This morning had been spent performing an engaging task that could only be matched by such exciting experiences as watching the sea dry and sticking pins in your eyes. This blog has been receiving content for a year and a bit now, and there have been many changes in the way the data is handled, but of course, no one apart from me knows this. One of the unfortunate things about these changes means that there is a muddle of inconsistent code, and even worse, in some places, invalid code. I've spent the past two hours picking the digital needles from the haystack. Yes, I am close to tears, but thankfully I think most of the problems are now gone.

Yesterday I began drafting some designs for a new idea I'm going to be experimenting with in the next while or so (this is unrelated to anything that has ever been mentioned in blog before). I'm quite excited, but really don't know if I have the time to run another business when I'm already running the one. We'll see.

On Sunday we had the relatives over for a family celebration. My birthday, Auntie Gay and Uncle Mike's 30th wedding anniversary, Sister Two's birthday and results, cousin Rachel's results all were swept under the carpet at the time due to busy schedules, but we all managed to get together for some fantastic food (as always when we have the family gatherings).

At the moment I feel like I'm in limbo. There is lot of stuff I'm meant to be doing, but for one reason or the other it's not moving forward; I need everything else to fall in place before I can make my move. Frustrating.

"I saw that building 20 minutes ago," I thought to myself as my bus drove past the Blackheath Social Club for the second time this journey. It was a Sunday morning and that meant replacement bus services and continual disruption to what would on any other day have been considered a fairly simple journey. Quarter of an hour after my train had departed, my bus dropped me at Smethwick Galton Bridge station. Despite these problems and Trev's directions, I still managed to arrive at Leamington Spa and locate the correct geeks at the correct time in the correct park.

The weather held, and then improved, meaning we pretty much got a full day of sunshine. There was even a need for sunglasses. A good thing considering the picnic element of the event, and it meant that all sandwiches remained dry, which is more than can be said for Stu, who went for a paddle to retrieve the official Geek In The Park football. We quickly decided that wetting the attendees was a bad idea, and the task of rescuing future water-bound footballs was contracted out to rowers on the river. The 5-a-side tournament was a great success, so much so that it soon evolved into into a 6-a-side match. I was able to comprehensively display my lack of talent and fitness, yet we still won, hurrah.

There were approximately 35 'picniceers', not including kids (of which there were a good number), and a similar figure of developers who turned up for the evening event. Those who braved out the entire day ate dinner at the nearby Scream pub and afterwards headed over to the Jug and Jester for a dose of discussion before I finally had to call it a day and head home.

Patrick and Bruce took the subject of pragmatic accessibility as the core focus for the talk; chain-smoking their way through a passionate discussion about where the responsibilities of the web developers and the user agents meet. The speakers made some important observations about the expectation of designers to provide solutions to browser shortcomings. The podcast will be available for download soon from the Geek In The Park web site, but in the meanwhile thought I would summarise my feelings and conclusions whilst they are still fresh in my mind.

Patrick highlighted the real need for the browsers to take a greater interest in their interface development and not just the compliance to web-based standards (quoting the poor browser subscription to W3C User Agent Guidelines). My personal feeling on this is, as developers, we do already have a way of addressing these gaps in the software. Mozilla and Microsoft have already allow additional function can be mapped into the interface, and there is no reason why we should not be creating solutions that can be plugged into the browsers. The current plethora of extensions are tailored specifically for the developer market (who doesn't have the developer toolbar installed?), but there is hardly anything created specifically for the end users.

The sort of extension I envisage is a toolbar of solutions to standard access problems which are currently routinely patched by developers. The sort of problems I mean are that of font resizing, the 'aesthetic' problem of skip links and the issues of colour contrast. Some of these settings can already be changed in the UA, but mostly are hidden away so that your standard user hasn't got a clue about it. Others simply have not been implemented.

An 'access toolbar' could be combined into a single extension and act as showcase to both web and UA developers. This prototype would have little impact on the standard user (as they still don't know what an extension is); the real benefit would be the ability to demonstrate to the UA developers what the web developers would like, and why it would help us. It would also help to channel the heated discussions onto how to implement the good access features into the browser interface, rather than carry on the superficial arguments over how we should spend our time working around problems that should be being addressed by another group of people. I don't think the extension would ever need to be shown to the public, it should simply be an example of an interface, showcasing features that should be considered for inclusion in a final release product.

