Hello and a little (in the widest possible sense) intro

Hi, I'm Mike, but I travel around the web under the pseudonym of Isofarro,
or Iso. (mainly web-related newsgroups and slashdot). I am a full time
webdeveloper for a financial company in the UK and have a very strong
interest in "doing the right thing" and "doing it right first time".

I've dabbled on the web development side since 1997 doing everything from
simple webpages to framed websites, to table and fonted designs. Only this
year have I started doing proper web development - HTML that truely
describes document structure, CSS to encapsulate layout and presentation,
Javascript to enhance only.

I have a strong interest in knowledge bases (I'm trying to write one --
php/mySQL), Content Management, XML and XSL, and recently Accessibility. My
personal website http://www.isolani.co.uk/ covers these interests - that was
the result of experimenting with XML content and creating the entire website
using XSL -- its not completely valid yet.

My ideal World Wide Web would have arrived when I'm able to travel abroad
with my pen-based screen and be able to do the "bookings and appointments",
"finding directions" things as well as the things I'm currently stuck at a
desk doing - email, looking for info, reading, learning. The Web is a tool
to make my life easier, not a manual-intensive system.

I've had itches in the past to write articles about specific authoring
problems that keep cropping up and frustrating me, such as
The Mailto Myth: http://www.isolani.co.uk/newbie/mailto.html -- using the
mailto as a form action
Frames Are Evil: http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/?FramesAreEvil -- a look
at the downside of frames.
Any Size Design: http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign -- this was
the result of a very interesting (sometimes a little bitter) discussion in
alt.html about advocating "liquid design" articles that focused on tables. I
try to keep this up-to-date, since its a good reflection of my current
practical understanding of the right-way-to-do-it. (Hopefully the links
section is useful too).

Somehow a few people within the alt.html newsgroup reckoned I would be able
to maintain a group FAQ, so I'm currently the alt.html FAQ maintainer -
which typically involves finding the gems of knowledge and wisdom in the
group and adding them, as well as recrafting some of the answers. So the
quality of the site differs by questions really - but its a long term
project that I'm enjoying doing.

I've caught the standards compliant bug and the usability bug, so hopefully
I can write some useful articles about these topics that are of some value
to me, the webdevelopers that work with me, and the web developers of
alt.html.

Looking at the list of people who've already posted here, I can see some
known authors, influential members of standards-groups, and people from very
impressive organisations (Like Glasshaus - I've been impressed with their
range of usable web books). In some ways I'm a little worried (maybe
sceptical is a better word) whether I can do enough to make a useful
contribution here. I hope I can, and I'm determined to give it a go.

I'm not a writer, or professional author - I don't believe that's a career I
would want to pursue, but I do want to write articles on issues that
interest/frustrate me as a web developer. I'm happier on the practical
aspects of web development, not the theory - so I do have difficulty
understanding abstract concepts. I believe in simple solutions to problems,
and overengineering a solution is an anathema.

To me, standards based web authoring is a foundation for better things, and
as such there is no such thing as adding accessibility to a website, because
it involves a high level of undoing and unlearning all the
anti-accessibility tricks (like tables based layouts).


Look forward to great discussions and positive action.
Mike (Isofarro)

Received on Wednesday, 10 July 2002 09:01:44 UTC