For those of you who don't obsessively read my sidebar (and my goodness I've no idea how you can be so lax ;)) I have some speaking gigs coming up (including one this coming week!):
Labels: shameless self-promotion
Opera has some great features buried in its menus, so I make a couple of buttons to add them to the standard toolbars.
The first one I use is Reload From Cache, which does exactly what it says. It reloads the page entirely from cache, which is really useful when you combine it with the ability to view source in your choice of text editor. You can view source, make some test changes, reload from cache and see if it worked. It's less twitchy than inline editing since it only reloads when you're ready; and it's far less aggravating than trying to do serious edits in a tiny window with no syntax highlighting.
The second is bleeding obvious - a button on your toolbar to load Dragonfly. I'm sure they'll add one as standard once it's out of beta, but who's that patient? :)
So anyway, here are the buttons. Click the links and they'll get added to your custom buttons; then you can drag them onto whichever toolbar you like.
Labels: dragonfly, opera
I've often been asked if I know of a good, comprehensive set of standards-based web development tutorials. Something to give a student or keen newbie so they can learn the right way to build websites from the ground up, instead of learning outdated techniques they'll just need to replace.
Sadly, I've often been at a bit of a loss. Most of the tutorials I could find out there either taught old methodologies or they jumped straight to an intermediate or advanced level. Or, they simply couldn't cover the entire topic of standards-based web development.
I've also been frustrated at the slow pace of change at many universities, where students are still being taught techniques that are well past their use-by date. Don't get me wrong here. I know academia is not the easy life that popular opinion would have you believe. So I think the industry should do its best to support academics, as they are training the next group of bright young developers.
So with all these things in mind, I was really happy to be one of the authors for the Opera Web Standards Curriculum (WSC). It's a comprehensive resource for students, teachers, corporate trainers and developers. The first 21 articles have just been released; and there are about 30 more in the pipeline to be released soon.
Check it out! I hope you find it useful. Head on over to the WSC homepage or jump straight to the WSC table of contents if you're keen to dive right in. If you have any feedback the best way to go is to get in touch with Chris Mills, the mastermind of the project. There's also a WSC forum if that is more your style.
Labels: curriculum, education, opera, tutorials, web standards
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