Seems like forever since I have posted up a set of links discovered/uncovered and digested. There’s quite a few, so enjoy this months traves into CSS, .htaccess, xHTML, mod_gzip and setting up your own business just to name a few.

• Kynn Bartlett provides an overview of the screen reader technology out there and what the options are for web developers. The bottom line is the recommendation: IBM’s homepage reader. Cheaper and well for testing gives you as much of an insight about the accessibility of the site you are working on.
• The web standards group pasted these two links: link 1 and link 2, in an article on Evaluating for Accessibility. The first discusses the ins and outs of text based versions as an answer to accessibility problems (and frankly the answer is a no…), the latter is a document providing developers/designers with a set of guidelines when conducting an accessibility review.
• Something light-hearted, a new media name generator with tag line and logo… get inspired!
• Doug Bowman provides a rational for nesting an absolute div into a relative. In the process he gives a good explanation on CSS positioning
• A set of charts and tables outlining the features and functionality of assistive devices
• A nice looking site by Yellow Pencil.
• Jakob Nielsen discusses yet again the benefits of usability and some cheap alternatives
• Wikipedia - a free multi lingual encyclopaedia
• At this site you can find a set of articles on navigation (global navigation and local navigation)
• There haven’t been alertboxes metioned here for a while but the you get two in one serving… This one looks at the reduction in innovation and the maturing of the IT industry, the core message really is that the energies and innovation invested in product development, should be aimed at making the user more powerful now and no longer chasing the latest fad…
• Fast on the heels of Listamatic, the same gang of people have released a set of tutorials on creating CSS lists with some lovely effects.
• Eric Meyer discusses the ins and outs of creating un-ordered lists as nav items with rounded borders.
• Title says it all: ”Mobile Photo Blogging - made easy!” posts your blogs from your phone!!!
• CSS roll over images, this time without any delay!!
• A complete list of the style sheet properties and values for the good old’ cursor
• After having had a bash at mod_rewrite, it’s time for mod_gzip. Compression galore and here is a further list of resources I have stumbled across. http://leknor.com/code/gziped.php - gziped? This script tests whether or not a server has been configured for gzip compression
• Dive into mark’s apache resources- very useful and insightful.
• Apache, Zope and mod_gzip getting the whole malarkey to work together.
• A useful set of information on the usage of the .htaccess file
• Tests whether your browser can accept compression
• A HOWTO on Optimising PHP, as the title indicates… optimise your PHP
• [HOWTO] Enable Query Caching in MySQL 4 - Another HOW TO that does what the title implies…
• After spending a while looking at Apache and HTTP compression, I iread up on the same topic for IIS.
• For those wanting to get a heads up on XForms, this is a worthwhile read. It talks you through an example solution for creating and editing a UBL Purchase Order.
• This link contains the source for the above article with some more related links to XForms and UBL.
• A little article on what user’s expect from sites. It would seem that standards are emerging in the user interface of web pages. The example here: where to find the link back to the home page. The answer (95% of the time): top left please!
• A site with a database of information about photos on the web. The idea here is extending RSS that appropriately label or provide accurate meta data about the images in XML, thus making the search for photos more successful
• Another Robots Exclusion Standard tutorial with links to other related resources such as RFCs, validators and meta tag information.
• Carrie Bickner’s new book on web dev projects that run with a little or no budget. The excerpt on Web reference highlights the virtues of planning! Great work…
• All you could possibly want to know about form elements in two pages and with links to the specifics of forms and their elements @ w3c.
• There were a few applications that were keeping me routed in windows world: Outlook and CFstudio/Dreamweaver. With the announcement that Cross Over Office not only supports Office XP, but also Dreamweaver and Flash MX, what excuse have I got left?? Ah yes Warcraft…. :)
• While looking at logged missing pages I stumbled across an entry for crossdomain.xml. The tech note posted here, explains the changes made to Flash 6/7 players in terms of accessing external properties from different domains and sub-domains and how to set up a cross domain policy file.
• Love this site, see how blatantly some people rip other designs
• ALA is back and here is the second of two articles by Doug Bowman on creating visually stunning Tab based nav items.
• Why tables for layout is stupid: Problems defined, solutions offered - a wonderful presentation from Hot Design on the pros and cons of web standards design.
• An on-line resource for all things digital
• Bags of advice on starting up your own company. There I found info on putting together the business plan. A series of articles by Scott Kraemer on starting your own business. And why not give a link back to this man’s site?? And I also followed these links from the article:
  • centre for business planning
  • the business plan archive [has some information not as much as would appear to be indicated, but still fun to look at all the failings]
• From the above article is meant to be a great resources on business related documentation (contracts, NDAs for example)
• Again from the previous entry more information on getting started
• A resource where businesses can register and post/look for projects . Low margins but it’s all about getting work in the first place