.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Taking liberties since 1978

30.1.06

Google Search History and Bookmarks

Google - Search History

So what does this have to offer that del.icio.us doesn't? Well the real value is not in the bookmarking, but in the personalised search engine, that returns results based on previous searches. Now that is cool!.
I think the bookmarking thing still has someway to go as del.icio.us has an obvious head start. But it's made easier, by being able to browse your histroy and rate the pages. Thus fine tuning your search engine and bookmarking pages to return to.
A good move in adding value from an already massively used service of Google's search engine. I'll give it a whirl and see how it goes. But I'm not abandoning the del.icio.us Firefox plugins just yet.

28.1.06

100 Best Companies to Work For

Fortune: 100 Best Companies to Work For

You are going to have to do a lot to convince me that Starbucks, Intel or Nike are among the top 100 places to work. Presumably because the people that actually work at ground level for these companies are out sourced, so their opinion doesn't count. I can't imagine the person that sells the coffee or the sweatshop worker making trainers or chipboards got a look in on this survey.

Hmm it smells even fishier than the Top ICT Employers 2005 from the Corporate Research Foundation.

Another Two dot oh, this time XHTML 2.0

The future of HTML, Part 2: XHTML 2.0

Time to get my learning cap on again. Some stuff thats great for getting to grips with what's new and shiny in the next version of XHTML.

Developing Ajax Applications That Preserve Standard Browser Functionality

Developing Ajax Applications That Preserve Standard Browser Functionality

Javascript often messes with the normal way your browser works, which is such a bad idea. So hows about doing it this way instead and not messing up web standards or the users understanding of how the browser works. Hooray.

US plans to 'fight the net' revealed

BBC NEWS | Americas | US plans to 'fight the net' revealed

While I don't particularly find this surprising, it never hurts to remind ourselves of the power of information and to consider our sources.

Official Google Blog: Google in China

Official Google Blog: Google in China

Given that I've been following the fact about Google and it's entrance into the Chinese market it seems only right to link to this offical blog from them on the matter.

Also in response this action they have removed there statement about not censoring the web. Hopefully it will be replaced with an outline of what they are censoring and the assurance that when they censor they inform the user.

Google Removes Its Help Entry on Censorship

26.1.06

Let the Good Times Roll by Guy Kawasaki: How to Get a Standing Ovation

Let the Good Times Roll by Guy Kawasaki: How to Get a Standing Ovation

I'm not planing on giving a public speach any time soon, but just incase some useful tips. Perhaps worth holding onto for our next conference :)

Samorost2

Samorost2

A beautiful game, with a simple narrative .A real visual delight.

25.1.06

Konfabulator

Konfabulator - Gallery

A bit like the Mac Dashboard but for the PC too. At first I wasn't all that impressed as I thought it was a bit gimicky. However I have to say after I found a few nice widgets it has won me over. I think the proof of the pudding will be in the eating and if I still like it in a week.

Dave's Quick Search Toolbar has been with me for nearly three years now, and despite the bug with Win XP SP2 I still use it more than any other app on my PC. Especially as it's easy to configure more searches for it to use, plus is compacts a lot of the functionality of multiple widgets into one little tool.

Google Code: Web Authoring Statistics

Google Code: Web Authoring Statistics

If you like your webstandards this is an intersting study, I had a quick look to see how it compares to my code. Classes definately showed some parallels, but it seems most people are still using tables, which seems so odd to me, as it feels like I've been using divs for years.

Overall it's an eye opening report on the sloppy habits of web designers everywhere. Wow.

Google Agrees to Censor Results in China

Google Agrees to Censor Results in China

The start of a slippery slope?
I find it difficult to agree with censorship in any format, but here again we see the business drive of being part of the Chinese market driving large corporations to compromise on ethical issues.

At least the are fighting the U.S. goverments request for search results. The bright side of which is that it has raised the issue and more people will hopefully be aware of the fact that this data is collected, as many users of Google I'm sure felt a false sense of annonimity.

24.1.06

Westminster strike threat over eviction

Westminster Council Eviction Notice Sparks Strike Threat

Library staff among others are being affected by this eviction. Can you imagine being told you had to move to the other side of the country to keep your job, and I find it hard to believe that the library is over resourced!

20.1.06

Yeah ok I admit it...

