Category: Technology

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Diversity JavaScript

Ajax, the manly technology

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Seems that O’Reilly has had another one of its invite-only summits, but this time about Ajax. If you’ve missed hearing about Ajax, it’s the web development equivalent of tags (as taxonomy) and metaformats (as semantics). This is part of the technology that makes America, well, America.

A new twist, though: As you can see from the list of attendees, Ajax is the new manly-man technology. Or if you prefer, stud muffin technology.

Hey! Hey! Hey, hey, hey!
Macho, macho tech (macho tech)
I’ve got to be, a macho tech
Macho, macho tech
I’ve got to be a macho! Ow….

Macho, macho tech
I’ve got to be, a macho tech
Macho, macho tech (yeah, yeah)
I’ve got to be a macho!

What’s the tech equivalent of butt cracks and belching? Oh, yeah! XmlHttpRequest and Javascript!

Normally I would be all up in arms about the absolutely abysmal ratio of women to men, except we’re talking about Ajax. What did one statement from this summit say? Ajax is to traditional Web, what IM is to Email. Nice and catchy, except I can think of a better analogy: Ajax is to traditional Web, what Miller Lite is to beer.

Macho, macho tech. I want to be a macho tech…

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Technology

Productive

Aside from my earlier babble, I have also been productive today: fixing Uncle Joe’s layout so that it works in IE 6.x in Windows; working on a page sidebar modification for Molly; and finishing up the Sessum’s Portal page.

The two images in the background for the portal page are Creative Commons licensed images at Flickr, hopefully reflecting all the interests of the Sessum clan–digital and creative. (And note, I am not a BuzzAgent to be talking about CC — this is a freebie.) It’s home will be gesproductions.com, when it’s in place.

One issue that came up when working on the Sessum page, as well as helping Joe, is being able to test the modifications with different operating systems and browsers. However, thanks to an accidental discovery in comments at another weblog, I found out about BrowserCam–a service that takes snapshots of a page based in a wide assortment of browsers, operating systems, and resolutions: for instance the portal page in IE6 on XP, Opera on Mac, and Konqueror on Linux.

Of course, there are other issues to how a page looks, such as installed fonts and user settings, but what the service provides is a way of seeing what a page would look like right out of the box. That’s usually good enough.

During peak times, screenshots can be slow, but you’ll primarily use the site to test efforts at specific stages, and the wait is worth it. I only have a trial account, but if I get more design jobs, I’ll most likely subscribe to the service–unless there are other services and/or software that are more economical.

Now, though, back to the server-side of things with my next task. I still have to get another release of Wordform out, but paying gigs take precedence.

Categories
Technology

Feeds fixes

I’m working on a couple of sites for folks, either creating new pages and programming, or doing some fixes. One of the sites is Molly Holzschlag’s, in particular fixing her syndication feeds.

The problem with Molly’s feed didn’t arise until she linked to three MP3 files in one post. WordPress 1.5 automatically links any MP3 file as an enclosure, but in this case, doing so generated problems with both the RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds.

The encoding of the MP3 link is a problem, but that’s fixable. The Atom feed is breaking because the program is using RSS enclosures, while Atom supports a link element for each media file. However, this should also be fixable.

What isn’t is how multiple enclosures are handled within RSS 2.0. WordPress creates a separate enclosure for each different MP3 file, yet according to what I can find online, RSS 2.0 only allows for one enclosure. Unfortunately, among all the punditry related to this issue, there’s no solution for multiple media links in a post. Unless someone has another solution, I’ll be changing the code to just enclose whichever is the first file — it’s not a good solution, but it’s better than the feed breaking.

Whatever fixes I do for Molly I’ll also apply to Wordform, since this application is currently using the WordPress feed programs, as is. The main difference is that I’ve added a flag to turn off or on automated enclosures.

Categories
Diversity Technology Weblogging

Passing on the spear

The nice thing about the current generation of women webloggers and their initiatives, such as Sheroes and Blogher, is these are well organized events managed by strong, dedicated women. Hopefully with their efforts, women will no longer continue to be invisible.

For me, personally, an added benefit is that I don’t feel I have to continue to fight the good fight. After all, I’ve been beating this dog for four years, and haven’t seen that I’ve been particularly successful. I think all I’ve managed to do is dissuade any technology company from hiring me.

Being a woman in technology and challenging the sticky bricks of male domination in weblogging (and elsewhere) has always been a bit tricky because unlike most other professions, the tech industry has not only accepted weblogging, it has created the technology that keeps the heart beating and the words flowing. When you challenge the status quo–such as question the number of women speakers at a conference, a company’s hiring practices, or even men not linking to women, whatever–you’re effectively challenging people who could eventually be a potential employer.

Going from “You’re a sexist dog”, to, “Can I have a job, please?”, and actually getting a job only works in the movies.

Still, it never did seem right to just let things slide, and I would, from time to time, push back in my own indubital way. (”Ouch! Hot! It burns! It burns! Hot!”) However, after the recent ‘do’ with Mr. Scoble, Sir, I decided to *retire from the lists and focus on technology and my oddball writing and photography and hikes in the woods, and leave the battle to the fresh blood.

Yeah, I’ve said before I wouldn’t write on this topic again, and then would come back to it. (Not that anyone particularly cared — ever notice how we make these pronouncements on our weblogs and the most people will do is, “Eh, get a load of her, thinking we give a shit.”) That was before the current level of women’s activism. Now, I just don’t need to get in people’s faces anymore–plenty of women already there.

Rock on, ladies.

*Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t write “Men Don’t Link” Parts 2,3,4,…,n. That other was work, this was fun.

Categories
Technology Weblogging

Bug reports

I had thought I’d configured SourceForge to email me with bugs, but evidentially it didn’t take. I just now noticed the bug reports out at SourceForge and am busily going through them.

Thanks for submitting these. And I’m also trying to get the patch system to accept patches.