New local business
Microflare, Inc.
Tonight, my wife and I were watching television, and as usual were chuckling at the local advertisements. Most of them were typical, for car dealerships, no-credit loans, etc. However, when I saw a commercial with a sharp looking businessman speaking in web jargon, it actually grabbed my attention…
Great news for you! Microflare has officially come to Boise to help your business with all of its E-technology needs. Most websites don't work, because they're not well-planned, and don't focus on customer's needs…
Apparently, the advertisement did a good job, because it finally roused me from my lazy spot on the couch, to fire up the laptop and have a looksie at this promising new company, which has decided to grace Boise with its presence. It sounded quite user-focused, so I wanted to check out the site. Well, my initial reaction was a mixed-bag. I was greeted by a PHP error:
I think this might be regional though, because I asked a few other friends over IM, and they saw no such error. It could very well be because I'm in Boise, that I'm getting a different page served. Aside from that though, the site actually looks pretty nice, with some page-curl action happening on the menu. I peeked under the hood, and noticed XHTML 1.0 Transitional code.
Unfortunately, the validator had a fit when parsing their code. To their credit, many errors were caused by embedded Flash, which can be a very tricky subject. There were also some "legacy" no-no's, old coding habits that are relics of table-based days. Things like bgcolor and name make appearances. Aside from <a href="#">, empty align attributes, and a stray table, the code actually isn't half-bad. Though the XHTML couldn't be auto-parsed to check CSS, by manually putting in the URLs, the validator found no errors.
Implications
So, what's the big deal? None really, I just found it interesting that after the local news, a late-night slew of local advertisements would include one for a semi-savvy technology company that is apparently aware of web standards. I for one am hopeful. Basically, this means that all we have been advocating is starting to become "mainstream." We can now turn on the TV and see web design being advertised, right alongside discounted automobile dealerships!
I'm just glad Boise finally has a local alternative to companies like Proclarity, that peddles a product called "Web Standard," as if it has anything to do with the actual Web Standards you hear so much about nowadays. Boise isn't out of the dark days of the web just yet, but with a little luck and some determination we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. How is it in your city? Are standards catching on, or are nested tables still being hashed out?