclusively and I am beginning to believe that I will not be going back to Photoshop.

Certainly Expression Design as a first-generation product needs some polishing, and of course as a photo manipulation product, Photoshop has no equal. But the Expression products are meeting my website creation needs very well, and they cost a lot less than stuff coming from Park Avenue in San Jose.

So as the music rises and I continue to ramble on, let me ask anyone out there: are you as surprised as I am that sites can be created without Adobe products?

Update 1 July 2008

I'd like to welcome visitors from the Microsoft Expression Studio website where Microsoft is currently featuring the Vine Type website in its Expression Gallery.

Once again, I'm honored and humbled by the recognition -- I am still a student of the craft and I'm thankful for your kind attention and encouragement.

The IE Bridge to One Web

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:37:07 GMT

Early in January 2008, a 3.1 magnitude earthquake struck Cleveland, Ohio. The USGS instruments indicated an epicenter just offshore in Lake Erie, but I think it was directly beneath the home of Eric Meyer as he finished typing his op-ed in support of IE Version Targeting for A List Apart.

Microsoft's version targeting announcement was followed soon after by articles by Aaron Gustafson and Mr. Meyer, setting off the largest tectonic event in web standards history since Jeffrey Zeldman's To Hell with Bad Browsers in 2001. Since this blog has focused on Web Standards and Microsoft for nearly three years now, I would like to add my opinion on this topic.

What is Version Targeting?

Just in case you've not read all the stuff above, I'll net it out here. The announcement states that

IE8 will render sites as IE7 by default
In order to trigger a more standards-compliant rendering of your site for IE8 browsers, you must do one of the following:
- Add a META tag to your document header
- Make an adjustment to your web server
- Declare your document as HTML5

The Scenario

To demonstrate a positive aspect of this change, I created the following scenario in a comment on Roger Johannsen's site and I'll repeat it again here:

You're running a Fortune 500 Company's IT Department
You have eight separate intranets in six different states with 160,000 total pages including the old Lotus Notes-based knowledge base, a forward-facing internet site with 5,000 pages, an extranet for customers and an extranet for suppliers
You've committed to the CEO to replace the Notes database and consolidate the intranet sites, re-brand the internet and add eighteen features to the extranets
Then IE8 beta is unleashed on the world

The Status Quo Fallout

Since the IE8 rendering engine is redesigned to be more standards-compliant, Microsoft anticipates that this would break the web, and in our scenario, all your sites would render "properly" in IE7 and "improperly" in IE8. I use these terms because visually, the sites look correct but are not truly standards-compliant in IE7 and look broken but are more standards-compliant in IE8.

In your view, IE8 broke your site. In your customer's view, your site is simply broken. This is the core issue being addressed by Microsoft.

If IE8 rolls out just like all its predecessors, what I just described is the most likely scenario. Employees, customers, vendors, internet visitors, and your boss would start reporting that your site is broken when viewed with the new IE8 browser and you should fix it right away. In this scenario you must put programs on hold while you go back into your legacy systems and fix them to accommodate the IE8 browser that broke all your websites.

Microsoft's Solution

Microsoft wants to turn status quo around 180 degrees. With IE8, the default behavior will be to render web sites as if the visitor were using IE7. With this change, the fallout of the introduction of IE8 will be this:

Nothing.

Employees, customers, internet visitors will visit and use your websites with the new IE8 browser and there will be no alteration in the way the sites are visually rendered. Without any effort whatsoever your site will remain visually unchanged with the new IE8 browser. Your web team can evaluate the impact of the new browser, make adjustments as time permits, and update the sites to include new IE8 features in your company's time frame, not Microsoft's. The power to enable IE8 rendering moves from the client browser to the content producer.

From the perspective and the scenario I've outlined, this change is a huge relief to corporations worldwide. They no longer have to plan their department calendar around the introduction of Microsoft's new browser.

