Brandon Sallee

The Device APIs Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendations of Battery Status API and Vibration API. The first defines an API that provides information about the battery status of the hosting device. The second defines an API that provides access to the vibration mechanism of the hosting device. W3C publishes a Candidate Recommendation to indicate that the document is believed to be stable and to encourage implementation by the developer community. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

The Web Performance Working Group has published two Last Call Working Drafts: Performance Timeline and User Timing. The first defines an unified interface to store and retrieve performance metric data. The second defines an interface to help web developers measure the performance of their applications by giving them access to high precision timestamps. Comments are welcome through 07 June. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The RDF Web Applications Working Group has published three Proposed Recommendations for RDFa Core 1.1, RDFa Lite 1.1 and XHTML+RDFa 1.1.

Together, these documents outline the vision for RDFa in a variety of XML and HTML-based Web markup languages. RDFa Core 1.1 specifies the core syntax and processing rules for RDFa 1.1 and how the language is intended to be used in XML documents. RDFa Lite 1.1 provides a simple subset of RDFa for novice web authors. XHTML+RDFa 1.1 specifies the usage of RDFa in the XHTML markup language. The group also published a draft of the RDFa 1.1 Primer today.

Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

Wizard of Id, 5/8/12

It’s really kind of sad that this fearsome, powerful wizard, heir to a long tradition of human beings who have managed to pierce through the barrier separating our mundane world from the realm of magic, having just used his unspeakable powers to bring a poor mortal back from the brink of death, feels a need to make a terrible and barely coherent joke relating to Apple’s electronic gizmos. It ought to be just as sad that cartoonists working on long-established strips that run in hundreds of newspapers around the world also feel the need to make terrible and barely coherent jokes relating to Apple’s electronic gizmos, but, you know, that ship sailed long ago, so it’s hard to feel more than just mild disgust about it at this point.

Family Circus, 5/8/12

Aw, look at that, the name of the mall the Keanes have descended upon sounds like “Bless ’em all,” isn’t that nice? For my money there are not nearly enough mall/all puns out there in the world. For a while, when I lived in Oakland, there was this truck from Lavine’s Heating & Cooling that was often parked near my apartment that featured prominently the company’s URL, kingofthemall.com, meant, I assumed, to indicate that Lavine’s was King of Them All, with “them all” referring to all the HVAC contractors out there (or who knows, maybe it meant all of humanity, but the on-truck marketing copy didn’t seem that grandiose otherwise). I always saw that and thought “Boy, the King of the Mall must be pissed that he didn’t grab that URL when he had the chance.” Anyway, I’m curious as to whether an encounter with the horror of a litter of Keane Kids will make Blessem Mall’s management regret being so universal with their blessings.

Apartment 3-G, 5/8/12

Haha, this some high-quality amateur Freudianism going on right here! Nina’s mother died giving birth to her, so now she’s ambivalent about having a baby because she … never had a mother to love her? Or maybe because she did have a mother, and then that mother died horribly while giving birth to a baby. Just a thought!

Did you know that 40% of mobile web users reported that they’ve turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience1? With about half of all Americans now owning a smartphone2, it’s time for businesses to meet user expectations by delivering a mobile experience as good as the desktop experience. In short, it’s time to step up to the plate and build a site optimized for the mobile web.

 

Google can help. We recently teamed up with DudaMobile to release a free mobile site builder.  In three easy steps you’re able to get started with mobile: (1) enter your site’s URL, (2) customize your site and (3) redirect mobile users automatically to the new mobile-friendly version.  It’s free and takes just a few minutes to complete!

Join us on Thursday, May 10th at 1pm EST/10am PST and watch as Google showcases how two businesses, Top Mast Resort in Massachusetts and Sava’s Restaurant in Michigan, go mobile and build mobile-friendly sites–live on air.

You’ll see how Top Mast is preparing to take advantage of mobile travel purchase intent – which is five times higher than online travel purchase intent, according to InsightExpress.  You’ll also see Sava’s move ahead of 95% of restaurants that do not have mobile-friendly sites, according to a study by Restaurant Science.

Finally, you’ll hear from the CMO of Dudamobile, Dennis Mink; he’ll talk about best practices when using the mobile site builder and walk through important questions to ask yourself when building a mobile-friendly site.

