News
NewsFire is free!
3rd March 2008, 3:30pm / Web News
NewsFire is a news reader for blogs, news sites, and anything else that publishes an ‘RSS’ syndication feed. When a new story is published, NewsFire brings it to your attention with some super-slick animation. Unlike other readers, NewsFire is designed with a deliberately minimal interface.
Download NewsFire at newsfirex.com.
Tags: NewsFire
@media 2008, London
16th February 2008, 12:50pm / Events
Europe's biggest web design and development conference, @media 2008 hits London this May at the Southbank Centre.
@media 2008 London is again over two days, 29th-30th May and includes over 20 panels and networking parties. The conference is set over two tracks with presentations and discussions covering topics including writing for the web, information architecture, JavaScript libraries and internationalisation.
Speakers confirmed already include Patrick H. Lauke, Nate Koechley, Andy Clarke, Andy Budd, Jon Hicks, Simon Willison and expect a whole host more to be announced over the coming weeks.
Early bird registration is now open and will only cost you £395.
Tags: atmedia, @media, events, web conference
Anything for Christmas?
11th December 2007, 8:04pm / Web News
If I could have anything for Christmas then I think the new iMac would be top of my list.
Of course I'd go for the 24-inch anodized aluminum frame and glossy widescreen display, upgrade to the 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme with 2GB memory, 500GB hard drive and hATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory.
The iMac really does set new standards for elegance and power.
Tags: iMac
Finding that font
11th November 2007, 9:36pm / Resources
Ever wanted to know what font you've seen but it's in an image or on an off-line resource?
Well this situation came to me not so long back when I wanted to recreate a font on a flyer, so I took to a great online resource at MyFonts.com. All I needed to do was either submit a scanned image or an URL to the What The Font recognition system and they returned the names of all the nearest font matches from their massive font database.
It's that simple! The My Fonts website has loads of other font related information, news, libraries, packs and much more. It's definitely worth a look and bookmarking.
Tags: fonts
Layer Tennis
1st November 2007, 9:01am / Design
I was recently put onto this fascinating Friday afternoon game where two artists (or two small teams of artists) swap a file (usually a Photoshop or an Adobe related file) back and forth to enhance at their leisure as a third participant gives the match commentary. Each artist has 15 minutes to complete their "volley" and after 10 volleys, everyone puts their opinions on the forums and a winner is declared.
The likes Jason Santa Maria, Shaun Inman and Chuck Anderson have all recently participated and all game volleys, match comments and schedules are available on the Layer Tennis website.
Tags: layer tennis
Busy as a bee
11th October 2007, 17:30pm / Personal
My apologies for my recent absence on here but I've been soooo busy over the last couple of months. This is more of a personal post but don't worry, I'm going to be back on web related topics this week - I promise.
I've just celebrated my 27th birthday this week (Monday 8th) and I'm off to Berlin this weekend as part of it. Berlin zoo, shopping, a few bars and the Watergate club is on the agenda but it only seems like five minutes since my last holiday and I'm flying off again. In August I was over in Ibiza for a week, lots of partying and some nice weather was a very welcomed break from busy English life. I have been playing lots of football at weekends with our season kicking off a few weeks ago and I've started well with 12 goals in 10 games.
August also saw our (Different Language) last Terrace Party of 2007 so DJing and promoting has been busy recently. We recently played at East Park Rocks festival in Hull and excitedly launch our new party 'Karneval' at a local nightclub next weekend. We also have plans to play over in Leeds and Manchester soon and we host our own party at the Lamp on Boxing Day evening in December. We've also started to get back into music production, as we recently featured in the latest issue of top international clubbing and music magazine DJmag. All this activity has kept me busy with the Different Language website but I've also been putting a brand new design together for this site which I'm hoping to get time to develop in the early parts of 2008.
Work with Clever4 has been busy as usual, we've had an influx of work recently - just check out the Clever4 client section as it continues to grow.
Right that's enough of me, I shall be back with more interesting stuff soon.
Tags: berlin, different language
Recent goods and bads
30th July 2007, 8:29pm / Personal
Just thought I'd let you know what's interested me recently and what's annoyed me...
Recent annoyances
- The British weather
- Kid's on TV; Baby Ballroom - for pity sake
- Charley from Big Brother
- The rate the garden grows
- Injuries to new West Ham players
Recent smiles
- Promoting our new Terrace Party
- Working on Clever4's latest re-design - coming soon
- Ibiza holiday in September
- My new mobile phone
Tags: moods
Sun, floods and @media
2nd July 2007, 5:40pm / Events
After a nice two week holiday in Egypt with temperatures reaching 48oc, I returned to the floods in Hull last week. Luckily the water didn't reach my house although the street was heavily flooded and closed off by the police.
Well @media was again a great success although I didn't particularly like this years venue. I thought it was oddly set up, the catering a little poor and the lack of any wifi or interent connection was severely missed.
The quality of the presentations was not questionable and the high standard started right from the off with Jesse James Garrett's keynote presentation. An inspiring look into the latest trends and innovations thats driving the web forward. Molly's en lighting presentation on understanding the way browsers work the way they do was excellent but unfortunately this was the last web conferences Molly was to speak at and I think she'll be greatly missed at these kind of events.
An interesting presentation from Nate Koechley on high performance web pages provided us with many best pratices to take away and implement onto our own websites. Dan Cederholm was one of my favourites this year with a compelling presentation on how to balance and approach all the right pieces in web design. After I missed Tantek Celik last year, I really wanted to see him this time around. His presentation on introducing Microformats into websites and the positive reasons in doing this was extremely interesting. Joe Clark was a favourite of mine back in 2005 and he didn't dissapoint again this year. As entertaining as ever, Joe's presentation was what web designers and developers do not need to worry about in making website accessible.
Day two for me was a little more lightweight in the presentation material but never the less each one still had an interesting talk. Jon Hicks was excellent with his How to be a Creative Sponge presentation, demonstrating on how to soak up inspiration for our websites. Jeremy Keith showed us yy implementing Ajax using the principle of progressive enhancement, you can ensure access for everyone. Andy Clarke's entertaining presentation explored the web across the globe showing a rich diversity of design culture in an increasingly globalised industry.
