Hollidazed

I’m no hard core programmer but I do on occasion like to mess around with API code especially when it’s made really easy. I’ve been looking at adding a del.icio.us feed showing my latest bookmarks for a while now and it’s finally arrived… it was even as easy as adding the CSS styling to the code del.icio.us generated for me.

Anyone that reads this blog knows by now I’m not a particularly regular blogger but the changing face of how an individual can create web content is making this less of a problem. If I consider that my original aim in having this blog was to document work, research, design and web development thoughts, than actually what better way to keep the blog fresh than to be able to pull in the latest things I’ve bookmarked as ‘of interest’ in del.icio.us and my latest musings on Twitter (twitter badge added a few months ago!).

Anyway, I’m not quite sure that I’m ready to hit you with a full lifestream just yet but it keeps things ticking over.

Right, off to pack for a well earned week way in Cornwall (well away from all computers) – starting tomorrow.

As I mentioned last week in my ‘year of the web book’ post I’ve just finished reading ‘HTML Mastery – Semantics, Standards, and Styling’ by Paul Haine.

The book is both a good read and gives a good indepth overview of HTML (including XHTML and XML) as well as having a really good emphasis on semantics including a useful section on Microformats.

The individual chapters on both tables and forms in HTML were worth buying the book for alone and although aspects of these chapters are covered in other books I’ve read, like ‘CSS Mastery’ by Andy Budd, this book definitely gives the most comprehensive overview.

Like the other Friends of Ed books, HTML Mastery seems to be written with designers rather than developers in mind and therefore sits really well alongside the previously mentioned ‘CSS Mastery’ and also DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith. Combined together these books give a great overview of the skills needed when working in standards based web design (CSS, DOM Scripting/Javascript, and (X)HTML).