State of SVG

Shelley Tue, 12/30/2008 - 09:11

Earlier in December, Meitar Moscovitz at Sitepoint wrote an article on SVG optimistically titled SVG is the Future of Application Development. In it he references not only the future capability of SVG, but XHTML and RDFa, too. The writing was a breath of fresh air after so many technical pundits have declared all three to be passé, or dead ahead of their time.

Not all of the commenters agree with Moscovitz. Several mentioned the lack of support for SVG in IE, and how this would continue to adversely impact on the adoption of this vector graphics technology. A few years ago, I might have agreed. Now, though? I don't think lack of built-in support for SVG is the killer it once was. It is a time of change, and not just politically.

When I was exploring the web, looking for new technologies that utilize SVG, I was pleasantly surprised to see an increased interest in this vector graphics markup. Not only has support for SVG increased in browsers, but in other tools and technologies, too.

cont...

Bad Laws

Shelley Mon, 12/29/2008 - 00:02

Tomorrow Judge George Wu is presiding over a session regarding the requests for dismissal of the misdemeanor convictions against Lori Drew and the mistrial on one count. I've been working for some time now on a longer writing about Lori Drew and Megan Meier that I hope to publish as soon as we see where this particular play ends. In the meantime my state passed a modification to our state's harassment laws reflecting the events surround Lori Drew and Megan Meier. The newly modified law has been invoked seven times since its passage in August.

I thought I would share my state's harassment law with you. As you read it, think back on the interactions you've had with others in the past. Ask yourself: how many people do you know could be criminally charged based on this law? Include yourself, if appropriate.

Harassment.

565.090. 1. A person commits the crime of harassment if he or she:

(1) Knowingly communicates a threat to commit any felony to another person and in so doing frightens, intimidates, or causes emotional distress to such other person; or

(2) When communicating with another person, knowingly uses coarse language offensive to one of average sensibility and thereby puts such person in reasonable apprehension of offensive physical contact or harm; or

(3) Knowingly frightens, intimidates, or causes emotional distress to another person by anonymously making a telephone call or any electronic communication; or

(4) Knowingly communicates with another person who is, or who purports to be, seventeen years of age or younger and in so doing and without good cause recklessly frightens, intimidates, or causes emotional distress to such other person; or

(5) Knowingly makes repeated unwanted communication to another person; or

(6) Without good cause engages in any other act with the purpose to frighten, intimidate, or cause emotional distress to another person, cause such person to be frightened, intimidated, or emotionally distressed, and such person's response to the act is one of a person of average sensibilities considering the age of such person.

2. Harassment is a class A misdemeanor unless:

(1) Committed by a person twenty-one years of age or older against a person seventeen years of age or younger; or

(2) The person has previously pleaded guilty to or been found guilty of a violation of this section, or of any offense committed in violation of any county or municipal ordinance in any state, any state law, any federal law, or any military law which, if committed in this state, would be chargeable or indictable as a violation of any offense listed in this subsection.

In such cases, harassment shall be a class D felony.

3. This section shall not apply to activities of federal, state, county, or municipal law enforcement officers conducting investigations of violation of federal, state, county, or municipal law.

Since I live in Missouri and am subject to this law, I have a change of policy at my place.

If you are 17 years of age or younger, you are not welcome to write a comment to my posts. I cannot run the risk that another person may respond to your comment in such a way that you won't take offense. I can't run the risk that I won't be that person. Therefore to ensure that no one here "accidentally" commits a criminal activity, children under 17 are not permitted to comment. Personally, I'd rather you not read the site, either, as I'm sure to write something some day that the Missouri legislature will determine to be "harmful" to children.

If you want to comment anonymously, feel free. Note, though, that you must then be the nicest, sweetest, most agreeable person in the world. Plenty of joy-joy feelings, and as harmless as a newborn kitten. This isn't for my sake— this is to protect you. After all, if you cause emotional distress to another person while commenting in my space anonymously, you're in violation of my state's harassment laws. I'm sure that California isn't the only state that has a US Attorney or other prosecutor who wants to make a name for him or herself, and is willing to use the flimsiest excuse to do so, including going after anonymous commenters in a Missouri-based weblog. Especially when said US Attorney is under fire for other actions, and knows he or she is unlikely to keep their job once a new administration is in place.

