West Coast Bloggers

Will that be one leg or three?

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 07:26 GMT

The above is a screen grab of a search I conducted for transport options, using the Transperth JourneyPlanner service, our local public transport provider.
Before you ask, yes, I do get what they mean here, however my eye was caught with how long the distance and time would take, depending on the number of legs; one leg or three?

Well, I thought it was funny.

Image: Screen grab of Transperth Journey Planner.

tags: journeyplanner, oneleg, threelegs, walking, transperth

Time to Drop Web Standards?

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 06:55 GMT

Last month Molly Holzschlag lead an interesting discussion on the divided state of the web standards community on A List Apart. Now we all know this has been happening for a while, this fragmentation of the web standards community.

Molly is prompting people to get involve with their web standards group of their choice, in an effort bolster the community, and maybe reverse the trend.

Okay it's a good idea in theory; but in reality, from a personal view I'm tired of the same thing time and time again. Take for example the Web Standards Group mailing list (we don't have a local WSG) I'm finding the constant rehashing of topics and questions and answers a bit pointless, to the point that I've just lost interest.

Other standards groups, via their mailing lists or forums, can be at times almost hostile to newcomers, or just not interested in new blood. Frankly I just don't have the time to be bothered trying to be heard in such an environment.

Elephant in the Room.

Partly I blame some of the strong personalities involved, particularly in the volunteer web standards communities such as WHATWG and WaSP. Especially with the WHATWG I have found the dominance of any discussion by a solid clique core. So much so that outsiders are not seen as being welcome at all. This in itself alone does not help foster the extension of a community at a time when getting volunteers of any way shape or form are becoming hard and harder to come by worldwide.

From what I have observed, people have also just altered and shifted their view points, true they are still thinking of web standards in a way, but in most cases the gleam has gone from the shiny prize of standards perfection.

What do you think, have we all just moved on, learnt it all and have now moved on?

The need and desire to move forward with the latest new innovation in the browser development community has lead to the implementation of early W3C draft guidelines by various vendors, in what is gearing up for an escalation.

Bring on the Darkest Hour.

It is this type of pressure the pushes the web community forward as well. You see the slower things move, the more we want the shiny new design toys that the browser vendors are offering, as they are building the hearts and mind of their browsers. It's really in a way gearing up to a war, a browser war. A time of chaos and confusion, of custom tags and the like. So maybe this is the twilight before the darkest web standards hour. So be it, it's all a cycle, the wheel will turn.

Maybe all this web standards and best practice is really just a waste of time. After all what real benefits, do web standards deliver for the general web user. Remember a site can be highly usable and accessible, but still be a web standards horror story. So if the user experience is good, do web standards count, optimistically I would like to think, yes. But realistically maybe that is a no.

Sorry Mols I think it's not looking good. What do you think, is it time to drop web standards?

Freelancing in a Recession

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:59 GMT

With the financial world in extreme crisis and various government running around in what can only be described as blind panic, one would could be forgiven for joining the mass panic. Granted that when the world economy does slide into recession that it is going to be tough generally.

However have been through three down turns I can give a few pointers that maybe helpful in these times of crisis. Particularly for people in Australia and New Zealand:

Don't Panic

First off, stop and consider anything you are going to do with a long term view point. You know that share markets go up and down. Remember the sun will come up tomorrow, you still have your health (well I hope you do) and you skill have the skills you have yesterday. Yes sure this one is very severer, combined with the fact that we are no longer living in a world where there is a separate regional economies. The world is now one large global economy. The interesting aspect of all is that this could be the first recession of the hyperconnected age. It will be interesting to see where people place the value of the web in household budget.
Be Conservative

Now you know that things are going to be tight. Clients are going to be late in paying. The cost of software, books and equipment is going to go up. You know these are a given. So it's time to be a little more conservative. Yeah that means cutting back a little on those geeky gadgets. But trust me you may need to. Also look at the software and hardware you are using, do you really need to move up to Adobe CS4 (for instance), maybe there is a cheaper alternative. I know in the downturn in the early nineties I had a very close look at what software and hardware I was using and its cost. Now one area you shouldn't cut is education and professional development. To do this will mean you find yourself behind the times when the recession lifts. So try and keep the conferences and networking going, even if you don't have the latest phone.
Last in First Out

As a freelancer there is the temptation to go run and hide; taking up full time employment at the first sign of a recession. If I where you I would very strongly consider the following points before you did this. When a firm fires someone they generally look at the people that have joined recently, mainly because these people are usually not fully integrated in the team yet and they have no real emotion attachment to that person, plus the payout is usually less. The last person in would be you. So just consider this unless you manage to grab a government position you may just be back where you started, but with no client base.
Try Contracting

If you are still thinking about bailing from freelancing then consider long term contracting. In some of the previous down turns I did from time to time take up a number of longer term contracts (1-2 years). Now these are ideal if you can win them, as they give you a constant cash flow. The work maybe a little mundane, but if you are savvy you will leverage the quiet times to improve your skills or even branch into new areas.
Consider Post Graduate Study

