If you’re like me, you just want to save time and have a professional web designer and coder just tell you what you should be doing. Unfortunately life is almost never that simple…

I have heard some of the differences between XHTML and HTML 4.01 but haven’t taken the time to really make an educated decision. I’ve done the research now, so I can make the educated choice and advise appropriately. I’m going to make this very easy for you and most importantly help you understand the important differences.

The short answer? You should be using HTML 4.01

Why? The easy answer to that is actually pretty simple. Here’s a list:

1. Current versions of Internet Explorer don’t support XHTML
2. You won’t be using the extra features in XHTML. If you actually are going to use them then you know the differences between XHTML and HTML 4.01 and won’t be reading this.
3. Most likely you are setting your Content-Type as “text/html” in your XHTML document, which means browsers are looking at it like HTML anyway. You have to use “application/xhtml+xml” for browsers to parse it as XML.

Those are just a few reasons. Summary… IE doesn’t support it, you’re actually just using HTML anyway and you don’t need or use the extra features in XHTML.

To answer these next few questions, you should visit http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=393445

What is XHTML?

The answer to this is widely mis-understood. XHTML is NOT HTML as you might assume or been lead to believe. XHTML is actually XML with the same element types and attributes as HTML 4. They are closely related but they are not the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHTML

Why do so many people advise the use of XHTML?

For the most part, they are speaking out of ignorance and/or personal preference. What I read most often is XHTML is for the future (false) and that most people like the syntax rules better (which is ignorant). It was an exciting and promising technology in the past but turned out not to be future proof, etc. The publicity of the downfall of XHTML wasn’t as widespread and thus, people still use and recommend it.

What are the differences between XHTML and HTML 4.01?

This question is a little more complicated. Because I think most of you reading this article don’t really care about the XML stuff or the more technical differences, I’ll make this a shorter and simpler answer via bullets:

1. XHTML is case sensitive but HTML isn’t.
2. XHTML requires end tags or self closing tags, not always the case with HTML
3. Error handling is more forgiving for HTML
4. XHTML requires a value for attributes
5. Comments in XHTML are more limited

For additional differences besides syntax, visit: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=393445

Conclusion and recommendations: Use HTML 4.01 Strict. It will be ready for the future, works in all browsers and is actually easier to code with (just a tiny bit). Educate yourself on the differences. Here is a fantastic resource: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=393445 and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHTML Also, the World Wide Web Consortium recommends the use of HTML 4.01 over XHTML, if you don’t trust me that’s fine but at least trust them.

Another fantastic read is: http://www.webdevout.net/articles/beware-of-xhtml It explains the differences between XHTML and HTML and why HTML should be used at least for the time being.

- 2 Comments

Ok, I’d say I’m WAAYYYYY past due for a rant about stupid people. I mean, that was the original intention of this blog. Today’s stupid topic? Driving… specifically snow drivers.

It’s not that hard to drive in snow. It’s not that hard to be a courteous, responsible and safe driver either. Especially in these kind of conditions. However, in a town filled with college students, you would expect lots of bad drivers everywhere… and, there are. Except that most of the college students have left for x-mas break.

But, even quite a few of the townies here are pretty bad drivers. You’ve got the punks in their little Toyota trucks thinking they’re invincible and better drivers than everyone else on the road speeding past you only to end up slamming on the breaks to make a turn in time, barely managing enough traction to make it and causing everyone he just cut off to nearly rear end him. What a jackass!

Then you’ve got the people who think a parking lot full of cars and people is the best area to get going 15-20mph and slam on the breaks to slide to a stop because it’s fun. Ohh, but what do you know, THERE ARE PEOPLE on the other side of the car parked on either side of you that you probably would have ran over had they not seen your stupid ass coming! Seriously, what if you run over a 5 year old kid? Knowing your type, you’d think it was the kid’s fault and keep doing what you’re doing.

You’ve got people tailing you that may not be able to stop in a bad situation fast enough, trucks driving around like they own the road because they have 4×4 but just looking like total retards, kids fishtailing down narrow streets nearly side swiping every other car just because they want to have a bit of fun…. ugh…

Seriously people? Are you all that stupid? Drive safe out there everyone. If you want to go have fun in the snow, go find a field or completely empty parking lot. 5 minutes of fun isn’t worth dying over or killing someone else for.

Here’s some pretty spectacular driving failure. Idiots… Total Idiots…

- 2 Comments

It’s been awhile since my last post and a lot has been going on in the mean time. The last template I posted was Archestratos and I have since completed 3 new templates.

The first is “oogle”. Yes, it is essentially an Apple look-alike template as people seem to really like it. It’s a great layout and really simple design that works for business or personal use. I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on [...] Continue Reading…

- 0 Comments

If you haven’t heard already, a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to DEATH this morning in NY. The customers literally broke the doors down and trampled the employee. Another woman was knocked down and later had a miscarriage.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27955316/

Many people knew the employee had been killed and they just wanted to keep shopping. It makes me sick that people like this are out there in such large numbers. They should each be charged with the murder [...] Continue Reading…

- 0 Comments

Well, as you probably know, I have been building a few themes for ThemeForest.net to earn a little passive income on the side. My most recent addition is Archestratos (screenshot to the right).

Archestratos is currently setup to look more like a restaurant style theme but can really be used for much more. Overall the theme is elegant yet versatile. The layout is fixed width, clean and easy to use, making it ideal for anyone [...] Continue Reading…

- 2 Comments

Today I’m happy to announce another theme completion!

FreshBiz is a very simple, clean and effective template. It is extremely customizable and easy to use. It could easily be used for business or personal websites. It even includes a very nice logo which is worth the cost of the theme by itself.

This theme ended up taking longer in production that I liked. Sometimes that happens I suppose. This particular theme was also a two [...] Continue Reading…

- 2 Comments