Watch the birdie, not the hand!

I've also resolved to stop being critical of people like Mike Arrington, Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, et al. After all, my writing in my web space is a communication, and we know that it's unwanted—I do believe each has indicated at one time or another that they find me distasteful. They may each have told me to go away, at some point. Therefore, any future writing about them, especially critical writing, makes me into a criminal.

Heck, maybe we should just all shut up, except to say how good everything is, and how peachy keen everyone is, and aren't we all just so damn happy? Then no one will take any offense at anything we say.

Well, no one will take offense but those people who still think. And who writes laws to protect those who still think?

No one.

update The conference on the 29th was a status conference, which is usually held pre-trial. I'm assuming this may have to do with the mistrial. No idea when Judge Wu will rule on the dismissal requests, or if he'll rule on the dismissal requests. He seems to prefer keeping this case in a state of limbo.

update

The prosecutor in the Lori Drew case has dropped the conspiracy charge. Judge Wu has set a court date for January 8th, regarding the requests for dismissal from the defense.

Read, Watch

Shelley Sun, 12/28/2008 - 21:09

I don't cry easily.

Read the post. Watch the photo slideshow. Support the Courage Campaign.

Business Sucks and Other Images from Gringo Jones

Shelley Fri, 12/26/2008 - 19:39

As part of a story I'm doing for MissouriGreen, a first set of photos of the famous Gringo Jones Import and Other Stuff near the Botanical Garden. The sign out front says it all: Business Sucks. Come in and deal.

Threads

Shelley Tue, 12/23/2008 - 10:55

Dave Rogers:

I'm somewhat chagrined to note that I've imbibed the Facebook Kool-Aid™. What has tipped the balance for me is the iPhone application, and the fact that many of my "meat-space" friends are on Facebook. If you're a regular reader and are also on Facebook, look me up as David Michael Rogers. (I was playing games with Google when I created my account there more than a year ago. I'm the top hit as "Dave Rogers" on the Big G, but I wanted a lower profile on FB. If you were looking for me on Google, you'd be inclined to think I'd have the same name on FB. Or something. Anyway...)

It's also damn convenient to post a link to an article on Facebook, and upload pictures from the iPhone, both of which I've been doing with some frequency. The downside is, I'm less inclined to do so here because of it.

Is this you, Dave?

I was a little surprised to read of Dave's new enthusiasm for Facebook. Surprised and a little disappointed, because Facebook, unlike other social networking sites, prohibits access to member pages unless you, yourself, are a member, and I canceled my account months ago.

A person would have to be fairly dense not to realize that so much of discussions that once took place in weblogs now occurs elsewhere: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Friendfeed...the wave has moved on.

I have been putting tentative toes into both Twitter and Friendfeed, but I don't find the activity to be terribly comfortable. I don't think I have the gift of gay repartee, and am afraid I come across as rather dull—like a person going to a party in Silicon Valley and spending the entire time talking about RDF. However, I will keep dabbling my toes. Perhaps someday I will progress to that person who talks about HTML5 at the same parties.

Finding our Brave Faces

Shelley Tue, 12/16/2008 - 14:32

I agree with Jeffrey Zeldman in that I'm also surprised that George Oates was laid off from Yahoo and her work with Flickr. I also thought that George's recounting of how she found out she was laid off was telling, and sad.

Once upon a time, Yahoo was the bright and shiny future. Once upon a time, Flickr was one of the most dazzling of the new breed of startups. The success of both was based less on equipment and technology, and more on the people who helped create both companies. How Yahoo treats the people it has let go, is a measure of what the company thinks of itself. Evidently, those still in management in Yahoo, and at Flickr, don't have a high opinion of themselves.

(An earlier interview with George. More on the layoffs.)

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Shelley Mon, 12/15/2008 - 11:54
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Incorporating CSS3

Shelley Mon, 12/15/2008 - 10:08

With the growing support for CSS3 in most of the major browsers, including Firefox, Safari, Opera, and now Chrome, I decided to incorporate the use of CSS3 properties into my own site designs. In addition, I also used an SVG graphic whenever I wanted a background that sized with the page.