The Hot Topics was again a highlight. Jeremy Keith is an excellent moderator and sat alongside Joe Clark, there was going to be lots of banter. That aside Joe announced his retirement from web accessibility with his reasons been that there's no market for his services anymore and received a round of applause for his services in the sector.
Another great web conference and I'm sure I will be back in 2008.
Tags: atmedia 2007, @media 2007
Off to @media 2007
6th June 2007, 4:04pm / Events
Our annual trip to @media has now come, with our train to London in around an hours time. Hopefully we'll make it in time not just for tea, Big Brother and the football but for the @media pre-conference get-together at The Old Queen's Head.
See you there!
Tags: atmedia 2007, @media 2007
Validate your RSS and Atom
18th May 2007, 1.10pm / Resources
RSS feeds are fairly simple in what they are but RSS is poorly implemented by many tools. By validating your RSS feed against the rules defined in the RSS 2.0 specification or your Atom feed against the RFC 4287 you know you're producing it correctly and in a format that most RSS and Atom readers will accept.
Validate yours now.
No Pal of mine
13th May 2007, 12:44pm / Personal
Back in February I reported a fraudster on Ebay and Paypal to the Claim Resolution Centre at Paypal as an item I purchased on Ebay failed to turn up once I'd paid for through Paypal.
The item was for around £500 and after a week or so of waiting for the item seller to respond, I was refunded £105 as part of the Paypal cover. They did also report to say that they will continue to regain the rest of my funds lost.
Well around three months later I've still not heard anything. It's disgusting that such a major online payment system can still have such loopholes. They really need addressing as people like myself are continuing to lose funds in this way.
It's not like you can ring them up and get some answers. Every option on their phoneline system eventully advises you to revisit the website for an answer. What is the point in a website that gives a phone number that directs you back to where you started?
I have since used Paypal with no problems (touch wood) but I would advise anyone purchasing with Ebay and Paypal to use a credit card rather than a debit card to ensure you are fully insured.
Tags: paypal
@media date addition
2nd April 2007, 2:10pm / Events
The most exciting web event of the year has now been added to the @media 2007 schedule:
www.vivabit.com/atmedia2007/antarctica/
Great stuff!
Tags: atmedia 2007, @media 2007
@media 2007 Registration now open
18th January 2007, 5:40pm / Events
Registration for @media 2007 is now open for all three conferences in San Francisco, Hong Kong and London.
The London event is to be hosted at the Business Design Centre, Islington over two days on June 7th and 8th. Speakers confirmed so far are Mark Boulton, Andy Clarke, Shawn Henry, Richard Ishida, Dan Webb, Dan Cederholm, Jesse James Garrett, Jon Hicks, Jeremy Keith, Tantek Celik, Kello Goto, Molly Holzschlag and Jason Santa Maria. More are to be confirmed but as you can see it's shaping up to be another blinder.
Early Bird tickets are currently available for a limited period at £395+VAT per person.
Tags: atmedia 2007, @media 2007
Apple innovations
12th January 2007, 5:45pm / Web News
New gadgets are on the mind of most at the moment with the recent Macworld. Apple certainly have set the mark with innovations such as the iPhone, Apple TV and the iPod and Macbooks still dominating their markets.
The iPhone certainly is an exciting revelation combining mobile phone, widescreen iPod and internet browsing device, all using a multi-touch display interface.
This is set to change the way we browse the web on our mobiles forever.
Tags: apple, technology
Tradingeye E-commerce Solutions
3rd January 2007, 6.30pm / Web News
Tradingeye is a new accessible e-commerce solution for trading online.
Tradingeye has three products, the Shop Pro, Shop Light and CMS. Shop Pro is an advanced solution allowing unlimited products and departments. Shop Light is the ideal solution for light levels of ecommerce - perfect for entry level. CMS enables organisations to easily administer the content of their website. Create and edit pages, write newsletters, and much more.
Tradingeye sites are built using web standards and pages are XHTML/CSS and WCAG AAA valid. Tradingeye websites can be styled through the style sheet so that your design is unique and doesn't look like a templated off-the-shelf shop. You can host Tradingeye on your own server, can also be linked to SAGE accounts and you can also receive invoices directly to your mobile phone.
Check Tradingeye out and see what they have to offer for you and if you're a web developer or designer you can sell Tradingeye at a reduced rate to your clients.
Tags: tradingeye, e-commerce
Seasonal website decorations
8th December 2006, 3.30pm / Design
Putting small seasonal touches to your website can make websites feel more current and make a more personal connection with users. Websites can be enhanced for holidays and special events such as the Christmas period with subtle decorations such as snowflakes and Santa hats around the logo.
Be careful not to go overboard as they do have a danger of distracting users and reducing usability. Also not forgetting to remove seasonal decorations as it will make the website look outdated.
An older but still current Alertbox from Jakob Nielsen goes into further detail.
Tags: seasonal, website decoration
Browser Upgrades
6th November 2006, 5:50pm / Web News
Returning from my holidays saw the release of not one browser upgrade but two.
Firefox have updated to version 2.0 and Internet Explorer have finally upgraded to IE 7. I have now got both on my main PC system and really like the look and feel of them both.
After checking and testing some of my nearest and dearest websites, things are looking pretty good for CSS support. Although I have come across my first IE 7 CSS bug. It was using fieldsets with content such as unordered lists or data lists inside. Fieldsets with a border attribute seems to put a horizontal line across every line of content within. Very odd indeed.
To fix the problem I gave the fieldset a border-top value of 0 (keeping the border on the left, right and bottom) and used a small 1px by 1px coloured image to tile across the top, completing the border.
The fun starts...
Tags: IE7, Firefox 2.0
Off to Kenya
9th October 2006, 11:20am / Personal
Well I'm almost ready for my holidays. A long day and night of travelling including taxi, train, the tube, aeroplane and coach.
Although it should be worth it. I've just checked out the weather forecast and it's currently 32oc. My destination is Kenya, Africa and it's my first time to Africa. We've got a beach resort base but we've also a three night safari, something I've always wanted to do.
So I'll catch up with you all in a couple of weeks along with some photographs to see what wildlife I got to see.
@media 2007 teaser
22nd September 2006, 5:55pm / Events
The @media 2007 hype has already started and yes it's shaping up to be bigger than 2006. Europe's foremost professional web design conference is coming to a continent near you - America, Asia and Europe.
