About tomoakley.net

  1. Why was tomoakley.net written?
  2. How was tomoakley.net written?
  3. What do I need to use tomoakley.net?
  4. Can disabled people access tomoakley.net?
  5. Why are some accessibility features in HTML not used?
  6. How can I see larger photographs?
  7. Who is Tom Oakley?
  8. How can I contact Tom Oakley?
  9. tomoakley.net history
Why was tomoakley.net written?
tomoakley.net was written to hold Tom Oakley's CV and photos. Now it's kept up to date as a hobby.
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How was tomoakley.net written?
tomoakley.net was written in raw XHTML 1.1. Note that the HTML tags are based on HTML 4.01 Strict. The use of CSS has separated the content from presentation, so all pages on tomoakley.net can be accessed using PC-based browsers (such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox), palm-top browsers, aural (speech) browsers, tactile browsers (in forms such as Braille), and non-English browsers.
Frames, tables and forms are avoided where possible to keep the complexity of each page down to a minimum. This may make tomoakley.net look less "professional" than some sites, but the reverse is true.
All pages use PHP processing and MySQL databases to do all dynamic page generation on the server and keep the pages browser-independent.
Scripting languages, such as JavaScript and VBScript, have only been used where they provide tangible benefit to the user, and even then script-dependent inputs are only rendered by script-enabled browsers. For instance, if a function only works on Internet Explorer, the web page will be written so that users on other browsers will not be presented with buttons or inputs that do not work.
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What do I need to use tomoakley.net?
A computing device with an HTML browser is all you need. Pages should render on any browser on any platform.
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Can disabled people access tomoakley.net?
Unlike most web sites, tomoakley.net has been designed to be platform- and browser-independent. Therefore the pages should be perfectly accessible to the world's 400 million disabled people, whatever device they are using. Of course, text-only browsers will not get much out of the photos because they are, by definition, image based.
If you have difficulty reading tomoakley.net, you may be able to set your browser preferences to display these pages exactly how you want. For example, with Microsoft Internet Explorer, you can set your own fonts and display colours by selecting Tools, Internet Options and setting the Colors, Fonts, and Accessibility as required.
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Why are some accessibility features in HTML not used?
There are some features available in the World Wide Web Consortium's recommendation for HTML 4.01 (and thus XHTML 1.1) that are not used on tomoakley.net:
ACCESSKEY is not used because:
TABINDEX is not used because:
When there are better alternatives available and supported, they shall be made available on tomoakley.net
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How can I see larger photographs?
Select the image of interest. Each time this is done, a more detailed image is downloaded to your browser. If you have downloaded the image itself (as a .jpg file) and still want more detail, email Tom.
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Who is Tom Oakley?
Tom Oakley is a Design Engineer who trained at Ricardo Consulting Engineers and studied at Cambridge and Harvard Universities.
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How can I contact Tom Oakley?
For privacy reasons, Tom's contact details have been removed from tomoakley.net, but you can still contact him through the email form.
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Web site history

Date URI Description
2006-03-18 http://www.tomoakley.net/downloads/ Downloads area created.
2005-01-20 http://www.tomoakley.net/* Moved all tomoakley.net files from Netweaver to 1&1 due to security problems.
2004-07-24 http://www.tomoakley.net/cv.php Curriculum Vitae updated and .doc, .pdf, and .sxw formats included.
2004-01-18 http://wap.tomoakley.net/ WAP pages completely rewritten to remove personal details and allow download of Java MIDlets (programs for mobile devices such as 'phones).
2003-12-22 http://www.tomoakley.net/gallery/ Photos page updated using the excellent Gallery application.
2003-09-13 http://www.tomoakley.net/squash.php Dyson Squash Ladder goes live on tomoakley.net
It quickly becomes 2nd highest hit on Google.
2003-01-12 http://www.tomoakley.net/email.php
http://www.tomoakley.net/common.js
http://www.tomoakley.net/index.php 		PHP and JavaScript form checking code improved to reduce false negatives. Google Search added to homepage.
2002-11-17 http://www.tomoakley.net/email.php
http://www.tomoakley.net/common.js 		PHP and JavaScript form checking code added to XHTML pages. PHP form checking code added to WML pages.
2002-09-20 http://www.tomoakley.net/xml/ Example XML pages generated to test out MathML, SVG, 3DML, and SMIL.
2002-08-20 http://www.tomoakley.net/ All pages updated to XHTML1.0 Strict then XHTML1.1 to allow modularity (such as inline MathML and SVG).
2002-05-20 http://www.tomoakley.net/contact.php Personal contact details removed for privacy reasons and all email addresses removed to reduce spam.
2002-04-20 http://www.tomoakley.net/email.php Email form added.
2002-04-10 http://wap.tomoakley.net/ WAP pages added to give directions to the author's house and other contact details. Written in WML.
2002-03-20 http://www.tomoakley.net/ Domain moved from Fasthosts to Netweaver, and at the same time migrated from Windows 2000 server to LAMP system. SSI replaced by PHP, and photos page generated by PHP.
2002-03-17 http://www.tomoakley.net/ Cascading Style Sheets used for all formatting, allowing pages to be written in HTML4.01 Strict.
2002-01-28 http://www.tomoakley.net/ SSI used to generate navigation panels, thus allowing frames to be removed.
2002-01-10 http://www.tomoakley.net/ Frames used to generate an index to the photos on tomoakley.net. Pages updated to HTML4.01
2001-12-23 http://www.tomoakley.net/ Pages updated to HTML4.0 in a drive to make them standards-compliant and therefore hopefully more accessible and browser-independent.
2001-04-10 http://www.tomoakley.net/ tomoakley.net started on Fasthosts, written in poor HTML.
2000-07-01 http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~oakley/ Harvard website closed on leaving University.
1999-09-15 http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~oakley/ Tom Oakley's homepage moved to Harvard's domain on arrival as a special student there. Quick links to Harvard resources added.
1996-12-01 http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~95tao/cv.html CV posted.
1996-08-01 http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~95tao/photos.html
http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~95tao/contact.html 		Snowboarding photos and contact details added.
1996-06-01 http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~95tao/ Tom Oakley's first homepage posted.

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Last modified May 9th 2008  Validate this page | Validate stylesheets | Accessibility