Details on how to tune in
1. Sign into Google+ on Thursday, May 10th at 1pm EST/10am PST
2. Go to the Think with Google Google+ page
3. Look for the stream post and click to enter the live stream

Be sure to set a reminder in your calendar! If you have questions before or during the Hangout, post them with the hashtag #GoMoSite as a comment on the Google+ page.

Posted by Suzanne Mumford, Google Mobile Ads Marketing
Source: (1) Gomez 2011 (2) Nielsen February 2012

Mark Trail, 5/7/12

It looks like Mark is running out of excuses to avoid his oft-postponed fishing date with Rusty. Ha ha, “check my e-mail,” does Mark even know what e-mail is? He probably overheard some teens talking about it down at the general store once and is now using it as a desperate ploy to avoid spending quality time with his hideously ugly ward. “Uh, sorry Rusty, I talked to my e-mail and it told me that there’s some Indian artifacts being smuggled in the southern part of the state! I need to go find the smugglers, so I guess that fishing trip will have to wait until next month, or something.”

It’s pretty well known that current Mark Trail storylines are pieced together from old art, with dialogue spottily updated to reflect technological advances. This has given us such hilarious moments as Rusty claiming his old-timey camera used a “memory card,” so I look forward to Mark “checking his e-mail” with what is clearly a CB radio.

Hi and Lois, 5/7/12

“I thought it was just a whimsical name, but I can’t seem to hold down any food and I’ve lost 10 pounds in the last three days, so I guess it was made of some kind of deadly poison.”

Gil Thorp, 5/7/12

OK, this is the day when I finally manage to work myself up to get excited about the Gil Thorp spring storyline. Yay, we’ve got … a loss and a rainout? Aw, nuts.

Crock, 5/6/12

OH SNAP I JUST GOT TOTALLY BURNED! It may have taken six years, but the good people over at Crock have finally noticed that they’re in a feud with me, and have responded appropriately. While the idea that I began my blog as the result of some kind of massive traumatic brain injury would explain a lot of things, the jokes on them: I never had any artistic talent in the first place, suckers!

Of course, if you aren’t me or part of the fairly small slice of the comics-reading public who also reads my blog, this strip would make exactly zero sense to you. Just another Sunday Crock, in other words.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/6/12

That lovingly rendered next-to-last panel sure isn’t going to change the minds of anyone who thinks that the creators of Rex Morgan, M.D., have some kind of sick nostril fetish.

Apartment 3-G, 5/6/12

“So my suspicions are correct: Nina is an eternally undead vampire! At last, a worthy adversary!”

Mark Trail, 5/5/12

Oh, man, you didn’t expect this Mark Trail storyline to end without a powerhouse moral lesson, did you? “Rusty, America’s landscape is lousy with marijuana, and probably most of your little school friends are dopers! It’s not safe out there for anyone, so maybe it’s better that you just stay in the Lost Forest compound, forever. Those friendly beavers won’t try to push a reefer at you, I can promise you that!”

Crankshaft, 5/5/12

Don’t Leroy and Loretta usually at least try to make their hostile asides about one other relate in a vaguely punny way to whatever situation they find themselves in? Like, Leroy should be stage-whispering this to a salesman as they shop for a new car. Just blurting this stuff at a party reeks of even greater levels of desperation than we’ve seen before. “Loretta’s hair isn’t factory color. I mean, she dyes it. Her blonde hair is a lie. A lie like our marriage. Oh, God, I hate every waking moment. Do you have a gun in the house? Can you put it to my head and pull the trigger? I’ll pay you!”

Funky Winkerbean, 5/5/12

Many of you may have already heard about the blockbuster Gay Teens Go To The Prom storyline Funky Winkerbean’s got lined up for the spring. I’m fully in favor of this because (a) I think gay teens should go to the prom together if they want and should be depicted as doing such in comics where proms happen and (b) any Funky Winkerbean strip time dedicated to gay teens going to the prom is strip time not dedicated to beloved characters dying in agony, leaving emotional devastation in their wake.

The mechanics of such stories are a bit tricky in comic strips like this, in that if you suddenly make an established character is gay it seems a bit deus ex machina just to make the plot happen, whereas if you suddenly introduce generic gay characters who only exist for the purpose of the storyline, it makes it very obviously an Issue Story rather than a story about the characters in your strip. Probably the best way to do it would be to introduce a new character who then becomes a part of the recurring cast (which is what Archie did), and who knows, maybe these two guys will stick around, though there are already so many Funkyverse teen characters that I can’t keep track of them all. Hopefully they’ll be given names at some point, at least.

