Content Management Matters ™

It was about mid-December, just after Opera Software filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft -- partly focused on Internet Explorer not following web standards -- that Microsoft finally came out and publicly announced their support for key web standards in version 8 of their prolific web browser.

With the recent release of IE8's first Beta the public can now finally find out for themselves just how well they have done that. What is even more interesting -- and perhaps a matter of debate -- is that they have done it in such a way as to not "Break the Web." Or in other words, they plan to deliver IE8 with backwards compatibility by introducing a controversial third operating mode.

Defining and reaching consensus on web standards is a daunting task indeed. Trying to get the entire internet community to concur on new standards may be best compared to the time honored cliche of “trying to herd cats”.

Every developer has their own ideas on the “right” way to do things, compounded by how the customer wants them done. Not to be ignored, is how the site visitors want the site to work. Everybody has their own vested interest.

Squiz is forever telling us what we should do and what we should think: about CMS, about SEO, doing business on the web, about the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha (it's a WIP). Which is quite irritating, because they're invariably just about right.

The shift from linear storage of user input data to much more useful XML based storage (like DITA) is a trend which is becoming increasingly pronounced. Information written to an XML standard offers increased automation potential, reuse, and is altogether a far better bet than regularly formatted text.

While there wasn't much excitement at this week's WWDC for the Apple Fanboys amongst us, Apple did flip the script and reveal Safari for Windows.

Every once in awhile, an application comes along that manages to create a paradigm shift. For frontend Web developers on the Macintosh platform, Coda with its mantra of One-Window Web Development is that application.

The World Wide Web Consortium has been keeping us busy and is at it again, working to provide standards aimed at bringing some measure of sensibility to the wild world of web content.

Earlier this month, the W3C released a new Web Standard designed to help bring content to a broader international audience. Most recently they are focusing on internationalization tools for XML and XHTML content.

Hoping to build on the previous releases of HTML and XHTML, the World Wide Web Consortium has announced that it will again be reworking the Web Standard to be known as XHTML 2.0

OASIS and W3C recently announced their joint partnership for WebCGM 2.0. This is a new industry standard for technical illustrations in e-documents.

Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) is the ISO standard for tree-structured binary graphics typically used by industries like aviation, architecture, defense and transportation. However, the results of the effort between OASIS and W3C have still yet to cover some ground -- the best use for CGM on the Web still remains a touch unclear.