Widgets and badges like the Google Elements are an ideal tool for quickly  adding content to a page or a site. They bring in third –party functionality without needing much in the way of code- and they also mean that you can quickly swap out a widget if it doesn’t  provide useful functionality without affecting your page design or code. They’re also Yahoo! will be taking the web to TV.

Google us

In other words, a site built to web standards should ideally be lean, clean, CSS-based, accessible, usable and search engine friendly.

About the checklist

This is not an uber-checklist. There are probably many items that could be added. More importantly, it should not be seen as a list of items that must be addressed on every site that you develop. It is simply a guide that can be used:

* to show the breadth of web standards
* as a handy tool for developers during the production phase of websites
* as an aid for developers who are interested in moving towards web standards

The checklist

1.Quality of code
1. Does the site use a correct Doctype?
2. Does the site use a Character set?
3. Does the site use Valid (X)HTML?
4. Does the site use Valid CSS?
5. Does the site use any CSS hacks?
6. Does the site use unnecessary classes or ids?
7. Is the code well structured?
8. Does the site have any broken links?
9. How does the site perform in terms of speed/page size?
10. Does the site have JavaScript errors?

2. Degree of separation between content and presentation

1. Does the site use CSS for all presentation aspects (fonts, colour, padding, borders etc)?
2. Are all decorative images in the CSS, or do they appear in the (X)HTML?

3. Accessibility for users

1. Are “alt” attributes used for all descriptive images?
2. Does the site use relative units rather than absolute units for text size?
3. Do any aspects of the layout break if font size is increased?
4. Does the site use visible skip menus?
5. Does the site use accessible forms?
6. Does the site use accessible tables?
7. Is there sufficient colour brightness/contrasts?
8. Is colour alone used for critical information?
9. Is there delayed responsiveness for dropdown menus (for users with reduced motor skills)?
10. Are all links descriptive (for blind users)?

4. Accessibility for devices

1. Does the site work acceptably across modern and older browsers?
2. Is the content accessible with CSS switched off or not supported?
3. Is the content accessible with images switched off or not supported?
4. Does the site work in text browsers such as Lynx?
5. Does the site work well when printed?
6. Does the site work well in Hand Held devices?
7. Does the site include detailed metadata?
8. Does the site work well in a range of browser window sizes?

5. Basic Usability

1. Is there a clear visual hierarchy?
2. Are heading levels easy to distinguish?
3. Does the site have easy to understand navigation?
4. Does the site use consistent navigation?
5. Are links underlined?
6. Does the site use consistent and appropriate language?
7. Do you have a sitemap page and contact page? Are they easy to find?
8. For large sites, is there a search tool?
9. Is there a link to the home page on every page in the site?
10. Are visited links clearly defined with a unique colour?

6. Site management

1. Does the site have a meaningful and helpful 404 error page that works from any depth in the site?
2. Does the site use friendly URLs?
3. Do your URLs work without “www”?
4. Does the site have a favicon?

CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions, Second Edition

Throughout the whole process we saw that one of the most important things when creating an animated banner is not only that you are skilled as a animator / programmer, but also that you or someone in your team is skilled when reducing file sizes to fit the specs that the publishers will give you before making the pieces . These are some tips that may be useful for you in the future, to reduce file sizes without damaging the banners too much:

1. Plan the banner and its idea, being aware of the size you have available , maybe there will be some rich media banners in which you’ll do all you wanted to.
2. Use Size report from Flash Publish settings as one of your main tools, checking which frame is loading the most of the file size and if something needs to be redistributed .
3. It’s easier to do a rough full version and then optimize it than creating everything optimized from the very beginning . The same for image sequences. Make them full and then remove frames as needed.
4. Regarding text, if it is not very large you can write it in Flash and then break it into shapes, but if there’s a lot of text you should create it in JPEG or GIF format.
5. If the banner has audio features , try export them as mono on a higher quality, as long as the sound isn’t completely messed up.
6. Try avoid PNG or formats including transparency when using bitmaps (for either texts or other images). You can use formats using a white or black background and then play with the blending mode available in Flash to make it disappear.
7. As the solution , and also if everything else failed or wasn’t enough, try to remove some time from the timelines of your Flash movies.

