A week is a long time…

Time is pretty scarce, so here is a brief roundup of links/events/opinions that have come my way…

  • If it didn’t make sense the title is a reference to a quote from Harold Wilson, it seemed fitting given Opera’s move against Microsoft. Something that’s provoked a passionate reaction from the likes of Eric Meyer and Andy Clarke, both very aware of the ramifications this is already having on the politics of the web community. Update 17 December 2007: Yesterday Andy posted a follow-up to his suggestion to reform the CSS Working Group, I think due to the incisive response he received. Molly Holzschlag comments and I think she’s in a good position to do so.
  • Speaking of politics, this week the BBC Internet Blog posted an article by Jonathan Drori about the difficulties attached to implementing CMS technology across the corporation. He even mentions “fiefdoms” which I think many web managers across the public sector will identify with.
  • Totally unrelated and on a happier note, Phil pointed out that the Beta version of Google Maps Mobile can now locate a mobile phone “with or without GPS”. Shame it’s (strangely) not supported on my phone.
  • And finally, back in October I watched a presentation over at Mac Learning about the new accessibility features in Mac Leopard. With the recently released answers to questions posted during the session, I was pleased to find my question was included. I asked whether element navigation (what’s this?) is available in browsers other than Safari 3. Unfortunately (and I suppose unsurprisingly) the answer is no. However, I guess the fact that Safari 3 now implements long overdue features such as tabs may be some consolation for this.

What is element navigation? It may not be clear what feature I’m talking about so read on for a brief description. In Leopard using Apple VoiceOver and Safari 3, the user can jump through the page to elements of the same type e.g. all the Headings by type (H1, H2 etc), or links (both picture and text links). I suppose this is useful, I’ve been aware that this has been implemented in other screen readers for some time. Note: Apparently VoiceOver is not a screen reader in that it does not read the screen, it responds to direct programme output. Very clever, *smiles*.

Posted on Friday 14 December 2007.

Posted in accessibility, apple, css, gadgets, google, politics | Add a comment »

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