I believe that enough pressure could levy change. It's an optimistic view I know, but if you look at the current rates of innovation within the industry, there are two very different speeds. On the one hand, the W3C et al take years to formulate their specifications, then the browsers then take years to implement them. The content of CSS 3 and XHTML 2 are still being debated, but by the time they are widely adopted we will have known exactly what was coming in them for half a decade - no novel advancements, no innovation, just what we already know and expect, and similarly the browsers seem to fail to provide spectacular never-seen-before advancements.

On the other side of the divide is the developers. We have a vested interest in improving our working methods, and innovations in projects/applications are commonplace. The level of creativity and drive is unbridled; we are seeing rapid advances in our design techniques, but all this energy is being channelled into the formulation of CSS hacks and browser workarounds, which is a reactive approach to the problems. This is confusing considering the proactive and innovative nature of the rest of the work that we are involved in (our sites).

If we look at what happens when developers' energy is applied to a generic web problem we can see the results can be very effective. I refer you to Microformats. Within a short period we have a set of specifications that I am confident will eventually become a grassroots web standard and become woven into the fabric of everyday, semantic mark-up. By it's wide scale adoption, Microformats would provide a precedent for developer-led change. Not by W3C committees and not by browser makers, but by developers. If Yahoo! or Google were to start to incorporate these formats in their normal web results, it would be a coup d'etat, and demonstrate that we can make an effective impact on wider web policy.

The point I am trying to illustrate is that there is often a lot of talking about the way we can improve our design/accessibility techniques. It's a by-product of our creativity and online innovation. What is lacking is actions. As has been shown on many occasions, the industry giants are prepared to take on board good ideas. They are willing to pay good money for it. Take Writely, Flickr, del.icio.us... all bought up and adapted by the Big Guns. Why? The technology existed and was proved to work. There would be no point of turning up on Dragon's Den without a prototype. If you want a browser to adopt a feature, you need to mock it up, shout about it, build up a fan base and get the idea adopted. We can talk about what other people should be doing for us as much as we like, but unless we spend some time illustrating what we mean, it's never going to be. What makes this easier is that the tools for the job are already available.

I would like to thank both Bruce and Patrick for getting me psyched starting me thinking. With a bit of enthusiasm and some help, I am sure us developers could bolt together some kind of useful little demo bar that might help the UA makers see where we are coming from and open a discussion on what we want need from them. Bruce and Patrick are already compiling a list of things we need to see addressed in UAs, so this could be a very useful stepping stone.

On other topics I have less to say (mostly because I've spilt my heart already), but I would like to agree with their idea of a pragmatic approach to access. The key is to assess the project scope (time & money) and work out if you can adopt a fully accessible schema given the resources available. If you can't, draw up contingencies. If you've made a site that doesn't provide an alternative stylesheet because the project wasn't long enough to allow it, don't feel guilty. Acknowledge you had to make the sacrifice and be prepared to make the change if and when you need it. You are not likely to be immediately sued for not having a high-vis stylesheet if you quickly and cheerfully react to any request or complaint. You will appear in a better light for meeting the needs of your visitors, whilst improving the access level generally on a per-se basis.

Of course it is desirable to have the stylesheet there in the first place, but we all know there are times where a compromise has to be reached for one reason or another. I must stress I am not advocating cutting of corners just because you want your tea a bit earlier; the responsibility that lies with the developer here requires a very pragmatic and realistic approach. You don't want to discriminate and you don't want to leave you or your client vulnerable to criticism. Remember, in law everything is judged in relation to a 'reasonable person', and by my estimation, as long as you could demonstrate you were reasoned in your decisions, you are likely to be within your rights (as a designer only; your client might be liable for not making the resources available)*. Make your code valid, prioritise you access features, then be prepared to act immediately if the audience requests something you couldn't deliver first time around. Crucially, only compromise on access when there is no alternative.

Lastly, Bruce and Patrick were keen to talk about the advantage of baselines in terms of legal positioning of firms. I am still not convinced this is a good way forward. As Nicky Danino put it, "it gives people a get out clause," and I agree. Just because we want to make it easier to define the lowest boundaries, doesn't mean we should do it by providing ways that allows the relaxing of standards. I think it is fairly clear from the years of discussion already under our belts is that the WCAG AAA spec is a holy grail of accessibility, no one can really claim to have achieved it. What is important is that people demonstrate that they have striven to achieve it. Oddly, they don't have to succeed to be successful. It is more important to see people have made a serious attempt at accessibility and standards than to let them pick their own marker and sit on it as low as possible because their in-house access policy says they can. As the classifications are all subjective I predict it won't help the legal position anyway; I think the courts are more likely to weigh a decision based on the level of commitment shown to meeting the godly targets rather than whether they managed to meet a self-set lowly minimum.

