I wrote an article for DesignFestival.com. Popular Mistakes in Universal Web Design. It was later tweeted by Smashing Magazine (who has nearly half a million followers) which made me quite happy.

My brother visited me here in Northern California, and we took 3 jam-packed day trips to Monterey area, Napa valley, and Highway 1 to San Francisco. My cousin Italo was also in the area and we took a visit at Villa Montalvo in nearby Saratoga.

On my Web Axe podcast and blog, I wrote an analysis of (lack of) keyboard accessibility on Google Plus. I published, although a bit late, Podcast 92 “Frustrated”. I wrote a few other blogs including a listing of web accessibility events for the second half of 2011.

Lastly, and most recently, my wife and I saw Sade in concert (you know, “Smooth Operator”) at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. Great show, but not-so-good concert pictures (but the short video clip is pretty cool).

• HTML version
• Google Doc version

PS: Check out the pictures from the CSUN conference that I took!

PPS: On Saturday morning at CSUN11, I participated as a judge in the SS12 is a Code-A-Thon Challenge organized by Project:Possibility.

In January, I finally published my big article 25 Ways To Make Your Website Accessible. The idea was to get it on a major online magazine, but red tape got in the way, and I hate red tape. Anyway, the article got great response from the community on Twitter.

In February, The American Foundation of the Blind announced the winners of their AFB 2011 Access Awards, and my web application Accessible Twitter was a recipient! I’ll be traveling to downtown Seattle next week to attend the ceremony at the 2011 Josephine L. Taylor Leadership Institute (JLTLI) conference. Weird part of this is that Disney Parks & Resorts also won the award, but at the same time, Disney was sued for inaccessible websites!

The week after Seattle, I’ll be traveling back to San Diego for the CSUN conference (Annual International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference). I published a Web Axe podcast which discusses the conference, CSUN 2011 Preview. I’m not speaking at the conference as I did last year, but I will be judging a contest!

The logo is a general-purpose visual identity for a broad set of open web technologies, including HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, and others.

I agree with the many who say that that HTML5 is just HTML5 (the markup) and shouldn’t be conglomerated together with other standards such as CSS; mixing them causes confusion. Then, the W3C responded with this statement The HTML5 Logo Conversation. Whether you agree or disagree, or like or dislike the new logo and W3C’s angle, there sure has been a lot of fun (and great coding!) as a result.

Fun Stuff

• HTML5 Pants
• Flash animated HTML5 logo
• Zillions Of Hilarious Parodies
• W3C HTML5 Spinning Logo (Flick it!)
• Official W3C HTML5 T-Shirt
• Official HTML5 Logo Is Out: Get Your Badge! from WebResourcesDepot
• Pure CSS HTML5 Logo – By Darcy Clarke

Commentary

• Two cheers for the W3C’s HTML5 logo from the HTML5 Doctor.
• New W3C HTML5 Logo: Looks Ok But Inconsistent, Fire W3C Communications Person Who Led Messaging by Tantek Celik.
• Jeremy Keith Adactio Badge of shame.
• HTML5 and the New W3C-Endorsed Logo by SitePoint.
• Bonus: HTML5 is dead. Long live HTML. by @ChipCullen

What do you think of the new logo and the W3C’s line of thought?

<a href="#">Click here <span style="position: absolute; left=-999em;">for more information on bat species</span></a>

You should never use “click here”! This is a total accessibility fail!

I’ve been waiting on publication of a big article for 6 months now, and this is part of the hold up? Ugh, so frustrating!

Podcast #86: EDUCAUSE Review, AHG Preview, HTML5 Audio with Terrill Thompson (Nov 2)
Dennis speaks with Terrill Thompson about a variety of topics including a summary of the EDUCAUSE conference; a preview of the Accessing Higher Ground (AHG) conference; community efforts to fix the web; HTML5 audio, video, and controls; and captioning.

AccessU West Keynote by Web Axe Host (Nov 5)
About a conference in January in San Jose, California, for which I present my first keynote address!

Feedback on A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Web Accessibility (Nov 6)
Some corrections and clarification on a popular article.

HTML5 Sanity Check (Nov 21)
A warning about the readiness of HTML5 pertaining to web accessibility, and some great articles and resources too!

Response to Twitter Keyboard Shortcuts (Nov 23)
Comments on the irony of keyboard shortcuts on Twitter.com when the site isn’t keyboard accessible.

November Link Roundup (Nov 30)
Every month this year I’ve been publishing a list of links going around Twitter which pertain to web accessibility.

• Accessible colors and contrast according to WCAG AAA.
• Accessible and visible link focus for keyboard use.
• Optimized link hover and active states.
• Skip link to content visible on keyboard focus.
• Added skip links back to top after content and after footer area.
• Added additional hidden headlines for sidebars (left and bottom).

PS: My previous theme was accessible (after tweaking) but I wanted a fresh look and wanted to support Sylvia’s Accessible 1.0 theme!