The gym at UCSC has a nice balcony to workout on. As I sat there contemplating my lost afternoon over sit-ups and crunches, I met a UCSC staff member from the campus Public Information Office. We talked about U.S. politics and the amazing view of The Monterey Bay from the balcony. When I talked about my job, he mentioned that his office had been without a web developer for a couple of years and would be seeking someone to fill the position. They hadn’t ironed out the details yet, but the announcement would go up on the UCSC jobs page soon.

I kept an eye out for the job announcement, but didn’t see anything after several weeks. By chance, I saw the staff member again a few weeks later, and introduced him to Kalin. He told me his office was close to posting the job announcement at that point.

Fall came. The owner of the house we were renting foreclosed (though she called it “selling the house”), we were looking for a new place to live, and work got crazy. In early November, Kalin happened to be at the gym one evening when the same staff member sought her out to tell her that the job had been posted for several weeks and the first review period was to start the following Monday.

Short. Notice. I hadn’t been checking the UCSC jobs site and nearly missed an opportunity to apply for the position.

One hectic weekend later, I had produced a fresh version of my resumé, a supplemental document highlighting some of my specific experience and a cover letter to “tie the room together”. I submitted my application materials for the position 3 minutes before the system would have locked me out. Score!

Four months and 2 interviews later, I have officially been offered–and accepted(!!)–the position of Senior Web Developer in the Public Information Office at UCSC. I’m very excited about the new opportunities ahead. Of course, I will miss my Quiddities family. But after nearly 2 years together, there cannot be goodbye, only see you later. Santa Cruz is too small, and I love them too much to vanish from the Quiddities landscape.

So, why did I include all of that back story just so I could tell you I’ll soon be starting an exciting new job (you had to read, like, 3 paragraphs or something!)? Because I wanted to show you what it felt like to walk the jagged path to this point. I’m not a religious person, and–despite living in Santa Cruz–I don’t own any fortune-telling crystals. It may sound hypocritical, but I also don’t believe in fate. Life is a series of opportunities. Some you take, some you don’t. How you get to those opportunities often makes your choice easier when you get there. A series of chance encounters at the gym brought me squarely to this point. And I’m excited to jump into this new job.

I have thought numerous times about closing down my blog and simply redirecting you to my Twitter page. I’ve spent most of the last year posting my thoughts in the form of 140 character “Tweets”. Fun to look back on, but not the same as blogging.

I miss writing. 2008 finds us in an presidential election year. It was 4 years ago that I started blogging (Not my first post, but the oldest I have). I had been sending my thoughts on the 2004 election via email to friends and family. After losing a couple of friends to my political rants (I’m pretty sure they were on their way out anyway, maybe I just gave them a push), I decided to just let people read at their discretion by blogging instead.

So this marks my 4th year of publishing my thoughts. I spent some time over the holidays thinking about this site and my presence on the web in general, which has drastically increased over the last 12 months or so. I have more thoughts on that I’ll save for another post. Needless to say, I’ve got some goals for this site in 2008 and what better way to get going on them than to state them here so I can hold myself to them in 12 months.

2008 Goals for This Site

• I will be redesigning this site. Adding some things, subtracting some things (like the banner, ick).
• Add video. I’ve done plenty of video work and I plan to bring it here.
• Add audio. Can you see a theme? You may not know this, but I am 1/2 (the other half being my favorite new dad, Rick Corbal) of the rock/folk/metal/acoustic band Massive Shovels. We have a decent sized catalog of quite awful songs that I’d like to share with you.
• Add my resume and professional portfolio. I’ve been fortunate enough to develop web sites professionally for 16 months and I’d like to share what I’ve done and what I’m doing.

So, you can see this site will continue to be about me. After all, it is named after me. It’s just that I’ve become quite spread out on the web amongst social networking sites, photo sharing sites, video sharing sites, and everything else in between. I’d like to maintain one spot that exists to help you find all the others should you so choose. Additionally, I’ve set a writing goal of 50 posts. This, of-course, pales in comparison to the writing volume of my favorite blogger in the whole world. But I wouldn’t even try to take her out.

I’m looking to jump on some of these goals soon. I’ll see you soon with a rant or two. It is an election year and I get all excited and mouthy every 4 years (some would argue I get mouthy every 4 minutes).

Cheers, Rob

So far, with this website as a great example, we have managed to create a image of a city that could be aptly described by Gertrude Stein, when she said about another city, “there’s no there, there”.

In all honesty, when I first took a look at the site, I didn’t think it was that bad. It is simple, not cluttered and gives access to important information about Palo Alto. I agree with many who worry it doesn’t properly portray the vitality and beauty of the city, but all in all I think they came up with a good, functional design that can be built upon. I’d start by replacing the images used for text (interior page navigation) with real text so those of us who don’t enjoy reading 10pt fonts can resize the text as needed. A government website should definitely avoid image-based text because it must accommodate visitors of all ages and vision quality. There are accessibility guidelines for stuff like this.