Sometimes it's a good idea if things are really going pear shaped, and you can afford it, to go back to full time study. Maybe do a Masters or the like. Sure this does have the problem of the University fees bill at the end of it all. But you will have a shiny new post graduate qualification at the end of it all, just in time for when things are on the up and up. The secret is to pick the right subject to work on that will maintain your skill set or better yet enhance it. Traditionally the market is very conservative when it comes out of a recession, so they tend to look for the people with the bits of paper.
Look Overseas

This is very topical for Australian and New Zealand. Now if the exchange rate is favourable for prospects in the UK and US, then you really should be considering looking for clients overseas as well. Now I would also be only be considering working with teams made only of people from places with a comparative exchange rate. So I would build the team locally to do jobs overseas. Sure they will have a depressed market, but if your prices are half that of the local (overseas) freelancer you are bound to get some interest.
Web Sites are Cheap

Developing, design or realigning a web site is a cheap form of marketing. When times get tough the bigger ticket items in terms of marketing budget tend to fall by the wayside. But the web is in relative terms a low budget item, so in many cases it will remain. Also traditionally in tough economic times big business does suffer. But it is the medium to small business, because of their agile nature, is able to survive. Improving their web service is often a good way for these businesses to get the jump on the big end of town.
Get Tough

As times get tough I would be researching any client or agency that comes to you to ensure that they have the money to pay. If you are in the slightest bit suspect, I would be asking for 80%-90% up front. For the bigger jobs maybe a credit check is in order. On the reverse side, cut your payment cycle down to say 14 days, this way people will stretch it to 30 days (back where it was). I would also be very pig headed with late payers. Ring them every day when it is late, don't email them, ring them. Ask them when you are going to be paid. If they say tomorrow, then tell them you will be ringing tomorrow if it hasn't arrived. And do just that. This works well if they have a separate accounts section, Also don't talk to the person processing, take it to their management. You get the gist, get tough it is your money.
Freelancers are not Employees

Speaking from experience, employees are expensive when the times are tough and they are just sitting around not earning you a dollar. But freelancers on the other hand only work when you have a project and hence are a lot cheaper. Plus they come with all the costs up front. This is great for a business that is finding it a little tight. So in some ways Freelancers are preferred in times of a recession as they are generally cheaper for the speculative ups and downs of a fluctuating marketplace.
Australia is not the US

Finally remember that Australia (well from my view) is not the US. While our economy is still part of the global share market and the rollercoaster that is associated with that. From a private business and government view our economy is a lot more stable, and doing very well. Yes times maybe be a little tough. But we have the capacity and innovation to weather this better than any country in our region, if not the world. Let the US panic, we can just sit here with our beer be all chilled and relaxed. We just have to think a little outside of the square. But Isn't that what we are good at.

So that's a short list of things to consider, I'm sure you have a few things that you do when times are a tough as well, why not share them.

What makes a great WebJam presentation?

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:05 GMT

Nick Cowie presenting at a WebJam even in Sydney in September 2007 – thanks to Gary Barber for the photo

As previously hinted at on this blog, WebJam 9 will be held in Perth after the Edge of the Web conference, November 6, at the UWA Tavern.

This will be Perth’s second WebJam event, although a few of the Perth Port80 regulars have had the WebJam experience at other conferences and events on the East coast of Australia. In fact, it will be WebJam number four for Perth developer Nick Cowie, who was a runner-up at the previous Perth WebJam event with his now-infamous “WebSledge” presentation, which poked fun at many members of the audience.

Seeing as he’s such a veteran, I thought I’d ask Nick a few questions which may help those who are thinking of presenting but are unsure what will go down well with the audience.

Do you get nervous? Is it scary up there with everyone looking at you?

Not at all, with a bit of luck half the audience will be people I know, and most would have seen me do more stupid stuff than will happen on stage that night.

The WebJam audiences I have experienced have been very sympathetic, so unless you are doing a blatant sales pitch they will forgive for almost anything.

It is only 3 minutes, so even you have a complete disaster it is over quickly. You can get to the bar and drown your sorrows while the next presenter takes the audiences mind off what happened.

With close to 20 presenters, the worse thing that could happen is you do a very ordinary presentation that gets lost in the noise of the other presentations. A bad presentation is more likely to be memorable and will get your message across.

So give me the good stuff: what's the secret of a great WebJam presentation?

I see a WebJam presentation as performance art, you have 3 minutes to entertain and inform the audience. So unless there is a real wow factor in what you are talking about/demonstrating, use humour, try to surprise the audience (e.g. add a stupid slide to your deck, use an embarrassing photo/video/audio of yourself, another presenter, well known audience member, celebrity in you demo etc), you could even try audience interaction. But remember it is only 3 minutes, so your presentation need to be fast, furious and punchy.

That certainly makes sense! Any other advice you want to offer?