Some Say It's Evil

Some really bright minds have voiced opposition to this announcement. A few, vociferously. What about this new scheme could possibly be bad? I've read through many of the opposing arguments and I'll try to summarize them:

Don't mess with default behavior. When folks download IE8 they expect it to act like IE8, not IE7. Or: My site is built to standards now with features not implemented in IE7 and appearing fine in other browsers today -- why must I do something extra to get IE8 to behave like IE8?
- Default behavior is wrong, wrong, wrong. (Jeremy Keith)
- The best way forward for IE8 is to change the switch to be opt-in... (Emil Stenström)
- ...add an option in IE 8 ... to choose to open a web site in old IE. (Robert Nyman)
This fragments the web. Web Standards are about One Web and Microsoft is creating yet another rendering mode. Extrapolated out to several versions and adoption by other vendors, this could create many more modes of rendering, making web development even harder.
- I believe that it will encourage the practice of developing for specific browsers. (Rachel Andrew)
- Designers will not have to learn just HTML, they’ll have to learn 4, 5, maybe 10 different versions of HTML, DOM, CSS, and JS.(Ian Hicks)
This is an IE-Lock-In. If other vendors adopt this, then corporations could force backlevel rendering upon non-IE browsers while showcasing new shiny IE features.
- The fundamental issue is that Safari, Firefox, and Opera will all be harmed by attempting to implement this. (John Resig) Note: John works for Mozilla.
- We can convince the world to use a browser that does not have the ability to lock pages into a specific rendering mode. Bah. (Anne van Kesteren) Note: Anne works for Opera.
This is the IE Death Knell. Corporations will become lazy, standardize on IE7 rendering, and even though IE will improve, no one will notice and lose interest in the product altogether. Or: This is unmaintainable, even for Microsoft, and IE will collapse under its own weight.
- By doing this the Internet Explorer team may have created their own backwater, shot themselves in the foot and left themselves for dead.(Andy Budd)
- Internet Explorer is functionally incapable of both preserving backwards compatibility for its half a billion clients, and supporting web standards.(Mike Davies)

Tilting the Axis of Power

The fundamental change from this announcement is that it empowers content providers to choose rendering behavior on the client. All the different manifestations of concern and outrage ultimately boil down to disagreement of this decision. Everyone complaining is looking into his own crystal ball trying to forecast how empowering the content provider will play out. Not surprisingly, the crystal balls disagree.

Let's Focus On the Goal

The goal for standards-minded professionals is One Web: to allow the development of one version of a website that can cater to a myriad of devices and end users. I see this change as being in support of the goal of One Web.

Encouraging Standards Adoption

It allows Microsoft to release a more standards-compliant product while not disrupting hundreds of millions of web pages. This angers some folks, frankly, because they would prefer that Microsoft alienate corporations and end-users -- actions that might drive marketshare to non-Microsoft browsers and/or operating systems. These folks are neither standards-focused nor customer-focused; they are haters plain and simple. And anyone expecting legacy sites to be updated to conform to current standards is living in some separate parallel plane of reality.
It allows quicker approval and adoption of IE8 by corporations. IE8 will be innocuous to all existing internal and external websites. IT departments will not mind at all if employees and internet visitors upgrade their browsers. Furthermore, if a site renders incorrectly, it will be because the user has a downlevel browser, not an uplevel one. IT departments worldwide will encourage end users to upgrade.
It gives content providers time to implement support for IE8 and IE8 features. Each of us now decides for ourselves and with our own priorities which sites get updated and when to release the updates to website visitors. Everything won't break all at once. You can attend SXSW this year rather than attend to emergency client site breakage.
It allows legacy systems to die gracefully without intervention. If an old website is going to be wholesale replaced, then no extra effort is needed to fix it when a new browser comes out. It renders as it did with the old browser, is never updated to accommodate new rendering, and then is shelved when the new system is released.
Finally, it moves IE toward the goal of One Web. By eliminating the pushback from IT departments coupled with the encouragement for end-users to upgrade, the adoption rate for IE8 should far surpass the sluggish but steady adoption rate of IE7, further marginalizing IE6 and IE7. Web designers are then justified in deploying all the IE8 goodness in all its standards-compliant glory, to the benefit of all browsers and the web standards movement in general.

