the 200ok weblog

about ben buchanan

I entered the web industry the same way as most people I know: by studying something else (majors in Journalism and Philosophy). I've worked as a copywriter, but made a hobby into a profession when I discovered people were willing to pay me to stuff around with computers.

I'm passionate about accessibility and web standards. The technology exists to provide rich web communications which remain accessible to all people... I believe the web industry needs create sites for users, not in spite of them. I also believe the web industry is maturing, with professional organisations to support workers; and rigorous development processes becoming the norm for web teams everywhere.

I currently work as Frontend Developer for Atlassian (Sydney, Australia). Previously I worked as Frontend Architect for News Digital Media; and before that as Web Standards Developer for Griffith University (in Brisbane).

speaking

I was somewhere in front of the crowd at...

• Atlassian Summit (San Francisco), June 2012.
• Web Standards Group (Sydney), September 2011.
• Ed Directions workshop during Web Directions South 2009.
• Edge of the Web 2008
• Local Government Web Network Conference 2008, Sydney, 21-22 August (presented the second day keynote).
• Open Publish 2008, Sydney, 30-31 July
• Web Standards Group (Sydney) on Thursday, 21st February 2008.
• Open Standards 2007
• Web Directions South 2006
• OZeWAI 2005 (presented via VOIP, a curious experience!)
• Organised the WANAU Brisbane Web Accessibility Forum (August 29, 2005)
• Web Standards Group (Brisbane), 14 June 2005.

judging

Member of the judging panel...

• Australian Web Awards 2012.
• Australian Web Awards 2010.
• Australian Web Awards 2009.
• WA Web Awards 2008.

writing

• Contibuted articles to the Opera Web Standards Curriculum, which has since been adapted as the W3C Web Standards Curriculum, which in turn has been incorporated in Web Platform Docs.
• Had an article published in the inaugural Local Government Web Network magazine.

you may remember me from such events as...

You can usually find me anywhere that web geeks have gathered in Sydney. WSGs, Webjams, Web Blasts, WDYKs... I also created Geeks on the Grass along with my partner in picnic crime Ajay Ranipetra; and ordered the beer for Sydjs for over a year (probably my best-received work to date).

I was somewhere in the crowd at Web Directions South 2011, Web Directions South 2010, Web Directions South 2009, Web Directions South 2008, Web Directions South 2007, Web Directions South 2006, Web Essentials 2005 and OZeWAI 2004.

qualifications

• Experience from over 1.5 decades creating websites. Plus a short course or two.
• Did half of a Graduate Certificate in Information Technology (Web Management) from the Queensland University of Technology, but cut it short after attending the course opened an opportunity to move to Sydney to work at News. Long story, ask me at the pub.
• Bachelor of Arts (Journalism & Philosophy) from the University of Queensland.

memberships

(merger member via WIPA :))

Web Standards Group

about the 200ok weblog

content

The 200ok Weblog is a space for me to write about Web Stuff™. Web developers are multi-skilled beasts, so it's a multi-faceted topic. It usually strays back to standards and accessibility, though.

tech

The 200ok Weblog is published using Blogger, since I am more interested in writing the blog than maintaining the blog tool.

almost valid

This site is almost valid.

Blogger unfortunately hard-codes some dumb things, which makes the markup less than ideal at times. The validation errors it creates are things that don't cause major issues (that I've seen, at least). It's mostly things like uppercase BR tags inserted in comments; unencoded ampersands and so on. Blogger's inline comments can be problematic; so as a workaround I've got a direct link embedded for screen readers and mobiles. I've had to trade markup purity for usability.

I'd love it if Blogger would come to the standards party, but it doesn't seem to be a priority for what is more of a mass-publishing tool than a standardista's dream. On balance it's still the best tool for what I want.

200ok?

200 OK is the HTTP status for "The request has succeeded." (RFC 2616 10.2.1). Need I say more? :)

about the stamp

So, what's the deal with the stamp you see on the site, various avatars, my business cards, stickers and badges? It's a stone stamp/stone chop with "200ok" translated as closely as possible in Chinese.

The top two characters are a direct translation of two hundred; the bottom two form "you can" in the sense of "you have permission" which I felt was a reasonably close interpretation of OK in this context (apparently there's no direct equivalent).

The translation and stamp were created by a lovely gentleman in Sydney who makes these stamps for a living. You can find him at the Paddington Markets on most Saturdays.

I do in fact stamp every one of my business cards, by hand, with the stone stamp. So, each card is slighly different.

disclaimer

opinions

Views expressed are my own and not associated with any view of an employer, client, associate, acquaintance, barista, busker or random person I met in the lift.

copyright

All material is copyright Ben Buchanan unless attributed to another source.

privacy

This site doesn't really collect private data, but even if it did I would use it only for good and not for evil.

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