I was googling my name to see what came up, it's interesting and surprising to see what crops up. Very little of my web design history, but this little number showed up at the end.

Do you think I'll get any more respect from our librarian customers if I tell them I'm a published poet ;)

19.1.06

Estonians twice as likely to use public e-Services than Britons

Usability News - Estonians twice as likely to use public e-Services than Britons

An interesting article that rather contradicts an earlier report that indicated that the UK's e-Gov policy was leading the way and likely to be adopted by the EU.

I'm sure both reports had there own agenda, but I hadn't realised that Skype and Kazaa originated from Estonia.

E-Gov isn't that bad I don't think, at least it's a set of standards that means all the systems will be able to interact, and it expands on the rather narrow Disability Discriminations Act to incorporate usability and access regardless of culture and income too.

18.1.06

Publishing of the future

Zoo Publishing

Zoo Publishing are a small publishers in the West Midlands, who are releasing creative art magazines through the internet in PDF format and because theres no printing overheads it's about half the price of it's newsagent companions.

The first issue looks promising, if the can secure enough quality content this could be really great, since Future publishing have such a monopoly on the UK magazine market, it'll be great to have some alternatives.

17.1.06

Marmalade Girl - Elsa's website

Marmalade Girl - Elsa's website

My website is live at last. This is the first time I've actaully had my own website and whilst it really isn't much at the moment, now I'm up and running hopefully I can add to it pretty easily.

Zeldman has spoken - Web 3.0

A List Apart: Articles: Web 3.0

Zeldman has spoken and I'm still giggling.

I usually resist the urge to link to Zeldman, because lets face it at least half the world's blogs do, or at least any that relate to web design. But I could not resist this article on A List Apart, a website that has been the centre of my web design career for as long as I can remember.

Recently I've blogged a lot about Web 2.0 in an attempt to get my head around what it really is, or if it is just a marketing term. My feeling is that web has always and will continue to develop, it doesn't really matter what you call it. I mean if you take a slice of the web now and compare it to a slice of the web from 15 years ago it would be fair to it has developed alot and is a "different version". But for those of us that work with the web day in day out it has evolved and this sudden proclaimation that we are now Web2.0 seems all a bit silly. There some concepts like collaberation, which are great, whatever the technology, or name you give them.

The interesting thing I got form Zeldman's article was the undertone that there are those people who do and those who talk about doing it. Chasing around after the latest fad is a lot of effort and Zeldman implies that if you are doing this then you've already missed the boat.

Don't get me wrong, I still want to create great interfaces and you can call it Web 2.0 or not, I won't mind either way; the important thing is the creating. I will conceed however that the whole Web 2.0 thing has made me reconsider javascript, as I've let my skills slip for far too long, partly because it's a nasty language to code in and partly out of fear of creating some horrible inaccessible if fancy looking monster.

On this note lets hope I can get my website up and running this week.

16.1.06

BugMeNot

roachfiend.com » BugMeNot

Here is a demonstration of why you shouldn't force people to log in. I've had this extention 5 minutes and I've already used it! A nice little extention for firefox that allow you to source a username and profile for sites that force you to log in.

Very handy and a real lesson in usability.

UCLA Library service hit the nail on the head

Rethinking How We Provide Bibliographic Services for the University of California

This article shows clearly how one of the big players and market leaders want to push the library systems forward. When I see writing like this it really inspires me, partly because it justifies the way I've been thinking about OPACs (online public access catalogues) in terms of Google and Amazon, but also because it pushes and inspires me to create better interfaces.

To find value in this article to first have to understand the value that libraries offer. I was brought up, with a weekly trip to our local library's children section, I remember clearly searching the shelves for the next illustrated treasure to take home. I even remember the green screen terminal the librarian used. Unfortunately not all my experiences with libraries have been so good, usually due to a lack of resources, but I think it instilled in me the need for universal access to the wealth of knowledge that we can find both through libraries and the internet.

At Talis I've learnt what libraries can offer that the internet can't; librarians, the proffessional information managers that have Google pegged everytime when you need that oscure bit of information, providing information from a recognised trustworthy source, rather than the result of a complex equation. Unfortunately I don't have a librarian inside my PC, so the next best thing should be the library OPAC; getting the user to the best information possible as quickly as possible.

