Now, I voluntarily teach a class covering semantic markup of HTML and applied CSS. A good number of the students traditionally in attendance are those that are still familiar with the “old school” markup techniques (and fresh out of college, no less). I have yet to have a student or another colleague have the same assumption, but I can clearly see now how that could be concluded without a proper education, so I am putting this out there educationally to help others with a similar assumption.

Here is what I quickly found on the topic to help him understand the “old school” way is not being duplicated again by “presentationally” applying classes to markup to solely “format” it. The first two seem a little light in their description though, so this has spurred my colleague to seek out what those “other” straight-forward uses of the class attribute are. What do you know of? Drop me a line and let me know.

• W3C – says For general purpose processing by user agents
• Web Design Group says An author could use <code CLASS=Java> when giving Java code – so use for self-identification in programming or further development
• Tantek’s Blog – some other things to note

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Once again, the CWSA has done a better job of describing their event than I can so please check here for details. I will say that the initial meeting is a two-parter, the first part of which was actually last Sunday, but you can still make it to the concluding meeting this Sunday, February 24^th at 5:00pm at Caribou Coffee in Rocky River.Why would I fail to post this before the initial meeting? Because I can’t just sit here being focused and vigilant all day on the off-chance that someone somewhere decides to schedule something. I have things to do, people. Important things. Like partaking in intense psychotherapy over the whole helicopter incident.

Beginner developers should also check out the TKG Institute, our ongoing evening program here at The Karcher Group for teaching developer basics tothe youth of Northeast Ohio that are in to that kind of thing.

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A: It depends… There is no browser incompatibility since it is a simple CSS style, but I favor separate images for three reasons (below)

1. You could have file-size issues when optimizing. Putting the off/on states together makes one file that much larger – plus, at the “dividing line� where the two button states meet there is a potential negative impact yet again (if you’re making a JPG). If you’re optimizing a GIF, you could be doubling the amount of colors in the image. Lastly, the browser downloads all the image file size for both states in every instance which leads me to point two.
2. The browser only downloads as many single images as are needed
3. Making and optimizing the off/on states of the nav at the time of design in the PSD takes more time to combine when it’s not traditionally (here) laid out that way.

One flip side is that, if you make separate images, there are twice as many images on the server to manage.

FYI, when styling the CSS selectors, there is no advantage either way.

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24 ways is brought to us by Drew McLellan – a web developer, author and no-good swindler from just outside London, England. At the Web Standards Project he works on press, strategy and tools. Drew keeps a personal weblog covering web development issues and themes.

Drew was nice enough to provide links to last year’s articles as well. These well-crafted articles are done by some of the most recognized in the industry.

On second thought, have fun with the examples while crushing a box of chocolates at the same time.

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Below is the meat of the study findings, but you can read the full press release on the Akamai Technologies Inc. website.

Consumers will not wait more than 4 seconds for a web page to download says a new survey conducted by JupiterResearch for Akamai Technologies Inc. Speed of downloading is most important to those with the longest online experience and highest spending, the study says.

The study says more than one-third of shoppers with a poor experience abandoned the site entirely, while 75% were likely not to shop on that site again. In addition, nearly 30% of dissatisfied customers will either develop a negative perception of the company or tell their friends and family about the experience, Jupiter says.

The report says poor site performance ranks behind only high prices and shipping costs as leading factors for dissatisfaction among online shoppers.

The study was based on a survey of 1,058 online shoppers during the first half of 2006.

Other finds include:

• Half of online shoppers with two or more years tenure shopping online or who spend more than $1,500 annually identify page loading time as a top priority for online sites.
• 46% of online shoppers insist on rapid checkout, with 55% of shoppers who spend $1,500 or more demanding the same.

Well, I guess there’s always a reason to keep your nose to the grindstone! Happy coding everyone and go get that money.

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