America kicks things off in San Francisco, May 24th - 25th with presentations from the likes of Andy Clarke, Dan Cederholm, Joe Clarke, Cameron Moll and Jeremy Keith.
Hong Kong hosts proceedings in Asia, May 31st - June 1st with presentations from Molly Holzschlag, Dave Shea and Andy Budd.
London completes the event, June 7th - 8th with presentations from Jesse James Garrett, Jon Hicks, Kelly Goto, and Jason Santa Maria.
Take your choice.
Tags: atmedia, @media, @media2007, webconference
Web Directions South 2006
19th September 2006, 12:10pm / Events
The Web Directions South (WD06) Conference in Sydney, Australia is a two day event covering (X)HTML, CSS, DOM scripting and AJAX; web app design and development; accessibility, information architecture, user experience design and so much more. There's also an extra two days of workshops with the likes of Molly Holzschlag, Andy Clarke, Jeremy Keith, Kelly Goto and Derek Featherstone.
Other speakers at the conference include Dan Saffer, Thomas Vander Wal, Cameron Adams, John Allsopp and many more.
WD06 kicks off September 26, running through to September 29, 2006. You can register now for the different workshops and two day conference.
Check out the impressive program at the WD06 website.
Tags: events, webdirections, webconference,
The dreaded myspace
18th August 2006, 5:50pm / Web Standards
Yes, the dreaded myspace. I've always debated on whether to get involved with myspace, as the community aspect of it appeals to me and it's a good way of spreading the word, on whatever you want to spread.
I then thought to create an account primararly to use as a portal page to one of my websites. I knew they were basic and notoriously hard to edit but I thought surely they could be tamed and create something visually appealing. How wrong I was.
The interface is terrible and trying to personalise the layout with different templates is a task to say the least. When you search for myspace tutorials, the fixes and methods of changing things are laughable. Why don't they offer a range of templates to choose from? Instead generators tell you to paste bits of code in a text area and another bit in another. Then one bit starts affecting other bits and before long its a disaster.
Things could of helped if the deeply heavy nested tables had individual classes or IDs so you could then style them to your own preference. The classes that do exist are poor, I mean .whitetext12 for 12px white coloured text. Obviously none of it validates and I feel for the poor soles on screen readers.
All in all, the user-administration is poor to use, there's a lack of overall good user-experience and the resulting edited pages look like a five-year old has put it together. It's so dated, who wants to display their age, zodiac sign, hobbies and relationship status?
Something needs to be done.
So yes, the brief experience annoyed me. The distinct lack of standards is dissapointing yet the community is so vast. I want to go without but I'm still undecided if there might be a small benefit to using it.
Tags: myspace
different language
24th July 2006, 9:00am / Personal
I've mentioned previously that I'm a DJ, so would like to update readers on my latest. I have formed different language with a friend and now DJ as a duo. We've recently had a few bookings and are currently in talks about future gigs. We are currently working on production work as well as working hard to get our name out and about.
What's all this got to do with web design I hear you say, but we do have a new website. A nice, clean design with my own photography heading the page. The website is full of information including upcoming events, latest news, gallery, downloads, latest records and much more. You can subscribe to the feed if you wish to keep updated.
Tags: differentlanguage, dj, design
New books for Autumn 2006
10th July 2006, 7:02pm / Resources
Transcending CSS: The Fine Art Of Web Design is a new book by Andy Clarke. Published by New Riders it will be available to buy in Autumn/Winter 2006 and you can pre-order a copy from Amazon.
Eric Meyer's new book CSS Hands on Training, out in October 2006, teaching how to use CSS to control color, layout, and typography; create dynamic Web pages; employ advanced layout techniques; and more.
Jeffrey Zeldman's original Designing with Web Standards shook up the entire web industry with his standards-based web design concept. Zeldman has updated the classic to include all the latest techniques that will enable developers to redesign sites faster, make content more visible to search engines, and deliver sites that promise to work as well five years from now as they do today. Readers will learn where the standards come from, how to understand them, how to work with them, how they solve many of the most pressing problems facing Web designers and developers alike.
Tags: books, andyclarke, ericmeyer, jeffreyzeldman
My new MacBook has arrived
5th July 2006, 9:30pm / Personal
I'm very impressed with my new MacBook, it's compact, slimline, very light and exactly what I wanted. I've been thinking about getting a Mac addition for awhile and I've wanted a nice little laptop so I thought why not combine the two. I bit the bullet and ordered from the Apple Store. I went for the white 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo option with an upgraded 1GB of RAM. I also purchased the delightful Mighty Mouse to accompany it.
Tags: macbook, mightymouse
d.Construct 2006
29th June 2006, 8:56am / Events
d.Construct is an affordable, one-day conference aimed at those building the latest generation of web-based applications. The event discusses how new technology is transforming the web from a document delivery system into an application platform. Speakers at this years event include Jeffrey Veen, Jeremy Keith, Simon Willison, Derek Featherstone and many more. Registration is open soon and takes place 9am-5.30pm, 8th September 2006 at the Brighton Corn Exchange.
Tags: d.construct, events
Hicks Design Business Cards
26th June 2006, 6:05pm / Design
Proof that business cards don't have to be boring. Jon Hicks has recently had new cards printed up and it goes to show that abit of design thought rather than just listing a name and contact number can be rewarding.
Tags: businesscards, hicksdesign
@media 2006
19th June 2006, 6:04pm / Events
Back from @media 2006 and again, Patrick Griffiths hosted an excellent event. Bigger and better than last year, @media involved 25 speakers, 800 attendees, 18 sessions, 2 days and plenty of networking time.
The level of the speakers was very high and with sessions multi-tracked, the hardest thing was to choose which presentation to attend. Eric Meyer opened the event with his keynote titled "A Decade of Style". Eric treated us to an insight of his last 10 years showing us how he got to where he is today. I then went to see Jon Hicks, Cameron Moll and Veerle Pieters in the "Good Design vs Great Design" panel. They discussed the ways design can be improved with the use of grids, colour and typography. Dave Shea then went into typography detail with "Fine Typography on the Web", it was also interesting to see the new IE-Vista fonts on show. After learning lots from Andy Budd last year I wanted to see him again. His "Bug Hunting" presentation solved a few problems that I'd not resolved and understood, so that itself was rewarding. Jeffrey Veen finished Day One with my favourite presentation of the whole event "Designing the Next Generation of Web Apps", providing an inspirational insight into the current Web 2.0 hype.