But maybe they won’t! Because as the third panel reveals, the nemesis of gay teen happiness for the next several weeks will be Becky’s mom, who, if I’ve got my Funky history right, once launched a moral crusade to get Comic Book John’s comic book store shut down, because comic books are smut. Thus the important lesson that Gay Relationships Are Valid will probably just serve to make clear the real point of the storyline, which is that Becky’s Mom Is Terrible.

Crankshaft, 5/5/12

But maybe we won’t get to see any of this played out, because it turns out that the entire Funkyverse is really just a series of tales Grandma Rose is telling to her grandkids in order to scar them emotionally.

How will this work, hmm?

Apartment 3-G, 1/1/11

Well, this is just slightly awkward but it will definitely do in a pinch!

Click Add New to enter your caption. Visit The New Yorker to enter their caption contest. You can also vote for your favorite finalist and view previous contest winners.

Early COTWs for you today because, like all right-thinking people within a 100-mile radius of Baltimore, I will be spending most of the day at the Maryland Film Festival. I expect to see you there, if you’re cool. But the rest of you can enjoy this comment of the week!

“And while we are on our way to the wedding across town, you will all be padlocked in this room. As the ceremony is taking place this building will be set on fire. Thank you all, we couldn’t have asked for a better wedding present!” –Nekrotzar

And the very funny runners up!

“The best detail in Mary Worth is how the taxi just has CAB written on the side, like it’s a generic brand taxi for people too cheap to spring for the brand name taxis with their seatbelts and trained drivers.” –Citric

“The sounds of Lois fapping her dirty rug outdoors while Irma ‘airs’ out Thirsty with a broom handle could be the premise of worst erotica slash fix ever.” –Sciencegiant

“I guess ‘estate’ sounds classier than ‘an abandoned ChiChis.’” –John C Fremont

“I am hoping, hoping hoping that the ‘big announcement’ turns out to be a hard-sell pitch for time-share condos in the Florida Keys.” –Yr Obt Servt

“Mr Blake is so bored by Tommie’s presence that he can’t actually even bring himself to look at her. ‘Nina is asleep, Tommie. And if I ever run out of the Zopiclone tablets I’ve become dependent upon since my wife’s death, I’ll be sure to give you a call, and you can bore me out of consciousness, too. Now I’m just going to stare fixedly at the wall behind you in an effort to shut out your prattling inanities.’” –Higgs Boatswain

“This yammering jagwagon’s ad-lib doesn’t even make any damn sense. He’s just saying a bunch of words in a vaguely wisecrack-y cadence. ‘Your hand? Hold it over your heart, and pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of My Penis! That was gold, right?! Improv!’” –Doctor Handsome

“Good boy, Andy … that’s enough, fellow! I don’t want to spend hours cleaning that hippie’s Brylcreem out of your claws.” –Fats Pinto

“The artists and color monkeys over at Spider-Man can’t seem to settle on a look for Hardy Laurel. Is his hair blonde or brown? Is he young or middle-aged? Is his scarf red or green? It’s like watching Bewitched if they kept changing Darrins in every shot.” –Mcbain

“It wasn’t a kiss and we weren’t drunk! I was just trying to take over his body by sucking what little remains of his soul from his body after weakening his defenses with alcohol. Actually okay I was pretty drunk too.” –Tophat

“Bobby and Gina seem to associate mainly with live studio audience members who know how to ‘gasp,’ ‘oooo,’ and ‘aaaaaw’ in unison at the appropriate time. Take special note of the two gentlemen in panel one who are looking to get in front of the camera themselves with their patented synchronized fist pumps.” –pugfuggly

“The second panel of Blondie is just a sampling of how it went down. ‘Ha! Ha! Couch zucchini! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Couch zucchini! Couch zucchini! Ha! Ha! Ha! Yeah! Couch zucchini! Ha! Ha!’ They were there for hours.” –Flamedrake

I must thanks to all who put some cash into my tip jar! And we must give thanks to our advertisers:

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View Original / Modified     View the Old Original

By Waz. Get the lowdown on the old original here.