The CSS3 properties I'm most interested in are text-shadow, box-shadow, border-radius, border-image, in addition to support for RGBA opacity. No more having to use kluge methods to add curved corners, or shadow text; no more stretched transparent PNGs, or layered DIV elements in order to provide border images. Though not all browsers support all of the properties, as long as we use the effects carefully, the designs should degrade, nicely.

Read on for the details.

Chrome and CSS3 support

Shelley Mon, 12/15/2008 - 08:02
Chrome and CSS3 support

Shock, Awe, Economics, and the Web

Shelley Sat, 12/13/2008 - 00:17

Battered into a fetal ball by waves of bad economic news, only surfacing to watch an occasional crash and bash flick, such as Iron Man, I discovered my own personal bailout via Naomi Klein's book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism". Oddly enough, it wasn't something that Klein wrote (though she has many interesting points and I hope to write more on her book at a later time). No, it was a quote by the master of the Chicago School, Milton Friedman, himself, that loosed my death grip on self. As introduction to his book, Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman wrote:

only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.

The irony that the free market system Friedman loved so well is now experiencing its own "shock and awe", as corporations grasp at despised government intervention, like a baby its bottle, has not escaped me. But for me, the operative phrase in this quote is "the actions that are taken depend on the ideas lying around". This is totally irreverent to the problems we're facing, and I apologize in advance for seeming to trivialize the very difficult times we're all facing, but when I read this phrase I thought to myself, "Internet Explorer, your days are numbered."

Consider this: movement forward in the web has been stymied in recent years because, we're told, thousands of corporate intranets, and millions of corporate employees using these intranets are dependent on tricks and hacks put into place to support Internet Explorer 6. Add to this the, in my opinion, anal fixation that web pages must look the same in every browser, and most of our page design has been stuck like a bug in pitch.

Now that the corporations are downsizing in order to preserve what they can of executive compensation, the machines on which these applications run are being sold for scrape, tossed out along with the other chaff (i.e. employees). And those still employed, frankly, have other concerns than whether IE supports opacity or not.

I don't believe I'm alone in seeing the Friedmanesque possibilities of our current economic disaster. What better explanation for the recent production release of Google's Chrome browser? Google released Chrome from its beta utilizing a speed for which the company is not known. After all, isn't the GMail still in beta? Come to that, isn't the Google search engine still in beta?

Then there's the fact that Chrome is currently only supported in Windows, just like IE. Only like IE, as a matter of fact. No, I am sure that Google sensed corporate shock, and moved quickly to displace IE in the hearts and minds of upper management—not to mention the hearts and minds of millions of newly unemployed workers who are no longer subject to the intransigence of corporate IT. If by doing so, Chrome also kicks Firefox, Opera, and Safari in the face in its haste, eh, casualties of war.

I am not displeased by Google's move. After all, Chrome supports XHTML and some SVG, both of which Microsoft seems incapable of implementing. However, there is some confusion about what Chrome is, or is not, capable of supporting. True, Chrome has utilized the excellent WebKit, which also serves as the soul of Safari. However, as others have discovered and my new experimentation in web design demonstrates, Chrome has a different graphics engine (Skia) than Safari/Webkit. In the interests of "stripping" down the browser to make it lean and mean for web applications, the developers also made it rather, um, unattractive. At least for now. If you view this web page using Chrome, you will see that Google currently does not support the CSS3 text-shadow property, though it does support box-shadow. It also supports border-radius, though badly—the anti-aliasing is less than optimal, as is the support for alpha transparency.

While it is true that text-shadow, box-shadow, and border-radius are CSS3 properties, and thus not part of a released specification, they are supported in Safari 3.1 (and Firefox 3.1 and partially in Opera 9.x). Because of the Webkit tie-in between Safari 3.1 and Chrome, people may be confused when what works in Safari, does not work in Chrome. Well, those people who don't have other, more pressing, worries.

Screenshot of Chrome in action