I wanted to visit the @media party this year with missing out last year and it was great to talk to fellow Brits Andy Budd and Patrick Griffiths. After talking to Patrick, it really was evident of the effort and passion he injected into the event.
Day Two started with one of my favourite authors, Dan Cederholm. His "Bulletproof Web Design" presentation showcased a number of neat CSS tricks and tips. I really enjoyed Robin Christopherson last year and was pleased to see him back. His "Beyond a Code Audit" presentation was again an eye opener to how internet life is with a disability. I wanted to see Molly but I was impressed with Cameron Moll on Day One and I was interested in the subject of his presentation "Mobile Web Design". With more technology and devices supporting internet browsing, designing websites that are accessible on mobile phones and PDAs is becoming more important. It was good to learn where things are heading on the subject and how best to prepare. Rachel Andrew, Roger Johansson and Dave Shea presented "Strategic CSS Management" discussing the various issues in managing CSS websites. Andy Clarke finished the presentations with "The Fine Art of Web Design". Andy was a big favourite last year and he didn't fail to deliver again this year. He was inspiring with his ideas towards web design and where we should be heading.
The "Hot Topics" panel winded the event down with questions and light hearted humor from Jeremy Keith, Eric Meyer, Molly, Jon Hicks and Tantek Çelik. Despite the poor Wi-Fi and lack of seating for breaks, @media 2006 was extremely enjoyable and am already looking forward to @media 2007.
Tags: atmedia, @media, events, web conference
The Future of Web Apps
1st June 2006, 12:05pm / Resources
I recently purchased the Carson Workshops Summit Kit as the workshop down in London booked up very quickly and I missed the chance to go. It's a pack well worth taking a look at - especially if your interested in web applications.
There's huge amounts of resources, including tips, tricks and pointers from the likes of Shaun Inman, Google, David Heinemeier Hansson, Joshua Schachter and Tom Coates. They are masses of useful links to go and read up on topics such as Ruby/Rails, AJAX, CSS, PHP, APIs and many many more. Also inlcuded are snippets from other survival kits like AJAX from Thomas Fuchs, PHP with Cal Henderson of Flickr and CSS with Dave Shea.
Of course you get all the speaker's presentations as both PDF and MP3. Ryan Carson's "How to build an enterprise web app on a budget" and Cal Henderson's "From website to web application. Ten reasons to love Web 2.0" are both excellent presentations and other good reads include the people at 37 Signals, Mint, Yahoo! and Delicious.
Tags: web apps, carson workshops, resources
A new era with Clever4
18th May 2006, 5:05pm / Personal
I have been busy over the last few weeks developing Clever4's new website. For those who didn't know, I work for Clever4 and have done for around 4 years. We have been wanting to re-design and update our website for some time, but as with most things money earning jobs take priority.
The design is simple and the site is easy to use. We've kept things simple and made the site as minimal as possible. The usual things are still in there like the Clients, Company Information and Testimonials but we've made the main focus of the website around what the customer will get, rather than all about us, us, us. We've updated our logo to accompany our new site and it feels like a new era for us.
We are also offering some unique offers too, including Free Website Health Checks, Part Exchange Your Website and 100% Money Back Guarantee. The website has an Articles and Documents section where users can download useful information. We are to update this with new articles and downloads as often as possible.
We've tried to make the website as accessible as possible and also included a Style Sheet Switcher so users can choose a High Contrast version. We are all very happy with the new site and think it's going to work very well for us.
Let me know what you think!
Tags: clever4, redesign, webdesign
Prioritizing Web Usability
10th May 2006, 8:55am / Resources
Prioritizing Web Usability is a new book by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger. It's been awhile since Jakob has released a book but it looks well worth the wait.
The book is about the most important guidelines that designers need to know for making better websites. It also updates the early Web usability guidelines Jakob published in the 1990s, comparing the old findings with the more recent ones and explains which of the older guidelines should still be followed.
The contents look impressive covering The Web User Experience, Revisiting Early Web Usability Findings, Prioritizing Your Usability Problems, Search, Navigation and Information Architecture, Typography: Readability & Legibility, Writing for the Web, Providing Good Product Information, Presenting Page Elements and Balancing Technology with People's Needs.
Prioritizing Web Usability is out now from some online bookstores and mine is ordered from Amazon with 50% off, an absolute snip at £16.48.
Tags: usability, jakob nielsen, resources, webbook
Conference Excitment
1st May 2006, 1:29pm / Events
Reading up on the latest IceWeb 2006 conference over in Iceland has made me alittle more excited with the upcoming @media event. Joe Clarke has live-blogged the presentations and are worth a read and I'm sure the presentations will be available for download soon on their relevant patches.
I have began to sort of plan my schedule for @media 2006, I know they have been recent changes to the schedule as Patrick completes the final lineup. Day One opens with Eric Meyer, who I've not seen before so I'm looking forward to his opening keynotes and then my two days are looking like this:
Day One: Pixels, My Ass, Strategic CSS Management, Good Design vs. Great Design, Bug Hunting and Designing the Next Generation of Web Apps.
Day Two: Bulletproof Web Design, Beyond a Code Audit, Internationalisation: Awakening The Sleeping Giant and The Fine Art of Web Design.
Last year I never got the chance to attend any of the @media parties, so hopefully this year I will attend at least one this time round.
Tags: atmedia, @media, events, web conference, iceweb
Vitamin is juicy
20th April 2006, 12:05pm / Resources
Vitamin is a new online magazine for Web Developers and Designers. It's packed with Features, Interviews, Training announcements, Reviews and has some of the web's leading writers involved. Ryan Carson, Eric Meyer, Dan Cederholm, Thomas Fuchs, Molly Holzschlag, Dave Shea, Shaun Inman are all on the panel, so expect high quality stuff on this site.
"The web has undoubtedly entered a new and exciting phase. The buzz is most definitely back! Vitamin is a brand new online magazine dedicated to that new web industry. Vitamin will inspire you, teach you, advise you and sometimes test you with its in-depth features, audio interviews, training sessions and reviews."
