Author: vdebolt

Useful links: Tech in ed, microformats on Facebook, App resource

The 7 Golden Rules of Using Technology in Schools. Don’t know how I missed this back in July, but I just found it.

Facebook Quietly Adds Microformats to “Download Your Info” Feature. A little slow of the uptake, wasn’t it?

For those of you in the business of making apps, a site you may learn a lot from is Moms with Apps. They concentrate on branding, marketing, and practical matters such as getting an app ready to put in the App Store.

Useful links: HTML5 sections, block level links, charity: water

Don’t Style Headings Using HTML5 Sections is a look at the section element and how it works with headings and document flow. Very interesting.

Block level links and accessibility from 456 Berea Street looks at headings and other block level elements from a different point of view.

Charity: Water Sends Personal Video Thank Yous. There’s a lot business can learn from the non profit world. This is one example.

Media Accessibility User Requirements

The W3C issued a new editor’s draft of Media Accessibility User Requirements. The introductory paragraphs explain what it’s about. I’ve added emphasis.

This document aggregates the requirements of an accessibility user that the W3C HTML5 Accessibility Task Force has collected with respect to audio and video on the Web.

It first introduces a background on the needs of sensory impaired users, which is particularly meant as an introduction for people who never had to consider such needs in relation to audio and video.

Then it explains what alternative content technologies have been developed to help such users gain access to the content of audio and video.

A third section explains how these content technologies fit in the larger picture of an accessibility system, both technically within a Web user agent and from a production process point of view.

This document is most explicitly not a collection of baseline user agent or authoring tool requirements. It is important to recognize that not all user agents (nor all authoring tools) will support all the features discussed in this document. Rather, this document attempts to supply a comprehensive collection of user requirements needed to support media accessibility in the context of HTML 5. As such, it should be expected that this document will continue to develop for some time.

Please also note this document is not an inventory of technology currently provided by, or missing from HTML 5 specification drafts. Technology listed here is here because it’s important for accommodating the alternative access needs of users with disabilities to web-based media. This document is our inventory of Media Accessibility User Requirements.

In typical W3C fashion, what follows is not particularly fun reading, but I think it’s relevant information for anyone who is using audio and video in HTML5.

Front end developers and web educators will be most concerned about the alternative content technologies. I’m reproducing that section of the table of contents so you can jump from here right to the section of most interest to you.

3. Alternative Content Technologies

It’s safe to assume that the document will change several times before it is considered finished. Many people are already using HTML5 and trying to figure out the best way to work with the new audio and video elements. This information is worth keeping in mind for those who are on the leading edge in HTML5 audio and video.

The importance of a URL

For a while lately I’ve been noticing that I’m getting search engine traffic from the phrase “backchannel adoption.”

I’ve written about the backchannel several times, I’ve even reviewed a book about it. But I’ve not mentioned backchannel adoption. So what’s up with all the searchers who are coming here looking for info who probably aren’t finding what they want?

I searched the blog myself, to find whatever I could that mentioned backchannel. Aha, I found an 18 month old Useful links post with the title “Useful Links: Backchannel, adoption rates, Scrunchup.” I’m thinking the search engines are ignoring the comma between the two keywords. That seems good to know. Then I looked at the URL:

Useful Links: Backchannel, adoption rates, Scrunchup

Well, that explains more. It also brings home the SEO importance of using permalinks that consist of words from the post title rather than a number out of a database.

Pogo stick bounce
Image Credit: woodleywonderworks

I’m sure the bounce rate for users who end up here based on that keyword search is about 100%, so it isn’t doing me any good in terms of building a following for the blog. But it’s something to think about when you are composing your post titles.

This bugs me about Chrome

I’ve switched from Firefox to Chrome. Firefox kept getting slower and slower, often unresponsive, and I flat gave up on it. Chrome is faster, but a couple of things bug me.

  1. I like to open links in a new tab. I like it that way because I want to see what it was about while leaving the original page open. As soon as I check out whatever it was, I often close the new tab and go back to the original article. Here’s the problem: I want the new tab to become active when I click on the link. I cannot find a way to make that happen in Chrome.
  2. There’s no page title displayed at the top of the browser. I often want to see that title up there at the very top of my screen while I’m doing something lower on the screen, like creating a tweet in Seesmic, and want to type the exact title as part of the tweet. I can’t find a way to make page titles viewable either.
Do you know if either of these things are doable in Chrome?

Useful Links: Forms, Zeldman, HTML for Babies

Create Dynamic Form Labels with ARIA is from Yahoo! Accessibility and is pretty clever.

Why not watch a keynote address from Jeffrey Zeldman? This one’s from The Web Comes of Age – DIBI.

HTML for Babies. Yes, it’s real. Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be web standards illiterate.