A project that I am working on uses the font Creative Block BB for its headlines. I use sIFR for these situations. Unfortunately sIFR3r278 won’t work with Creative Block BB. I have tried creating the swf file from Flash Pro CS3 and from OpensIFR, neither work. More exactly, both encode the swf fine (OpensIFR with a reduced font set) but don’t work within a web page. I have tried other fonts, they work fine.

After a bit more testing I have found that Creative Block BB will render with sIFR2.0.3 but only when the swf file is encoded with OpensIFR. The solution is only partial though because Creative Block BB can’t be encoded with a space character, thus the rendered text doesn’t have a space. This is no good. If I had Fontographer or other font creating software and knew how to use it, I would try adding the space character to the font. I guess it is time to find another font.

I have a client that generally wants to link to additional information by using the phrase “Click here to …” They only want to include the words “click here” in the link with the rest of the sentence left as plain text. This is bad practice for a couple of reasons. First, it doesn’t offer an assurance to the user that the link will take them to a place that they want to be. Second, it doesn’t afford search engines a chance to weigh the link with relevant keywords. Third, links can be scanned within a document, which is a useful feature of screen readers. People with visual disabilities can scan a document for its links so they can quickly find information. Imagine listening to a list of links that all say “Click here.” That is not very useful. Additionally, I personally think it looks amateurish.

Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the Internet, has a style guide for links. The W3C has a page on their site under the guise of Quality Web Tips entitled Don’t use “click here” as link text. Here is another article that I found entitle Why “Click here” is bad linking practice.