I’m currently in the process of re-designing this site and part of this process means updating it to utilise the latest HTML5 and CSS 3 elements where possible, and as a result of this I’ve used the time element in all dates such as post date and also other dates.
The format of the time element for dates is as follows:
<time datetime="2009-11-13">13 November 2009</time>
The datetime attribute has to contain an ISO 8601 date although the value can contain any date format you wish. When using this with the dynamic nature of wordpress, the following format produces a valid output for post dates:
Having posted my thoughts on university before, both the good and bad points I was in two minds with what to do over the summer as the end of the educational year and holidays approached and I wasn’t sure whether it was worth carrying on or trying to seek employment within the industry.
I’d become disillusioned with university over the last few months as I felt the course had stalled slightly and I wasn’t picking up as much as I wanted to and felt that a lot of the content we were being taught had little relevance to the industry. (We were still told that table based layouts were acceptable on occasion). As the year finished I was still swithering as to what to do and decided that I’d decide over the summer as there was no immediate rush to make my mind up as the course doesn’t re-start until September but circumstances speeded that process up.
After a hectic couple of weeks, between completing the university year and everything that’s associated with that, I was offered employment with MTC Media here in Dundee and I was delighted to accept. My role is the front end development of websites and implementing the HTML/CSS/JavaScript, as well as designing and after four weeks of employment I’m really enjoying it so far. I’ve learnt a lot in the short space of time in my employment, from the mechanics of how a design agency operates to more technical aspects of coding and designing solutions for clients. Whilst I’ve designed and implemented several websites in the past, it’s much different now that it is my main job role and in a design agency, and I’m really enjoying it so far.
My knowledge is increasing all the time and at a much faster rate than it would had I stayed in education and for that reason I feel I’ve made the right decision.
Last week we had a visit from Rachel Andrew to university where she was to give a talk about The Web and The Future, and it was a good talk. She concentrated on the basics that are required to succeed in the industry, and made the point that we were ideally placed to experiment with the emerging specs of HTML5 and CSS 3 by using them on uni projects which provide a lot more freedom than client work. She explained the current state of the web industry and some of the exciting things which are in the near future such as improvements in typography, and advancements in other areas.
The talk was slightly delayed as over 100 folk turned up to hear her speak in a room with around 30 seats, so there was a slight delay as we moved into the main lecture theatre and Rachel did well to deal with the upheaval and still deliver a great talk. Speaking to a full lecture hall would scare the living daylights out of me!
It was good to see a leading name in the web industry up in Dundee and hopefully more will follow in time.
