Jim Barraud

Creating semantic HTML has been a way of life for most modern web developers for past 4-5 years. At least it has been for me. With all the benefits that come along with coding your HTML this way, you would think it was an easy sell. Convincing other web developers that upgrading their techniques and skill set to this more modern way of markup. And convincing companies it was in their best interest to code (or re-code) their sites this way. But it wasn’t. Lack of time, money, resources, understanding… pick your poison.

These days more people “get it”. They understand the this is the way forward. And they see the benefits when this modern way of creating semantic HTML is put into action. But not everyone does, so there still some education to be done. You still need to give the the modern semantic HTML speech you’ve given a hundred times. And for those who are in the semantic HTML club, you’re still referring it to “modern semantic HTML that follows web standards” (or a variation thereof) when talking to you buddies.

Now there’s a new term that seems to be blazing a trail through various web development blogs to describe this modern way of coding. POSH. Plain Old Semantic Markup. It’s looking to make a brand name out of what we do everyday. Basically what AJAX did for the XMLHttpRequest object and all that it makes possible. You say “AJAX” and people know what you’re talking about without you having to explain further. Unless of course, they don’t know.

Personally, I like the idea of having a brand name for what we do. Look what AJAX did for “asynchronous server request that doesn’t require a browser refresh”.

So what about the term “POSH”? Is this the best we can do? I can’t think of the term “POSH” without thinking of the Spice Girls. Not sure what that says about me, but lets not go there right now. On the other hand, no one could talk about AJAX without thinking about the abrasive cleaning agent, but that seems to have passed. Time will tell to see if this sticks or not. If it does, I may just stick to “semantic HTML”. Like the cool kids who still refer to AJAX as “XHR”.

I’ve been listening to this incessantly since it was first available as a full album stream on yearzero.nin.com. Quiet simply, awesome. It harkens back to earlier Nine Inch Nails albums with a return to a more industrial sound. It’s also refreshing change in that it’s not another “woe is me” melodrama. But a concept album about an apocalyptic future as a result of an oppressive government. And now that I’ve purchased it through iTunes’ craptastic pre-order mechanism (I’ll cover that later), my morning commutes are full of Year Zero goodness.

The same day I decide to leave HTML Working Group due to the flood of emails and general lack of organization and direction; Apple, Mozilla, & Opera also decided enough is enough. They’ve filed a formal proposal for the current W3C HTML Working Group to adopt the work the WHATWG has already put into HTML5. This will act a starting point for further discussions of the HTML5 specification. We’ll see what the co-chairs have to say about this and if it’s accepted.

I was initially excited about being a part of the HTML Working Group. I felt subscribing to the mailing list would offer an opportunity to contribute to the development of the HTML5 recommendation, or at the very least provide some insight into the process. So far, I have gained a bit of insight into the process. It’s that there really isn’t one.

The amount of email that the list generates is completely unmanageable. A weekend can generate about 150 emails. And most of those emails are quite lengthy. There’s currently no real structure of what discussions should take place or how they should be handled. Actually, so far one quarter of the discussions have been about that fact. People trying to come up with a process. If you count all the discussions about how to handle the previous WHATWG efforts and how the new discussions will interplay with those, then it’s probably more like one third. I would have figured most of this would have been ironed out before setting up the new working group, but it hasn’t. The rest of the discussions are people pitching what they would and would not like to see in HTML5 and the ensuing arguments debate. Which is how it should be, but right now everything is posted very “willy-nilly”.

I’m sure most of these issues will resolve themselves in due time and real work will begin to get done (there’s some very smart people on this list). But unless you make the HTML WG your primary effort and don’t have a day job or a family, I’m not sure how anyone could actively participate. So I’ve unsubscribed from the mailing list. I’ll probably still keep tabs through the blog and the mailing lists online archives, but unsubscribing will remove the unnecessary “select unread, mark as read” workflow I currently have with dealing with the list.

Today the wife and I had the pleasure of attending a taping of “Emeril Live!”. The wife is a big fan of pretty much anything on the Food Network. So you could imagine her excitement when she got the call from a friendly Food Network employee informing her she had won tickets to Emeril Live about a month ago.

The show we attended centered around “Sunday Dinner” and featured a special preparation for pot roast, of which I’m a big fan. The show also featured country music star Martina McBride, of which I’m not such a big fan. I would have preferred Doc Gibbs and the Emeril Live Band.

While I throughly enjoyed the show, it felt a bit like theme park ride. From the prep cooks bringing out the food between commercial breaks to the producers (or whomever) getting the crowd “pumped”. You get that feeling of a “keep arms in the car at all times” speech you receive before going on that big roller coaster ride. Not saying it’s a bad thing, just an observation. I would say the only thing missing from the experience (besides Doc Gibbs) was Emeril’s usual “Bam!” and “Kick it up a notch” catch phrases. We didn’t get either.

Overall we had a great time. The food looked and smelled fantastic. And Emeril himself was a lot of fun and was great playing off the crowd. We were told the episode will air sometime between October and December of this year. I know they film early, but damn! I hope someone told the Martina McBride people who were promoting her new album that came out yesterday.

Yesterday EMI announced the ground-breaking decision to release it’s entire music catalog DRM-free. And at a greatly improved sound quality to boot. Apple’s iTunes will be the first distributer of the new files starting in May. iTunes will be selling the new and improved tracks as a premium at 30 cents extra per song. Going from $.99 to $1.29. While no one ever likes a price increase, I’d happily pay the extra 30 cents for the superior sound quality and freedom to play the song on whichever device I wish. Two really nice features are that album purchases will remain the same price as the current DRM versions. And you will also be able to upgrade your currently purchased tracks to the new DRM-free higher quality super-hotness for 30 cents. Which brings up two questions I haven’t seen asked.

1. If you previously purchased an album, will you still need to pay 30 cents per track to upgrade that album since the album prices aren’t rising for the new format?
2. If you acquired tracks through iTunes free weekly downloads, will you need to pay the 30 cents to upgrade those? (I understand we got them for free in the first place, but it’s still worth asking.)

Regardless though, this is a tremendous advancement in digital music downloads and I’ll certainly be purchasing more music online because of it. At least from EMI artists.

More info on this can be found from EMI and Apple.