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A netbook question

The first ever poll on Web Teacher; giving Poll Daddy a try.

Women in Tech: Maria “ubergeeke” Webster

Meet Maria Webster, aka ubergeeke, an engineering student, geek, and chronicler of what women in tech are doing at .51. She answered some questions for me to give readers an opportunity to learn more about this interesting woman.

Q: I noticed your blog, .51, or dotFiveOne, when you first registered at BlogHer and have been following you ever since. Your blog’s tagline is “Geekspace for Women.” Tell us a little about your reasons for starting the blog.

A: Last spring, I was searching the web for sites about and for women in technology. As an engineer-in-training and a lifelong geek, I wanted a site that spoke to me personally about the technical interests I have. I
wanted to see a site that focused on what women were doing in tech and not necessarily about the trials we face. I couldn’t find such a site, and I was *very* surprised. So I built one.

The whole purpose of dotFiveOne is to focus on what women are *doing*. There are many great sites for women who need support in their fields, who want to network with other women, who want to explore the challenges we experience in our endeavors. I want to celebrate our accomplishments.

Read the full interview at BlogHer.

Mr. President

Webkit passes Acid3 and what it all means

Safari announced a while back that its browser passed all the Acid3 tests successfully. Lars Gunther posted an article at the Web Standards Project Buzz to explain Acid3 receptions and misconceptions and do we have a winner? Among other things, Lars said,

There has been some confusion about the test and its importance. Some people have been saying things like ”my browser does not pass the test and I have no problems using it”. Quite a few other people seem to think that Webkit and Gogi (Opera’s internal build) passed the test already in March – despite the fact that neither team has made this claim.

To answer these misconceptions we need to address the issue of what exactly is being tested and how. The main part of test is automated through JavaScript, a sort of test harness that runs 100 subtests. Getting a score of 100 is not the same as passing Acid3 – a common misconception, or perhaps an oversimplification.

He explains a few other things about this important test. Go read it all.

Shelley at Burningbird also had thoughts about Lars’ article. In Playing the Game, she points out,

But the real point of Lars’ writing is that the browsers are playing the game, and in the end, we all benefit when they do.

Then Shelley brought up the question of SVG. She said,

IE does not support SVG. IE has never committed to supporting SVG. It’s unlikely IE will ever support SVG, as it competes with its own Silverlight implementation.

As part of the explanation about Acid3 and IE, Shelley revealed that she is creating a plan for a class in SVG for the WaSP’s web education series. This made me do the happy dance. THE HAPPY DANCE, I tell you, the happy dance.