The Bridge To One Web

It's no secret major improvements must be made to IE before it is on par standards-wise with the competition. It's no secret that the required modifications would disrupt millions of websites. The behavior change announced for IE8 is a reasonable solution to a difficult problem. It creates a bridge to standards compliance without burning the bridge behind it.

The Forever Problem

Would Microsoft support IE7 rendering forever? My gut feeling is no, they wouldn't. Microsoft is smart enough not to burden itself with perpetual support. My crystal ball prediction is that IE8 will further push IE6 and IE7 off the planet and promote standards-compliant website creation. A couple of releases later, statistics will show that 98% of the websites are standards compliant and the need for backwards browser rendering is no longer needed.

i.e. One Web. Pun intended.

Technorati tags: browsers standards

CodeMash 2008

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 20:54:42 GMT

I will be attending CodeMash again this year in beautiful Sandusky, Ohio. The conference is held once again at the Kalahari Resort and Waterpark. The Kalahari waterpark expanded this week to become the nation's largest indoor waterpark with 4 acres (1.6 hectares) of indoor aquatic fun for the whole family.

Needless to say, the boys are looking forward to my geek conference.

CodeMash is designed to be platform neutral and language neutral. It's a great place to learn more about other technologies and improvements in those areas. Neal Ford (No Fluff Just Stuff), Scott Hanselman (Microsoft), and Brian Goetz (Sun Microsystems) will keynote this 2+ day conference.

Session leaders of note include Dick Wall, Jesse Liberty, and Bruce Eckel.

If you're going, you might want to add my CodeMash 2008 Google Calendar to your Google Calendar. If you're not planning to attend, you might want to free up some time to attend. And bring your Hawaiian shirt.

CodeMash Software Developer Conference
Location: Kalahari Resort and Indoor Waterpark, Sandusky, Ohio
Dates: January 9-11, 2008
Cost: $175 by Jan 5, $250 after Jan 5

For more information or to register, visit codemash.org

Opera's Antitrust Complaint

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:49:26 GMT

Earlier this week Opera Software filed an antitrust suit with the European Union against Microsoft. Opera states that Microsoft is abusing its dominant position and hindering interoperability. In the press release Opera states that it is filing the complaint "On behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them." Opera then requests that the EU force Microsoft to

Unbundle Internet Explorer from the Windows operating system
Follow fundamental and open Web standards accepted by the Web-authoring communities

Opera CTO Hakon Wium Lie also posted an Open Letter to the Web Community soliciting support for the complaint, and states that Microsoft has used its "market dominating position to limit a genuine choice of browsers." This post will serve as my open response.

On Market Dominance

It is going to be difficult to prove that Microsoft's dominant market position is stifling the browser market, when Firefox has been gaining browser marketshare since its introduction and Apple's Safari browser has been gaining marketshare for the past several months. It appears that some browsers are gaining marketshare. If one considers IE6 separate from IE7, one could argue the most popular browser on the planet today is Firefox 2. How is this market dominance? Microsoft will say that it's in a heated battle to maintain marketshare, not resting on its market position.

The fact is that companies will still create websites to accommodate major browsers. Today, that means more than just IE. And there is a principle that states that since everyone is coding their sites to browsers A B and C, then I, in choosing a browser, would be wise to use one of those browsers, which then entrenches me as a website producer to code my sites to accommodate browsers A B and C even more. This phenomenon has been played out for VCR formats and keyboard layouts, and continues to play out in several technologies including, but not limited to video game consoles, computer processors, high definition DVD formats, video file formats, and audio file formats.

On Web Standards

I've not spent hours delving into this topic, but it's my general understanding that no browser fully supports every standard. How is it fair to force one non-conforming company to fully comply without forcing all companies to comply? If you're seeking a level playing field, then seek a level playing field. Even that would not level the playing field. Forcing all browsers to fully conform to W3C standards would create an artificial barrier to entry into the market.

