Yesterday the W3C announce the advancement of mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0
to Proposed Recommendation:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/PR-mobileOK-basic10-tests-20081103/

These tests are used to determine if your web site is Mobile OK. Passing all tests means you can display the Mobile OK icon on your site.

Yesterday, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group announced  the publication of WCAG 2.0 as a W3C Proposed Recommendation. WCAG 2.0 is the long awaited update of WCAG 1.0.

“Proposed Recommendation” means that the technical material of WCAG 2.0 is complete and it has been implemented in real sites. Information about implementations and changes since the last publications is available in the:

“Status of this Document” section

http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/PR-WCAG20-20081103/#status

W3C WAI encourages you to start implementing WCAG 2.0 now.

I’m not sure about you but i’ve been having real problems with the 3G reception on my iPhone. At home it is fine but as soon as i get into work I lose all reception. At first i thought it was just me but soon found out that it was all iPhone users in the office and then I realised that it was all 3G phone users….

But why? The internet was full of blogs claiming that the iPhone 3G reception issues were caused by hardware but that doesn’t explain why non-iPhone 3G users were also having problems. Then i came across this article which explained it all (kind of). Apparently, the iPhone is requesting a little too much power from the antenna. When this is multiplied by several hundred users it is causing interference with the antenna. Simple explanation right?

Mac have since released a couple of builds in an attempt to fix the problem, suggesting that the power request is software controlled. If this is true it is good news for iPhone owners. Of course, if the article is correct then it would require all iPhone owners to upgrade to the latest firmware in order for the problem to be fixed (or a good proportion of them).

My personal opinion is that this is also a 3G network issue. It simple can’t cope with the increased demand since the introducion of the 3G iphone and the REAL fix is to put up more cell towers (not that I advocate this).

NOTE: i work in central london in an office full of iPhone users

The Mobile Web Best Practices working group has just published a first public working draft of their guidelines for developing and delivering mobile web applications.

If you already build and deliver mobile web applications or plan to then your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Just a quick note to say that the Mobile Web Best Practices has been rubber stamped as a W3C Recommendation and now officially known as Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0, offering practical advice on creating mobile friendly content.

“Mobile Web content developers now have stable guidelines and maturing tools to help them create a better mobile Web experience,” said Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, W3C Mobile Web Activity Lead. “In support of the W3C mission of building One Web, we want to support the developer community by providing tools to enable a great mobile Web user experience.”

Well done to the working group for all their efforts in getting this approved.

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the new serach engine cuil (rubbish name btw), developed by ex-google employees and claiming to be the worlds biggest web search engine. Some people like it, most people don’t and a  lot of fuss is being made over the images that are displayed along with search results.

Personally, i can think of at least one CEO who will be happy with Cuil. Do a search for O2 and who’s logo gets displayed? None other than your’s truly. Great work cuil, chock up one for the little guy

The third iteration of every browser builders best friend / worst enemy has just been released by those diabolical nerds over at the Web Standards Project. For those not familar with it the Acid3 Test is a very clever Web application utilizing the most current web standards in such a way that only a browser which has implemented the standards correctly will display the page correctly. So far none of the current browsers come close to passing. Results for all your favourite browsers can be seen here.