The LambCutlet Disorganisation

Now there’s something I haven’t heard about in a long while… “The Amazing Netscape Fish Cam”. I recall this from my school days, browsing the then fresh and new WWW, sometime in 1996 and using what was the cutting edge graphical browser at that time… Netscape 2.0.

Ok, it’s a webcam pointing at some fish… so what’s the big deal? Well, first off, the cam itself was conceived sometime in 1994 and is now the oldest live camera site on the web.

Eric Meyer, Standards Evangelist @ Netscape Communications has brought it bang up to date with structural HTML4.0 and CSS2, and DevEdge @ Netscape as ever have an article dedicated to it.

It’s also a weird feeling when someone asks you to work on something that has near-legendary status in your mind. It’s like a SCUBA enthusiast getting to join Jacques Cousteau on a dive, even down to the required time travel. I dove right in and decided to have some fun with with the redesign, which is why I rather like the final result. To share the joy, I herein present a look into just one piece of the redesign, and how I accomplished certain effects using simple HTML and some CSS.

I wonder if the Fish Cam will still be around a decade from now? :D

The trapfalls of assuming too much, but apparently even such luminaries as Jeffrey Zeldman, Tantek Çelik and Eric Meyer[*] write their blogs by hand, as opposed to backending with a CMS such as Movable Type or Blogger.

Why do they do it by hand?

Jeffrey Zeldman says:

Despite the power and ready availability of these publishing products, we still roll each page of zeldman.com by hand, partially because we are used to doing so and find it enjoyable; but also because we like to see our writing in its visual context, and to rethink that visual context each time we prepare to publish even the briefest blurb. We are always thinking about the page, and the way the look of the page impacts the words.

Tantek follows on with:

Jeffrey has written a beautiful piece describing why he writes his blog by hand, and how something is certainly lost in the process of aggregation. I’ll add another reason: pushing the envelope. I like figuring out smarter and better uses of markup and styling, and being able to quickly and easily experiment with them, live as it were, without having to deal with a content management system (yes, that’s what blogging tools essentially are — a spade is a spade).

I know I can put mine down to being anally retentive… :D

Of course, there are those like Ian Hixie or Thomas Pike who go that bit further and rolled their own CMS.

I’m not quite at that stage yet, partly as I’m not a programmer though have been thinking about making greater use of XML and server-side XSLT.

Today in San Francisco, Microsoft launches the long-awaited Windows Server 2003, the Windows 2000 Server sequel that the software giant hopes will convince customers who are holding on to Windows NT Server 4.0 to upgrade. Described as Microsoft’s biggest product launch of 2003, today’s event will also see the release of the Visual Studio .NET 2003 software development suite and SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition (64-bit), a version of Microsoft’s popular relational database server that runs on 64-bit versions of Windows 2003. But the release of Windows 2003 itself is, of course, the main event. This product was long in the making and has important repercussions for Microsoft, its partners, and its competitors.

As ever, Microsoft are offering 180-day evaluation versions of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Server and both the CD set or direct download are free, minus small postage fee required for physical media.

The “Resource Kit” is unreleased as yet, but the core tools can already be downloaded.

WebAIM 3.0 is another accessibility validator, much like Bobby, and it is able to validate pages to WCAG 1.0 or Section 508 specifications.

Page validation with this tool is less laboured as it isn’t limited in the number of validations it can do in a certain time period, the debugging info is useful and informative, and lastly supporting the use of WebAIM “bookmarklets” for the following browsers: Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape 6+ and Opera.

phpBB has been nominated for the 2003 Webby Awards in the “Technical Achivement” category:

Sites introducing or integrating technology that pushes the envelope, and invite us to believe in what once seemed impossible.

Other nominees in that category include Linux, Apache and Google. Go phpBB! :D

For you phpBB supporters, don’t forget to vote in the “People’s Voice” section. Only one vote (if you choose to vote) per person.

The “Office System” beta kit I ordered directly from Microsoft for free dropped through the old letter box today. :D

A very comprehensive 15 CD set, including core Office applications like Word and Excel, to separate products like FrontPage and OneNote, and also developer/support tools. I’ve yet to install it yet, but it’s looks to be quite a substantial overhaul of Microsoft Office, and makes the usage of XML far more than previous versions. XSLT is used to interpolate between formats, and Visio will have SVG support and be able to import and export it.

Look out for a mini review and gallery full of screenies for you to mull over. :D