Mod_rewrite is a handy Apache module that rewrites URLs when specified patterns are detected. It’s exceptionally powerful, and can provide solutions to a number of SEO-related challenges including powerful, and can provide solutions to a number of SEO-related challenges including the Google canonical problem. We’ll use it to execute to a 301 redirect, sending the user’s browser to a URL with the www included in the URL.

Servers provide different HTTP status codes to indicate to a response to a request . You’re probably familiar with a 404 status code that indicates the page requested was not found. A 301 status code is a redirect from the URL requested to another one specified by the server administrator.

To send out a 301 redirect status code, create a file called htaccess.txt with the following code to give Apache following code to give Apache the message:

Force WWW

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^revival.com$ [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.revivalx.com/$1 [R=301,L]

This code uses regular expressions to locate specific patterns when evaluating URLs. Regular expressions are commonly used in many scripting and programming languages to identify patterns is strings- a series of text characters. They can be intimidating because of the cryptic characters they use to locate specific text, and aren’t exactly an intuitive read without some prior research.

In this example we see strange characters that indicate text pattern scenarios  . For example, the ^indicates the start of the string, and the $ indicates the end of the string. Each special character has some pattern matching meaning . You can print out a quick reference to demystify regular expressions at http://www.ilovejackdaniels.com/cheat-sheets/regular-expressions-cheat-sheet .

Now that you’ve got your rewrite code in place, upload the htaccess.txt file to the Web root of your server , then rename it to .htaccess. Naming the file .htaccess locally can cause problems, as it a reserved name recognized by some operating systems such as Mac OS X, which would automatically hide it.

In case you are new to working with Apache, the .htaccess file provides on the fly configuration commands to the server and the various modules associated with it. Apache looks for this file whenever it needs to send out a response , and supports the use of unique .htaccess files in different directories for very granular control of the server’s configuration. We’ll be using it often to configure Apache to meet our findability goals.

The first line in the code example turns mod_rewrite on, and the next one sets a condition to be on the lookout for any page request with the domain name in the URL. Of course, revivalx.com will need to be changed to your domain name in order for this to work. The last line creates a rewrite rule that redirects users to their intended destination with the www in the URL.

If you’d like to do the inverse and remove the www, just make sure your rewrite condition contains the www, and remove it from the rewrite rule.

Remove WWW

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.revivalx.com$ [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://revivalx.com/&1 [R=301,L]

There is one other way to ensure Google is using the desired URL structure when ranking your pages. The Google Web Master tools at http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ .

Google has released a free plug-in for Internet Explorer that forces Microsoft’s browser to use Chrome rendering engine, increasing JavaScript performance by almost eight times as much.

The Chrome Frame plug –in (http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe ) works on all versions of Internet Explorer from 6 higher, and also allows websites that use HTML 5 to be displayed properly. Web developers have to explicitly choose choose to support the plug-in ability by inserting a Chrome Frame specific tag into the HTML code for their web pages, telling Internet Explorer to load the plug-in .

If the plug-in isn’t found , a message can be displayed telling the user to download Chrome Frame. On pages without the tag, Internet Explorer shouldn’t behave any differently. Google released Chrome Frame so that users still using older web browsers can use web applications that demand the latest technologies. Microsoft isn’t happy about the release and has said that the plug-in could make its browser less secure.

Online Extra: More Google Tips

Here are a few more clever ways to tweak your Google searches.

Search Within a Timeframe

Daterange: (start date–end date). You can restrict your searches to pages that were indexed within a certain time period. Daterange: searches by when Google indexed a page, not when the page itself was created. This operator can help you ensure that results will have fresh content (by using recent dates), or you can use it to avoid a topic’s current-news blizzard and concentrate only on older results. Daterange: is actually more useful if you go elsewhere to take advantage of it, because daterange: requires Julian dates, not standard Gregorian dates. You can find converters on the Web (such as

CODE

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html

but an easier way is to do a Google daterange: search by filling in a form at

www.researchbuzz.com/toolbox/goofresh.shtml or www.faganfinder.com/engines/google.shtml

. If one special syntax element is good, two must be better, right? Sometimes. Though some operators can’t be mixed (you can’t use the link: operator with anything else) many can be, quickly narrowing your results to a less overwhelming number.

