October 30th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
It does.
Why?
Well, I've been doing this job, at a very high level, for a long time and I couldn't code this by hand if you paid me $50,000:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
I understand it, and I can't remember it. That's basically gibberish to most people. There's no way anyone is going to remember that string.
This? This I can code by hand and pretty much anyone can "get" what it's doing:
I do wonder if there's been any backlash against that? I've seen a lot of backlash against HTML5 over the past year, but I can't really remember anyone complaining about the doctype declaration.
I bet someone hates it.
Not me 
October 21st, 2009 by Rob Larsen
Mashable broke the story earlier today and withing a couple of hours Microsoft launched bing.com/twitter Web 2.0 Summit. First impression? I don't like the look of the tag cloud.
C'Mon, Microsoft, you can be cooler than that.
One thing I do like is the timing of it as I just wrote a big-ass article on the Real-Time Web over at AWiderNet.
Look at me being all topical.
Check it out and let me know what you think. Comments are always welcome.
October 20th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
Since I run so many content-centric sites, I've never really had much use for Google Analytics' goals. It's one thing when you're doing lead generation or ecommerce. Those goals are clear and easy to define.
Someone filled out a form? Goal reached.
Someone hit a thank you page for purchasing a book? Goal reached.
For content sites, where the aim is engagement goals are tougher to define.
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October 20th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
The following is a test of this page of unstyled, generic markup performed in 81 browsers. I used browsercam to take screen captures, then imported the resulting captures into Photoshop. In Photoshop, I zeroed out the top/left coordinates of the HTML canvas (not to be confused with the Canvas element,) and then set the Opacity on each layer to 10%. For the second visualization I simply turned on the difference blending mode at full opacity.
Why? I thought it was an interesting illustration of why we use reset style sheets. There's almost no consistency in the way these browsers handle even the most generic markup.
Here are the two visualizations:
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October 16th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
The following is what we use to lay down the most common text styles. This is honestly more than we usually need, but it helps ensure we don't miss anything when real content is flowed into a design. I thought it might be useful for folks to use in their own projects.
I've got a live version here on the site.
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October 12th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
Here are the books that sit next to me at work.
No, there are no HTML or CSS books. I haven't felt the need to dive into those subjects, in depth, since 1999. Based on the foundation I got from studying specs and experimenting in 1998-2000, I can read the occasional A List Apart article, look at Quirksmode and keep up to date.
I should add, I'm reading Dive Into HTML5 as it's released. That's what the first change in the specs in 10 years will do to a fellow.
In my "to read" pile:
I like Mark Pilgrim's writing, in general, and I want to learn more about Python.
Read and build. Build and read. That's my fall, I hope. With the new changes to their app distribution program, I've decided I'm going to do something open source.
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October 7th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
I eat this stuff up. The more data like this we get the easier it is to sell performance to team members and clients.
Do faster web pages mean better business? Definitely. We’ve seen hard evidence from major web operators like Shopzilla, Google, and Microsoft. But what about other websites? How big an impact does performance optimization have on the business metrics of a typical media or e-commerce site?
Proof that speeding up websites improves online business
October 6th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
I got a new machine at work yesterday and in the process of building the thing out and getting it ready to actually work with, I came up with a list of the tools and utilities I use on a regular basis. Not the big stuff (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop, etc.) The stuff that fills in the cracks that the big tools don't cover. Thinking such a list might be useful for other folks, I added a couple of online services that I can't live without and am now sharing the highlights of the list with the world.
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October 1st, 2009 by Rob Larsen
I've always preferred the "IE Box model." I've always wanted width to actually be the width of the element. Instead, I've been forced, for years, to break out my math skills to calculate "actual" value of the width property by subtracting padding, margin and borders. That still seems broken to me after all these years.
I'm not alone in this. Here are some big shots sharing their thoughts on the matter:
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