The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Profile for limiting usage of dynamic memory. This document describes a set of options that can be used to define profiles of the EXI 1.0 format suited to applications involving devices with dynamic memory constraints. Comments are welcome through 13 June 2014. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Custom Properties for Cascading Variables Module Level 1. This module introduces cascading variables as a new primitive value type that is accepted by all CSS properties, and custom properties for defining them. CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. Comments are welcome through 3 June 2014. Learn more about the Style Activity.

It’s Tuesday which means that the Treehouse Show is back! In episode 89 of The Treehouse Show, Nick and Jason (@jseifer) talk about typebase for typography, sidebar patterns and techniques, a nodejs styleguide, and more. They also talk about maths.

Who wants to do maths?

This Week’s Links

• typebase.css: The starting point for good typography on the web

• timuric/Content-generator-sketch-plugin

• Slidebars

• felixge/node-style-guide

• Improve the payment experience with animations — Medium

• The PourOver Book · PourOver

• CSS Vocabulary

• Fluidbox (v1.3) – CodePen

The post Typography, Sidebars, Style Guides | The Treehouse Show Ep 89 appeared first on Treehouse Blog.

The next W3C HTML5 online course is now open for registration. Acclaimed trainer Michel Buffa will cover in-depth techniques developers and designers need to create great Web pages and apps. This new course edition has been updated again, notably with sections dedicated to Web components and the Quota management API. As always, numerous interactive examples illustrate the course to help participants coding and making their assignments right. The course will start 9 June 2014, for 6 weeks. Register before 17 May to benefit from the early bird rate. Learn more about W3DevCampus, the official W3C online training for Web developers. See also our self-explanatory fun video.

Give me an N! “Nnnnnn!” Give me an F! “Ffffff!” Give me an L! “Llllll!” What does it spell? Greeeeeddd! – Alternet.com

NFL Cheerleaders are putting down the pom poms and getting serious…

A couple of Raiderettes (aka the Oakland Raiders cheerleaders) sued the team back in January for paying about $5.00 an hour. They also alleged they weren’t paid for all the hours they worked. Plus the Raider management withheld pay until the end of the season.

Meanwhile the team mascots earn $23,000-$60,000 a year.

Despite the hooplah, the U.S. Department of Labor launched an investigation which found the team exempt from paying the cheerleaders federal minimum wage. The feds say the cheerleaders are “seasonal” workers. 

But the Raiderettes may have started a movement. One of the Cincinnati Ben-Gals has filed a similar lawsuit. Five former members of the Buffalo Bill Jills are the latest to go to court, and all Jill operations have been temporarily suspended.

The Jills have claimed that they were also subject to humiliation through the “jiggle test,” a test in which girls could be benched if certain body parts “jiggled” more than they should. 

Some say this all comes with these sought-after jobs.

But should it?

How do you spell “exploitation”?

UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology is using an Energy Education Award from Constellation Energy to provide energy research opportunities for a significant number of undergraduate students.

This semester, students in IS 420: Advanced Database Development received technology to collect the power consumption data of different appliances and devices. They are also working to build a web-portal (GUI), which will capture human actions, energy behavior and footprint over a specific period.

Project involvement encourages the students to think differently about energy systems and promotes advanced study and career preparation in the energy industry. The Constellation project helps students gain a greater sense of social awareness and deeper understanding of energy system technologies, as well as enhance their basic research and development skills through this hands-on experience. By combining their intrinsic research abilities and inspiration, the students will become conscious about the importance of being a responsible energy user in their daily lives and beyond.

Update 14.05.2014: Unfortunately, conference tickets are sold out, but a few conference+workshop tickets are still available.

Some things just don’t change: SmashingConf Freiburg is taking place again this year, on September 15th-16th 2014, in our lovely hometown Freiburg, Germany. Two days, one track, 18 brilliant speakers and 300 fantastic attendees, sharing practical insights into their craft. And the best bit: lots of networking with good ol’ German beers in beer gardens, at the very foot of the legendary Black Forest. Tickets are now on sale.

SmashingConf 2014: “This Is How We Did It”

The main focus of Smashing Conferences has always been hands-on insights and actionable takeaways — things that have actually worked in practice, and the design/development process behind them, including mistakes, failures, critical decisions and eventually successes.

We do not care about volatile trends, but we do care about interesting problems and smart solutions to them though. The goal is that everybody — speakers, attendees and people watching the videos later — will learn new techniques and approaches that can be applied in their next projects right away.

This year, the Smashing Conference flags will be blowing in the wind from a Historic Merchant Hall, yet again. (Image credit)

The conference in Freiburg isn’t going to be an exception: we’ve encouraged speakers to share real-life lessons from their projects, and explain in detail “how they built it”, with all the elegant and dirty decisions made along the way. And since everything is better with beers, this time we’d like to encourage attendees to share their experience publicly as well, at the Jam Session warm-up party on Sunday before the conference.

