I’ve now got 3 sites running on the shiny new futurespec and I can now say I officially like the new semantic elements. I also feel like I’m getting a good handle on them.

One thing I’m still thinking about here and on DrunkenFist.com is the use of headers in the sidebar. Take a look at the outline of a page from this site run through the HTML5 outliner:

1. HTML CSS JavaScript
   1. How To Make a Web Site the Modern Way. Part 7: Best Practices for Lists (UL, OL, DL)
      1. Using Lists as Menus
      2. Lists as Lists
         1. Unordered Lists
         2. Ordered List
         3. Definition Lists
      3. Leave a Reply
      4. Untitled Section
   2. Categories
   3. Tags
   4. Links
   5. Archives
   6. Pages

I’m comfortable with the outline all the way through the main content. The “Leave a Reply” feels like it should move from a header to just a paragraph or something, since it’s not really that prominent in the meaning of the page. Visually, sure, but it’s not actually that crucial to the content. Other than that I’m happy with the way it flows.

As a note, the “Untitled Section” at the bottom is a <nav> element.

Then we get into the sidebar. Starting with “Categories,” I feel like they’re too far up in the outline- too prominent. But, then, how should I mark them up? Should they not be headers? They sure feel like they should be headers. Thinking…

@font-face

As an aside, I’m also messing around with @font-face as well. I’ve done some work with Cufon (which is pretty good) and sIFR (which drives me insane,) at various jobs, but I’ve never really done any work with fancy fonts on my own projects. With the depth of support for @font-face and the low overhead of the technique (the two fonts included are around 5-10k each, gzipped- yes, gzip your fonts,) I figured it was time to take the leap. With a bit of know-how, it’s not so bad.

Now if I could just find a use for some JavaScript on the site, I’d be fully in the modern age.

I know what you’re wondering? Who am I? What’s this site about?

Who Am I?

As I mentioned, my name is Rob and I work as Principal Presentation Engineer at an agency in the Boston area. There, I manage a small team, work on standards and process development and still find some time to do some coding. Overall, I’ve got more than ten years of professional experience building web site for a wide variety of companies and a couple of years before that building sites for my own enjoyment. All of which means I’ve got volumes of hands-on, practical experience that I want to share with you.

What’s This Site About?

I’ll mostly be writing about front end technologies (HTML,CSS, JavaScript), front end performance, and related web technologies (XML/XSLT, WordPress, Apache, Flash/Flex, Amazon Web Services.) I’ll occasionally add in a post about social media and/or the business of the Internet.

Some examples of the kind of writing I’ll do, pulled from my personal site:

• Why Front End Performance Matters to Everyone, Not Just the High Traffic Giants
• Cross Browser Opacity using CSS and Internet Explorer filters
• The joy of… JavaScript’s getElementsByTagName()
• A Three Column CSS Layout Using Just an Unordered List
• Setting Far Future Expires Headers For Images In Amazon S3
• Acid3 Test Released. I Took Some Screen Captures. Lots of Fail.
• Using overflow:auto to Clear Floated Content in CSS
• Twitter Search Results With JSON and Callbacks