Opinions over. I had a great day, it was really good to meet all you folks I'd not met before, and to catch up with those of you I already knew. Thankfully there were no Geek In The Pond fatalities despite the precautions the police took, and hopefully I'll get a chance to see some of you again at the Multipack meet in two weeks time.

*Disclaimer: I am not a legal expert, or anything even similar and this is simply my interpretation and opinion. Please do not use my ramblings as a basis for any access policy without consultation with a legal professional, as without precedent, all this advice is purely speculation and should be treated as such. I won't not hold any responsibility for anyone acting on my advice as I cannot confirm it's value.

Jon's parties are always good. In fact, they are always better than good; they are fantastic. Where else could you witness ten 20-somethings bouncing happily (albeit drunkenly) in a bouncy castle at 2 in the morning, in pouring rain? There were three hottubs, two whole lambs stretched out spread-eagle over an open fire, a trippy clubroom and more punch and beer than you could shake a stick it. Oh and naturally, there were the girls as well. Very good stuff.

There was a lack of university presence. Despite the invites that went out, I was the only one who managed to attend, but I knew a few guys from school and some of Jon's other mates from various places. Leo, Josh, James, Roscoe, Tom, Joe, Danny and the 'London Ladies' were there, and then later in the evening Will (who I was meant to be going for a drink with tonight) called and said his plans had been changed and he's actually going to France on Saturday, not Sunday. I told him to bring the schedule forward day and so he came over with Dan. The time just flew and before we knew it was 4am.

Tomorrow is Geek In The Park, and despite initial poor forecasts, the situation has changed and we should get some half decent weather. I'm looking forward to meeting up with the guys and seeing who shows up. I'm also keen to see Patrick and Bruce's contribution in the evening; A discussion of pragmatic accessibility, where the rubber meets the road. I encourage anyone who is still unsure about attending to come along; these type of meets are really good fun and it's a brilliant place to network, learn and socialise. If you do enjoy the event and want to do that sort of thing more regularly, the Multipack can give you a monthly dose of exactly that, so consider joining up... it's free and just about to celebrate a first birthday.

A lot of ringing around and following up leads yesterday has brought some new work in, unfortunately despite being excited by some of the projects, there isn't much I can do yet until I get the brief, so it's a case of waiting on that stuff at the moment.

Last night I went for a curry with Tom, John, Becky and Liam at a place called Bengal Fusion down the Lye. I was mightily impressed and for thirty five quid we had a really good meal. After we headed back to Stourbridge for a sneaky half or so down the Crispin where Raj joined us. Once again (for the third time in two days) the topic of laptops came up and I think I managed to get Raj all excited about my Macbook. He's asked me to go computer shopping with him. These aren't intentional Apple Conversions I'm carrying out, but at the moment people just seem to have all the enthusiasm to try something new...

Tom and I walked home discussing all matter of topical issues ranging from PFIs to to the percieved terror threat. That's my week's dose of political debate sorted.

Tonight is Jon's party. Despite early warning, there is going to be a poor show from university types, which is a bit of a disappointment. Looks like it's just going to be me, Jon and Andy, plus of course all of the other people invited, but it would have been nice for a bit of a reunion for the Lufbra IDT crew.

I got up early today in order to finish a few small items on a website for one client today, and mosied on fairly normally with little interruption until the minute I got into the meeting at 3pm and was bombarded with texts, phone calls, voicemails, and when I checked my inbox an hour later it was practically overflowing. Such is the way the world works.

I'm not too sure where one of the calls even came from. It starts 006, which indicates foreign me thinks. All the others I have returned, but at the thought on an extortionate addition to my phone bill, I'm going to pass until I know where I'm dialling.

This evening I watched The Motorcycle Diaries for the first time; the film about the diaries of Che Guevera on his journeys through South America. It's a fantastic piece of cinema generally, the story is brilliantly portrayed and it has inspired me to take the book out at some point. It's also rekindled my passion to go out there and see the place. The Inca Trail and the Andes have always been numero uno on my list of destinations, but recently I'd forgotten how swept away I was by the National Geographic IMAX film that sparked my interest about eight years ago.

This weekend (and the run up to it) is going to be manic, starting tomorrow.

If you don't know the answer to the questions above, and/or don't understand what the logos above mean, please read on, especially if you are not a web designer or developer.

I will do my best to explain the above and what it means using non-techy terms, and hopefully more people (you) will understand the benefits of a technology that is all around you but rarely used by people other than web-types (like myself).