As a web developer though, I can’t stop at the visual design. I am compelled to see what’s under the hood. So after a few minutes of clicking around, I decided the view the HTML source in my browser. That is where this website, IMHO, is a failure.

Too Much Javascript

The source code, up and down the page, is full of Javascript. All of it could have been enclosed in external documents linked from the head. Instead, it’s sprinkled throughout the HTML like M&Ms in a root beer float. Not pretty and not functional. Debugging a Javascript error on that page would be like sitting in on a foreign policy meeting with the president.

Given the haphazard location of the Javascript, it’s no surprise that it is also used for image rollovers. Tell Marty to fire up the De Lorean! We’re headed back to 1998! Meanwhile, in 2007, the same thing can be done with simple, unobtrusive text links, CSS background images and NO Javascript. It is simply poor code and poor form to use Javascript for rollovers.

Table-based Layout

There is no reason to use HTML tables for layout. Semantic HTML and CSS work in all major browsers and, if properly coded, can degrade gracefully in older browsers. The layout for the site is not complex enough to make an argument for the use of antiquated layout techniques. On top of that, the HTML source of the front page is all on a single line, which made it quite difficult to find in that sea of Javascript.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Validation

The DOCTYPE being used on the site is HTML 4.0 Transitional. This is about as forgiving a DOCTYPE as you can use without just leaving a DOCTYPE declaration off altogether. Yet, as I write this, the front page has 5 validation errors. These are simple errors that should have been fixed before the site launches. I will freely admit that W3C validation is not always on your mind as you’re coming down to launch day. But it is something you should always do before a site launches, just so you don’t leave any embarrassing bugs for the world to see/experience.

But wait, there’s more:

• HTML alt attributes are missing on some images
• blank.gif, an empty image file, is used throughout the layout where text links could have been used.
• Some HTML tags are in uppercase
• Some pages fail to render properly in modern browsers (Firefox 2.0.0.6, as of this writing) (28 validation errors)

All of this points to one thing that particularly frustrates me. The city of Palo Alto spent a lot of money on an antiquated Content Management System (CMS) that spits out dreadfully bad code. After $240,000, I’d expect more and I’m not surprised that the residents of Palo Alto are upset.

I’m also taking a huge risk, I’m about to go to bed and not even look at this in Internet Explorer. I’m tired, so think of it as my treat to all 5.7% of the world’s Mac users and 40% of the world’s Firefox users.

Check back soon, other things will be added as well. Oh, and please give feedback if you have any. Good or bad, I’d love to hear from you.

Cheers,
Rob

Tonight I looked a bit more into Google’s Webmaster Tools and discovered a tool to tell me what search queries returned a page from this site in the results. Not surprising, when you type “robknight” into Google and hit “I’m Feeling Lucky” you land here. I like to think I “pwned” my name without spaces. All other robknights bow to me in cyberspace.

However, it can be quite interesting how others find your site. For instance, did you know you might get here if you did a Google search for what will our children look like? That would be because of this post, which you will also see if you search brow neanderthal slashdot You may also end up here if you searched for chase laguna beach because of my post on how I was compared to an ultra-mega-hottie from the fauxreality MTV show. And in a sad, disappointing moment for my poor site, it turns out that only those searching for Laguna Beach’s Chase actually showed up here.

Oh, but it gets so much better. You may find me if you search millertool because I once designated Dennis Miller “Tool of the Month.” Perhaps you were wondering about a career in cursing? So you headed to Google and I showed up.

However, the prize for the best search query that turns me up is tang orange powder process. Holy shit. I can’t think of a better way to have people find my site than a post about cleaning out your dishwasher with Tang.

You can see the rest of the list here.

Meanwhile, I think the current site still has a lot of life in it, and I’ve recently added some goodness under the hood that I’m particularly happy about. Mainly, a “flexible” layout. Go ahead, increase the font-size…go on! I’ve tried to make the default font-sizes readable to most, but just in case you have the uncorrected vision of a mole, you can bump my shit up and still enjoy a happy reading experience. I’ve tried to make a 3x bump in font-size work without breaking the layout. Why, you ask, did I do this? I’ll leave that for another post (a riveting look at web accessibility – you know you can’t wait!).

In the meantime, enjoy 1/4 inch letter size, and tell your grandma to stop by for a visit.

Update: I just realized, when you bump up my shit, the handy dandy comment tag in the upper right (the one that usually says “0″), looks pretty fugly with a big giant number on it. I will have to get on that. Thanks for pretending not to notice for a bit. -rk