Zeldman.com and stopdesign.com both have articles up about the difference between semantics and standards when it comes to web design. The shocking truth that both of these posts are asserting is that they are not the same thing. One can create valid xhtml code without it being semantically correct and vice versa.
This is an interesting topic that I have never really put much thought into. However, I must say that I agree with both of them. Although Douglas Bowman (Stopdesign) does state that the one should logically flow from the other, i.e. as you learn proper, standards compliant coding practises you should naturally gravitate to semantically correct code.
I have found that in my own designs, although not totally semantically correct, the desire to produce the simplest XHTML possible naturally lends itself to producing semantic code. The only way to create simple markup is to use h tags, p tags, and lists as opposed to using divs, spans, and tables.
This topic will definitely be something that I will keep in mind as I move forward in my own web design education.
Here are links to three blog articles on this subject
www.zeldman.com
www.stopdesign.com
www.kottke.org
Okay, I am a little slow on this one, but here it is — Ruby 1.8.0 has finally been relased (about three weeks ago). Once my linux server is back up and running I will be installing the new version and trying it out.
This is an excellent article from the Washington Post that goes a long way in explaining why so many people got blasted by viruses over that last two weeks. It starts off by asking why it is only Windows users who have to deal with viruses and not Mac or Linux users. It then goes on to explain some of the wholes that Microsoft has intentionally left open in Windows XP Home.
You may have to fill out a very short survey before you get to the article, but the article is worth a read.
My notebook finally arrived. This is very cool. My only complaint with the notebook is that it is a bit on the heavy side. Aside from that, I really like it. However, I have only been using it for a few hours though.
The goal for this weekend is to install Mandrake Linux onto the notebook. First though I have to go out and buy a wireless card. So far, the card of choice will be a Linksys 802.11b pc card. Hopefully it will work. I am going to leave Windows XP on the computer and do the dualboot thing.
I personally find this story to be very scary. I mean, are you really going to trust an airline that uses windows 2000/XP to power their booking computers? I don’t!
You have to wonder what their other servers are running if their booking computers are all on windows. This most likely means that their servers are also running windows and those are the computers that are storing all my personal information on them. So what happens when they go down?
Thankfully, I don’t think the airplanes are running windows (I hope).
For the complete story see the link
Due to the resent power blackout and the fact that I am busy packing in order to move in a week and a half, the updates and posts to the site will be a little thin over the next few weeks. The will pick up again once I am in school though.
I have found one problem with buying a notebook from Dell — the wait.
Yep, I just bought a new notebook for this year at school. The one I had was getting a little old — it was a pII 266 with 128megs and a 6gig hard drive and a battery that only lasts 30 minutes on a good day.
It is amazing, I actually bought a notebook for $1000 CAD. I have never seen prices this low. Granted, this is not a top of the line notebook, but is will do everything I need it to do for school. Plus, I have a really big desktop computer for playing games on.Anyway, here are the specs – Inspiron 1100 (who came up with that name anyway) with a 2.2GHz Celeron processor, 256 megs of RAM, a 30gig hard drive and a 14.1 inch screen plus a dvd player. It will run linux and compile a C or Java program and the battery should last through a two hour class.
I can’t wait for it to arrive. Look for a review of my attemp to install Linux onto it. It ships with Windows XP which I am going to shrink and then install Mandrake onto the other half of the hard drive.