Some of the interesting points are:

Provide an “I-want-this” button
I've always maintained that the user doesn't care how they get the material they want, so always give them the option. If the library can't provide it, find one that can or let them buy it from Amazon.

Our users expect simplicity and immediate reward and Amazon, Google, and iTunes are the standards against which we are judged. Our current systems pale beside them.
Indeed the interface should be simple and the complexity dealt with by the system. I'd love to have a single search option rather than searching against title or author or keyword. Thankfully we seen this implemented in Prism 3.

Bibliographic systems must add value to the interaction, using what is known about both the user and his/her request to provide intelligent advice and assistance.
Personalisation is the key and even more value is added her through user interaction. As with Amazon allowing the user to refine recommendations ultimately greatly improves the recommendations provided, but if no feedback is given recommendations are offered based on viewing and purchase history.
If the OPAC has access to information on things like saved searches, academic course or thesis details, favourite authors or bands, reviews which collect a negative or positive feedback, suddenly the well of user information to draw on is much deeper.

User-focused systems will never leave a user alone with failure, facing zero results with no alternative path.
There should never be no options available, suggest alternative spelling and provide the top results for that spelling, provide a search box and allow the user to remove any search limiters.

Navigating large sets of search results is particularly frustrating when many of the records retrieved are variations of the same work.
Large result sets are troublesome for both the user and the system. The system may struggle with the stress on the database and server, while the user maybe overwhelmed or frustrated with the huge task of looking through pages of results. Pagination has never really offered a good way of finding what needed, and is in my opinion one of the largest weaknesses in Google. UCLA suggest offering further logical subsets, which if provided in addition to the results could be a great way to assist in narrowing a search, combining the best from a Google type search and also from a Yahoo based directory style structure. Further reducing the results by grouping like results together could further screen simplicity.

We recommend working with OCLC to apply its OpenWorldCat technique to
expose all of its records, or at least all UC records, for discovery by search engines.
Currently if I type a book title into Google I will get Amazon as the first link or at least on the front page. If libraries want to be the information providers they need to be able to ensure that they have a link there. Amazon have the advantage as they hold one huge central resource, so for libraries to compete they need to open up a central resource like OCLC’s WorldCat to search engines. However this would also need to be backed up with the ultimate OPAC - quite a challenge. Could something similar be achieved with TalisBase and Prism?

Users who are accustomed to Google expect to enter one search and retrieve information pulled together from across the information space and presented in a single ranked list.
Create one ring to rule them all, or rather one interface should access all the library resources. In the same way as a user doesn’t care how they get the item they want (ILL or purchase) it is also fair to say that the average user does not care where the information they need comes from. The exception to this is obviously in the academic setting. However it is still important that all resources are used and here the library comes into it’s own as it should give priority to the resources that have higher “trust” value e.g. A professional journal would take precedence over Wikipedia, but a blog from the leading expert in that field might take priority over the journal.


You can Lorcan Dempsy's thoughts on the report over at their blog.

14.1.06

Promethea - Alan Moore



I managed to find this little gem in my library recently. It's not very easy to get hold of anymore, so while I'd been meaning to read this Alan Moore series for some time I wasn't keen to start in the middle of the series.

The only other thing I have read of Moore's to date is Top 10, although I've had intentions of reading a lot of his stuff for quite a while. This one was worth the wait, Moore delivers the introduction to some intersting characters. I have a real weakspot for fairytales and ancient mythology, I think that's why I love so much of Gaiman's stuff. And Promethea ties into this directly when studying the mythology of Promethea brings her to life. It aslo deals with the realm of imagination and does so with great depth and beauty. The drawing is fantastic and imagery of cards becoming butterflies and the flies becoming dragonflies is just great and for some reason has a sort of Alice in Wonderland feel to it.

My only criticism is that book one really is only half a story. But this was easily solved as I have now been to Amazon to get the whole series. I'm sure many people have written far more eloquently about this book than I, so I shall leave it there.

Nine Tips for Designing Rich Internet Applications

Looks Good Works Well: Nine Tips for Designing Rich Internet Applications

This article from Yahoo's AJAX Evangelist no less. I think there are some really good suggestions in here. But no mention of implementing AJAX in such a way as to ensure accessability. However I think it is mostly down to the designer to ensure that any such methods are implemented in an accessible way, rather than shying away from them as has been the trend. His fourth point about the use of pop ups and slide outs might cause an issue with accessibility, however Bill Scott actually covers how these pop ups differ from those we've come to know and hate in his article Popups With a Twist.

