Philadelphia Standards Organization http://www.phillystandards.org Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:53:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 en hourly 1 3×3 the creative edition http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/27/3x3-the-creative-edition/ http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/27/3x3-the-creative-edition/#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:37:13 +0000 Kenric Ströhm http://www.phillystandards.org/?p=122 3 creative professionals - 3 ideas each

Chris Cashdollar - Happy Cog
Brian Crooks - Razorfish
Michael mcAghon - Electronic Ink

Three design pros share with us three points each on design, the industry or whatever comes to mind.

6pm at National Mechanics
Lecture will start before 6:30 and be over in time for karaoke.

Download flyer

The event on Facebook

The PSO group on Facebook

The PSO on Twitter

]]> http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/27/3x3-the-creative-edition/feed/ Social Marketing with Ron Sansone lecture (wrap up) http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/06/social-marketing-with-ron-sansone-lecture-wrap-up/ http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/06/social-marketing-with-ron-sansone-lecture-wrap-up/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:40:33 +0000 Kenric Ströhm http://www.phillystandards.org/?p=115 Well, this is a little late, but I wanted to thank Ron for a great lecture. Technically Philly has beaten me to the punch and delivered us a great synopsis of Ron’s talk.

]]> http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/06/social-marketing-with-ron-sansone-lecture-wrap-up/feed/ Contract/Contracting do’s and don’ts… http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/06/contractcontracting-dos-and-donts/ http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/06/contractcontracting-dos-and-donts/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:32:11 +0000 Kenric Ströhm http://www.phillystandards.org/?p=113 Our speaker this month will be Frank Taney. Frank is a shareholder in the center city law firm of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC. Frank chairs Buchanan’s Information Technology Litigation Practice Group and is a member of the firm’s Technology Transactions Group. His practice focuses on complex commercial litigation in a variety of substantive areas, including IT, intellectual property, antitrust and construction. Frank also represents his clients in a wide range of IT-related transactions and provides related dispute avoidance and business counseling.

Frank is going to speak on techniques for “safe” contracting, including:

  • dealing with the “problem” client
  • limiting exposure and liability
  • appropriately defining and limiting warranties and performance standards
  • protecting intellectual property
  • obtaining clarity on the scope of work
  • managing changes in scope
  • minimizing difficulties in obtaining payment
  • remedies for breach and dispute resolution
  • handling requests for non-competes and restrictive covenants
  • other related topics

Frank will give the presentation starting at 6:30 pm at Buchanan’s brand new offices at Two Liberty Place, 50 S. 16th Street, on the 32nd Floor.

Come out for useful information, beautiful views from high above the city in Two Liberty Place, and beer afterward.

NOTE: Please RSVP on the Facebook event listing, or you can let us know you are coming in a comment below (we need to know your name to let you in the building).

]]> http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/06/contractcontracting-dos-and-donts/feed/ Fluid Grids http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/03/fluid-grids/ http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/03/fluid-grids/#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:09:05 +0000 Chris Morrell http://www.phillystandards.org/?p=110 The March 3rd issue of A List Apart has a great article about fluid grids and how to use ems for positioning/layout.  Though the article doesn’t contain any particularly new techniques, it’s a great overview of em-based design, and a good reminder about an important user-centric design principle.  Ethan Marcotte, the article’s author, brings up a good point about the fallacy of a “minimum screen resolution”:

Instead of exploring the benefits of flexible web design, we rely on a little white lie: “minimum screen resolution.” These three words contain a powerful magic, under the cover of which we churn out fixed-width layout after fixed-width layout, perhaps revisiting a design every few years to “bump up” the width once it’s judged safe enough to do so. “Minimum screen resolution” lets us design for a contrived subset of users who see our design as god and Photoshop intended. These users always browse with a maximized 1024×768 window, and are never running, say, an OLPC laptop, or looking at the web with a monitor that’s more than four years old. If a user doesn’t meet the requirements of “minimum screen resolution,” well, then, it’s the scrollbar for them, isn’t it?

» Fluid Grids [A List Apart]

]]> http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/03/03/fluid-grids/feed/ Get CSS3 Techniques Today with jQuery http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/24/get-css3-techniques-today-with-jquery/ http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/24/get-css3-techniques-today-with-jquery/#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:28:57 +0000 Chris Morrell http://www.phillystandards.org/?p=106 Noupe has a great article on some of the most-wanted CSS3 techniques, and how you can replicate them in most browsers using jQuery.  These techniques include:

  • Rounded Corners (border-radius)
  • Border Image (border-image)
  • Multiple Backgrounds
  • Drop Shadows (box-shadow and text-shadow)
  • Alpha Transparency (opacity)

5 CSS3 Techniques For Major Browsers using the Power of jQuery

]]> http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/24/get-css3-techniques-today-with-jquery/feed/ HTML5 Canvas Cheat Sheet http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/23/html5-canvas-cheat-sheet/ http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/23/html5-canvas-cheat-sheet/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:41:40 +0000 Chris Morrell http://www.phillystandards.org/?p=103 If you’ve been following HTML5, you know that the canvas element is a big part of the new spec.  If you’d like to play with canvas, Jacob Seidelin has put together a great cheat sheet with pretty much everything you need to know about the canvas API.