You have only got 3 minutes, make the most of it. Script your presentation and practise it, get it down to about 2:30 to 2:45, just in case something goes wrong. Then practise it a few more times for good luck.

Be prepared, make sure that everything is preloaded on the computer that will used for the presentation and ready to roll the moment you step on stage. Your 3 minutes is precious, so don't waste 20 or 30 seconds opening software, typing in URLs, or waiting for websites to load.

Working with live websites is as risky as working with animals or children, so have alternatives ready just in case something goes wrong.

Great content should win, but in the past great presentations with ordinary content have done very well. So polish your presentation.

And finally, have a go. If you have a good idea or work you want to show off, sign up to present at WebJam. Spend a couple of hours preparing and step out on stage that night. It is great fun and slightly addictive!

There’s some excellent advice in there – thanks a lot Nick! Personally, I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

I may have put my name down to present with my awesome pal Ben. If we can do it, anyone can do it!

Posted from kay lives here

What makes a great WebJam presentation?

Why freelancers should go to conferences

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:17 GMT

Let me take my Event coordinator hat off for just one moment, and replace it with my “Hey, I'm a freelancer - why should I fork our hundreds of dollars to go to a conference” hat (I have a lot of very specific hats). Miles Burke recently wrote about why you should attend two conferences every year, but what about you, my fellow freelancers, who have to watch the pennies? I personally think freelancers have the most to gain from attending conferences - think about it:

Learning new stuff. As a freelancer, every minute you aren't working on a client project is money you aren't making. When do you get a chance to find out about new stuff? It's usually squeezed in around lunch time or after hours, which is cool but how can you moot the benefits of a new tech? Although things like twitter or forums fill the gap a little, nothing beats old school, real word face-to-face talks. There are lots of people at conferences who's minds are focused purely on new stuff.
Meet famous people. Conferences are really just an excuse for the organisers to fly over people they admire. The thing is, because these people are only really famous on the internet, they are still usually really down to earth and approachable and are more than happy to chew-the-fat over a beer or three.
Inspiration. Smart people hang out at conferences. Smart people talk about smart stuff at conferences. Smart ideas are inspirational. Every time I come back from a conference I have a head full of crazy ideas that I wish I had more time to implement.
Networking. I don't care what anyone says - the MOST important skill a freelancer can have is the ability to network. 90% of my freelance work comes through people I've met (And I'd put money on the fact that most freelancers are the same). Freelancers by definition won't have a dedicated marketing person, or a huge marketing budget, so networking is really a cheap and easy way to meet new clients (and more importantly new friends). Conferences have many people in a small area who could potentially want to talk to you. (Don't forget your business cards).
Tax Deduction. ‘Nuff Said

Ok, ok talk is cheap (thank god, otherwise I'd be bankrupt) but there really isn't a way to describe the experience of a conference - the only way you'll understand is to go to one. Now, you sandgropers are lucky because we have Edge of the Web on our doorstep. I had to fly to Sydney and sleep on a mates floor to get my first conference experience, and it still cost me nearly $2000 (but it was freaking awesome). You can get the same experience for $495 - I'm no Dr. Maths, but that sounds a truck load better.

Seriously, if you are umming and ahhing, just do it. I'll see you in November

So good you could steal it

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:41 GMT

It seems that the current Bam Creative website is so good, you could steal it. I'm not sure how you could ethically justify stealing it, but you could. This seems to be the trend anyway, looking at my blog post from less than a month ago about two others doing the same.

In yet another case of content theft, this time, they stole our business name (and added a digit in there, for good luck) as well as the text from most of their pages (including my favourite line, ‘Part of the Westway Nominees group of companies, Bam Creative specialises in websites…') and a few of our graphics.

Then, they arranged them on some very nasty looking template design, and thought they would never be noticed. Amazing!

Our images and text have been promptly removed from http://www.bam5creative.com/ - but I'm still not convinced of the name.

Image: Screen grab of Bam5 Creative website.

Interview with Tim Lucas

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:00 GMT

Tim Lucas is presenting a session at Edge of the Web 2008 called Developing for the iPhone, I had the chance to have a chat to him and find out a bit more -

Matt: Hi Tim, firstly, thanks for your time! Your doing an awesome sounding presentation called Developing for the iPhone - what can we expect to hear you talk about?

Tim Lucas: I'll be covering thinking beyond the iPhone (Android and friends), why the conventions for regular sites suck on these new devices, how to integrate a mobile site with your existing site and then going through some tasty Mobile Safari treats.

Matt: There's a lot of hype around the iPhone at the moment, do you think that hype is warranted or just Apple fans going overboard?

Tim Lucas: I think both the consumer hype and web developer hype is warranted, though it's more interesting to look at what it represents: the first mainstream Mobile 2.0 device; a mobile with a very capable standards-based browser, good screen real estate, high resolution touch screen and decent internet. From a web development perspective the iPhone is an absolute dream to develop for compared to old mobile development. From the end-user perspective I think it's making mobile web and online communication much more accessible—we're seeing much higher rates of net usage than other mobile devices.

