Brandon Frohs

Last night I was working with Consummo to build a client’s website and I ran into a stumbling block. CSS3 does not allow for colors to be declared alongside images (except as the last value). What does this mean? A website can have several background images, each with or without transparency, and a background color behind all of it. Personally, I assumed (you know what they say about assume) background colors could be defined on top of background images (in the same element), but I was wrong. In the CSS3 Candidate Recommendation, the background shorthand property can have a value as follows: [ <bg-layer> , ]* <final-bg-layer> where color can only be defined in the place of <final-bg-layer>.

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A while back, it was suggested that limiting links to anchor tags (a) should be avoided in HTML5. It was declined due to backward compatibility issues and also because it would be difficult to implement. Not only that, but no one could bring forward a test case where using a different tag as a link was necessary. Well, I believe I have found one, and I am curious as to whether anyone has a solution.

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Have you ever visited a website with the intent of reading an article, only to see a full page ad? After clicking ‘continue’, or waiting fifteen to thirty seconds, you finally reach the page of the article. But wait, what’s this? A banner ad, a skyscraper ad, and a huge square advertisement smack-dab in the middle of the article itself. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you notice a new window has opened under your current window with an ad in it. After closing that, another window pops up with another ad. If you hadn’t closed the article already, you probably will now. This example may seem extreme, but it really has happened. Luckily, it is not nearly as common as it used to be.

I mentioned unobtrusive advertising last year when I was ranting about copyright complaints by blog owners, but I believe a bit more of an explanation (and rant) is needed. Let the world know how you feel about advertising by leaving a comment or three below Maybe we can get the word out about unobtrusive advertising (or at least get into a debate with someone who has no class whatsoever).

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