I love Rich Internet Applications, but not at the cost of accessibility. Hopefully as I refresh my Javascript skills I'll be able to find practical solutions to creating good interfaces without dismissing the need to keep good web standards.

13.1.06

Hotel Chocolat Clearance for the chocoholics among us



Delivered Chocolate gifts and chocolates for yourself from Hotel Chocolat

If you are a chocolate freak like me then check this out. I got some of their chocs for Xmas and they were very yummy.

Failed Redesigns and Recruitment

Le «blog personnel» de Joe Clark » Failed Redesigns

This article is getting quite a bit of attention from websites who advocate standards. Mainly I think because it says something we have all been thinking.

Currently at work, for the first time, I'm involved in recruiting. And I have to say up until know I assumed most people who consider themselves professional web designers would work with divs rather than table layouts and have a good understanding of CSS, beyond the realms of formatting text. How wrong I was. Every portfolio I have seen so far has included predominantly table based layouts for websites and more often than not a bunch of javascript straight from Dreamweaver. This article sums up my feelings really well.

Some of the designs are good, and it is easier to teach good coding practise than good design. But that doesn't change the fact that there people consider themselves professionals as is. Have I become a code fascist to expect an aptitude in code as well as design? I mean we all have to learn, hell I'm still learning, but then I think the last table layout I used was back in 2001, after just a year in the industry, so why the hell are they still rearing their ugly heads, from people claiming several years 'professional' experience.

Molly makes an interesting point on WaSP about how we should educate each other, which I completely agree with. Ultimately I'd love to bring someone with less experience in to work with me and help them develop, like my mentor did when I first started. But the role I'm recruiting is meant to be at a similar level to myself. I'm not expecting to have to train them, but rather enjoy working with fellow designer, where perhaps we can learn from each other.

If by some magical fortune you happen to read this and are looking for work in the Birmingham area get in touch with Talis.

12.1.06

Microsoft plays Chess, Google plays Go and I play Thud

Tech-Recipes.com - Microsoft Plays Chess. Google Plays Go.

An interesting quick read. Looking at the different strategies of Microsoft and Google. I think it has to be said from my perspective the both the Google brand and the Firefox/Mozilla brand have won themselves a soft spot from me. Offering me tools that make my life a little easier like desktop search and Google Maps, not to mention a great browser. It was no surprise that Google wanted to align itself with Firefox; it is the best competitor to IE.
This article highlights how Microsoft are currently playing catch up all the time, undermined by Google recruiting their best staff.
However Google builds itself a pedestal to "do no Evil" and I have to wonder if this will be their ultimate downfall. The classic saying of "The bigger they are the harder they fall". Everyone is used to Microsoft's lawyers being complete bastards, second only to the lawyers of large studios like Fox and Warner Bros. So when Microsoft do something that make you want to punch Bill Gates you resign yourself to how crap the world is and boot up XP anyway. Should Google be found to fall foul the fact that people *like* them could easily backfire. Engaging people at an emotional level is clearly great for business, but can it also be the ultimate Achilles heel too?

11.1.06

The 'democratic' web and the madness of crowds

O'Reilly Radar > Digging The Madness of Crowds

Yesterday on Digg there was a very popular libelous news artical against someone from O'Reilly. I didn't like the 'torch and pitchfork' mentality that people had in their comments. Today surprise surprise the claims are proved to false and the full story comes out. Unfortunately this reminds me of the of the less attractive side of the Web and the mob mentality.So it isn't the first time and it won't be last a community gets over zealous when the community itself feels under attack, but this blog at O'Reilly clears up the facts and reminds us of this.

Shop Talk on Radio 4 today had a chap on talking about the perceived 'digital democracy' of Web 2.0; the notion that community sites are democratic when news articles or photos are voted to be the best. They may be democratic in the sense of voting articles up to a frontpage, but who then takes responsability for the validity of that article? Democratic would be the voting of an editor to take that responsability, not the mob mentalility we see with these sites.

Can you have the best of both? A community with expert contributers without mindless follow the leader?