The iPhone's our entry ticket but the lessons learned apply to the whole genre of similar new devices.

Matt: It sounds like your talk will cover quite a broad range of topics catering to both designers and developers, is there anything we should in particular we should know before your talk or can I attend with very little knowledge of working with mobile technology/websites?

Tim Lucas: If you're curious as to why you should care about mobile sites, and if you're interested in how to get started, you should find it interesting. For the second half which is a bit more technical I'm assuming you've had some experience with CSS and HTML in the desktop world, but you need no mobile experience.

Matt: Tim Lucas, thank you very much for your time and we look forward to seeing you very soon “on the Edge”!

Tim Lucas: Look forward to EOTW!

Keep your eye out for more interviews from some of the other AWIA members interviews with the other presenters from Edge of the Web in the next few weeks.

WebJam9 is coming to Perth

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:08 GMT

In conjunction with Edge of the Web, WebJam9 is coming to Perth on the evening of November 6. You do not need to attend the conference to go to WebJam.

If you have never been to a WebJam, you need to experience it at least once. Close to 20 geeks, giving short, and I mean short 3 minute presentations on what ever they are passionate about, often show off their new projects.

It is fun, fast and furious evening with a bunch of fellow geeks and there is usually a healthy bar tab to get you into the spirit. So you need to go register now for free as places are limited

Speaking at WebJam is fun and slightly addictive. I highly recommend it to anybody, even if you have never presented before. It is a great way to learn the skills to present and what is the worst that can go wrong. You lose your voice the moment you go on stage and have to give you presentation through interpretive dance. It is only 3 minutes so embarrassment will disappear quickly as soon as the next presenter gets on stage. Also as long as you are not giving a full on sales pitch, the audience is extremely forgiving.

I know I have given 3 presentations and hopefully I will be presenting at WebJam9, the topic is still undecided, I have a couple of ideas I have to work through, but I will definitely be there and presenting if I get the call.

So what tips have I got for first time WebJam speakers. Practice and practice again, you only have 3 minutes and the time limit is enforced. So make sure your presentation is less than 3 minutes long and you know it well. Also be prepared, the clock starts when you step on stage, so make sure everything is loaded and ready to roll. You can not afford to waste 20 or 30 seconds, starting software, typing in URLS etc. And most of all do not take it to seriously, have fun.

So start working on your proposal know and I will see you at the UWA tavern on November 6.

Edge of the Web on Twitter

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:03 GMT

Are you attending Edge of the Web, the Western Australian web conference which is kicking off in four weeks time? If you are (or wish you could, but cannot make it), you may be keen to know that many of the speakers and attendees are likely to be also on popular micro-blogging service, Twitter.

We've got a Twitter account for Edge of the Web (@eotw), which we'll be using over the coming weeks, and then over the conference. We have a few plans up our sleeves to involve twitter even more during the conference itself.

You'll find many of the fine speakers at the conference, in the twitterverse. Here's a handy list of them;

Chris Messina (@factoryjoe)
Derek Featherstone (@feather)
Cameron Adams (@themaninblue)
Ben Buchanan (@200ok)
Stephen Collins (@trib)
Kai Koenig (@agentK)
Lisa Herrod (@scenariogirl)
Nick Hodge (@NickHodge)
Marc Lehmann (@marclehmann)
Tim Lucas (@toolmantim )
Laurel Papworth (@SilkCharm)
Russ Weakley (@russmaxdesign)

….you can follow their tweets (along with @eotw), in the lead up, during and after Edge of the Web to see reactions, and get involved in the Twitter ‘back channel'. You'll also find many other attendees over those couple of days also on Twitter - for example, you can find me (@milesb).

This gives us all a great opportunity to interact with each other before the actual conference, and then afterwards as well. All sorts of crazy schemes, start-ups and social events have been hatched over Twitter, and we'll expect the same in the lead up to November as well. During the conference proper, we hope most people will be paying attention to the presentations, and expect a mad flurry of tweets during breaks and lunch, and then after the event, we'll see a tweet here and there about how awesome #eotw was!

We're encouraging everyone to use the hashtag #eotw if posting on Twitter about the conference. This way, you can use the Twitter search page to find #eotw related tweets.

Coming along and plan to twitter? Let us know, below!

Image: Screen grab, twitter.com/eotw

tags: eotw, twitter, web conference, edgeoftheweb

Free the Content, Maybe Not.

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:30 GMT

During the two conferences I attended recently, Web Directions South and OZ-IA there was a distinct theme in some the sessions on opening up the corporate knowledge based.

You know the score, you have bound to have heard this before. Don't lock the corporate information up, allow those statistics and figures, you are already presenting to the public to be readily accessed via some type of API. Allow people to remix, mashup and represent the information. The concept goes that it's better to allow this via a controlled API then have people scrape and represent or misrepresent the information. Hence you maintain control of your information using the API than the traditional scrape method.

