Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
Although published back in the last century, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines provide a valuable resource for developers and web designers, and should be mandatory reading for all development teams, designers, business analysts, and anyone drawing up specifications.
The guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities, but more importantly how make that content more available to all users, whatever user agent or browser they are using. Although developers are encouraged to use new technologies that solve problems, they should know how to make sure their pages still work with older browsers and people who choose to turn off features.
Recently I had cause to grateful for Guideline 6, which states “Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully”. This encourages you to build sites that are accessible even when newer technologies are not supported or are turned off.
My gratitude was prompted because I had cause to access the Web from behind a corporate firewall, where security policy blocked all client side scripting. This wiped out JavaScript validation, on-click button handlers, clever Ajax page loader and anything except plain vanilla HTML. Fortunately the application I was using at the time still worked because it provided alternative ways to load, edit and save the data.
Sure it didn’t have the flashy stuff to automatically wrap my text in valid tags, but hey, hand coding HTML can be therapeutic!
TechCo Supports a new Site to Fight Leprosy
There is a new site available on the Internet to help in the fight against Leprosy. TechCo Systems are assisting with this venture as a way to put somthing back into the community. This new leprosy elimination campaign was launched to coincide with World Leprosy Day on 25th January 2009. To see this new site, visit End Leprosy Now.
Cool Vendors in Infrastructure Protection, 2008
The Cool Vendor in Infrastructure Protection annual report for 2008 has been published by global analyst firm Gartner Inc.
In naming the five infrastructure protection vendors that represent, “new directions in their market spaces,” Gartner defined the challenge for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and other security decision makers by stating that, “significant changes in the enterprise technology and threat environments, including the growing use of IP telephony and consumer devices, are driving innovative new approaches to infrastructure protection.”
The named vendors are
- Bit9, Cambridge, Massachusetts (www.bit9.com)
- Damballa, Atlanta, Georgia (www.damballa.com)
- Palo Alto Networks, Alviso, California (www.paloaltonetworks.com)
- VoIPshield Systems, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (www.voipshield.com)
- Yoggie Security Systems, Tel Aviv, Israel (www.yoggie.com)
Gartner’s listing does not constitute an exhaustive list of vendors in any given technology area, but rather is designed to highlight interesting, new and innovative vendors, products and services. Gartner defines a cool vendor as a company that offers technologies or solutions that are:
- Innovative, enable users to do things they couldn’t do before;
- Impactful, have, or will have, business impact (not just technology for the sake of technology);
- Intriguing, have caught Gartner’s interest or curiosity in approximately the past six months.
To see the full details click on Cool Vendor in Infrastructure Protection annual report for 2008