While there may be a great many new community sites starting up, it is only those that can make a return on investment that will last the distance. With the recent outcry on MySpace with the censorship of links to rival services we are reminded that "free" community sites often come at some price.

9.1.06

Library to try lending video games

Library to try lending video games - Park Ridge Advocate [01-05-06]

Blimey I was surprised to see this on Digg. Even my little local library lends games and DVDs, infact the games and music selection is vastly superior to the computer or art book section.

Perhaps UK libraries are more ahead of the game. I also saw that Manchester Metropolitan University library has an RSS feed.

8.1.06

Flash Accessibility Blog

Accessibility

This is an interesting blog from Andrew Kirkpatrick & Bob Regan the people responsabile for accessibility at Macromedia. Lets hope they still have a job after the merger, since the last post was in September.

However it looks at accessibility within Flash and also takes stock of the accessibility issues with AJAX. Great RSS for keeping updated on the state of accesility within Flash.

Google Video

Google Video

This new beta from Google offers some video treats, all played in Flash. I think is inline with googles ownership of Blogger and what is expected to take off shortly; vlogging, or video blogging.

At last we are beginning to see some real content for broadband beyond iTunes. With the launch of video iPods there has been a noticeable shift to get popular TV programmes online.

I wonder if it is too far fetched to imagine a time when TV will be broadcast online. As we see a divergence in PC and TV technologies in hardware such as Tivo or Sky Plus. Already I can download video and watch it via my XBox.

Recently we have seen Sky purchase an ISP in an attempt to move into the broadband market and the BBC beta an internet broadcasting scheme.

The biggest disadvantage of this would be the widening of the technological divide.

AJAX vs Flash, round 2, arena: Web2.0, fight!

Archives, dotone » AJAX vs Flash, round 2, arena: Web2.0, fight!

Although I think it would do a disservice to either AJAX or Flash to write off one technology in favour of another. But this comparison is very useful for looking at the strengths and weaknesses of each.

7.1.06

Frank Miller's 300

300 by Frank Miller
Frank Miller's 300

I've been a fan of Frank Millers since I first picked up a copy of Sin City in the library about ten years ago. I was lucky enough to get 300 for Christmas this year.

300 depicts the story of who 300 Spartan warriors held off the Persians despite being massively outnumbered. Miller is a master of pen and ink and creates strong contract that while not strictly chiaroscuro have clear comparisons with the work of Caravaggio who painted subjects with great dramatic lighting. This dramatic style really lends itself to the battlefield of the Spartan and Miller has again created another great piece of work.

Another of my favourite comic artists is Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame. He has a similar style that is also truly striking.

Basecamp - project management in a nice package

Basecamp

Basecamp is a collaberative project management tool. I first heard about it on a usability training course with HFI and it immediately struck me how sleek the design was. Currently at work we employ Microsoft Project Office, which is very powerful tool and can provide a good overview of resources and project timelines.

I have however recently signed up to see what Basecamp really has to offer. I'm 5 minutes in and I had to come and scream "WHY ARE WE NOT USING THIS!" It is incredibly easy to get started, I decided to use my personal website as a project to get myself started, it was easy to create a project and get started with to do lists and milestones.
As a company we have started to adapt an agile methodology, which involves a lot of post-it notes and index cards. This is good as they are flexible and easy to change and sort, but it has often struck me that they are also easy to loose. Perhaps Basecamp can offer a collaberative workspace where stuff can't get lost but still has the flexability needed. In addition is provides a message board type service so discussions over issues and ideas can be had. While I do believe that face to face conversations are the best sort, this cannot always be the case if people are working from home or if you want to collaberate with someone who is in a different country.
Having everything centralised would also provide us with an excellent source to review during at after a project as everything would be in one place, and would help us understand how we reached the decisions we did, something I think that we loose now in stand up meetings. It may also make documentation easier to produce.

From my perspective as an interface designer looking at this application I'm delighted with the design. It is customisable to fit with the branding of the project. There is some excellent use of AJAX, especially when ticking a to do item off the list. Also in terms of accessibility the font size is resizable so it will not be too small for those who don't like or struggle with smaller fonts. Most importantly I found it really easy to start working with straight away.

An excellent tool that looks and feels great too.

