News

5 December 2002

There is a new choice on the style menu: "Holiday Ant". Try it out!

22 November 2002

In case you haven't noticed, Opera 7 Beta is out. Being a beta release, it naturally has some bugs in need of being squashed, but overall this browser looks very promising. One very exciting feature for developers is the new small-screen rendering mode, which allows you to see your Web documents as rendered on a handheld device such as a PDA or smartphone.

11 November 2002

I've made a few minor (mostly stylistic) changes to the site; I think you'll agree the navigation menu, in particular, looks a lot cleaner.

8 November 2002

Another section of the Guide to Standards-Compliant XHTML is now available: Basics of XHTML Markup. This, together with the Introduction to XHTML section, will provide anyone interested in learning Web document authoring with a solid, standards-based foundation.

4 November 2002

Most of you in the Internet Community are already painfully aware of the damage that rampant commercialism has done to what was originally conceived of and implemented as an open and shared resource. Now it seems that corporate greed and thirst for power are still unsatisfied, and that corporations like Micro$oft and Intel won't be happy until they own and control your very computer and the software you use on it. If you think this is all a fantasy that could never come true, this document may change your mind.

Meanwhile, the cable industry is seeking to monitor and control how you access resources on the Net with a plan that may very well lead to The Death of the Internet as we know it.

2 November 2002

It's been a couple of weeks since I last updated this site, and if you've been reading the News entries lately, you can probably guess why. Our new baby, Ezekiel Lawrence Edwards, arrived October 30, 2002. Thanks to all those who prayed for my wife and my son, and thanks to God for the priceless gift of this new child.

15 October 2002

Today is a very special day as it marks 3 happy years of marriage for my wife and me. It seems hard to believe that only a few years ago I was living alone with my two dogs, all of us sleeping in the same bed just to keep warm at night after my heat was shut off. I'm thankful that God has blessed me so abundantly with the family I now have, and am looking forward to the birth of my second son, due in just 10 more days.

You may have noticed that velvet ant.org now has a built-in style switcher which allows you to choose from 4 different themes—Default, Left Navigation, Green Ant, and Blue Ant. Your selection will be saved in the form of a cookie so that your favorite theme will automatically be applied the next time you visit. Try these out and let me know how you like them. More themes coming soon.

13 October 2002

If you haven't checked out the working draft of XHTML 2.0 yet, be sure and do so. This exciting next version will finally rid XHTML of the presentational markup left over from HTML 4.01, as well as introduce some important changes and long-desired features not found in earlier versions. For those who prefer a less technical introduction than the working draft provides, Nicholas Chase has written an excellent article over at IBM.com entitled The Web's future: XHTML 2.0.

10 October 2002

Another section of the Guide to Standards-Compliant XHTML is finished and is now online. There is quite a bit more material that is almost ready and should be up within the week, so keep checking back. I've been quite busy lately helping my wife prepare for a new baby due around the 25th.

8 October 2002

This is the modest beginning of velvet ant.org, a free educational site consisting of notes, articles, and tutorials on the subjects of Web authoring, Web design, and Web development, which I like to think of collectively as Web publishing. My name is Lawrence Edwards. I am a freelance Web designer/developer, my primary areas of interest being XHTML, CSS, and PHP, with a strong emphasis on standards compliance. Thanks to the type of work I do, I am able to work from home and be close to my family. My wife, Garland, is a housewife, mother, and graphic designer specializing in Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Flash. She produces the Graphics by Garland section of this site.

A very fundamental part of this site, when it is finished, will be the Guide to Standards-Compliant XHTML/CSS I am writing. This work is both a reference and a tutorial that I hope will be of value to beginners and the experienced alike. Although it is still very much a work in progress, there is already a substantial portion of it finished and online, and it will be continually updated with new sections as they are completed.

I have also devoted a section of this site to links to other related resources I have found useful and, in some cases, essential for anyone in the field of Web design/development.

It is my sincere hope that you will find something useful here; if not, write me with suggestions as to how I can improve this site to make it more useful. Please feel free to contact me concerning any errors or omissions you may find, or any criticisms you may have. This can all be done via the Contact page.