For anyone who knows me well, the most shocking part of this post is that I actually, finally, put my own web site up. Yes, after 2 years of "Coming Soon," I've actually launched my site focued on training, speaking and coding. One of the things I learned (which I knew, taught, but obviously wasn't practicing) is--let the content dictate the design. Oh my word--I had three designers work on the site over the past two years before I realized I should practice what I preach and let the content, semantically marked up, determine the design. So much better than trying to force the content into your preconceived design notion--at least when you'd like to accomplish something. Special thanks to Carolyn Wood (editor-in-chief of Digital Web and owner of Pixelingo) for all her hard work with me on this (and for continually kicking my butt)!

Meanwhile, something I found in the process of creating this site, I wanted to share with you guys. Due to the spam I receive on my blog and the form on my old site, I really wanted to make it more difficult for the bots. However, I'm also very concerned about accessibility with the current CAPTCHA products I'm aware of. Enter reCAPTCHA. This one actually gives the user the ability to interact with the CAPTCHA by viewing the image and typing it in--even with JavaScript turned of. And if they prefer, they can have the challenge spoken. I've not had the ability to have a non-sighted user test it, but it seemed to work well for me when listening to it. Best of all, it's free!

They have one other product which I'm also using -- Mailhide. You enter the email and they generate some code that you put into your page (I doctored mine a touch) and, in the same way, it forces the user to solve a reCAPTCHA challenge to get your email. Of course, I'm sure nothing is foolproof, but having a little protection is better than nothing at all. Have a look!