Elly Williams' Weblog » Blog News

Validation and Reliance on Third Parties

Elly — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 15:35:55 +0000

So, I have a slight problem getting my site to validate at the moment, which I’d appreciate some help figuring out. It goes something like this:

WordPress produces XHTML
Therefore, this site has a lot of XHTML in it that I can’t control (my php skills are not up to editing anything server-side)
del.icio.us automatically posts my link entries as HTML (minus the eX)
Therefore, this site also has a lot of HTML in it that I can’t control
Some of the XHTML won’t validate as HTML and some of the HTML won;t validate as XHTML
Therefore, my site doesn’t validate.

So, I guess my problem is

How much does it matter?
How much do I care?
Can I do anything about it either way?

Refactor, Refurbish, Relocate.

Elly — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:33:37 +0000

It’s been two and a half years since I last made any significant changes to the look of this place, and seeing as the backend has changed since then and I’ve now switched my domains over, I figured it was time I built something a little more custom.

I’ve kept quite a bit of the branding – the daisy and the shade of orange are the same, but I’ve gone for something much bolder and cleaner – mostly in the look-and-feel but I’ve tidied up ‘under-the-hood’ too.

I also finally got around to adding myself an hCard, which I’ve been meaning to do for at least a year.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure everything’s working the way it should, but if not shout out in the comments.

Welcome to the New Domain

Elly — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 18:44:19 +0000

Just in the process of moving things over to the new domain. If anything’s hinky, please shout out in the comments!

Pink for October

Elly — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 06:50:57 +0000

Along with some 500+ other sites, this site is Pink for October in aid of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I lost my Grandma to Cancer when I was about 10. (not Breast Cancer, possibly Endomitrial, I’m not too sure) She’d had it before and had treatment, but it came back. As you can probably tell, I’m fairly fuzzy on the details.

Anyway, this is a worthy cause, and I’m doing my bit. Have a look at the links below and see if you can do anything too.

Breast Cancer Campaign – Charity specialising in funding Breast Cancer Research
Cancer Research UK – The UK’s leading Cancer Research Charity
Breast Cancer Care – Breast Cancer Support and Information
Cancer Backup – Information, practical advice and support for cancer patients, their families and carers

Information Overload

Elly — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 20:26:34 +0000

After 4 months without checking, I have 8632 unread posts in my feedreader. Eeek!!!

Accessible Language

Elly — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 15:01:44 +0000

It’s been a bit quiet here recently (apart from the spammers). This is because in the midst of leaving my job, moving 300miles north, buying a flat and adopting a dog, I have been pretty much entirely without internet since the end of June. It may be a while before I’m properly connected up again, but I just thought I should say that I’m ok, and that Newcastle is treating me very well.

Anyway…

This article on the unfathomability of various web-terms, by the british public(via Simon) got me thinking back to a conversation I had with a colleague about six months ago. He asked “What’s the difference between a chatroom and a blog?”. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I’m fairly sure I gave a thoroughly unsatisfactory answer.

Let’s try the question another way.. In terms that you would use to a taxi driver, landlord or hairdresser…

A chatroom is a to a blog, what a [---] is to a [---]: debate is to a lecture?; conference call is to a letter?; free-for-all is to a committee?

Liquid Layout – Learning to Lose Control

Elly — Sun, 01 May 2005 20:35:14 +0000

After writing my own Fixed Width Article last week, I decided it was time for a change. If people are building fixed width layouts because it’s ‘the done thing’ then surely having a fixed width layout puts me in the ‘part of the problem’ camp, rather than the ‘part of the solution’ camp.

So, yes, I now have a liquid layout. What used to be a single image in the header is now a three part sliding door, and I can now be much more liberal with the length of my post titles.

And anyway, it’s been quite fun to do. And I fully intend to do lots more exciting things with sliding doors having only discovered what they’re called at SXSW – despite the fact I’d been using them since January

Browser Stats

Elly — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 06:27:19 +0000

While having a quick look at my stats (because I haven’t in a while) I noticed this….

Firefox is fast catching up as the browser-of-choice people are using to view my site. And if you add up Firefox, Mozilla, Opera and Safari, then the total is higher than IE.

Which is nice

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam!!

Elly — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 07:49:17 +0000

I finally got annoyed with WordPress storing all my spam, so I went and deleted it all manually. I don’t think I’m going to use “Mark as Spam” any more. It confuses my “Recent Comments” counter into thinking there are more comments than there are.

XFN-blo.gs-blogroll!!

Elly — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 19:13:09 +0000

You might have noticed my site died a bit today. If not, you missed a rather persistent parse error message. Basically, I’ve been trying to ‘adapt’ the blogroll plugin I use (which pulls in stuff from blo.gs) to pull in my xfn data as well, as I couldn’t find a plugin anywhere which displayed how I wanted it to.

The last time I coded anything without someone sat next to me was when I was about 8. And that was in Basic. I don’t know php. So, naturally a few things went wrong, and something went so wrong I couldn’t fix it until about an hour ago because it wouldn’t let me log into WordPress.

But it all works now, and I’m xfn’ed and generally quite pleased with myself.