More Google API Applications

Staggernation.com offers three tools based on the Google API. The Google API Web Search by Host (GAWSH) lists the Web hosts of the results for a given query

(www.staggernation.com/gawsh/).

When you click on the triangle next to each host, you get a list of results for that host. The Google API Relation Browsing Outliner (GARBO) is a little more complicated: You enter a URL and choose whether you want pages that related to the URL or linked to the URL

(www.staggernation.com/garbo/).

Click on the triangle next to an URL to get a list of pages linked or related to that particular URL. CapeMail is an e-mail search application that allows you to send an e-mail to google@capeclear.com with the text of your query in the subject line and get the first ten results for that query back. Maybe it’s not something you’d do every day, but if your cell phone does e-mail and doesn’t do Web browsing, this is a very handy address to know.

What Would Google Do?

Top tips

1. Is your brand ready for social media? Has the impact on communications, media and the everyday running of the business been considered ?
2. Has thorough research been done to ascertain whether your audiences and sector are ready for social media? Do you know how to promote your social media efforts via your channels and social media search engines and the like?
3. Remember the global culture and implications of social media. They are published  online and as accessible as webpages are, with the potential to reach wider audiences more quickly.
4. Be prepared to keep your social media content interesting, up to date and vibrant. No one visits and interacts with boring social media, so make sure they are well looked after.
5. Be aware of the effort required to maintain social media and address the points above. If you are note creating the content, how are you moderating it?
6. Interact  and engage with the target audience, and do not preach to them or in any way control natural and free flowing behavior.
7. Internet users have been savvy for a while-do not patronize them. Be creative in stirring and maintaining debate, including them.
8. Be aware of both the technical implications and advances of social media software. Is what you are proposing flexible and expandable enough to converge with other media?  Will your plans and technology be redundant in six months time?
9. Treat social media as a communications conduit to your audience and very important extension of the overall business; do not keep up with the Jones’ because that is not a scalable endeavour.
10. Enjoy and be enthusiastic about what social media you have included ( if deemed relevant), be clear why they have been created, and focus on and adhere to their aims.

Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time

Domain names are also a great place to include keywords that can help users find you. When choosing a domain name, it doesn’t matter which  extension you choose: .com , .net ,.biz and all other extensions start on equal footing and will not in any way impact search engine rankings. Of course, .com domains tend to be more memorable to users because of their popularity, and therefore may be more desirable for word of mouth referrals.

Just as keywords in file names can help boost search engine listings, keywords in domain names are important as well. Keywords in a domain name separated by hyphens are individually readable, and are more desirable for search engine indexing , but can be title trickier for users to remember. It may be a good idea to register  your domain name with hyphens for search engines, and without for the memorability and easy verbal referral by users. You can park both domain names on the same server, pointing them to the same site. List the hyphen-delimited domain with search engines and include the domain without the hyphens on print collateral and advertisements.

An added benefit of including your target keywords in your domain name is that it will help encourage all inbound link links to your site to contain the same keywords, making your site more relevant to search queries.

The age of a domain name can play a significant role in the assigning of a Google PageRank (a mathematical formula that defines the reputation of a site specific to Google). Young domains are generally ranked low, since many disreputable link farm sites created by spammers pop up temporarily to make money from link referrals then quickly disappear before search engines blacklist them. Consequently , older domains are always preferable. However, if you buy a recently expired domain name that has a high PageRank because of its age and accumulated reputation, the PageRank does not transfer to the new owner. Search engines can usually see when domain names change ownership ,and will reset their rankings in such situations. You’ll just have to buy a domain name that is relevant to your audience, and wait for it to age like a fine wine.

Domain Names for Dummies

Conditional Compilation

You can create one flash file and compile it many times with different behaviors by using conditional compilation. Basically it allows you to turn on and off blocks of ActionScript when you publish so you can use the one base file for many purposes.

To set up a config constant go to Publish Settings, choose the Flash tab, select ActionScript 3.0 and then click the settings button.  Then choose the Config  Constants tab.

