HTML5 is the latest version of the core technology behind the Internet
It usually involves planes, trains, and automobiles whenever I want to attend a tech conference. This time though, I didn’t have to travel far.
The North Bay Web Design Conference was held at Sonoma Mountain Village in Rohnert Park – the former Hewlett-Packard/Agilent campus.
About one-hundred internet professionals and educators gathered together to listen to more than a dozen tech-filled presentations, ranging from where the web industry is today and how to add javascripts to your webpage.
The event was co-sponsored by Webvanta, a Sebastopol company that offers innovative content-management and web hosting solutions.
Other notable sponsors included O’Reilly, AcademyX, Art Institute of Sacramento, Comcast, Engine Yard, and the North Bay Business Journal.
There was a lot of buzz around HTML5 and mobile. Jay Peretz, an instructor at SRJC, gave a high-level presentation on why developers and designers should be using features like form validation, microformats, and semantic page layouts.
“All major current-release browsers already support HTML5,” he pointed out.
Web developers are designing sites that can be viewed across different devices
Siteshine.com CEO, Jared White, sees the growth of mobile development exploding. He anticipates that up to half of all internet trafic will access content through a mobile device like an iPhone, iPad, or Android. Designers today can start building mobile friendly sites using HTML5, CSS3, and jQuery.
Josh Woodlander from 1st Wave Interactive, a Sonoma County design agency, revealed an e-commerce product his company’s working on called PinChoose.
PinChoose allows users to “pin” their shopping cart items to a virtual panel within their browser window. Shoppers can then send their selections to their Facebook friends.
Participants tweeted from laptops, smartphones, and iPads during the all-day conference.
“Great event, great speakers, great community! So glad I drove up from Sunnyvale to attend,” tweeted Rick_thomchick.