The Web Application hype really has exploded and if your involved in developing a web app, then Vitamin will be a favourite. Will Your Web App Make Money? by Ryan Carson is an excellent article and be sure to check out the interviews with Jason Fried and Thomas Fuchs.
There are also some great articles and interviews on CSS, Design, AJAX and what's new to the wonderful world of web design. It's also a nice design aswell as been easy to navigate. I've been a fan of the Carson Systems work for sometime and it's great that there's a dedicated central resource website for them.
@media 2006 additions and alterations
18th April 2006, 1:24pm / Events
Just a quick note to update everyone on this years @media schedule. Things have been re-structured abit and some additional presenters have been confirmed to complete the line-up.
Chris Wilson is to present on IE 7 with the implications for web designers and developers. Nate Koechley of Yahoo! talks on how they've embraced Web Standards using two Yahoo! case studies.
So it's worth checking out the schedule again, just incase you need to alter your planned timetable. Registration is still available but I would be quick to grab those last places as we're only a couple of months away. Other confirmed speakers are Eric Meyer, Dan Cederholm, Dave Shea, Andy Clarke, Molly Holzschlag, Andy Budd, Jon Hicks, Patrick Griffiths, Jeremy Keith and so many more.
Tags: atmedia, @media, events, web conference
Thumbs up for IE7
4th April 2006, 1:44pm / Web News
I'm pleased to report that www.martinhodgson.co.uk is looking pretty happy in IE7.
I finally decided to bite the bullet and have a browse on the new IE release. I was purposely waiting for IE to release the "version" that they were going to release with instead of worrying about bugs that may not have been required to fix.
I've had a good browse on websites I've recently worked on and they're looking good too. Looks like it's not going to be such a bigger deal than I first thought it would. If anything the websites have improved, with the hover state on all elements now implemented.
IE7 has plenty of new features including Page Zooming, Tabbed Browsing and the obvious CSS enhancements.
Tags: IE7
Fake Model Photography
15th March 2006, 12:15pm / Design
This is a great technique, taking a photograph and creating an effect that makes it look like model scenery.
Below is my effort of a caravan park, but instead of using Photoshop, I used Fireworks and got good results.
View the growing number of photos in the Flickr Group Pool.
Tags: photography
Putting your content first
14th March 2006, 09:58am / Accessibility
It pays to put your main content first. In some cases it's hard to get the opening text and H1 tag straight after the body tag but with all the modern tricks with CSS, this is becoming increasingly easier.
When I say first, I mean as far to the top of the (X)HTML structure as possible. I know it can be sometimes easier to put the main navigation or the sub column up first but there are benefits to why it's better to put them after the main content.
On screen readers like JAWS and text-based browsers, whatever is first in the document, appears first on the screen. Nothing to confuse you there but imagine been a user on JAWS jumping from page to page on a website and having to wait for the entire navigation structure to be read out each time. You could get around this by having a Skip to Main Content link at the head of your page, which allows users to skip the repetitive code at the top.
Not only does having content first help users, it helps you too. Search engines love good opening copy and clear, bold headlines. Search engines like to get straight into it rather than having to go through reels of code and uneffective navigations.
So get the H1 and good opening copy at the top and put the navigation afterwards. Remember this is only in the source code, you can use the CSS to restructure it through the presentation.
Tags: accessibility
VNC testing service available
9th March 2006, 8:55am / Resources
A new VNC testing service by the snugtech team is now available. It's a way of testing your websites on a Mac browser without having a Mac. Pretty neat, especially for those who can't afford a Mac system but would like to have one for testing purposes.
There are two free VNC servers currently running with the free version, allowing the use of Safari only. Although there is a paid version coming soon which will include all the other MAC OS X browsers.
Tags: vnc testing, snugtech
Ten reasons on why to use Web Standards
5th March 2006, 4:15pm / Web Standards
I thought I'd remind budding web developers and clients who are on the fence on whether to make the switch to web standards.
Below are just four of the ten reasons I've come up with.
- Faster web pages as the size of the document decreases
- Smaller documents mean lower bandwidth costs
- Web pages are optimised for search engines resulting in improved rankings
- Better results on alternative browsing devices like Handheld PDAs and screen readers
Check out all ten by reading the full article
Tags: web standards
Post Project Survey
3rd March 2006, 1:45pm / Web News
Not so long back I was talking about sending potential clients a survey to complete prior an inital meeting to get all the right information you require to begin and plan a company's website.
Well why not continue that relationship with the client post-project by sending them a Post Project Survey to complete for feedback on how it went for them. This can get important information back on how well your development process is, and find out which bits didn't go so smoothly for them. You can recognise these and fix them for clients in the future.
You can ask questions on which parts of the project could be improved, find out when communications where best, Did the project exceed their expectations? Would you use us again? and Are you thinking of expanding on this project in the near future?
Not only does it tell the client that you care on what you've produced for them, it improves your company's work quality.
Tags: client survey
DJ debut in the main room
28th February 2006, 9:02am / Personal
Last Friday saw me DJ at Rhythm Room for a night called Shine.
I've played for this night previously but this was my first set in the main room. It was the warm-up slot, I played just over an hour of electro funky house to get things going on the dancefloor.
It went better than I thought it would - mixing was great and the system to play on was amazing. Roll on the next time but in the meantime I have created a small montage of pictures taken from the night.
Usability Testing made easy
20th February 2006, 2:15pm / Web Standards
Practical Usability Testing is an excellent introductory guide to usability testing for your website or web application. Web Usability may seem daunting and expensive but Joshua Kaufman shows how it can be achieved without breaking a sweat - or the bank.
"Usability testing should be an iterative practice, completed several times during the design and development life-cycle. The end result is an improved product and a better understanding of the users that we're designing for."
Expect some more top articles from this man in the near future.
Tags: usability
Browser battle
17th February 2006, 3:55pm / Personal
I got a pleasant shock when I looked at my webstats for January and February. I was looking to see which browser was the most used since the beginning of the year.
Firefox is the top browser, with a whopping 57.8% too! IE (who I thought would be top) was next with 30.9%, Safari 5.4%, Mozilla 1.8% and finally Opera with 1.2%. Users are using the latest versions too, even better.
These stats tell me the right people are visiting my website.
