w3c: August 2007 Archives
I've mentioned the Golden Spiders on here several times in the past.
Last year I actually got to attend the night and it was thoroughly enjoyable.
However it's not about the night itself. It's the actual awards themselves that concern me.
Other awards, such as the Net Visionaries, are open to the public in all regards, though there are no actual judges involved. A comparison could be easily drawn to the dot net magazine awards, which allow anyone to nominate anyone else but has a panel of judges (including several names that look familiar). (Disclosure: We're sponsors)
As I mentioned several times in the past, both here and elsewhere, the nomination fee will dissuade many excellent sites from being nominated. When I raised this with the organisers their glib response was to dimiss the €100 - €150 nomination fee as being required for administrative charges / costs and that any "real" business would be able to afford it. Having started my own business from nothing I can assure you dear reader that every euro matters and tossing away €100 on a nomination for an award is not something I'd have done. Even now, with over a dozen full time staff etc., etc. I'd still take issue with paying that kind of fee.
According to the image only email (yes - no links or HTML - they actually send an image in an email!) they were sending around the other day the "new" site will be launching soon. Damien picked up on their inclusion of a couple of new categories, but RedCardinal, myself and others have been left in the dark ... See this thread for more
Wouldn't it be great if this year's awards took into consideration:
I for one won't be holding my breath...
Last year I actually got to attend the night and it was thoroughly enjoyable.
However it's not about the night itself. It's the actual awards themselves that concern me.
Other awards, such as the Net Visionaries, are open to the public in all regards, though there are no actual judges involved. A comparison could be easily drawn to the dot net magazine awards, which allow anyone to nominate anyone else but has a panel of judges (including several names that look familiar). (Disclosure: We're sponsors)
As I mentioned several times in the past, both here and elsewhere, the nomination fee will dissuade many excellent sites from being nominated. When I raised this with the organisers their glib response was to dimiss the €100 - €150 nomination fee as being required for administrative charges / costs and that any "real" business would be able to afford it. Having started my own business from nothing I can assure you dear reader that every euro matters and tossing away €100 on a nomination for an award is not something I'd have done. Even now, with over a dozen full time staff etc., etc. I'd still take issue with paying that kind of fee.
According to the image only email (yes - no links or HTML - they actually send an image in an email!) they were sending around the other day the "new" site will be launching soon. Damien picked up on their inclusion of a couple of new categories, but RedCardinal, myself and others have been left in the dark ... See this thread for more
Wouldn't it be great if this year's awards took into consideration:
- design
- web standards
- accessibility
I for one won't be holding my breath...
It seems only yesterday that the guys behind SiteVista let me take a look at what they were cooking, but if you look at my original post it was over two years ago!
I gather that SiteVista was successful and I did see its name cropping up all over the place, but for whatever reasons they guys decided to revamp it and rename it - Litmus was born!
Paul gave me access to a beta account on the new system a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't get a chance to write about my experiences with it (besides they needed time to iron out some of the bugs).
The new interface is very slick and incredibly fast.
They've increased the number of browsers they're testing against dramatically to include a number of weird and wonderful combinations, so you too can cater for the oddballs :)
(I wish whoever was looking after sites like the CRO would use services like this! )
One of the really nice features they've added is the option to share tests with the public via an easy option in the dashboard.
So, for example, you could go here to see the tests I ran on an MT4 install.
They've also added an email testing suite, so that you can iron out potential issues across a wide range of email clients. Want to know how your newsletter looks in AOL for example? Now you can.
If you haven't got an account I'd heartily recommend you signup for a free 30 day trial. You can then whine at your web designers and back it up with proof! :)
The 2007 Irish Internet Association Net Visionary awards are now open for nominations.
People I'd like to see win this year:
- Alan O Rourke
- Conn
- Red Cardinal
- 2Bscene
- Damien Mulley
- Dave Davis
You can click on that "thing" to see what I can currently see in my browser when I try to use a public service website - namely the Irish Companies' office (CRO)
It was working fine not so long ago, but an "upgrade" has broken it completely.
Seemingly it still works in Internet Explorer, but I don't use Internet Explorer and have no intention of being forced to use it when I should have access to site like this.
How hard would it have been to write compliant HTML and test the site?
So who is to blame?
Was it a $random CRO employee or the website developers?
Answers on a postcard please ..........
