Thank you! to the web wonder down under

It all started about four years ago when I first started to learn HTML. I had a slow, receptionist type job at the time with access to a computer, and by searching around I found West Civ, a site that offered (and still offers) HTML lessons for free. Every week I would recieve a friendly Email reminder that the next course was available, and with notepad alone I plunged into the world of HTML. I’ll never forget the thrill of opening my little notepad document for the first time in a browser…and having it work! What I appreciate most in retrospect, however, was how these little lessons emphasized understanding the “why” of code and thinking about web standards.

Shortly after joining their mailing list, I found they offered classes in CSS (in 2001!), again patiently explaining the “why” of seperating content from style. Looking back, I realize that it was this subtle influence in my first experiences with using HTML that made the importance of using standards, valid code, and CSS elementary to me and something I have sought ever since. Their flagship offering is, of course, Style Master…one of the first CSS editors out there (if not the first) which is also one of the best applications for learning CSS. It was later that I realized the whole enterprise was based in Australia, and that there seemed to be whole communities of standards-obsessed designers there.

Fast forward to now, and I find that Australian designers are again coming to my aid. There is Russ Weakly of Max Design who posts a plethora of really helpful articles and some excellent CSS tutorials on his site. This means a lot to me, because many of the articles are talks he presented at various conferences and as an at-home Mom, attending conferences like these is way off in the future; through the articles I can attend vicariously. I also recently joined the Web Standards Group, of which Russ is a founder. It has an excellent Email discussion list and some great resources that essentially add up to graduate-level education in web design (if there were such a thing) all for free to n00bs and pros alike.

A recent addition to the “ten questions” section really opened my eyes to the rather large problems with the upcoming Web Accessibility Standards Guidline 2.0 and gave some interesting insight into how these guidelines are developed (yikes!). It reminded me of what it is like to work in a bureacracy like the Navy, honestly. And finally, a list of “links for light reading” arrived yesterday which was interesting and dense enough to keep me busy for the rest of July (you know, in between the diapers and laundry and cooking and all that other stuff). Some of these things I have already seen on my “love fest” feed, but much of it is brand-new. I couldn’t find a link for this list being posted anywhere, so I will just reproduce it below. There was also a great list of events (some for free, and so many in Australia) in this Email, but in order to see that you will just have to join!

Links for Light Reading

CSS Reboot participants far from standards based
Rails Day 2006
Notes on JavaScript libraries
Code Reviews: Write Better Code Overnight
User delight and the guy-from-the-train phenomenon
Web Professional¹s Code of Ethics
Guiding Principles for Providing ³Remember Me² Personalization
Formal Objection to WCAG Claiming to Address Cognitive Limitations
Max-width in IE Using a CSS Expression
15 Things you can do with Yahoo! UI
Mobile browser tests
Mobile browser test results
AJAX feedback mechanism
A Love Song to CSS:
Top ten tips for preventing innovation

Aussies rule!