HTML5 Canvas Cheat Sheet

via Ajaxian

]]> http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/23/html5-canvas-cheat-sheet/feed/ Make HTML5 code work in most browsers http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/16/make-html5-code-work-in-most-browsers/ http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/16/make-html5-code-work-in-most-browsers/#comments Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:23:45 +0000 Chris Morrell http://www.phillystandards.org/?p=89 One thing I can’t wait for in HTML5 is the new structural tags, such as <header> and <nav>.  What I didn’t know, is that with a little work you can actually use them right now.  Because most browsers have support for unknown tags, you can just use them as normal.  There are a couple issues, but they can be addressed with a few lines of code.  The first is that all unknown elements are treated as inline, so you have to style them.  The second is that unknown elements aren’t added the the DOM correctly in MSIE, but a quick document.createElement will fix that.  Here’s a code snippet that shows you how to put it all together:


<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>HTML5</title>
<style type="text/css">
  section, header, footer, nav, article {
    display: block;
  }
</style>

<!--[if IE]>
<script type="text/javascript">
function(){
  var e = ["section","header","footer","nav","article"];
  var i = e.length;
  while (i--) { document.createElement(e[i]) };
}();
</script>
<![endif]-->

</head>

I’ve only enabled a few basic tags.  For a minified javascript file that enables them all, check out Remy Sharp’s HTML5 enabling script.  You’ll also have to style all the elements you plan on using.

I haven’t tested this technique a whole lot, and my guess is it could introduce other issues (for example, some browsers would handle it in “almost standards” mode), but it’s worth playing with.

]]> http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/16/make-html5-code-work-in-most-browsers/feed/ When can I use…? http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/11/when-can-i-use/ http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/11/when-can-i-use/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:13:19 +0000 Chris Morrell http://www.phillystandards.org/?p=83 Lately I’ve been wondering what a “Web standards” group really means.  It’s 2009, and most of us get the picture: use CSS and valid markup (unless you shouldn’t—but I won’t get into that right now).  Though there are plenty of non-designers who are still putting together table-based junk, the Web design community has mostly moved on (or at least us in Philly have).  Designing With Web Standards is an important part of our history, but we get it!

So lately I’ve been looking into upcoming standards like HTML5 and CSS3, micro formats, SVG, ECMAScript4, etc and thinking, “this is the stuff we should be talking about.”  We need to look forward, to standards that can excite designers and developers, and we need to explore how those standards might affect us today.  Hopefully I’ll get a chance to explore some of these topics soon.  In the meantime, I came across a fantastic Web site that makes it easy to measure where we stand right now, and what we can look forward to in the near (and not so near) future.

Screen shot of site

Basically, you choose the features you’re interested in and can view when they will or won’t be supported by the major browsers out there.  I see this as a fantastic resource for us “standards geeks” out there.

When can I use…

]]> http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/02/11/when-can-i-use/feed/ Social Media & Music : Lecture February 18th http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/01/20/social-media-music/ http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/01/20/social-media-music/#comments Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:15:21 +0000 Kenric Ströhm http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/01/20/social-media-music/ Using Social Sites for SEO and Community Benefit

The field of social media has split and splintered off into wide range of niche communities and interests. A savvy marketer needs a presence everywhere that niche conversations are happening. This presentation will cover social media’s use in the marketing of music, with tactics that can be applied to any social niche. The audience will learn how to harmoniously steer multiple social profiles towards common marketing objectives including audience building, keyword coverage and reputation management. Emphasis will be placed on getting the most out of social site features for community and SEO benefit.

About the Speaker

Ron Sansone joined the SEO team at Razorfish following time spent at a boutique online marketing agency handling SEO strategy, copywriting, and marketing communications for such clients as Calvin Klein, Speedo, and Citizens Bank. As an SEO copywriter with Razorfish, Ron has engaged in the strategic development of content recommendations, link relationships, reputation management, and social media. He has written for Philadelphia Ad News and is a member of the International Association of Online Communicators.

Sansone has previously written “Link Development: A strategic approach to natural backlink expansion” for Razorfish, outlining a five-tier strategy for link building.

February 18th at Ly Michaels (101 N 11th St., Philadelphia, PA 19107)
6:30pm — drinks and food
7 — lecture

Leave a comment or give us a tweet if you will be showing up.

]]> http://www.phillystandards.org/2009/01/20/social-media-music/feed/ January Drink-Up http://www.phillystandards.org/2008/12/30/january-drink-up/ http://www.phillystandards.org/2008/12/30/january-drink-up/#comments Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:10:41 +0000 Kenric Ströhm http://www.phillystandards.org/blog/?p=70 Mark your calendars for the January Drink-Up on Tuesday the 13th. At National Mechanics, 22 South 3rd Street (6pm to ?).

2008 was a good year for the PSO and we are hoping to improve in 2009.

In November, Kel Smith gave and awesome lecture about Web Accessibility. And in September Tim Shortt (from G2/Refinery) gave us a rundown on who passes the standards test in Philly.

Besides lectures, there is the social and networking aspect of PSO that is helping connect like minded developers as well as helping some of us get jobs/contracts. Just remember to bring your cards to meet ups.

In the coming week the PSO blog will be revived and we will be looking to the community to keep it vibrant and useful. Anyone who wants to get involved (speakers, ideas, ?) please contact us.

Other ways to stay updated:

]]> http://www.phillystandards.org/2008/12/30/january-drink-up/feed/