Next, there are no binding web standards and no de jure web standards entity. To my knowledge, the W3C publishes recommendations and their specifications are merely guidelines, not law. Every browser is free to innovate to differentiate their product from the competition. AJAX grew from a non-standards-compliant browser feature found exclusively (at that time) in Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Forcing compliance might actually stifle innovation since energy would be spent implementing esoteric recommendations rather than innovating new technologies.

And let's face it, not all W3C recommendations have been good ones.

Furthermore, IE7 in fact, introduced no new proprietary features that caused any churn among its competitors. Its support for W3C standards improved considerably. Why would now be a good time to complain to the EU when the most recent history shows IE moving more toward standards adoption?

On Unbundling

Opera's complaint to the EU seeks to apply the same unbundling principles to browsers as was done for Windows Media Player. The EU forced Microsoft to create a new Windows SKU that did not contain Windows Media Player so that purchasers of the product could freely choose their audio player solution. Correct me if I have bad information here, but after Microsoft complied with this EU order, the free market for the most part ignored the Windows XP N product and freely chose the product that contained Windows Media Player. How do you expect unbundling to be any different for browsers?

My Reaction

Yes, I agree with your assertion that my job would be easier if Microsoft conformed to W3C web standard recommendations. But the legal actions taken by Opera seek to punish one company for so-called noncompliance and ignore noncompliance issues elsewhere.

So I'm sorry, I cannot lend my support to your cause. Fortunately for you, I don't live in an EU country. Your open letter, however, asked the Web Community of which I am a part.

Fixing IE6 Google Map PNG Problem

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:37:48 GMT

As a regular part of creating websites, I include a Javascript script to add Portable Network Graphics (PNG) transparency to Internet Explorer 6. The script I use is called iepngfix and was created by Angus Turnbull of Twin Helix Designs.

There are other similar scripts, but most if not all of these pngfix scripts incorporate an IE-only CSS behavior attribute that targets image elements. The pngfix.htc behavior script scans the page for PNG images and applies an IE transparency filter. This results in proper transparency on the website. There are some limitations. See the PNGFIX page for details.

Enter Google Maps

Google Maps, when incorporated into a website as an interactive map, includes its own code to handle PNG transparency in IE6. These two scripts conflict with each other, and the result -- for me at least -- has been missing or invisible map controls, no Google logo in the bottom left corner of the map, a blank or partially drawn Google Map.

The Fix

After a lot of research and my own testing, I've come up with a pretty simple solution: Stop the pngfix.htc script from targeting the Google map. This can be accomplished with one line of CSS:

* html div#map img { behavior: none; }

The * html portion targets IE6 and earlier browsers but not IE7 nor any other browsers. The div#map img targets the Google Map, and the remainder overrides via CSS specificity any application of IE behaviors to the Google Map images. PNG transparency is applied, however, to other PNG graphics on the page.

Best practices would suggest moving the IE6-only CSS into its own file and placing the file reference in your XHTML between conditional comments.

<!--[if lt IE 7]>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="ie6.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<![endif]-->

Of course, if you use conditional comments as shown above to target IE6, * html may safely be omitted from the line of CSS since IE7 and other browsers will not apply any portion of the CSS file.

One Small Step For Web Standards

no.ema.il@no.ema.il — Wed, 23 May 2007 06:49:03 GMT

Today, my local library called to tell me that the book I recommended had arrived and could be checked out. One small way that I'm promoting Web Standards is by recommending web standards-based books to my local librarian.

If you were to peruse the shelves of the Westbank Library in Austin Texas you would see books written by Budd, Haine (shown below), Meyer, Zeldman, and others who have advocated modern web standards via their writings.

My goal is to push the old stuff off the shelves by recommending current-century best of breed books. Perhaps you might want to recommend some Web Standards friendly books to your local librarian as well.