As I was doing some reading online about SQL injections and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, it caused me to wonder about the state of my pet project and whether it could stand up to such attacks. As I let people know more than a year ago that I would be doing a major overhaul of my site, I pretty much abandoned the current version of the site that is running in a beta state (since almost two years ago now) and pressed forward with the new revision.
Category Archives: Web Design
A New Theme
I finally got around to changing the theme for this old blog. This is something I’ve been meaning to do for some time. I wanted to design my own theme, but I don’t really think I’ll be able to find the time for that.
As I was assisting my boss this past week with debugging a WordPress plugin, I noticed how intricate WordPress’ interface is. The extension was not particularly well-written; it output XHTML that did not jive with the W3 validator, which is inexcusable these days. We eventually found a hack that fixed the issue, but after looking at the source for the plugin, I was somewhat disgusted.
State of the Quatschbox
It has been quite some time since I last posted a “State of the Project” explanation about what the latest development on QuatschBox, my pet PHP project, has been. Rather than dwell on the seemingly endless string of new features, I am going to discuss the role of my project in the so-called “webosphere.” It has been a long time since we last saw a new version of the QuatschBox, and while it is going to take some time to get all those flashy new features implemented, the purpose of the project has changed somewhat over the past year. But, the important question is: when will it be done?
Slashdot and Web Standards
It is refreshing that Slashdot is getting around to redoing its layout with modern HTML and CSS standards. They have taken a lot of flak over this, especially due to the Slashdot’s tendency in the past to refuse access to W3 validators (strangely this seems to now be resolved). More design with web standards is definitely a good thing 🙂
A List Apart 4.0
One of the leading websites in evangalizing simplicity and elegance in web design is A List Apart, and it was recently redesigned from the ground up in order to improve what it has always done so well: teach by example.
I admit that I am a sucker for websites that are based in the XHTML/CSS “dynamic duo” school of web design. I consider keeping the presentation (eye candy) separate from the data one of the most important lessons I have ever learned about publishing on the web. Judging from the quality of the redesign, I still have quite a bit to learn 🙂