Just to be clear I'm not talking of community building and customer relations in an online social environment, that's a completely different story.

Now this is all well and good. The concept works for large corporates and government (at all levels).

Sure Not for Profits can be involved in this type of Open Data as well, spreading their various reports etc as base API, allowing better visualisation and mashups with their data by themselves or a third party.

Small Business?

But what of medium to small business. Is this model of Open Data applicable to them as well.

Consider a small business, is there any information that can really be published outside of the sales catalogue that can be truly released to the public without damaging the longer term viability of the business. Open Data seems in a way in direct conflict with the core of any small business's operation. You don't really want to display and hand over your corporate data to your competitors do you.

So is the idea a waste of time for this segment of the business community. Well no not really; you don't want to put all your information out there granted. But you can take advantage of the information from other sources that have an open API and mashup that with say your product catalogue.

For example if you are selling or renting properties, Google maps is a good example of centralised visualisation point. You display your properties on the Google maps, fine that bit is easy, we have all seen this. Next you could also display the nearby bus stops, schools, pizza shops, local geo tagged photos, and so on. Thinking about this example aren't we just bringing the old GIS maps with their multiple layers of spacial informaiton to the web.

Stepping it up

But it doesn't stop there, a cluey small business could leverage these open data sources with their APIs to mashup the data to present a new slant on existing information, now I'm not saying that this representation should in turn be made public, no far from it. But it will present a new way of looking at a target market for sure. The pivotal point here is the availability of the Open Data via an API.

So is this yet another way that small business can cheaply get the drop on the big corporates?

WA Web Awards Finalist!

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 05:43 GMT

Well, the finalists for 2008 WA Web Awards have been announced and my silly little Super Mario Brothers JavaScript experiment is in the running in the Web Innovation category.

If you think that Mario Brothers is the awse, go and vote for it in the people's choice award (You need OpenID). Apparently this blog got a highly commended too, which is kind of cool.

The Edge on the Web and the WA Web Awards are only one month away, which is rather exciting - you are going aren't you?

Goodbye IE6

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:22 GMT

For the last few months I have noted on average across my clients sites that IE6 has now slipped to below 40%. Okay this is just a magical number. But for me it has great significance. This is the tipping point for an aging browser on the decline. At this point it goes from the pixel perfect section on the browser compliance matrix to the section major resemblance. This is the grey zone between perfection and the old fall back graceful degradation.

What does this mean. Well basically anything in IE6 will not be rendered exactly the same as in the other major browsers (IE7, Firefox, Safari*). All the visuals will be there. It's just little things like minor visual features, layered pngs or some JavaScript functionality will just not be catered for. Sure I'm still using progressive enhancement with a Hijax overlay to produce a graceful degradation.

Overall IE6 is just slipping away into the old browser bin. You may say, but others have been doing this for a while. Yes true, but from a business realism view point I have had to wait until IE6 was well the truely on the downward spiral. Sadly this has taken a while.

Interestingly I have been designing sites of late that are pushing the visual representation and functional ability of IE6 anyway. So maybe subconsciously I have been making this move for a while. This doesn't mean I forgetting about IE6. But it does mean that I'm not focusing on the finer visual representation of my designs in IE6.

It's not that I hate IE6, well some days I do, it is the bane of my design existence, but it did bring some support for CSS1, DOM, iframes, improved XMLHttpRequest and some SMIL support. Also remember IE6 was the quirks mode browser degrading the render to IE5.5. IE6 was the sandbox for many a DHTML project in it's day, and it served us well for the time.

But let's remember it was released August 2001 after all it's 28 internet years old, time for us to move on I think design wise. Not that 28 is old… oh just forget the age thing and more on…

* - okay I know FireFox and Safari are not major browsers, but they are my design starting point so they stay, understand.

Webjam 9

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:23 GMT

Registration is now open for both presenting and attending Webjam 9, to be held on November 6 2008 at the UWA Tavern following Edge of the Web's conference day.

I know a couple of people have already put in to present and as I write, only 174 spots remain to attend.

Webjam 9 - http://webjam.com.au/webjam9

2008 WA Web Awards - Finalists announced

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:39 GMT

The finalists have been announced for the 2008 WA Web Awards and it's great to see such a high calibre of website making it to the list.

This year, Judging Coordinator Helen Burgess said the standard was so high, that they had to introduce a list of Highly Commended sites that missed out - looking at both lists I would thoroughly agree.

Congratulations to my friends Kay, Dave and Al over at Clever Starfish (and to their designer Levi as well), Myles Eftos, Gary Barber, Simone Van Hattem, Alex Graham and Darcy Laycock who all made the finalist list as well!

Midnite Youth Theatre Company (my one and only entry this year sadly), is a finalist in the Student category, so now we'll sit and wait to find out who the winners are! (actually, we'll all go buy tickets now).