Zen Garden design archived at Mezzoblue
9th February 2006, 6:55pm / Design
A while back I'd mentioned that I had submitted an "@media 2005" themed design to the Zen Garden. It was only when I was looking through my web statistics external links information when I saw a Mezzoblue link. I then realised my design had made the Mezzoblue Zen Garden archives.
It's been filed under the Themes & Look-alikes Designs. I was ecstatic, my first Zen Garden Design actually getting some kind of recognition.
An "@media 2006" design for later this year? hmmn ...we'll see ;)
Tags: zen garden, @media 2005, atmedia
CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
1st February 2006, 1:55pm / Resources
CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd hits the shelves on the 13th of February. Andy has set up a new support site at www.cssmastery.com where you can download and preview a sample chapter and table of contents.
CSS Mastery covers a vast range of CSS topics including Background Images, Image Replacement, Forms, Data Tables, Layout, Hacks & Filters, Bug Fixing and also has two case studies to read into.
Along with Andy, Cameron Moll and Simon Collison have also authored the book with the forward by Dan Cederholm of Simplebits.
Tags: cssmastery, book, css, andybudd
Understanding your client
24th January 2006, 3:30pm / Web News
You can go out to your client for a first impression or you could provide your potential client with an initial worksheet to complete before arranging a meeting. Not only will it cut down meeting times, it will give you a greater understanding of what the client actually wants from their website.
Start with the basics like "What is the name of your company and your current/intended URL?" to more
advanced information like "What does your company want from the website?"
My two favourite worksheets are the clear:left worksheet and the Happy Cog Project Planner. They're exactly what a web design company needs and developing your own will be a beneficial service - financially and productively. If it contains everything you need to know to get started, just think of how many meetings, telephone calls and emails it may cut out on.
It needn't be a complex online form either, just provide a simple word/PDF document to download for them to return electronically or even by post.
Tags: clientworksheet
SafariTest
18th January 2006, 5:49pm / Resources
On a PC and want to know how your site looks on the Mac?
Well this Mac browser compatibility tester is a great tool to do just that. All you need to do is enter your URL and it will return a screenshot of your page as viewed on Apple Safari.
Some frames and Flash movies are not perfectly supported but you are given a choice of Screen sizes and image qualities.
Its also a great tool for when you are wanting a high quality screenshot of your website.
Tags: safaritest
Adobe Motion Design Center Articles
10th January 2006, 1:30pm / Web News
Two articles on the Adobe website are worth a read. Jeffrey Zeldman's Style Versus Design - Why Understanding the Difference Is What It's All About. Zeldman talks about the lack of designers working on the middle ground between eye candy and usability where most of the web must be built.
One one my favourite books, Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug still takes pride on my bookshelf. This well written article by Krug, Usability as Common Courtesy - Why Your Web Site Should Be a Mensch, talks about website characteristics and how clear they should be.
Tags: stevekrug, jeffreyzeldman
@media 2006, London
5th January 2006, 5:49pm / Events
The event of the year has officially been announced. @media 2006 is taking place 15th-16th June in London.
Back by popular demand, the conference this year is hosted over two days at the QEII Conference Centre, Central London. It covers almost everything cutting edge in the world of web design and is multi-tracked to provide plenty of valuable networking time and evening activities. The impressive lineup includes Eric Meyer, Dan Cederholm, Andy Clarke, Molly Holzschlag, Jon Hicks, Dave Shea, Andy Budd, Jeremy Keith, Tantek Celik, Robin Christopherson, Patrick Griffiths and loads more... yes the list is endless.
Registration is a snip at £395+VAT and if you attended last years conference, there's an early bird rate of £345 until the end of February.
@media 2005 was a great success. @media 2006 promises to be even bigger and better.
Tags: atmedia, @media, @media2005, vivabit
CSS background images
4th January 2006, 11:45am / CSS
CSS background images are widely used in style sheets but to how far should we use them?
Derek Featherstone looks at the different ways to use decorative and informational graphics and how they're best approached with Web Standards in mind.
Should company logos, images with text or important content be used with CSS background images. Check out the full article at 24 ways.
Tags: css, derekfeatherstone
The new iDJ 2-channel Mixer Console for the iPod
28th December 2005, 3:55pm / Personal
I recently visited London, including a trip to the stunning Apple store on Regent Street.
It was extremely busy (as it would be at this time of year) and most stores put on live music with DJs playing on the shopfloor.
With been a DJ for some time, I was interested to see the Apple store DJ was using something very different and new. Used was the new iDJ 2-channel Mixer Console for the iPod.
It has two docking stations for your iPods, enabling you to mix up your favourite tracks with such a small piece of equipment. It has the usual 3-band EQ with gain control, microphone input, extra Phono/Line inputs for other devices to be connected, USB connectivity, Turntable spindle receptacle and lots more.
Is this the future for DJs? Its a nice thought that all nightclubs and bars will house one of these mixers and all DJs need to turn up with an iPod. From records to CDs to memory banks...
Tags: applestore, ipodmixer
Snow at last
28th December 2005, 11:15am / Personal
The first proper snow for us in Hull, East Yorkshire came through the night to blanket our houses and gardens.
You can see my view of our garden in its white wonderland glory. Nice view as I work, aint it.
Online Christmas Shopping
1st December 2005, 8:15pm / Web News
Online retailers are approaching their busiest period of the year, peaking a week or so before christmas. Retailing websites can expect further growth as again christmas online shopping is on the up. The debate between whether to shop on or offline still continues but whilst online activity is on the up the real spending is done in the shops.
Although, web presence isn't just for adding products to basket, finding and researching gifts is a big pre-purchase activity and more than two-thirds of retailers are convinced that they need a website to stand a chance in the Christmas business.
According to search engine giant Google, the three months leading up to Christmas will account 40% of annual online spending, with additional stats showing the 12th December been the best day for business.
Read the full article on the BBC website.
Tags: onlineshopping, christmas
Woodland Trust
2nd November 2005, 7:08pm / Design
With Christmas quickly approaching us I would like to open up a recent design of the Woodland Trust's Christmas store.
Andy Clarke for me, has given us one of the nicest looking designs of the year. The website looks very graphical but it's down to nice use of CSS roll-overs and CSS driven rounded imagery within the panels and not lots of graphics within the page. It's truly an orignal, soft and clean design.
The online store has an exclusive range of cards, calendars, labels and wrapping paper featuring various woodland animals, birds, ancient trees and flowers.