BBC media player

BBC - iMP

The BBC have created a media player to allow watchiing of old programmes. This is excellent stuff, I'd heard about how they were opening their vaults on major news events from history. But this allows you to watch anything from the last week, this is great stuff. I feel a little bit better about my license fee when the BBC are leading the market like this.

Newsvine

Newsvine Beta

I have been lucky enough to get an invite to Newsvine which has been developed by Mike Davidson. It has all the hallmarks of a Web 2.0 application, and is well worth checking out.

Newsvine is a new way of getting news, it has articles written by members and allows you to "seed" articles that are external. You can then vote, comment, chat or subscribe to the rss feed. There is also a tagging system for news articles, but it appears these are created by the author not the viewers.

It has a great visual design and an intelligent use of AJAX - including the ability to tell you if the username you want is already in use without submitting your form - brilliant idea.
As it went live on the 5th January and I got my invite on the 6th it is still early days, a lot of the articles have been fed in from Associated Press, but this a least guarentees a level of quality from the news articles, one I wonder if they can maintain.

In order to try and maintain a high level of quality members can invite new members, but are considered responsible for the actions of the people they invite. You are rewarded for introducing constructive members.

My biggest criticism at the moment is that is seems very UScentric, but I've just found a dropdown to localise my region to London, which might help. However UK would have been fine since there are no other UK cities to choose from.

Overall it is an excellent design and interesting idea, I think longevity of use will decide it's real value.

Next I hope to look at Basecamp.

6.1.06

Tagging with Gmail and del.icio.us

del.icio.us/marmaladegirl

In an effort to get to grips with del.icio.us I've signed up and put loads of my bookmarked sites on.

In the past I have struggled with this site, firstly I was put off by it's bland design and then by a lack of explination about what the site actually did. But everyone keeps hammering on about how great it is, so I decided to put a bit of effort in to see what all the chatter is about.

Very quickly I began to see the advantages of having a centralised resource for my bookmarks. I mean the websites I like on my laptop don't change when I'm on the PC. Then there is the infamous tagging,which has become a cornerstone in what are considered Web 2.0 applications, the advantages of which are less obvious at first.

I had a similar issue when I first used Gmail, I couldn't really see the advantages of tagging my mail, as most emails had only one label. But to get the most out of labels or tagging it required me to think in a different way about how my data was stored. I'd become so used to a tree like directory structure that when faced with labels I just replicated a folder structure by adding a single label to each email.

My experience with del.icio.us was very different because creating and adding tags is far more straightfoward. As a result of this more tags are created and once I'd created more descriptive tags for differnet URLs I'd go back and add them to earlier entries too. This lead to having a far richer dictionary of tags to choose from supported by additional suggested tags.

I'm still getting familiar with del.icio.us but tagging has allowed me to crossreference my URLs pulling out not only my own bookmarks but finding similar links from other members. The visual presentation of my tags also allows me to see where the focus of my online interests lie; like a bizzarro biography.

www.elsabartley.co.uk

This blog is now also available from www.elsabartley.co.uk.

Huuzzzah!

START MOBILE | NEW ART FOR MOBILE DEVICES

START MOBILE | NEW ART FOR MOBILE DEVICES

I heard something about this a couple of months back but lost the link. Found it again thanks to Wired.

I usually create my own themes for my phone as I like to personalise it as much as possible, but this site is ace for getting great little desktop art for your phone from artists like Luke Chueh, Jon Burgerman,Tado and Flying Fortress.

Brilliant idea.

CGSociety - CG Retrospective 2005

CGSociety - CG Retrospective 2005

If you are into CGI this site is great with loads of interviews with realliy great artists. Here is their review of some of the top CGI moments in 2005.

It also covers some of the huge software acquisitions (Adobe of Macromedia and Autodesk of Alias) that have gone on this year. The outcome from which we will really feel in 2006.

This means no matter what field of design you work in if you work with a computer this will affect you, it's like Microsoft buying Google. Autodesk own 3DSMax and Alias owed Maya, these are the top two 3D tools, both with their own loyal followers. Their price war has made 3D far more affordable in the last few years and really opened up the market to those outside of the formal training of university; the only place able to afford the software before. Now this competition has gone and the only remaining real competition could be LightWave I have to wonder if we are looking at a soaring market price again.
The Adobe acquisition of Macromedia also leaves me nervous, especially over the fate of Fireworks. We will just have to wait and see.