Mary Worth, 5/4/12

Oooh, it’s a surprise wedding! This rates about a 3 in “actual surprise revelations” but maybe as high as an 8 in “surprise revelations that one might reasonably expect in a Mary Worth plotline.” Still, as our heroine gasps in three-part harmony with other guests, does it look like her beaming smile from the first panel has crumpled a bit? I mean, she’s just been denied a host of wedding-related meddling pleasures: she’ll have no opportunities to give passive-aggressive advice to Gina, first hinting that she’s spending too much and then implying that she’s being cheap; she won’t have time to perfectly calibrate her gift choice so that the couple will hate it but still feel awkward returning it; she’ll barely have time to ask prying questions to their families and find out the deep-seated emotional problems that will lead to their inevitable divorce in 18 to 36 months. C’mon, Mary, start working the room, now! We are running out of time.

Blondie, 5/4/12

I’m going to do my best to avoid contemplating Dagwood’s phallic torso, though I will give kudos to the syndicate coloring drones for reading enough of the dialogue to make his shirt green. I do find it pretty funny that Elmo can just wander into the Bumsteads’ house with his friends, like Dagwood is some weird, exotic pet that he’s letting them look at.

The Kickstand Cyclery just published three new volumes of collected comics (and extras!) from the popular bicycle comic ‘Yehuda Moon’. Come out to Joy Machines Bike Shop and celebrate with a book signing. There will be bikes, beer and books – free books. Everyone who walks through the door gets a complimentary copy of ‘Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery, Volume 1′. Rick Smith and Brian Griggs will be on hand with quill pens at the ready to sign these and your other book acquisitions.

Have you ever wondered which other pages on the web link to your own? Wouldn’t it be nice to know which sites are talking about your content, and in which context? Well, a problem no more: now you can see all the backlink URL’s, post titles, and more right within the new Social reports.

The concept of trackbacks, a protocol by which different sites could notify each other of referencing links, first emerged back in 2002. Since then, the blogosphere has grown in leaps and bounds, but the requirement for each site to explicitly implement this protocol has always stood in the way of adoption. If only you could crawl the web and build an accurate link graph. The good news is we already do that at Google, and are now providing this insight to Google Analytics users.

If you’re not familiar with Trackbacks, then think of it as automated Google Alerts for all of your pages: you publish new content, we scour the web for pages that link to it and build automated reports for you right within Google Analytics – simple as that.

These reports provide another layer of social insight showing which of your content attracts links, and enables you to keep track of conversations across other sites that link to your content. Most website and blog owners had no easy mechanism to do this in the past, but we see it as another important feature for holistic social media reports. When you know what your most linked content is, it is then also much easier to replicate the success and ensure that you are building relationships with those users who actively link to you the most.

To learn more about the new Social and ROI reporting, take a look at our announcement last month, and also take a look at in-depth example of how to use these new reports to measure your user’s engagement in Google+.

Posted by Ilya Grigorik, Google Analytics team

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group published Working Drafts of CSS Exclusions and Shapes Module Level 3 and CSS Regions Module Level 3. Exclusions and Shapes lets people define arbitrary areas around which inline content content can flow. CSS Exclusions extend the notion of content wrapping previously limited to floats. The CSS regions module allows content to flow across multiple areas called regions. The regions are not necessarily contiguous in the document order. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Provenance Working Group published 5 Working Drafts today related to the PROV data model. Provenance information can be used for many purposes, such as understanding how data was collected so it can be meaningfully used, determining ownership and rights over an object, making judgments about information to determine whether to trust it, verifying that the process and steps used to obtain a result complies with given requirements, and reproducing how something was generated. The PROV model is used to represent provenance records, which contain descriptions of the entities and activities involved in producing and delivering or otherwise influencing a given object.

• PROV-DM: The PROV Data Model introduces the provenance concepts found in PROV and defines PROV-DM types and relations.
• Constraints of the Provenance Data Model introduces a further set of concepts useful for understanding the PROV data model and defines inferences that are allowed on provenance statements and validity constraints that PROV instances should follow. These inferences and constraints are useful for readers who develop applications that generate provenance or reason over provenance. (First Public Working Draft)
• PROV-N: The Provenance Notation allows serializations of PROV instances to be created in a compact manner. (First Public Working Draft)
• PROV-O: The PROV Ontology expresses the PROV Data Model using the OWL2 Web Ontology Language (OWL2).
• PROV Model Primer provides an intuitive introduction and guide to the PROV specification for provenance on the Web.

Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.