Are You Color Blind?

(The numeral "74" should be clearly visible to viewers with normal color vision. Viewers who are color blind may read it as "21", or may not see numbers at all.)

Hi, my name is Shane and I'm colored blind. I've known this for a number of years now, and have even openly discussed it with some people. I've noticed that a lot of people don't really understand what being color blind REALLY means. There are also a lot of people who are color blind and don't even realize it.

How do you know if you are color blind?

Well it definitely doesn't mean that you see the world as if you were watching a black & white TV. Usually what it means is that you are most likely male.

"About 5–8 percent of males, but less than 1 percent of females, are color blind in some way or another, whether it be one color, a color combination, or another mutation."

The most common form of color blindness is a color blindness to red and green. This doesn't mean that you are unable to see the color red, nor does it mean that you are unable to see the color green. However it does mean you are limited to the amount of tones of red and green you are able to see. It also means when red and green are on top of one another it is difficult to view a contrast between the two. There are three different degrees of this type of color blindness. I fit in the category of Deuteranopia:

"Deuteranopia (1% of males):Lacking the medium-wavelength cones, those affected are again unable to distinguish between colors in the green-yellow-red section of the spectrum. Their neutral point is at a slightly longer wavelength, 498 nm. The deuteranope suffers the same hue discrimination problems as the protanope, but without the abnormal dimming. The names red, orange, yellow, and green really mean very little to him aside from being different names that every one else around him seems to be able to agree on. Similarly, violet, lavender, purple, and blue, seem to be too many names to use logically for hues that all look alike to him. This is one of the rarer forms of colorblindness making up about 1% of the male population, also known as Daltonism after John Dalton. (Dalton's diagnosis was confirmed as deuteranopia in 1995, some 150 years after his death, by DNA analysis of his preserved eyeball.) Deuteranopic unilateral dichromats report that with only their deuteranopic eye open, they see wavelengths below the neutral point as blue and those above it as yellow."

Take a test to see if you are colorblind.

Why All This Color Blind Talk?

Well recently I saw a tweet with a link to this website, WeAreColorBlind.com. Which reminded me of my own colorblindness. So then after googling a couple resources I was wondering how many other people do I know that are also colorblind.

I remember in the 90's (I'm not sure what year exactly) these pictures like the one above became really popular. They were selling books, and framed posters all over the mall and in several different stores. I would go to the dentist and one would be hanging on the wall. Everywhere I went I was always surrounded by them. I always felt weird because I was one of the only people I knew who couldn't see anything but spots. Everyone else was seeing pictures pop out at them when they would stare at these millions of circles. As for me I never saw a thing. It wasn't until several years later when I was out of high school that I realized that those pictures were used for color blind tests. So the reason why I could never see any of the pictures was because I am colorblind.

For more info about color blindness check Wickipedia.

TypeKit

As a Typekit user, you’ll have access to our library of high-quality fonts. Just add a line of JavaScript to your markup, tell us what fonts you want to use, and then craft your pages the way you always have. Except now you’ll be able to use real fonts. This really is going to change web design.

—Introducing Typekit

Now this sounds VERY promising, something I am VERY excited about!

Which is the fastest browser?

The tables and charts on these pages are compiled from thousands of Peacekeeper results from users all around the world. The figures are updated as new results come in. The table below shows how the five major browsers score in Peacekeeper. For each browser we show you the results from the current release and the latest beta build. Most people will be better off using the stable release but there are always people, like us, who have to have the latest of everything.

Yet another reason why not to use Internet Explorer. Make the switch to a better, faster, & more efficient browser today! Don't be fooled by merely upgrading to Internet Explorer 8, because Internet Explorer isn't keeping up with the rest of the browsers out there, so although IE8 may be somewhat better than IE6 or IE7, it still flat out SUCKS when compared to the competition.

If you are using a PC I would suggest switching to Google Chrome or Firefox. If you are using a Mac, just stick with Safari, although I seriously doubt anyone using a mac is actually using Internet Explorer for anything but testing. If you haven't upgraded to Safari 4, you might want to check it out though.

Yet Another Reason to Hate Internet Explorer

Just when you thought Internet Explorer was going to finally do something right, they go and do THIS, and totally redeem themselves...

A year ago Microsoft announced (through A List Apart) that standards compliant websites would be forced to opt into a standards rendering mode in IE8. The uproar from the web standards community was loud and clear: the default should always be render in standards compliancy mode. Microsoft backed down.

So it is with considerable surprise and anger to read that Microsoft has quietly gone back to their original position. The gist of it is if you want to be sure your site renders in standards compliant mode in IE, you have to explicitly opt into it. Otherwise you risk being blacklisted and thrown into IE7 Compatibility mode.

The danger here is that Microsoft don't seem to be collecting the reason behind why a visitor clicked on Compatibility View. So a couple of hundred curious people seeing if the Web Standards Project website works in IE7 Compatibility mode might be enough to stop the Web Standards Project's website from rendering perfectly in IE8. And the only way they can prevent that is to opt-in to the standards rendering mode. What message does that send to the web standards community when WaSP requires an explict opt-in to IE8 rendering?

*Full article "IE8 Blacklist: forcing standards rendering opt-in."

Yet Another Reason of Why NOT to Use Internet Explorer

"Users of all current versions of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser might be vulnerable to having their computers hijacked because of a serious security hole in the software that had yet to be fixed Monday."

"The flaw lets criminals commandeer victims' machines merely by tricking them into visiting Web sites tainted with malicious programming code. As many as 10,000 sites have been compromised since last week to exploit the browser flaw, according to antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc.."

"Many security experts, meanwhile, are urging Internet Explorer users to use another browser until a patch is released."

So why not make the switch to a smarter more efficient Internet Browser today?

P.S.-- Click the title to hop on over to the entire article.

A Winter Wonderland!

The lights have been hung with care
All the festive hats are snug on our heads
With a friendly little snowman to bring in good cheer!
It’s a winter wonderland at PracticeCafé.com (snow included).

CNN Wins!

In my opinion as far as following the election online CNN.com's website proved to be simple to use and read, the information and tools were simplistic yet innovative, and aesthetically pleasing. Take a look at the screen capture (click on it to enlarge) that I took at around 10:30 (CST). You can see how beautifully they present the information. I really loved the interactive map, which allowed you to roll your mouse over any state to be able to see what percentage of votes each person was receiving or did receive. It also used colors to show who was winning each state.

The picture above (click on it to enlarge) shows the black banner that was located at the top of the screen which presented a live scoring of the votes and also gave the needed information for the uneducated like myself by telling what the "magic" number was that each candidate was trying to get to first.

This screen capture above (click on it to enlarge) shows the main content area of their site, and the different interactive charts that they utilized to simplify the experience making it very easy & clear to obtain the information I was needing.

This was the first year I ever followed the election online, and I checked out a few other news sites as well, and CNN proved to be the best in my opinion, so I am definitely sure that in the future I will be tuning into CNN.com for my up-to-date election coverage.

Chrome

Google announced they are launching their FRESH take on the browser that they are calling Chrome. To introduce this browser they released this handy little comic book (which I read). I'm a little late on this... well not really, I've known about it for a few days now, I was holding off though until I actually was able to use it for myself. Only problem now is, the fact that they haven't released it for MAC or Linux yet, only for PC.

Pretty lame if you ask me. The only positive I can see from this is that maybe this will bring us that much closer to the end of IE6 (Internet Explorer 6).

So anyways PC people in the world go download Google Chrome and take it for a spin, it may just be your new favorite browser of choice!

Enjoy™