Rodent Regatta

D. Keith Robinson doesn’t want to focus so much of the discussion on web standards any more. Simon Willison obliges by listing a lot of new topics that will make for many hours of debate.

One of my favorite sites on the entire web is called *Asterisk. It features the work and advice of D. Keith Robinson. We’re about to be led through his process for developing a web site for a new band. The Prologue and Chapter One are now available.

Lately, a lot of my time has been spent at a test weblog I’ve set up to learn some new tools and techniques. I’m becoming more convinced of the value of standards-based design. I’m not able to do it, yet, but then, I can’t do a table-based design either.

If there’s uncertainty in your mind about the value of having your company’s web site redone in validating CSS and XHTML, you might enjoy reading this.

For the love of design, web designers have endured some rather humiliating treatment. As a customer always fearful of appearing stingy, I now realize that all the fees I’ve paid for help amount to a rather handsome sum. [Thanks to Paul Scrivens for another interesting non-scientific survey!]

By the same token, I’ve been ignored by some rather talented people. I could only assume that assistance with a weblog design was perceived to be ”beneath them.” I’ve also been snubbed by a designer or two who behaved as if they held the keys to Fort Knox. After each contact with these people I was left feeling as if I wasn’t important enough to pay them my money.

Talented designers should be paid promptly and fairly. Their work has value. Customers of designers should be served promptly and respectfully. It’s the way of the free market.

Yesterday and last night were spent working with web servers, domain names, MySql databases, user names, passwords and lots and lots of subdirectories. At midnight last night, none of it worked.

Beginning again very early this morning, I got some help. Now it works and I’m too weary to do what I set out to do in the first place. After all the trial-and-error work, I’ve now got to go back and document everything so that the next time I try to get into this, I’m not faced with similar setbacks from the outset. I have no idea what changes ultimately made the stuff work together.

Were I to have to start from scratch right now, I’d probably go through the whole thing again. What did I learn yesterday? Absolutely nothing.