Binary by Accident Archives

Weblog Accessibility, Day 15 - Defining Keyboard Shortcuts:

• Home page link: Done. I decided to make my site name also a link back to the main page. I had not previously done so, because a minor peeve of mine are links that take you back to the same page (which happens if you are already on the main page). I'm also keeping the "home" link for those that are less savvy about these things (note that this link is only active on archive pages).
• Skip navigation link: Not necessary.
• Feedback link: I don't use a macro for this, so I've been able to adopt this tip.
• Search box: Don't have one (although it appears I will sometime in the next 30 days).

12:40:37 PM

Douglas Adams. "You live and learn. At any rate, you live." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:24:14 AM

Catching up on Weblog Accessibility:

1. Day 11: I already have my content first. What I should do here is provide the opportunity to jump to the links.
2. Day 12: This site has been checked using Vischeck. Since I use color so infrequently, and it never conveys meaning in and of itself, my site passes with flying, um, colors. Of minor concern, the shading around the current day in the calendar looks like a black box with black type (meaning unreadable) in all 3 tests. I will change this when I feel comfortable mucking around that part of Radio.  I say it is minor, because the layout of a calendar provides other clues as to exactly what is obscured. Update: fixed by just having a border for emphasis.
3. Day 13: No links are faked by using "javascript:" as the href value in any of my templates.
4. Day 14: This is the first tip that requires day-in, day-out rigor in applying. To date all the tips concerned set up of templates and overall design. I used to provide titles, but got lazy and stopped. It is work, but if you want to produce something worth reading, it's worth it to do it right.

That last tip has me thinking - I seem to recall that screen readers allow just the links to be read. That probably means that choosing which words actually contain the link is important. For example, my post last week covering Mark's tips had as a link the word "Today's". Not very helpful - instead it probably should have been, at a minimum, "Today's accessibility tip". Hmmm...I wonder if this is a future tip from Mark?

7:24:04 PM

Soren Kierkegaard. "People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:17:23 AM

Malcolm Forbes. "There is never enough time, unless you're serving it." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:06:40 AM

Elbert Hubbard. "Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:09:37 AM

Accessibility homework:

1. Day 9: Completed with the aid of Sjoerd Visscher's macros for Radio. Of note, since my DOCTYPE is HTML 4.01 Transitional, I had to modify the macro to not append the backslash at the end of the <link> tag. I learned that the ending backslash in an empty tag causes a page to not validate if using HTML 4.01 Transitional.
2. Day 10: Free day for me! I already have a CSS-based layout that puts the content first in the source code.

6:26:49 AM

Marlene Dietrich. "I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:07:35 AM

Today's accessibility tip from Mark Pilgrim is all about providing meaningful page titles on your weblog. Page titles are what, in a visual browser, appear at the very top of the browser window.

At first Mark wasn't sure how to achieve meaningful page title for archive pages in the tool that I use, Radio. However, mere moments later, Jake Savin provided the answer.

Cool - my archive pages now have dated titles.

2:04:04 PM

Phil Ackley: "Question of the day: Why did my neighbors place a jetski ontop of a picnic table on top of their garage?"

Oh, the things that just beg to have pictures taken...(although I understand why that would be a bad idea).

6:09:15 AM

Jean Giraudoux. "Only the mediocre are always at their best." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:04:55 AM

John Robb: "This is too funny.  Think different taken to a new level." 9:50:29 PM

Checklist for Day 6 and Day 7 of Mark Pilgrim's "30 days to a more accessible weblog":

1. Choosing a DOCTYPE
   • Using HTML 4.01 Transitional
   • Validates (updates to Radio sometimes break this, but it works today.)
2. Identfying the language - English

So far, so good.  I already had added the doctype, but got off my rear to get the page to validate (check those unescaped ampersands in URLs!) and never thought about adding the page language before.

9:47:40 PM

Move along - there's nothing to see here ;) 6:49:59 PM

"Tell me why I don't like Monday:. PwC: Consulting: in: name: change: sensation:" (The Register)

I know a few people who work for PwC Consulting - they thought the new name would be, uh, interesting.

6:37:02 PM

Ronald Reagan. "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:10:11 AM

Mel Brooks. "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 9:47:17 AM

Harry S Truman. "I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 7:44:07 AM

Backup your files, boys and girls! My returned look is solely due to being lucky - Dorothea Salo happened to have copies of my templates, and she was able to send them back to me. Thanks, Dorothea! 12:51:09 PM

Why new dads have all the fun: "Study shows that fathers find their new babies very satisfying, don't lose as much sleep as moms - and still get more nights out than them." (Via: Dane Carlson) 6:04:39 AM

To say Murphy has struck would be very kind...hopefully I can work out the problems and get back on track...

<update>Well, the fact that this posted is the first step!</update>

7:44:12 PM

Ernest Hemingway. "When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen." (Courtesy: Motivational Quotes of the Day) 6:10:10 AM

Douglas Adams. "He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:19:35 AM

The Web Standards Project (WaSP) relaunches tomorrow - and we're the target! 7:58:04 PM

Some neat pictures Derek Dahlsad took at the Fargo Airsho. 7:55:01 PM

Shelley displays an amazing amount of empathy for her fellow bloggers. 7:49:30 PM

Mark Pilgrim starts "30 days to a more accessible weblog" with the tale of Jackie, a blind high-school senior. 7:45:26 PM

Aesop. "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:12:36 AM

Woody Allen. "On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 8:33:41 AM

The past two weeks have gone by in a blur...the paucity of posting is an obvious symptom. It's amazing how fast the time goes by when you are taking care of someone who depends on you to fill his every need.

Nothing exciting to report. Lots of:

• eating
• sleeping
• diaper changes

In other words, especially given his parents, Christopher is as normal as any baby could be.

8:17:49 PM

Alfred A. Knopf. "An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:18:54 AM

Robert Zend. "There are too many people, and too few human beings." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:24:56 AM

Ralph Waldo Emerson. "The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 5:59:04 AM

Who knew a simple link tag could be so fun? Radio now has a Weblog Neighborhood tool, and Mark Pilgrim has an interactive version of a similar concept (not brand specific). 6:24:07 AM

Isaac Asimov. "Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:19:14 AM

Ambrose Bierce. "Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 6:08:35 AM

Mae West. "When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before." (Courtesy: Motivational Quotes of the Day) 9:13:15 AM

RSS auto-discovery has been enabled by a macro in my Radio template. Cool. 9:31:35 PM

Tommy Smothers. "Red meat is NOT bad for you. Now blue-green meat, THAT'S bad for you!" (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 1:22:51 PM

Shelley Powers is working on a Unix Power Tools book and would love to include some tips and tricks others may wish to share. So if you do, hop on over and share. 1:11:04 PM