If you haven't registered for the fantastic Edge of the Web conference that's coming up in November, I'd strongly urge you to - The line-up of speakers is great for a conference that is being run for the first time. One of the events I previously alluded to (last post on EotW), WebJam 9 will be held on the first night of Edge of the Web and it should be absolutely rocking.

So go - buy tickets to Edge of the Web and the WA Web Awards and not only show your support for the industry but pick up some new skills and meet some new peeps as well.

Edge of the Web - http://www.edgeoftheweb.org.au
WA Web Awards - http://www.wawebawards.com.au
WebJam - http://www.webjam.com.au

AUC /dev/world/2008 - Quick summary

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:42 GMT

So I've been home approximately 10 minutes now and very close to entering a comatose like state (damn time zone changes flying back and forth), but I thought I'd give a quick summary of /dev/world/2008 and perhaps follow that up with a longer post when I'm conscious.

This was the first time /dev/world has run and for a new conference it went off well. I've heard attendance figures in the region of 144, which is a decent number.

The sessions were good, but I felt they were too rushed. In particular the sessions on Xcode and the iPhone SDK which probably could have worked as half day workshops or perhaps been given a longer lecture time allotment with a break in the middle.

Finally, I do need to thank some people:

Jack Sauer - My year 12 room mate for the three days (read: poor guy that had to deal with me for three days). His website doesn't work at the moment but he's on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jacksauer

Nicholas Black, Ricky D'Amelia, Alexander Jackson & George Mak - the other student attendees who kept things interesting during the spare time we had.

Dr Geoff Alagoda - The Director of ICT at CCGS (where I go to school) who was the “babysitter” for the pack of school students.

Peter Murray, Jessica Gruads and the team at the AUC (Andrew Jefferies, Daniel Saffotti & Tony Grey) - thanks for the opportunity!

As I said, I'll post something a little more detailed when I'm awake and throw the pics I have up as well!

Web Directions South 2008

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:52 GMT

Day One - Sept 25

For another year the web industry from across Australia came together at the Sydney Convention Centre for Web Directions South 2008. Expectations where high could John and Maxine pull together another outstanding conference in the epic Web Directions series.

After a successful AWIA Port80 on the evening before where Clever Starfish, radharc, Free Wireless Australia, and Saasu sponsored drinks, It was in a bleary eye state that we descended upon the Sydney Convention Centre. This year I had a mind to attend topics that I didn't know about, and stretch myself.

Lynne G Johnson - Keynote

The keynote that starts a conference can often set the tone for the entire conference. I have been to conferences in the past where the first keynote basically blows you mind with amazing concepts and ideas. This allows the rest of the conference to build upon this talk. Now I didn't know who Lynne G Johnson was will this conference, but still I trusted the organisers judgment and assumed it would be good.

It's not that the talk wasn't good, it was. I was just left with the feeling that maybe I was at the wrong conference as it seemed to be pitched a print media, corporate sector crowd, not the uber elite of the web industry. Considering the person ROI I have to make from each session, this one left me very worried.

A few suggests to Lynne, research your audience, If you are going to reference culture icons then try and find the equivalent of the country you're speaking in. To assume we are “just like US” is a very arrogant move that just makes you appear a little silly. It's easy to do you just have to chat with the conference organisers.

Dimitry Baranovskly - Web Vector Graphics

Now this session slot was a problem. To go see Dimitry, support my friend Kay Smoljak, or Derek Featherstone. Having attended Derek's workshop earlier in the week (which was outstanding, hat tip to Derek) the decision was really between Dimitry and Kay. Dimitry won.

Dimitry gave us and introduction to vector graphics on the web moving onto the problems and compatibility of VML, canvas and SVG. As always Dimitry was extremely knowledgeable on this topic and rounded the presentation off with an introduction to his framework Raphaël, The examples and implementation of Raphaël that he demonstrated had the audience wanting to see more and more. If you have not checked out this framework yet I suggest you do.

Tim Lucas and Pete Ottery - Developing for the iPhone

This dynamic duo of Tim and Pete made it very clear from the out set that we should be developing for the mobile phone in general and not specifically the iPhone. The talk discussed the problems of phone detection to a separate sites, opposed to a mobile optimised CSS. Overall it was really the presentation of several case studies, but it was very interesting to hear the problems they had an how they overcame them. Well worth looking to.

Javascript Libraries

This panel on Javascript was presented as a shoot out of the major Javascript libraries, jQuery, YUI, prototype of pure Javascript. It was very interesting to see the different ways that people approached the same task and the resultant number of lines of code and total file footprint for each library.

The underlying message was that you have to pick your library for the task. However you have to bee aware that there will be trade offs with each project you do. And at times it maybe better to infact just use pure Javascript for the solution as Cameron Adams demonstrated time and time again.

Jeff Croft - Elegent Web Typography

Now I cut the Javascript Libraries session short to go see Jeff Croft.

I'm always a sucker for the good use of typography. Jeff started the session well, giving a traditional overview of typography from a print perspective.