Carson Workshops Summit - The Future of Web Apps

Carson Workshops Summit - The Future of Web Apps

Another good conference. If I had to choose between them I think I'd still rather go to @media2006 but this has a lot to offer for a one day conference and is a snip at £75.

Marmalade Girl - powered by FeedBurner

Marmalade Girl - powered by FeedBurner

Added the blog to FeedBurner primarily to see what is actually does. It will actually enable podcasting too. But don't worry I'm not planning to bore anyone with a rant quite yet.
I'm still on a search for the best feedreader, so far my hands down favourite is Nick Bradbury's (of Topstyle fame) FeedDemon.

5.1.06

Test post from Flickr


Work
Originally uploaded by MarmaladeGirl.
Currently I use Picasa and Hello to upload images to my blog, but I thought I'd try posting from Flickr for a change. So here is a picture of my desk at work.

microformats xFolk

xFolk

I made a very brief post about microformats before. Now I have found they have a standards for folksonomies among other really useful things like contact cards.

These are not standards that go against those set by the W3C, but rather they add to them. Offering better interoperability and thus increasing the value of the data; by adding a semantics to commonly collected information.

There is a great deal of potential here, but while I'm still learning more about it I'm ill equipped to write at any great length. However I think it is fair to say there will be more from me on this in the future.

Update: the ryan king offers an excellent explination of who this all ties together with Web 2.0 and also with Tim Berners-Lee's vision as laid out in Weaving the Web.

@media 2006

@media 2006

This looks like a fantastic conference. How many industry leaders can you cram into one conference? So much great stuff that I've been struggling to get my head around on my own; WCAGv2, CSS3. As much as I understand the value of standards, that doesn't make it any less of a struggle when getting to grips with the latest versions. at this stage they are dry documents on W3C, not brought to life by real examples or browser support. So the challenge is to stay ahead of the game; so I can get enough of an understanding that once these standards are implemented I'm already confident in implementing them, rather than trying to catch up.

All I need now is a cunning plan to raise £345 before the end of Feb. Hmm. I could use eBay to sell my DVD collection or opt for virtual ho. Alternatively if I work from home for the next 25 days I can save enough money to pay for it myself.

Thanks to colly logic for the heads up.

4.1.06

NewsInterceptor.com

NewsInterceptor.com

RSS feed for MSN. It requires a plugin for MSN, but it's a plugin that's worth having anyway. I've given it an instal to see if it's any good.

LameToy Character Generator and other designer toys

LameToy™ Character Generator

Designer toys have gained increasing popularity over the last couple of years. Ultimate consumerism or postmodern art, the jury is still out. Toys aimed firmly at an adult audience with price tags to match, are a strange juxtaposition. Does it reflect a bunch of adults pining for the transformer or he-man figure they never got as a child, I'd say there isdefinitelyy an element of that; the desire to cling to childhood.

For most people childhood offered a lot of great things; freedom fromresponsibilityy and time to play. However as a designer the thing I'm really trying to recapture from my childhood is my imagination. The ability to find a plaything in everything, or more importantly in nothing.

I was an avid collector of things as a child, anything from stamps and badges to pencils and feathers. Thankfully I am now a little more pragmatic about what I collect and quite frankly I have better things to spend my money on than lumps of plastic,especiallyy when they can be hundreds of pounds. So when is a toy not a toy? When it's art.

Lots of artists have created designs for these toys, some creating their own toy range and some customising existing toys. These designers are usually illustrators who specialise in character design, so it seems a natural step to take these designs from 2D into 3D. Now I can afford a cool bit of their art for £10, rather than buying just a lump of plastic.

The thing that has captured my imagination is the subculture of customising these toys and creating your own toy. Templates are available online and then people create their own designs and show them off. Manufacturers have even created blank toys specifically to be customised. It's an interesting phenominum and one that despite my initial cynicsm has still managed to engage my interest.

Trexi
Kid Robot

3.1.06

Usability toolkit

About section page template

Useful documents and templates for usability testing. Very valuable. Bookmarked for later use.

microformats

microformats

Interesting - very intersting. And the first time I've seen AHAH; Asyncronous HTML and HTTP.

It's enough to make me smile.