We’ve just put together a video which explains the laughable new EU cookie law in two and a half minutes.
Website management
Can we use analytics with the new UK cookie law?
Update: We’ve since published a much more up to date guide to cookie law and started a protest against the cookie law.
It doesn’t look good for web analytics. Due to a new change in the law concerning cookies it is now illegal to set most cookies on UK websites, which suggests almost all analytics can’t be used without breaking the law. Soon this will affect the whole EU.
Currently no major analytics company appears to have a definitive answer (updated 27 May 2011):
Cookie law makes most UK websites illegal: what you need to know
Update: We’ve started a protest against the cookie law.
Most UK websites became technically illegal on May 26th 2011, due to a new law on cookies. Websites now need to ask for permission before they can set most cookies.
We’re going to look at what the law means for you, and what you can do about it.
Why you shouldn’t use tables for layout. Ever.
I’m ashamed to say that when I first started creating websites, I used HTML tables for layout. But that was a long time ago before I realised how bad they are for accessibility, and the problems they cause for disabled users.
Why are tables bad?
Tables were intended to be used for holding tabular data, and never intended for the positioning of layout elements on your page. This alone doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them, but indicates a reason that you should use something else. At the end of this article I’ll explain why CSS is a much better solution.
www or non-www? Avoiding duplicate content
Did you realise that search engines might think these two websites are different?
Removing the www from your website creates a legitimate alternative address to view your page – ensuring that those people who don’t bother to type the www still find your site – but this might confuse search engines, which will see the same content on both URLs.