An Example

The BBC provides rolling news coverage on it's website. Everytime a new article appears on the homepage the only way you will ever know is by checking on their website. That's fine most of the time, but you probably also check other sites regularly to see whether new information or news has been added. I check forums for replies, I also check the news at Uncrate (showcasing new gadgets) and I like to see new photos when my friends upload them to Flickr (a photo sharing site). Chris also has a podcast, and I need to know when I can download a new one.

The Problem and The Solution

All of these sources of changing information have to be checked separately, and you have to remember to visit each site every-so-often to check for updates. But what if you had a system where all your sites and forums and podcasts notified you when they had been updated? What if you could view all this information in one place, in a similar way to when you check your emails? What if you didn't have to remember to check all those sites all the time?

When Uncrate adds a new review, or Si uploads a new photo I know because I use News Feeds, which is exactly the same as an RSS Feed or an XML Feed. They just are different names for the same technology. And they all use the logos above to signify that the service is available. You've probably seen them around the web, or if you haven't noticed it, it will only take a glance at the BBC Sports page or even this very page (see right hand column) to realise that you could have live football results or my newest blog entry delivered to you directly, at the same time it appears on the website.

Using these Feeds, I can be sure that when Chris uploads his new podcast I will be the first to be told. In fact, if you listen to podcasts in iTunes, that is exactly how the program knows a new one is available - it checks a News Feed for updates. The only difference with iTunes is that it only deals with music. A standard News Reader (which are free!) can deal with all feed types - news updates, forum replies, photos, blog entries, podcasts...

As you might realise, this expands your ability to keep tabs on all your information. You ultimately will save time as it stops those wasted journeys to sites when there has been no new content. The News Reader provides a link with each piece of new content it displays so you can choose to go directly to the original article or photo, but it also means you can read a title and ignore it if it's not of interest.

If the idea interests you, you will probably want to get a News Reader. Mine is a free web-based one (Rojo), which means I can check anywhere in the world, just like your webmail. It is password protected and contains only my feeds which I can add and remove as I choose. You can also download News Readers that run on your computer directly. Some email providers place a news reader in their webmail (for example Yahoo! Mail beta users have the option in the left hand folder list).

Without a news reader, News Feeds are not particularly user-friendly. They can look like a jumble of code, for example this is mine (depending which browser you are using it might be more or less of a jumble). But if you copy the web address into your NewsFeeder, it will understand it just fine, and you'll be set to receive new articles as and when they occur on my site. Wherever you see the logos above or 'RSS' or 'XML', that is the link you copy into the News Reader.

If you have a question, just leave a comment and I'll try to answer it. I realised that the BBC's attempt to explain this wasn't particularly clear, and this was my attempt to clarify the system. It's not like any of this is new, just I thought it hasn't been well explained in the past, and the more people who know, the better.

At 7pm yesterday, I headed over to Jon's for an asado and general social. I wasn't sure if I'd I'd know anyone there aside from Jon, but it turned out that Dan and Tom were there, with a mix of polo girls and some of Jon's friends from school.

It was my first asado, which for the unenlightened is an Argentinian BBQ. You take a large amount of meat (lamb and chicken) and cut it off in large sections, laying in on a low grill. The wood fire (critically not charcoal) is allowed to burn separately until it collapses right down, then the embers raked under the grill, so there is no flame, just hot coals below the meat. You then have to allow for the meat to cook; the longer the wait the better. The meat is then torn or cut into slices, pieces of bread dowsed in a lemon and mustard sauce and then the meat placed inside the bread. Tastes bloody fantastic.

The evening was meant to be a precursor to the party this coming Friday, in that Jon and I were meant to be discussing arrangements, but it didn't work out like that, and we spent most of the time on other subjects.

One thing that amused Tom, Angus and myself (after we eventually all admitted to it) was that had all been ID'd when we'd gone to buy beer, all at the same off licence, all separately, before we arrived at Jon's. At age 21, being ID'd is not considered a great achievement, but as Tom and Angus are both couple of years older than me it eased my embarrassment. What amused us most though was the girl behind the counter had done the same thing for all of us; she had taken one look at our driving licences, read the year out load (for me 1985) and then had taken out a calculator to work out whether we were over 18. I said to her "I'm 21 if it helps," but it didn't and she finished the calculation. She must have only been about 23 herself. And she's working in a shop, dealing with other peoples' money.

I suppose it's not quite as embarrassing as when I was 18 and on a night out to Birmingham when I was issued a child's ticket on a bus (bearing in mind you have to be under 14) when all my mates got adult fare. I didn't live that down for a couple of years.