fordie’s blog

We’ve started using jQuery quite heavily to power our javascript widgets - without exception everyone who’s used it here has had their own little jQuery epiphany. It’s quite funny to watch, people tend to resist it to start with (particularly the hardcore coders) - but when they use it for a while and see how [...]

eyes
ears
mouth
oh my!

Some time ago I got asked how to produce an “accessible alternative to an image map“.
As long as Image Maps are implemented correctly there’s no reason why the shouldn’t be accessible however they may not always be the most appropriate or semantic way to mark up your content.
In this example I’ve used a simple [...]

Form layout is one area where designers have struggled to find a sensible way to replace tables with nice clean semantic xhtml + CSS.
In 2005 Andy Clarke demonstrated his approach to form layout at CSS for designers, He wraps the label around the input field, then put the actual label text in a span.

<label> [...]

It was never my intention to use an existing wordpress theme for this blog. My original plan was to build a theme myself, however a combination of time pressure & a creative mental block meant that I ended up with a theme that I’d downloaded (albeit slightly modified).
My biggest stumbling block was that all the [...]

I like the quick search facility in firefox; the dictionary search is particularly useful. by typing “dict search-term” into the address bar you get a dictionary definition.
The definitions used to be provided by dictionary.reference.com but for some reason in the last couple of versions it’s been the Merriam-Webster website. I just don’t think the results [...]