Its seems that quite a few websites are being complacent about their validation for data submission. Some relying on only a captcha which doesn’t validate any of the other data submitted. Even worse some are relying on a JavaScript alone!!

To points really about this, generally the data you are wanting to collect from your user is specific data not rubbish so therefore measures needs to be taken to control what data the user submits. For example if you want the user to give their phone number in a specific format or you want your user to give you their email address, you are going to want the email address in the correct format. The second point is security, you don’t want users submitting sql injections or JavaScript in your forms, so these as also needs to validated against.

Both these things can be done on both the server side and client side. Rather than thinking either or, think both. Client side validation should be used as convenience to tell the user they have made a mistake in their form without taking your form on a round trip to the server. However client side validation wont help with security for the simple reason that JavaScript can be turned off! It also runs on the client not on the server so that limits your control. Sever side validation should be the more robust part of your validation strategy this should be used to check for security issues as well rechecking what the client side as already done.

Simple stuff really but you will be surprised how often it is being overlooked!

Why is HTML 5 challenging Flash? Well HTML 5 brings with it new tags like the video tag which a the moment is a reason many developers use flash. It is true that some website’s are built all in Flash, but these are few and far between. If the displaying of videos was proven to be easier and better across multiple browsers then Flash video could be on its way out. Speculation has spiraled as YouTube announced they were testing support for HTML 5 .

I personally would love to have HTML 5 meet all my embedding video needs. I have never warmed to Flash mainly for its old browser compatibility problems and its poor record for supporting provision for mobile devices.

Bearing in mind we now have IE 8 why is this browser still around? In January 2010 IE6 accounted for 10.2% of all browser world wide.

I think the main reason for this is business’s with large IT networks that are reluctant to upgrade a minor piece of software which to them as now massive beneifit to their network. So how long should you support it? Well one strong argument would suggest that we all tend to support the browsers Safari and Opera, in the same period they only accounted for 3.7% and 2.2% respectively. So therefore we should continue to support IE6 on that basis. However in the last 6 months some major websites such as youtube and Google have announced they will be phasing out their support for IE6.

My view is the view I think you should take for all your browser decisions. Whats you target audience?

For example if you are a business using your website to sell business to business, then yes I think you should still support it as many of your customers may still be using it. However if you are web 2.0 blog then no I think you can stop supporting it as your user base is likely to have up to date browsers or at least IE7 or later.

A good solution if you are going to support it, is to put small message some where on the page telling the user that there browser is out of date and they can upgrade for free to a new one.

Launched in 2005 as a way for Mark Zuckerberg to keep in contact with his college friends around campus, Facebook has grown to become the worlds most popular social network.

Facebook have coincided this with the launch of their new page layout, which is said to allow us to access are friends through Facebook Chat easier and also gives more prominence to the search box. Other features include a improved left column sub navigation bar and the notifications button has been moved to the top left.

Time will tell whether these changes will be greeted well by users, but as they are largely based on user feedback people should greet them in kind.

To me what this demonstrates is Facebooks constant need to reinvent itself, this is true of any business but particularly one in Facebook’s business sector. The internet has changed and is changing at phenomenal rate so any company trading on he internet needs to adapt there business to cope with these. Time will tell whether Facebook manages to stay on top, but my opinion it doesn’t seem to be showing signs of going anywhere soon…

It is true adding alt and even title attributes to your img tags is going to help with seo, but this doesn’t stop the need for just plain old text. The h1 tag is an important tag as far as seo is concerned as Google gives a certain amount of importance. So anything you put inside this tag Google will use to indicate what your web page is about.

What would happen if I put all my text in h1 tags..?!

Well.. the h1 tags is a fairly unique tag it should be used for the first heading of the page. At most you should use it twice on any given page and most of the time really only once. So the more you repeat the use of the tag on a given page the more the “value” of the tag disappears. If all your text where inside the h1 tags then your text would have little value in seo terms. Google may also think you are trying to deceive its robots and not index your web page at all.

So what about images…?

Heading tags are designed for just that headings…! The alt text of an img tag does have some value but not as much value as text on its own. So I would keep your h1 tags for text.

“In Internet Explorer, there is a critical yet unknown vulnerability. The vulnerability allows attackers to inject malicious code via a specially crafted Web page into a Windows (Windows) computer to infiltrate and set up. The last week became known hacker attack on Google and other U.S. companies has probably exploited the vulnerability.”

This could open the flood gates for other governments or business sectors to follow suit. In less of course Micorsoft comes up with a security update. Read the full article here

I hope when I do will make the decision to use HTML 5 it will be beacuse it will suit my application to do so and therefore my end user

For a full article check this page out

She came to me needing a brochure website to display her work. Check out the website, www.kingsmanart.co.uk

Gemma will be holding a joint exhibition on the 4th & 12th December in Arundel, Sussex Read more..

With this in mind. I offer a low cost web design package for charities and non-profit organisations.

If you would like more details about this service or about how you can get funding to help with the cost of your website then please www.purplepicture.co.uk/charities

www.purplepicture.co.uk

It is a very different design then before, so please leave your comments or email me…!