Digital Family Help Center

I answer a lot of questions by email, but you may find an answer more quickly on this Web site.

Here are a few answers common questions:

I get a lot of email and I can't promise to answer them all, but I do try.

Sometimes I surprise people and answer a question right away, but sometimes messages get caught in my spam filter or I'm super busy...


Test your XHTML MP (Mobile Profile) skills

XHTML MP is mostly what you already know about XHTML, plus a few special tags for mobile, like 'tel' for phone numbers. Most people surfing the web on a mobile device do have access to a phone so that's a nice addition.

But XHTML is strict, and mistakes in a mobile Web site are especially bad because mobile browser can't handle mistakes as well as the ones we use on desktop computers.

Here's an example of some badly written code in a seemingly simple XHTML MP page.  Can you find the mistakes?

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.0//EN"
"http://www.openmobilealliance.org/tech/DTD/xhtml-mobile12.dtd">

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<meta name="HandheldFriendly" content="True" />

<head><title>Fun and Games</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Play this Way<H1>
<p>I love playing games<br>
Sometimes it's <em>really<strong>fun</em></strong>
<caption>My Favorite Games
<UL>
<li>The chocolate game at <a href=" http://chocolategamerules.com/>ChocolateGameRules.com</a>
<li> <a href=" http://www.digitalfamily.com">Visit Digital Family.com</a>
</ul>
  </body>
</html>

Did you find all the mistakes in this XHTML MP document? Check your answers with the following:

  1. The close heading tag </h1> should not be uppercase.
  2. There is no close </p> tag to complete the open <p> tag.
  3. The break tag should include a close tag within the break tag, like this: <br />.
  4. The <em> and <strong> tags are not nested properly.
  5. There is no close </caption> tag.
  6. The <ul> tag, like all tags, should not be capitalized.
  7. The <li> tags must include close </li> tags in XHTML.
  8. In the link to the Chocolate Game Rules site, the end of the URL is missing its quotation mark. See the link just after that link, with the text: Play the puzzle games at Digital Family for the correct use of quotes.
    Note: The doctype and other info at the top of the document is correct.

More Fun with Mobile Web Design

Seven Mobile Web Design Tips To Get You Started

How HTML5 will impact web design

Advanced CSS 3: How to use any font to format text on the mobile Web

Already have the book Mobile Web Design For Dummies? Follow this link for the code samples and such...

What do you cover in Mobile Web Design For Dummies?

Mobile Web Design For DummiesMobile Web Design For Dummies is about designing for the broad mobile audience and making sure your site works well even on limited mobile devices such as the Motorolla Razr. I’m now writing a book called iPhone/iPad Web Design For Dummies and with this book, I'm taking a giant leap forward into the future with lots of coverage of how to develop designs with HTML5 and CSS 3.

Order any of our books in the bookstore