A CSS travesty

I have recently worked on a site that integrated with code from another agency and I found it deeply scary. I just wanted to ask if anyone else had ever come across this style of coding before. I just can't get my head around how anyone could think it was a good idea! It seems to completely miss the point of CSS and uses classes that mimic inline styles. More » 28 February 2007 | 2 comments

How to make square corners with CSS

It's true, it can be done! 26 February 2007

RSI Awareness Day

On Saturday I attended RSI Awareness Day 2007 in London. Although I found it helpful to meet fellow sufferers with so similar stories I did find it frustrating to listen to so called medical experts (Dr R. M. Pearson, Consultant Physician and Helen Skehan of Physio Solutions) telling me nothing at all useful. It seems they all stick to the party line of:
1. it's incurable
2. it causes permanent damage
3. unless you catch it early on you're screwed
I think this is rubbish. Especially since not one of the experts could even define what causes RSI, or even what it is. I also get incredibly angry that NHS doctors often refuse to diagnose RSI, can't refer their patients for any treatment that may help such as acupuncture, physiotherapy or massage and will only offer pain killers or anti-depressants while putting you on at least a 3 month waiting list to see a rheumatology specialist. Then months down the line when they finally agree it must be RSI since it hasn't gone away they then say it's too late to get help with it and damage is aready permanent! Meanwhile you've spent hundreds if not thousands of pounds stabbing in the dark with alternative treatments. More » 26 February 2007 | No comments yet

Graded Browser Support

The day has come for our company to start offering graded browser support a la Yahoo's A-Grade Browser Support Chart. I think it's a much smarter approach than spending hours trying to get all browsers to render the website exactly the same. This way there's a little common sense flexibility. Better for the client, better for us. 21 February 2007

More on accessiblity

Recently at Madgex we have been debating the use of "skip to..." links and whether people using screenreaders find them helpful. I found a very useful article: Source Order, Skip links and Structural labels about this and other accessiblity issues.

21 February 2007

How to create HTML emails

Everybody knows HTML emails are a pain to write. For starters, most email clients butcher CSS so we have to go all old school and use tables for layout. Then there's the whole spam issue. The following is a tutorial on how to approach an HTML email in order to maximise the number of email clients that will render it correctly and minimise the number of clients that will condemn it as spam. More » 06 February 2007