Without getting into the nerdy history and complexities, my blog today is going to briefly explain what HTML5 is and what many (not all) people generally mean when they ask for such a website.

Loosely speaking, HTML is the language used to construct websites and give them structure. Generally speaking it allows your web browser to read and display a website according to a defined set of rules, the latest is HTML5 – just to give some perspective, HTML4 was ratified (nailed down) in 2000.

The reason why people are talking about HTML5 is that, as it’s an evolution of HTML4 developers can begin to use certain functionality as some web browsers offer support for it. The main problem though is that HTML5 hasn’t yet been ratified and some believe that won’t happen until 2022. This means that the websites that have been built for use today, may be using techniques that won’t work tomorrow – saying that though Google use it for their mobile version of Gmail.

So what is different in HTML5? Without getting too techy, the new additions include (but aren’t limited to):

• We can write more semantic (well structured, human readable) code – for example where we used generic tags before we can use things like ‘nav’ for navigation and ‘footer’ for the footer
• We can embed video without resorting to proprietary technology such as Flash

So why do people ask for an HTML5 website? The emerging design styles of websites tend to be focused heavily on subtle animation, print-style fonts, drop-shadows, strong colours and gradients. I believe that this new style has somehow been muddled with HTML5, when in reality it is a new style-sheet standard called CSS3 that provides most of, if not all of this functionality (I knew I would get to my point eventually!).

Certain parts of the CSS3 standard have been ratified and it is this that enables many of today’s latest design trends. It allows for unusual fonts to be embedded, gradients and drop shadows to be used by the website and not embedded into images as was the previous technique. In addition to this, it enables animations to be incorporated without the need for Flash or other third-party plug-ins. This is great for what we call an ‘open web’ and Apple love it! There is obviously much more to this than that, just off the top of my head you can organise text into columns and have multiple background images.

When push comes to shove though, as an end user your primary goal is to have a website that you are happy with, both in looks and functionality. At Save9 we try to integrate these new techniques when we feel they are required or add that something extra special to a website. The major problem is that you need to be aware of is that your site could look different in different browsers, a problem we already face. Certain browsers have embraced these standards more than others and as developers we take steps to ensure that our websites ‘degrade gracefully’. This means that we will make it look its best in the modern browsers but crucially, they won’t look broken in ones that don’t support it.

I hope this helps!

The event is organised by the Internet Society – with the aim to try and motivate ISPs, telecoms manufacturers and web companies to prepare their internet services for IPv6.

IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) is the successor to IPv4, the Internet addressing protocol which has been used for many years since the very early days of the Internet. The current IPv4 address space only contains 4.3 billion addresses and they are increasingly being rationed. Put simply; the internet will soon run out of capacity to cater for the increasing volume of devices, clients and servers that need to get online.

If you run a website, and want to take part, you will need to verify that your website hosting provider offers IPv6 (of course – Save9 can help you if they don’t) and we can enable the test for you. You will need to be able to configure what are known as ‘Quad A records’ in your DNS zone to enable people to find you by the new internet protocol – IPv6.

For more information on ‘future-proofing’ (a term we are usually hesitant to use – but quite appropriate here) your web server for the next internet protocol version then please get in touch by contacting Steve Bromham at Save9 on 0845 0299999.

PeoplePerHour.com claims in a global report that job offers for ‘Twitter Consultants’ has risen by more than 300 per cent in the last 12 months. PeoplePerHour has an online community of almost 70,000 freelancers sourced from across 150 countries available to work via their online service portal.

The value of social media as a business tool is increasingly recognised by UK firms but only around half of FTSE 100 companies are actively engaged. In contrast, the USA has around 90 per cent of its top companies investing in social media services.

It is of interest that Dell is now entering the market with a 5″ device that sits somewhere between a smart phone and a tablet. The Dell Streak, or Dell Mini as it will be called in the UK, boasts support for Adobe Flash and includes two cameras. On top of this the Streak will also include a MicroSD slot which means the device is expandable up to 32GB – something which both the iPad and iPhone don’t offer.

This Android based device will arrive in the UK next month so watch this space.

The ideal candidate must have a sound understanding of PHP as well as MySQL database development experience. A working knowledge of JavaScript, JQuery, CSS, HTML and XHTML is essential. This role may also involve programming of web-based content management and e-commerce systems. Any experience of CakePHP or iPhone/BlackBerry development is advantageous.

Enthusiasm, attention to detail and high standards of customer care are essential characteristics of any prospective Save9 employee. Good communication skills are paramount.

Successful candidates must be willing to present an example online portfolio at the interview stage.

For further information or to apply, please email jobs@save9.com with a cover letter and a copy of your CV.

