About 35 people turned up for this meetup. It was heartening to new faces as well as old.

Reality check: Beyond the hype of web standards

Yuhui kicked off the evening’s first presentation with a reality check for some of us who sometimes get too caught up drinking the web standards cool-aid. It is true that most clients in Singapore care little for web standards or accessibility, opting for the flashy bling bling of the 1990s web scene over the minimalist mashup-friendly new-age approach to web publishing.

Yuhui’s presentation also reminded us that most browsers still failed the Acid2 browser test when it came to support for web standards. Yuhui did point out that although IE maintains an 80% stranglehold on the browser market share, the web is fast becoming a medium open to more devices than just the desktop browser.

Yuhui has put up his presentation for download.

Firefox Tips and Tricks

Oddly enough, this was my first time meeting Chu Yeow, despite having known him since 2003. Chu Yeow is the author of Firefox Secrets and it was a pleasure just watching him zip through keyboard shortcuts. He uses Firefox with an efficiency I never thought possible.

He shared cool tips on how to manage multiple Firefox profiles, which is extremely useful when the bookmarks and preferences you use at work are different from your own personal preferences, even though you use the same computer for both purposes.

I learned that Ctrl-shift-T opens up the last Firefox tab you closed. Far too many times I caught Chu Yeow muttering “not sure if I want to show you guys this…it’s too simple”, then he busts out a trick that would have saved hours of my life had I known it earlier. While I am a ardent fan of the Firebug, Chu Yeow ran circles around everything I knew, or thought I knew.

If there’s one thing I took home with me, it’s that there’s a heck of a lot I don’t know. It’s an improvement from not knowing what I didn’t know I guess.

Chu Yeow”s full notes needs to be made a cheat sheet.

5 Minute Introduction to Microformats

Before the presentations began, I casually asked a few attendees what they expected out of the meetup. Quite a number of them came to learn about Microformats. That turned the heat up for me.

I’ll post a full set of what I covered in my next post.

Other interesting tidbits

Kevin showed up with his “helmet cam”, a video camera attached to a headband that records mpeg4 video into his Archos 704 portable DVR. He captured the mingling at the end of the sessions.

Related Articles:

• Chu Yeow’s tips on how to run multiple profiles on Firefox
• Ivan Chew’s notes of what he learned at the meetup
• Vanessa’s version of events