Now I ‘m not really in agreement with Jeff's approach to the subject. For instance so what that bullets and quotes should ride outside the paragraph margins. That was for the print industry, this is now the web, its a different media and hence shouldn't some new rules apply.

The points he went trough where really just basic use of fonts on the web, grid layout and determination, paragraph rhythm, colour and contrast, limitation of typefaces, line heights, kerning, justification and font replacement .

For me personally there was nothing new in this talk, plus I found Jeff's machine gun rapid fire delivery a little annoying.

But the real icing on the cake was Jeff's suggestion that maybe we should be sticking with absolute sized fonts. I can tell you this was a red rag to a bull for most of the crowd, including myself as my twitter stream contests. We will see what Jeff has to say about absolute sized fonts when he is over 40 and his sight is starting to fade.

August de los Reyes - Predicting the Past

This closing keynote for day one was a good overview of surface computing and the progression of interface development from today into the future. It was a mixture of psychology, interface design and cognitive recognition, over all very slick.

There where several almost SciFi type presentations of new interfaces with lots of glowing line and Utopian environments. And several Microsoft adverts, that frankly where a little hard to take. August came to the edge of being a sell-out speaker slot and stepped back. This one factor marred a good presentation. If Microsoft allow the podcast/slidedeck to be published look out for it.

Day Two - Sept 26

After an average day on Thursday and three social events that night, Web Directions Reception, the ever rockin' WebJam 8 and the AussieTUB meetup it was as expected a very slow start. Much needed Cafe Stories bacon and egg with extra pepper roll was required to kick start it all!

I was hoping that this day would pick up a little in terms of speaker content.

Jeffrey Veen - Designing out way Through Data

I have been wanting to see Jeffrey Veen speak for a while, and he didn't disappoint at all. Taking the movement of the static into the dynamic, from the flat to the visualised. Jeff point out we need to get back to giving the users the tools to build the data into information and tell their story. To leverage the visualisation of the data. To take it beyond the static into the visual.

It comes down to remembering to enforce the core function, and bring the story together, without the story the data is just data.

This presentation was inspirational, I feel it should have opened day one. Go find the slides and podcast if you missed it.

Jina Bolton - Creating Sexy Style Sheets

Jina stepped up and presented well. This was a hard call as she can't talk about her work at Apple, and was basically restricted to her own personal work or generalist topics on CSS. That said she did present a good grounding in CSS method and techniques with a few glances into CSS3, with some very sexy design visualisation of the output.

From a personal view there was very little in this presentation that I didn't already know. Was it a refresher, well no it wasn't even that. Good presentation, just not for me at all.

Michael ™ Smith - HTML5

Michael ™ Smith ran us through why HTML5 is taking so long, but did point out some of the nicer improvement and streamlining of the proposed spec. There were a lot of things hinted at and not said in this presentation on the politics of the HTML5 working group. Overall it was a good journey through the jungle of the HTML5 specification. Even had a few bits I had forgotten.

Douglas Crockford - Ajax Security

This was another conflict session for me as I also wanted to see Ruth Ellison on Integrated Accessibility into Design. But as I was trying to stretch my knowledge and not just confirm it Douglas won out.

Okay this was a dry discussion, but I expect that, it's not really a sexy topic is it. If you where really listening to this it as a very scary presentation. We have a Javascript standard in place that is buggy and insecure at best. And it has been that way off and on for years. The only real way forward that Douglas suggested was another browser war to bring on the innovation.

Mark Pesce - This, that and the other Thing

Mark Pesce returns for another awesome closing keynote. It's a hard think this one, Mark has presented some amazng keynotes at Web Directions in the past. And this one was no exception. It did review the others a little, and then step up with some good visiualisation and the use of the mob in the room out doing Mark mid speech via the back channel. This was classic. Mark build upon his previous messages we now have the mob but the mob needs now to organise into a community and take charge, lead our destiny. Sadly this will be Mark's last keynote for Web Directions South for a while.

Overall

Venue, Food and the lot

This very good, in fact the food this year was outstanding, lots of choices with a very well thought out menu.

The coffee was a little better than previous years, it was drinkable. There were various soft drinks available as well at lunch, however not much of a sugarless range, point to note for next year. One minor point the water jugs where all taken away to be refilled after the major breaks leaving attendees with no water.

The Sydney Convention Centre suffers from being a bunker of steel and concrete and hence blocks most wifi and 3G signals. But this wasn't overall too bad as the wifi in the breakout areas was outstanding with the Meraki mesh network, thanks to Free Wireless Australia.

Final Word

Now I don't consider myself to really be an uber web geek. Sure I'm competent in some areas, but overall I feel I still have a way to go, and would expect that many of the sessions at Web Directions would have made me think and stretched me.

This year it just didn't happen. In fact I found just under half the sessions to be lack lust. This has made me question if attending Web Directions every year is really worth while. Maybe I have reached the stage that I'm approaching the knowledge of the people on the stage, and Web Directions South is no longer catering for me as an audience.

