evolt.org - News

Mobile Internet Use Continues Climb

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:23:05 -0600

As mobile devices are more common, and browsing the web on them has gotten even easier, we can expect to see them continue to gain ground on traditional computers for casual web surfing.

W3C: Contacting Organizations about Inaccessible Websites

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:18:42 -0600

The W3C WAI has just published a document, "Contacting Organizations about Inaccessible Websites," that helps walk users through the steps necessary to contact someone about the accessibility issues you find on a site, along with tips and sample emails.

New Tool for Determining Browser Viewport Size

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:52:32 -0600

Nine years ago I had become fed up with trying to explain that screen resolution, browser chrome, and browser size combine to create some unique viewport sizes. Today Google has gotten a little closer to getting the point with its Browser Size tool.

More News in the URL Shortener Market

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:28:21 -0600

Back in October I commented how the list of URL shorteners has gotten even shorter. As bit.ly rose to the top thanks to Twitter, Tr.im and Cli.gs called it quits. Things have changed a bit since then.

YouTube Will Automatically Caption Your Video

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:53:30 -0600

Google can use its speech recognition technology to parse the audio track of your videos and create captions automatically. Much like machine translation, the quality of these captions may not be the best, but it can at least provide enough information for a user who could not otherwise understand the video at all to glean some meaning and value.

IE9 First Details

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:46:34 -0600

Microsoft revealed some first details of Internet Explorer 9 at the Microsoft Professional Developer's Conference, as reported by Mashable today. Only in development for three weeks, there's still quite a lot of time before it gets to market.

WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey Results

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:07:07 -0600

WebAIM conducted a survey of the preferences of screen reader users in October, gathering a lot of interesting data about how users utilize assistive technologies.

Internet Turns 40, Just Might Catch On

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:57:25 -0500

Media outlets seem to have settled on October 29, 2009 as the official birthday of the Internet. This date has been chosen because it's the day that Leonard Kleinrock at the University of California-Los Angeles sent a message over a two-computer network (the other end being a computer at Stanford Research Institute) with Charley Kline manning the UCLA keyboard and Bill Duvall on the Stanford site.

Firefox 3.6 to Support Web Open Font Format

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:24:45 -0500

Mozilla's developer blog yesterday posted that they have added support for the Web Open Font Format (WOFF) to Firefox 3.6.

Current CSS3, HTML5 Support

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:50:24 -0500

Last week saw the launch of FindMeByIp.com, a very handy web site that displays a user's current IP address, user agent string and support for CSS3 and HTML5. The site developers ran their own browsers through this tool and that collection of information has been gathered up and posted to provide information on current browser support for the latest standards.

List of URL Shorteners Grows Shortener

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:19:17 -0500

One of the many URL shorteners has announced that it is shutting down in just under three weeks. Cli.gs has announced, via its blog, that it will no longer accept new URLs to be shortened as of October 25. It will also stop logging analytics. Cli.gs will still forward URLs at through November, but no guarantees have been made beyond that. Since Cli.gs has been a one-man show serving tens of millions of forwards a month and the site owner is funding it from his own pocket, it's not too much of a surprise

Google Chrome for Internet Explorer

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:47:17 -0500

For years web developers have struggled with browsers that don't support standards or the latest innovations and that just won't go away, such as Internet Explorer. Google has taken an ingenious approach to deal with Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 and their general lack of standards support. It has found a way to embed Chrome right into IE.

Verified: Google Ignores Meta Keywords

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:56:25 -0500

Google has clarified its policy on meta tags and page rank. Those of us trying to protect our clients from SEO/SEM snake-oil salesmen are happy to finally have an official statement from Google, even though we may have known the answer for years.

Google Chrome 3 Released

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:24:32 -0500

Google has announced the release of Chrome version 3 (stable release). Given that it just celebrated its first anniversary earlier this month, it may catch up to Internet Explorer versions in no time.

Twitter Updates ToS

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:49:44 -0500

On Thursday Twitter updated its Terms of Service. Much has already been said about how Twitter has confirmed that you as the author own your own tweets, but I was more taken with how Twitter made the new Terms easier to read for those of us who haven't gotten a law degree.