Highlights of Monotype Imaging’s Fonts.com Web Fonts solution:

- Over 2,000 high-quality fonts available now for free public beta
- Approximately 7,000 fonts expected by commercial launch later in 2010
- Helvetica, Frutiger and Univers typefaces among several popular designs, available for the first time as Web fonts
- More than 40 languages supported using patent-pending Monotype Imaging technology
- Subscription-based solution to include a free, entry-level tier with ability to use more than 2,000 fonts

Read the full press release here.

Their demo shows the boot process — complete with the Tux Linux mascot. Wang used Android for browsing, receiving a text message, answering a phone call and playing music. The phone is set up with a dual-boot configuration and the video begins with the device running iPhone OS.

iPhone Dev Team – wikee.iphwn.org

Watch the YouTube video…

The report, released on Wednesday, suggests that of those families, about two million choose not to subscribe to broadband in areas where a reasonably good service is available. A poor selection of ISPs and a high overall cost were the determining factors for those families choosing to stay offline, according to analyst firm Point Topic, which released the report.

“One of the reasons they’re not trying [broadband] is because they’re unable to afford it,” Point Topic founder Tim Johnson told ZDNet UK on Thursday.

In addition, Point Topic estimated that 40,000 families with children live in areas where no fixed broadband service is provided. Another 1.4 million are in places where only slow broadband — with reliable speeds of less than 2Mbps — is on offer.

The locations with the poorest broadband adoption for families with children are countryside towns and cities where industry has collapsed, according to Point Topic. It named north-east Derbyshire, Aldridge-Brownhills and the valleys of south Wales as examples.

Johnson said he believes a lack of broadband in the home has both a financial and a social cost for affected children. Children without home broadband will earn less income when they enter the workplace, according to the report. It estimated that the eventual loss of earnings to the UK economy could be as high as £80bn a year.

The report also highlighted the difficulty children without home broadband can have in socialising with their peers in an increasingly digital world.

“Unless they leave the house, [children] can’t do their homework properly; they can’t join in the social world of their peers; and they can’t gain the internet skills and knowledge they will need to live comfortably as adults,” the report stated.

The government has introduced efforts to get low-income families online. In January, it launched a £30m Home Access scheme to provide free internet-connected laptops to disadvantaged children, providing a grant of up to £528 for families to spend with high-street computing and broadband providers.

In addition, it has set up the National Digital Participation plan, which is targeting the 12.5 million people that are currently offline and aiming to get them online by March 2014. A separate initiative — led by UK digital inclusion champion Martha Lane Fox — has the goal of getting as many people as possible online by the London Olympics in 2012.

Some schools are taking a more direct approach to providing e-learning resources to children. Broad Oak Sports College, a state secondary school in Bury, has provided a £140,000 Wi-Fi mesh network to give free internet access to 1,000 pupils.

The government already has plans to provide better broadband coverage across the country, and has pledged to provide super-fast broadband to the entire UK. Other major political parties have similar pledges.

Point Topic builds its model of broadband usage and adoption in the UK from public data, such as census information, and from datasets it generates from Ofcom statistics, BT figures and similar broadband industry data.

(ZDNet UK, 30 April 2010)

(TechNewsDaily, 19/04/2010)

KPMG anticipates that the ICO will quickly look for big name companies to target with its beefed up powers and has come up with some suggestions to keep the right side of the law on data privacy.

Encrypt your data. While in decline, KPMG points out that 20% of all incidents are caused by a failure to encrypt sensitive data. Organisations should take care to encrypt not just laptops but also desktops.

Check out third parties. KPMG estimated that a third of the 490 million people affected by data losses since 2005 involved cases where the loss was caused by a third party, normally a supplier. However, it is the data owner that will be pursued by the regulators, so it’s vital to look beyond simply having a security clause in a contract and actively confirm what that means in practice. If something then goes wrong, the data owners can prove that they did everything in their power to comply with regulations.

Offshore contracts. Offshoring or outsourcing relationships need to be carefully examined, particularly if data is offshored to countries where data value is not so highly prized. Even if there are processes in place, they may still fail because of this mismatch in appreciation of data value which may result in their response to a problem not being as prompt or thorough as the company or regulator would like.

Deal with data loss quickly. If the worst happens, companies are likely to incur higher fines if they don’t recognise the severity of the loss, are tardy about reporting it, don’t conduct a through investigation, assess the impact on individuals involved or act quickly to correct the weakness.

Beware the regulator. With its new powers, the ICO will be keen to flex its muscles and demonstrate how seriously it takes data breaches. Companies should ensure they have done all they can to identify and correct problems.

Please contact Save9 on telephone 0845 029999 or email info@save9.com for a complimentary data protection session or to request data sheets on our range of data protection solutions.