Be sure to support the Woodland Trust this year and purchase your festive stationery from the christmas store. Oh... and nice work Andy on the design.
Tags: woodlandtrust, andyclarke, design
Jakob's Top Ten Weblog and Web Design Mistakes
23rd October 2005, 12:55pm / Web Standards
Jakob Nielsen's annual roundup on the years top mistakes is upon us and again some of the older problems keep cropping up.
This year Jakob has also drawn up the Top Ten Weblog Design Mistakes. Covering the basics like Author biographies and photos to unpredictable links and navigation. For a many of reasons usability is just as important on weblogs aswell as websites.
2005's Top Ten Web Design Mistakes were nominated by readers of the Alertbox newsletter. Older irritating problems continue to crop up but as these are raised again and again, the chances of them been fixed on website increases.
Points raised were Browser incompatibility, bad search, problematic online forms and confusing links. Jakob also mentions the use of bad Flash despite his personal efforts in the battle of using Flash appropriately.
Tags: jakobnielsen, webdesign, webmistakes
Search Engine standards
29th September 2005, 9:02am / Web Standards
Molly E. Holzschlag composed a small comparative analysis of markup practices on several major search engines.
It's not a surprise to how search engine websites Google, MSN, Yahoo and the rest have become such a big part of our internet life.
It is a surprise however that such a large proportion of them do not use valid markup and CSS layout.
MSN infact solely sits above the rest with validated XHTML and CSS. When will these companies see the light and embrace Web Standards?
See her comparison table at Molly.com
Tags: molly, webstandards, searchengines
The right BR
28th September 2005, 8:15pm / Web Standards
I've always wondered if there were any reasons to code the br tag with or without the space between the r and /.
I knew that with or without, the code validates. Although I recently read that older browsers such as Netscape 4 do not render the br tag if there is no space.
So for the sake of one click on the SPACE bar, it seems right to keep all browsers happy.
Tags: xhtml
Back from Ibiza
12th September 2005, 9:35pm / Personal
I'm back from my week long holiday over in Ibiza.
A hectic week of lounging in the sun, bars, clubs, restaurants and the shops of San Antonio Bay and Ibiza Town.
It's my second year overthere in successive years and the place seems to get better and busier each time. I love the DJs and clubs, so sleep was minimal and returning home was a break from early morning finishes!
Over the next few weeks I will be posting photography (taken whilst I was away) every now and again into the head of my website.
A fresh look for A List Apart
25th August 2005, 8:15pm / Web News
The A List Apart redesign is the reason why the Daily Report has been abit quiet of late. But it's been worth it.
A fresh, clean and complete new brand for ALA 4.0 is accompanied with new features and changes such as more intelligent categories for topics, ALA Store, selected advertisers, new Ruby on Rails publishing system and many more.
Jeffrey hasn't done things by halves either. Graphic Designer Jason Santa Maria, CSS and XHTML Mastermind Eric Meyer and Software Developer Dan Benjamin have all been drafted in to help with the redesign.
The informative and excellent articles are to continue, as they already have from both Jeffrey and Joe Clark. ALA events and a new book are eagerly awaited and the only decision Jeffrey leaves you with is which T-shirt to buy.
Tags: design, alistapart
Visual XHTML
16th August 2005, 1:10pm / Design
This came from an idea I picked up from Andy Clarke at And all that Malarkey. Andy decided to make an entry to the Zen Garden but before any design was started he created a graphic to help understand and illustrate the Zen Garden XHTML structure.
Great idea.
I thought it would be nice for visitors (and myself in a way) to see a visual representation of my index page XHTML to make everything clear to see what does what and what holds what, without looking at all the code.
Tags: andyclarke, zengarden, design, xhtml
Zoom the web
17th July 2005, 6:40pm / Accessibility
After listening to Joe Clark's Zoom The Web presentation at @media 2005, I thought an optional zoom layout would make my website more accessible to low-vision users.
The top right hand corner now has a preference switch, were two new zoom layouts can be selected. Initially I was only going to have one zoom option but then thought I could offer a high contrast version too.
The functionality of this was easy to achieve. The main style sheet is loaded (giving the original styled layout), then a small javascript function allows to switch between additional 'zoom' style sheets. Each one adjusts various elements (background colours, width of div's, navigation display etc) to over-ride the styles in the main style sheet creating the one-column layout and high contrast version.
The javascript function stores a cookie so when a user returns to the site, their selected preference on the previous visit is restored.
Tags: joeclark, zoomlayout
Navigational changes
11th July 2005, 5:41pm / Personal
I have decided to split News and Articles up into two sections allowing to keep News coming in and not getting it mixed up with new articles I have started to write.
I have also moved the CSS and XHTML write-ups into the About section as I felt it more relevant in there.
Sorry if any of this causes any confusion.
Tags: articles
Zen Garden
26th June 2005, 4:50pm / Design
My first Zen Garden submission was inspired from my @media 2005 visit. It's a project I've been meaning to do for a long time but I wanted a theme, original and not done before.
I decided on an @media theme, so I asked Patrick Griffiths if I was ok to take some of the graphics from his @media webite to modify. With his thumbs up and good luck in my design, away I went.
It was a project I wanted to do properly, I'm no graphic artist but modifying the @media imagery was fun, infact I enjoyed this part as much as editing the CSS.
Due to the sheer volume and high quality of submissions Dave Shea recieves and if it's not to make it to the Zen Garden website, I have added a link to view my final design.
Tags: zengarden, @media2005, design
CSS fun & games
19th June 2005, 7:05pm / CSS
Who put the fun into CSS? Stu Nicholls did.
His entertaining and CSS experiments on the CSS Playground are worth a look. Not only does it have some excellent menu and layout tutorials, he has some very good tricks to really show what can be done with CSS.
Tags: css, stunicholls
@media 2005 review
13th June 2005, 11:10pm / Events
12 presentations, 11 speakers, 1 conference, over 300 attendees, and only 2 days to cram everything in.
Yes, this was the place to be.
Jeffrey Zeldman opened things with his keynote speech, a fascinating insight into his past and how the whole web standards thing came about. He went through his achievements and goals that can be obtained if his and others efforts come off. Another plus to come out of his speech was his news of him working with the Dreamweaver team on the next release. Good news that it's going to be still going and even better that it will be developed with us web standard promoters in mind.
