Matthew Aebersold

I know this isn’t Top Gear, which could be considered blasphemy. But Fifth Gear did take the SLS for a spin, so that alone makes this blog-worthy.

Good video driving these 2 wonderful cars in Malibu, CA. The Ford GT is an amazing car, and the Ferrari is a 308 which has been re-bodied to replicate the incredible 250 GTO. The guys who do this video are horribly cheesy, but the content is worth watching.

The Top Gear crew buy low-budget classic super cars and put them through their paces. If you’re a car person, this is a great way to spend 20 minutes.

Top Gear Budget Supercars

The lack of typographic choices available to web designers has been a problem for years. It’s easy enough to declare a font using CSS, but the problem is that the end user has to have that specific font on their machine. This inconsistency has led the development community to settle on only a small number of fonts that are installed on nearly all Windows, Mac, and Lunix machines.

The list just got a lot longer.

The brains behind 24WAYS (www.24ways.com) have compiled a list of fonts that are available on all major operating systems, and fonts which come bundled with popular software suites (like Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office). Browsing this list is very encouraging, especially since most Windows users have a version of office installed. It’s also surprising the amount of font overlap between Windows and OSX, which accounts for nearly all casual computer users.

http://media.24ways.org/2007/17/fontmatrix.html

Using this list can help designers and developers create richer typography for websites, and usual, nicer fonts can be used, which will then revert to defaults if the user doesn’t have that specific font installed.

It’s also worth mentioning that there are some great advancements in web typography using technology like Cufon, and CSS @fon-face properties. Just make sure you have the appropriate rights to use embedded fonts.

Flash has a strong reputation for creating visually stunning websites, and rightfully so. Just head over to The FWA to see some of the best flash-based websites ever designed. As good as flash is at delivering rich media to the web, there are some serious downsides to consider.

One of the largest drawbacks to flash content is it’s relative invisibility to search engines and accessibility programs. The criticism is true when talking about Flash as a closed platform. The code written is compiled into a SWF, and then embedded online. This makes searching an indexing flash content extremely difficult for most search engines. Accessing Flash content is also a problem for screen readers and other accessibility programs.

These issues, combined with the popularity of the Apple devices, create a lot of hesitancy for companies to fully embrace Flash content in their projects and sirs. I’m going to talk about a few key principals that will help Flash gain visibility and accessibility across multiple platforms, and at the same time make Flash content easier to update and maintain.

Does it need to be in Flash?

The first step, of course, is to figure out what content needs to be in Flash, and what does not. There’s no point to constructing a site using flash if the same design can be achieved using more open, standards-compliant code. Once the decisions have been made as to what content will be built in Flash, than it’s time to start thinking along the same lines as proponents of web standards.

Use the Principals of Web Standards

The primary rule in web development today is the separation of content from presentation. The same principal can be applied to Flash projects. Separating the content from the design means updating and maintaining the Flash site will be much easier if the code doesn’t need to be recompiled and edited every time a change needs to be made. Making things like the navigation, links, and photos flexible and external are all great steps to create clean, smart, and flexible projects.

Smart Degradation

If the Flash content and design are properly separated, than re-purposing the content is extremely easy. If the content is in XML format, it can be applied to an XML site-map which will help search engines index the site’s content much easier. In addition, there are browser and platform detection scripts which could allow you to display the XML content in regular HTML format if the browser or device isn’t compatible with Flash. (iPad anyone?) You can also detect older browsers and Flash players. Content can then be delivered in the most efficient way possible to all users.

For example, head over to the BKWLD site on an iPad or iPhone, and you will see that the features on the homepage are still visible and interactive. This helps serve the most people possible the site’s content, no matter what environment they are using to visit the site.

Hybrids

There is also the option of creating hybrid sites, which are very popular because they combine flash elements with standard HTML markup. This allows the user to have a rich experience, as well as giving search engines easy access to the site’s content. Making use of flashvars and XML/JSON add to the flexibility of the site by allowing Flash to communicate directly with the rest of the site.

SWFObject & Deep Linking

Making use of programs like swfaddress and swfobject allow the Flash content to be more transparent and visible to search engines. SwfAddress will create a specific URL for each page in a full-browser Flash experience. Knowing what section the user is on, and showing that section in the browser’s address bar allow search engines to look at specific pages, and create extremely accurate analytical reports.

SWFObject is a way to create valid code though the W3C Validation tools. Also, SWFObject has the ability to replace Flash content with a static image, which maintains the visual design if the user doesn’t have flash enabled.

Conclusion

It’s ultimately about choosing the right tool for the right project. Flash has many advantages, which need to be carefully weighed against the areas in which Flash falls short. The ideas described here can certainly help Flash communicate better with browsers, search engines, analytical tools, and accessibility programs.

As much as it surprises me to say, I’m becoming happier with the current version of Internet Explorer. One of the tougher aspects of web development is making sure the site you’re building works well on as many browsers as possible. This can be difficult, and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is notorious for being the one browser that gives developers problems.

They know that over in Redmond, and they’ve taken some pretty smart steps to make things easier for developers. In Internet Explorer 8, it’s incredible easy to switch rendering engines, so you can view the site you’re developing in IE8 or IE7 as simply as clicking a button. This takes the headache out of installing multiple copies of IE on your machine or using a screenshot generating service to try and see how the site is being displayed.

As far as I’m aware of, this option doesn’t include IE6 rendering. This isn’t as much of an issue today, because an increasing majority of users are surfing on IE7 and IE8. This is great news, and it’s now becoming more justifiable to stop supporting IE6 altogether.

The bad news is that we’re not quite there yet. There is still a fraction of the populous that clings to IE6, and they should be able to at least access the site. The solution that I’m most excited about now is the idea about making the site basically functional in IE6, and leaving the polish and embellishments to the more current browsers.

I feel like Microsoft is rapidly catching up to the rest of the pack, and there is definitely some good things happening with the current iteration of IE. Although they haven’t eliminated the headaches that come with cross-bowser development, they packed their current browser with some serious medication.