December 18th, 2006
Anthony
Good news, as w3counter shows that Firefox has reached 25% market share.
Breakdown:
IE6 - 59%
Firefox 1.5 - 17%
IE7 - 6%
Firefox 2.0 - 6%
Firefox 1.0 - 2%
So combined versions of Firefox come to 25%, and combined IE6 and IE7 come to 65%. Not bad!
I find it interesting that IE6 vs IE7 has such a large difference still, given that Microsoft is pushing IE7 out to customers via Windows XP automatic updates. I would have expected an overnight explosion of adoption, something like 50% of IE users having IE7 by now. I guess not!
Wonder why that is - too many people with pirated XP copies (You have to run the ‘genuine’ tool to install IE7), or just people not updating windows?
November 1st, 2006
Anthony
One of the sites owned by my employer (Tailored Consulting) is called Brand Boots.com. Today, Brendon tells me that BrandBoots is ranked #5 in Yahoo for the phrase “ugg boots” - and thats great news.
BrandBoots was a venture by Brendon and Mel to sell Ugg Boots (Ugh boots, Ugg boots, Ug Boots - however you want to spell it!) from an online shop. Over Christmas etc, they would sell LOTS of boots overseas. (Don’t forget, its hot here in Australia - but other countries can get snow, and warm sheepskin boots are great in cold weather).
Read the rest of this entry »
October 27th, 2006
Anthony
This is a blog, and its got an RSS feed. It feels like RSS feeds are becoming more and more common every day. Part of this is due to the growing popularity of blogs, and partly because web users are becoming a little more savvy.
Once upon a time there was a web user. We’ll call her Betty. Betty found a blog she liked to read, and she checked back daily for new posts. Then Betty found out about some more blogs she liked, so she started checking those daily too. It wasn’t look before Betty was checking 30 blogs every day - and wow, it was starting to take a while! Read the rest of this entry »
October 19th, 2006
Anthony
Well, thats just dandy. Internet Explorer 7 was released for download today, from the sound of things.
They haven’t pushed it out to all Windows XP machines via windows update yet, but I can’t imagine thats very far away. I did hear it would happen on November 1, but that wasn’t an official source, so I’m not sure.
What this means to me: Next week could be a busy one, what with ensuring all our old websites display properly in the new browser.
If you haven’t heard anything about Internet Explorer 7, then I think you should use the alternative download site: http://www.ie7.com 
May 4th, 2006
Anthony
Its always a hassle, isn’t it. You code up your webapp and store timestamps from events - then later you have to do the conversion in your head because the server your site sits on is on the other side of the world.
Michael Phipps touches on the subject, mentioning an issue with attempting local timezones in multi-user systems.
Last week Pete was trying to solve a problem, and ran into the issue of not being able to change the timezone on his server, even though he needed all times stored in Australian Eastern Standard. As one does, he didn’t find a decent solution until he’d already implemented a hack.
echo date('r');
// Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:38:30 +0000
?>
If you do not have access to editing the server time, here's a quick fix:
// For example, to output Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5:00)
putenv("TZ=EST");
echo date('r');
// Fri, 17 Mar 2006 07:38:30 -0500
?>
How easy is that!
October 22nd, 2005
Anthony
Blogs:
Articles:
- Sitepoint - How to sell web accessibility
Interesting Stats:
* There are 8.6 million registered disabled people in the UK, totaling 14% of the population (source: DRC)
* One in 12 men, and one in 200 women, has some form of colour blindness, totaling 9% of the UK population (source: Institution of Electrical Engineers)
* Two million UK residents have a sight problem — that’s 4% of the population (source: RNIB)
* There are 12 million people aged 60 or over — some 21% of the UK population (source: UK government)
- Sitepoint - Top Ten CSS Tricks
Has some decent tricks and tips in there
August 15th, 2005
Anthony
here’s a few more resources:
- SP - Coding Standards
Good article on Coding Standards - basically, how to write code that is easy to add to, maintain, and debug. Always good!
- PHP Code Beautifier
Reformats PHP code based on your preferences, to make things easier to read etc.
- Security Guide for PHP
Excellent guide to security. Includes code snippets, examples, and cases. Easy to read, and some excellent tips. Useful as a reference guide.
August 15th, 2005
Anthony
Here are a few Javascript resources for you!
- Unobtrusive Javascript
Unobtrusive Javascript - basically, you don’t put javascript in your html code. Instead, you use an external .js file, and use event-handlers to trigger the code where neccessary. Good one to take on-board!
- Preview Your Links
Use unobtrusive javascript to put an icon beside your links. Show PDF, Word, HTMl, Text, etc etc. Good add to usability of a site, not to mention a warning in linking to PDF etc files.
- Good mouse-over alternatives
Move your mouse over a feature link on this page. See what happens? I like it! View source to see how its done.
And for my own personal reference, I also have the sitepoint book DHTML Utopia - which has some excellent JS resources.