First Speakers

We’ve invited speakers who passionately care about their craft and aren’t afraid of pushing boundaries. We’re happy to welcome the first confirmed speakers:

Among the first confirmed speakers at the SmashingConf Freiburg are Marcin Wichary and Sara Wachter-Boettcher.

• Marcin Wichary
  UX Designer • Google, Medium.com
• Sara Wachter-Boettcher
  Content Strategist • A List Apart
• Jason Grigsby
  Mobile Strategist • Cloud Four
• Matt Andrews
  Front-End Developer • Financial Times
• Phil Hawksworth
  Front-End Developer • R/GA
• Josh Emerson
  Front-End Developer • Clearleft, Zoobox
• Mathias Bynens
  JavaScript Magician • Opera
• Jasper Kaizer
  Front-end Engineer • Rembrandt Museum
• Peter Smart
  UX Designer • British Airways
• Patty Toland
  Technical Strategist • Filament Group
• Christopher Murphy
  Writer, designer, educator • Web Standardista
• The Mystery Speaker
  (Somebody you probably know.)

Taking notes the old-fashioned way. (Image credit)

Workshops

We are also happy to announce 4 full-day workshops that will take place on Wednesday, September 17th, after the two main conference days:

• “RWD Meets The Real World” with Jason Grigsby
  Jason will get into the nitty gritty of how to strategically convert a “desktop” design to a responsible, responsive layout,
• “Mobile Content Strategy” with Sara Wachter-Boettcher
  Sara will be exploring how to master mobile content mayhem,
• “Making It Work Offline” with Matthew Andrews
  Matthew will be covering localStorage, ServiceWorker, Appcache and other offline options on the Web today,
• “RWD: Clever Tips and Tricks” with Vitaly Friedman
  Yours truly will be presenting smart techniques and strategies for responsible responsive Web design.

And as usual, if you book a Conference Ticket + Workshop ticket, you save €75 off the regular price. So what are you waiting for?

Attendees Jam Session

If you’d like to give an insightful 20-min talk at the event, please contact us at vitaly@smashingconf.com with a description of the talk and we’ll get back to you. Obviously, we won’t accept any promotional talks. The more practical your talk will be, the better.

Date, Location, Prices

The conference will take place on 15–16th of September 2014 in the Historic Merchant Hall in our lovely home town Freiburg, Germany. We have only 300 seats, so the number of tickets is very limited. Also, we’ve blocked every single hotel in town for you — you can select your hotel at the SmashingConf 2014 Location page (“Smashing Conference” is the magic word for hotel booking!).

You can enjoy the well-known “Münsterwurst” opposite the conference venue, also known as a “lange Rote”. Of course, there are also vegetarian tofu sausages available. (Image credit)

AirBnB could be a good option as well, but be fast — there aren’t many rooms available. Freiburg is known for being a vacation place, so perhaps you’d like to combine the conference with a relaxing family vacation in the skirts of the Black Forest? We’ve prepared some information about the location of Freiburg, so you don’t get lost in the suburbs of the Southern Germany while travelling here. Now if that isn’t an experience of a life-time, what is? (No, seriously, you will enjoy it!).

The price per ticket is €379 (incl. VAT) but we have 35 early-bird tickets had 35 early-bird tickets as well (sold out within 5 mins). A workshop ticket costs €349. Make sure to actually consider booking a workshop as well — if you buy both a conf ticket and a workshop, you save €75 off the price right away.

Sponsors, Dear Sponsors

We keep the ticket prices affordable for everyone, and we’re happy to welcome sponsors to help us make the conference smashing in every possible way. If you’re interested in sponsoring the event, please contact Cat (yes, it’s actually Cat—not the Smashing Cat, though!) at cat [@] smashingconf [dot] com. We love our sponsors, and you make the event possible, and we’d be honoured to have you involved!

Sometimes unusual things happen at Smashing Conferences. You should be prepared for a few surprises as well—and the best bit: as sponsor, you can be a part of it! (Image credit)

Questions?

We want Smashing Conference to be a valuable experience, but most importantly a friendly community event with lots of delightful surprises along the way. So if you are already expecting a few surprises here and there, you definitely should—we’ve got a few special mysteries coming up your way. Do you happen to like cats? ;-) Pssst, no spoilers!

Follow us at @smashingconf and get more details on the SmashingConf 2014 website. Also, more speakers will be announced soon, so get ready to be smashed with a few exciting surprises and announcements!

In September, apples will start falling from trees in Freiburg; we won’t be smashing you with apples, but you’ll learn quite a few inspiring ideas and techniques at the SmashingConf Freiburg.

Questions? Shoot us an email anytime at hello@smashingconf.com — we’d love to assist you in every possible way and would be humbled and happy to welcome you in our lovely home town Freiburg this September!

Auf Wiedersehen!

The post When Apples Fall From Trees: SmashingConf Freiburg 2014 appeared first on Smashing Magazine.