Reader's Corner No.15: New Grepping Tool, ICT Final Rule, Universal Control System, and HTML Email Basics

February 20, 2017

Here are a few interesting articles we read this week, with topics including: new grepping tool, ICT final rule, universal control system, and HTML email basics.

ripgrep is faster than {grep, ag, git grep, ucg, pt, sift}

David Gouch

Source: Andrew Gallant's Blog

Takeaway: A deep dive into a brand new grepping tool (a way of searching through the content of thousands of files quickly). I use these tools nearly every day, so it’s illuminating to finally get a peak into how they work and the tradeoffs needed to be fast enough to be usable.

Tags: #DeveloperTools


Section 508 Refresh Update: ICT Final Rule Published

David Minton

Source: deque

Takeaway: In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, adding Section 508, to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology (EIT) accessible to people with disabilities. On March 17, 2017, a major refresh will take effect, scrapping the 1990s era rules with the current (and evolving with the progress of technology) WCAG 2.0 (requiring AA level compliance). WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is published by the World Wide Web Consortium(W3C), the main international standards organization for the Internet. All organization covered by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 must comply by January 18, 2018. Any websites in compliance with the old standards at that time will be grandfathered, but any content updated after that date will need to comply to the new standards.

Tags: #Accessibility, #InternetLaw


Exclusive: The Caavo streaming box is built on game-changing machine vision for TV

Michael Nicholson

Source: The Verge

Takeaway: Caavo is an upcoming universal control system for home audio video systems. The primary goal is to understand the available content on multiple devices so that a voice controlled remote can determine which device to use for a given task. This is reportedly accomplished by means of a machine vision implementation that analyzes the video coming from each potential source as necessary. This has potential impact the ability to control devices without good API support, index content on multiple devices, and allow various control inputs without the Caavo box losing its place. If nothing else, the idea of processing the video streams and analyzing them to implement control is exciting, and pretty darn cool.

Tags: #CoolTech


HTML Email Basics

Jeanette Larsen

Source: MailChimp Email Design References

Takeaway: MailChimp may seem commonplace these days, but before you use it you may need a refresher in the best design and development practices. Take for example, HTML emails still use tables for structure and inline CSS.

Tags: #Email, #MailChimp


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