Here you can add or remove constants , eg add one and call it ‘CONFIG::ONLINE”. Set its value to true. Add another called ‘CONFIG::LOCAL’ and set its value to false.

Then in your ActionScript you can wrap any code inside CONFIG::ONLINE{} or CONFIG::LOCAL{}. For example in the online version you might have a link on a local file.

If you publish the file it will include the code inside the ONLINE config tags. If you change the values in the Publish settings it will publish the code inside the LOCAL config tags.

Performance optimization

The tips below relate to heavy duty Flash work- and will help you optimize your applications/website to give the best performance.

Ints an uints:

As a rule of thumbs, the type ‘int’ is much faster than ‘uint’. Use this, for example, when doing loops or using the while() function.

Increment:

The fastest way to do math increment is by using the method i+1= instead of, example i++

Meaning that:

I+=1;

Is faster than:

I++;

Loops:

In for loops , remember to use ‘int’ – and to pre-calculate any calculations inside the for loop including the calculations inside the first parentheses “for(..)”:

var lengthOfArray: int currentArray.length;

for ( var i:int=0; i<lengthOfArray;i+=1) {}

Smoother video scrubbers

You may know that when compressing a video, the video gets cut up in keyframes every xth frame. From this keyframe onto the next, the frames in between are calculated only by the change in pixels. The Stream Class’s seek() method in AS3 can only seek to theses keyframes.

In default, keyframe for FLV/F4V video are set every the thirtieth frame. Fine for long videos, but take a video that is 20 seconds long at 30fps. With the default encoding settings there will be only 20 keyframes generated that the seek() method can display. So when you release the scrubber in between these frames the scrubber will jump to the next keyframe. When utilizing a 600px wide scrubber, the jumps can be up to 30px( 600px /20keyframes=30px per keyframe). This jumpiness can be avoided by setting the keyframe distance for instance to every fifth frame.

Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Classroom in a Book

(www.buzztoolbox.com/google/yellowsearch.shtml).

Extended Googling

Google offers several services that give you a head start in focusing your search. Google Groups

(http://groups.google.com)

Indexes literally millions of messages from decades of discussion on Usenet. Google even helps you with your shopping via two tools: Froogle

CODE

(http://froogle.google.com),

Which indexes products from online stores, and Google Catalogs

CODE

(http://catalogs.google.com),

Which features products from more 6,000 paper catalogs in a searchable index. And this only scratches the surface. You can get a complete list of Google’s tools and services at

www.google.com/options/index.html

You’re probably used to using Google in your browser. But have you ever thought of using Google outside your browser?

Google Alert

(www.googlealert.com)

Monitors your search terms and e-mails you information about new additions to Google’s Web index. (Google Alert is not affiliated with Google; it uses Google’s Web services API to perform its searches.) If you’re more interested in news stories than general Web content, check out the beta version of Google News Alerts

(www.google.com/newsalerts).

This service (which is affiliated with Google) will monitor up to 50 news queries per e-mail address and send you information about news stories that match your query. (Hint: Use the intitle: and source: syntax elements with Google News to limit the number of alerts you get.)

Google on the telephone? Yup. This service is brought to you by the folks at Google Labs

(http://labs.google.com),

A place for experimental Google ideas and features (which may come and go, so what’s there at this writing might not be there when you decide to check it out). With Google Voice Search

(http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html),

You dial the Voice Search phone number, speak your keywords, and then click on the indicated link. Every time you say a new search term, the results page will refresh with your new query (you must have JavaScript enabled for this to work). Remember, this service is still in an experimental phase, so don’t expect 100 percent success.

In 2002, Google released the Google API (application programming interface), a way for programmers to access Google’s search engine results without violating the Google Terms of Service. A lot of people have created useful (and occasionally not-so-useful but interesting) applications not available from Google itself, such as Google Alert. For many applications, you’ll need an API key, which is available free from

CODE

www.google.com/apis

. See the figures for two more examples, and visit

www.pcmag.com/solutions

for more.

Thanks to its many different search properties, Google goes far beyond a regular search engine. Give the tricks in this article a try. You’ll be amazed at how many different ways Google can improve your Internet searching.

What Would Google Do?