Joe Clark was entertaining as ever, but thoroughly interesting and is there anything to do with web accessibility that he doesn't know?
Robin Christopherson provided an eye-opening presentation into disability on the web. He showed us the obstacles he faces using the web being blind. Using a screen-reader he allowed us all to see how this technology helps him to access websites, showing us real-life websites that hinder him from making the visit far from helpful.
For me Douglas Bowman stole the show, with two top drawer presentations on accessible CSS.
I've read his articles previously on A List Apart but to see him present his many CSS discoveries was thoroughly entertaining.
Molly's recent activities and insights were just as enjoyable and I learnt one or two CSS tricks from Andy Budd's presentation. Must give Patrick Griffiths, Ian Lloyd, Jeremy Keith, Derek Featherstone a mention for all their inputs.
I've not forgot Andy Clarke, who was extremely entertaining and a graphic artists view on web standards was very interesting and at times comical. His Disney experience was a great way to wrap the event up.
The Hot Topics allowed people to express thoughts and ask the panel questions about the last two days topics.
I'm hoping @media will return next year, bigger and better. The speakers have commented on how much they enjoyed the conference as much as us that attended. I'm glad I was able to make it, this website has most definitely benefited and my future work and view on web life will more so.
Tags: atmedia, @media, @media2005, webconference
Watchfire WebXACT
2nd June 2005, 11:06pm / Accessibility
A free online service to test web pages for quality, accessibility and privacy issues. Just put the URL into the submission field and click go, it's as easy as that.
The software scans your submitted page and gives you results and reports on the mentioned areas above. Quality, content defects, page efficiency and searching is all reported on. Priorities 1, 2 and 3 of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are checked with full results, warnings and guideline fix explanations. Data Collection, Visitor Tracking and P3P Compliance is also identified. WebXACT really can help your website, making it more usable and accessible.
Tags: webxact, accessibility
E-commerce User Experience guidelines
1st June 2005, 8:58pm / Resources
I revisited these papers and thought they are most definitely worth a mention, especially if your in the process of developing an e-commerce website and need some help in making it usable.
They are nine guidelines and can be purchased individually or as an entire series from the Nielsen Norman Group. Included in the reports are Categories and Product pages, Shopping Carts, Checkout, Registration, Searching and enhancing an e-commerce website's credibility. Some well known companies were used through testing and the results are easy to read and understand with full colour screenshots.
Tags: ecommerce, guidelines
Must have books on their way
31st May 2005, 2:05pm / Resources
Dan Cederholm's sequel to Web Standards Solutions is gracing us this summer
and if it's half as good as the first, we're in for another treat. Dan
outlines 10 strategies for creating standards-based websites with lean
XHTML markup and CSS by deconstructing a series of real-world websites.
Pre-order it with Amazon
and you won't be disappointed when August arrives. XHTML
and CSS: A Web Standards Approach by Patrick Griffiths is another
one to catch later this year.
Tags: books, dancederholm, patrickgriffiths
Web Essentials Sydney 2005
5th May 2005, 1:32pm / Events
A leading lineup including Molly Holzschlag, Eric Meyer, Douglas Bowman and John Allsopp covering the latest developments in web design, development, user experience and accessibility, workflow and strategy, with in depth sessions on CSS, XHTML, emergent semantics, Javascript, AJAX, and much more.
Shame us in the UK are around 10,474 miles away from the venue in September but for further details visit the Web Essentials 2005 website.
Tags: webconference, webessentials
Firefox bugs
23rd April 2005, 1:24pm / Web news
Firefox has launched itself as a serious competitor to Internet Explorer and has recieved acclaims for its many features and plug-in extentions. But now critics believe that Firefox has serious security issues and to really rival IE and its long awaited IE 7 release in the summer these have to be overcome and fixed.
Technology analyst Bill Thompson reviews the current situation on the BBC website.
Book Coming Soon
14th April 2005, 2:05pm / Resources
Christopher Schmitt, Mark Trammell, Ethan Marcotte, Todd Dominey and Dunstan
Orchard have co-authored Professional
CSS, which is due out mid-July of this year. Each chapter focuses
on a designer and a website they've been involved in, showing insights
into their personal development/design ideas and plans. I'm guessing there's
to be some top CSS techniques revealed and this is looking to be a must
read of 2005.
Tags: books, professionalcss
Toolbar heaven
31st March 2005, 12:10pm / Accessibility
The Accessible Information Solutions (AIS) team have come up with the Web Accessibility Toolbar. It has been developed to aid manual examination of web pages for a variety of aspects of accessibility. It's a handy source to have in the same browser as the web page your developing and testing. My favourite features are the quick window resizing, image and CSS on & off functions and the W3C CSS/HTML validators. There's a host of other quick links and functions so check them out.
Tags: accessibility, toolbar
@media 2005
24th March 2005, 12:15pm / Events
The
@media 2005 conference comes to London on the 9th-10th June. Jeffrey Zeldman
and other web design and accessibility experts including Douglas Bowman,
Joe Clarke, Andy Budd and Molly E. Holzschlag are here to share their
wealth of knowledge. Visit @media2005
for more information. I'll be there and if you have any sense, you will
be too.
Tags: atmedia, @media2005
Macromedia takeover
23rd April 2005, 1:14pm / Web News
The announcement of Adobe taking over Macromedia was a shock to us all, with everyone having mixed opinions on the $3.4 billion deal. Personally I have a few worries. I am a keen user of Macromedia products including Dreamweaver MX, Fireworks and Homesite and will have to wait and wonder what the future holds for these products... if there is a future for them. Dreamweaver is obviously a popular and widely used software package but I've a feeling that Photoshop will see the end of Fireworks.
As we wait to see what is to happen, read the official Adobe and Macromedia announcement on the adobe website.
Tags: macromedia, adobe
The Zen of CSS Design
2nd March 2005, 12:49pm / Resources
The
Zen of CSS Design : New book by Dave Shea and Molly E. Holzschlag
to run along side the CSS-based website Zen
Garden. Taking you through the phases of designing beautiful websites
with Cascading Style Sheets. The book uses the Zen Garden website as a
case study and what can be accomplished using CSS design, without the
need for tables, frames and messy (X)HTML markup.
