Author Archives: Mike Schinkel
Lessons Learned from Delicious Praise
I learned an interesting lesson about URLs and social software; change your article’s URL or publish it under multiple cases, even with 301 redirects, and you’ll end up with fragmented references. Back in August 2005 I published the article “Well … Continue reading
Proposing URI Templates for WebForms 2.0
I recently had an off-list email conversation with Ian Hickson, the editor of the Web Application Hypertext Technology Working Group specifications (i.e. HTML5 and WebForms 2.0). I was proposing to him that the current WebForms 2.0 be draft specification be … Continue reading
Intro, Part 15: About URLQuiz
As a way to gather a broad spectrum of opinion and engage the community on many different URL-related topics, we’ll be offering a URLQuiz from time to time. Inspired by and patterned after Dan Cederholm‘s very well received SimpleQuiz series, … Continue reading
Intro, Part 14: About our URL Structure
For our web applications — our website, wiki, blog, and future forums — we chose to segment each by sub-domain; “wiki.”, “blog.”, and “forums.”, respectively. Rather than having subdirectories underneath the root of our www domain such as “/wiki/”, … Continue reading
Intro, Part 13: The Web Apps We Use
Here’s a run down of the web application software we are using or planning to use for the Well Designed URLs Initiative: Blog At “blog.” is running WordPress using Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. We have direct experience with WordPress, … Continue reading
Intro, Part 12: Major Topics from Different Angles
One of our plans is look at major topics from many different angles. Though this will allow us to revisit an issue numerous times, our main reason for covering topics in this manner is that making sure our coverage is … Continue reading
About URI Templates
Probably one of the most interesting projects related to URL Design on which anyone is currently working is the URI Templates project spearheaded by Joe Gregorio of IBM. While not sexy and not something most end users will ever see, infrastructure … Continue reading
Introducing URI Templates
I decided to rename this post About URI Templates. Follow the link to see the post.
Intro, Part 1a: The Unsung URL
NOTE: To see why this is labeled “Part 1a” see [1]. Although many people view the URL to be a rather obscure little creature, the URL is the arguably the most important of the web’s three essential legs; the “First … Continue reading
Happy New Year!
I’m taking the day off but wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year hoping 2007 will be everyone own best year yet!
Ben Coffey and his eBook “Useful URLs”
In the hustle and bustle of these holidays, I didn’t manage to churn out all of my planned posts for our introduction series. So with nothing else to publish today it seems only fitting I introduce you to the works of … Continue reading
Intro, Part 11: Each Post will Identify Audience
Here at the Well Designed URLs Initiative we plan to address a wide audience and cover a plethora of URL-related topics. If it wasn’t obvious from yesterday’s post we plan to publish content for a variety of roles so we … Continue reading
Intro, Part 10: Expect URL Design Advocacy
We’ve already said that we plan to question the status quo, but we want to make that point even stronger; we plan to advocate for positive change. At least one person has already suggested that our activities would be best … Continue reading
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
I’m taking the day off to observe the holiday that millions of people observe worldwide. Whether you celebrate Christmas or observe some other holiday, it’s my hope that you and your loved ones are happy and healthy this holiday season. See you tomorrow.
Intro, Part 9: Questioning the Web’s Status Quo
Yesterday we said we plan to make recommendations. That may have concerned some, especially those who are involved in the standards process. But don’t worry, we won’t make them in a vacuum; we intend to engage everyone interested to participate … Continue reading
Intro, Part 8: Expect to see Recommendations
One of our main goals is to publish an evolving list of URL Design and related recommendations that the world of web architects, website administrators and web developers will respect and embrace. Our recommendations will include advocacy for, but not … Continue reading
Intro, Part 7: Conventions, not Constraining Requirements
There is a belief among the people who guide the web’s technical architecture, people I like to call the “Weborati“, that as few constraints as possible should be placed on web publishers and web users. This is referred to as the … Continue reading
Intro, Part 6: What makes us URL Design Experts?
So what makes us “the” expert on URL Design as we are not (yet?) associated with any standards body like the W3C or the IETF? Nothing really, other than we have a keen interest in the URL Design and its … Continue reading
Intro, Part 5: Who is “we?”
To this point, I have mostly written in the collective as opposed to the personal; “we” instead of “I.” However, right now “we” is officially “me.” Several others have signing on to indicate they believe in our mission, and I’ve … Continue reading
My XTech 2007 Conference Proposal
Since I spent the entire past day and well into the night working on my proposal for speaking at the XTech 2007: ‘The Ubiquitous Web’ conference, I wasn’t able to complete my promised Friday installment of the introduction. Rather than … Continue reading