Or maybe what is needed is a simple indicator on the program as to the level of knowledge required by the audience for any given presentation. So I know if the presentation is pitched at a basic level not to attend.

Overall what did I think of the conference. Some of it was outstanding, with the usual Web Directions flare of pointing us to the new directions on the web. It just seemed a few speakers let the mix down.

Still hat tip to John and Maxine for bringing the web tribe together for another year.

So ends ten days of web geekery. Next stop, five weeks from now we do it all again for Edge of the Web.

What I learnt at Web Directions South 08

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:17 GMT

First off, thank to WA government for having the foresight for ignoring the actual birthday of the Queen and making today a public holiday - my couch has been-a callin'. So what has been happening over the past couple of days?

Day 0

After getting in early morning on the Wednesday, I toddled along to Stories for one of their famous egg and bacon rolls with Simon, Lachlan and Nick. Oh how I've waited for that. I could have gone home at this point a happy man, but then there was work to do! Spending the day tweaking my presentation, next it was up to the Kirk for memories of last year (Yes, they still only have five pint glasses) and then on to Port80 Sydney: Wednesday edition. We had a fantastic turnout, with over 80 people - most of which were new faces. Big ups to Clever starfish, radharc and Saasu.com for throwing dollars on the bar. I'm seeing a definate pattern here in regards to free beer.

Day 1

Waking up slightly hung over, I was off to the registration desk, and then the games began. Highlights for me was Dmitry Baranovskiy's web vector graphics talk. I'm about to go download raphael and build some stuff - not only if the guy a genius, but his talks are hilarious. Unfortunately, I missed the JavaScript workshop, where I hear Cameron Adams wowed the crowds with a JavaScript drum machine - with visualizations. The final keynote from August de los Reyes tied software and psycology together, something that I think is the crux of what we do. It was also a great talk, although the ads were a little too much to take.

What I learnt:

Seeing cool stuff is inspiring.
When giving a presentation, find out about the audience - it's better to pitch a bit to high than to low.
Don't try to squeeze in 2 hours of material into 55 minutes

Day 1.2

Next up was WebJam8. The one big disappointment of this trip is that I didn't get something entered in WebJam, but having a Web Directions talk to do and a stupid amount of work took priority… Some really cool stuff was shown: Dmitry came third with a live code, that added reflections and animation to images on a web page, Diana came second with a crazy funny fast presentation about governments and bike helmets and the winners, Mr Speaker and Henry Tapia did a awesome YouTube remixer. In a moment of unlike-me-ness, I wentback to the hotel at a reasonable hour…

Day 2

…and for the first time EVER made it to the first session of the second day! So no one can joke that I missed the best talk of the conference (as happened the past couple of years) and I wasn't dissapointed. Jeffrey Veen is a brilliant speaker, and I wanted to pull my laptop out right there and then and cut some code. This is the sort of stuff that makes these conferences. After lunch, I gave my presentation on OpenID, OAuth and webservices (Available on slideshare here), and I think it went pretty well. The backchannel was only positive, so I count that as a win. Next I headed over to Douglas Crockford for a good old fashioned Computer Science lecture, god that takes me back! Whilst a little dry, and technical (Who am I kidding - I wanted that) it generated some great discussion.

What I learnt:

Great talks bring in personal experience
You need to get the audience to think
Dual monitor Powerpoint never works properly when you need it to

Closing night

With all of the festivities over, it was time to let the hair down at the Shellbourne, for a quick shandy. Had a debate about designers vs UX experts (We were actually arguing the same point, it turns out), and had many an indepth conversation, including one with Charles from Opera, about webservice brokering. So much so, my plans to build one may now be possible (Huzzah!).

What I learnt:

Finding random “locals” to go out with doesn't mean they know where they are going
Peanuts 2u is actually a brand of salted almonds
There is a “No redheads” policy in NSW pubs
Bats are weird and scary

So that was my Web Directions experience in a nutshell! Roll on Edge of the Web - only five weeks until we get to do it all over again!

OZ-IA 2008 - Day Two

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:22 GMT

So on with the summary of the second day for OZIA 2008. Okay this is a few days late, but better late than never, eh. Day two sees the return of three minute massages, juice bar, real coffee and great speakers after the official and alternative (late) dinners. As with day one I'm not going to summarise it all, but just go over few highlights I had.

Website to Webapp – designing for workflow - Shane Morris

Shane Morris looked at the problem of using tools and techniques developed for the old school web of the document view to the newer application based web site. And how they just don't apply anymore and how there are alternatives like screen flow (in various forms) and functional mapping techniques could be used instead.

How many seconds does it take to order a burrito? - Zafer Bilda

This was an incredibility interesting talk on the application of Information Architecture techniques onto the improvement of sales and procedures for a small food chain. It was especially enlightening to see so many user research and navigation tools being used in what is traditionally a marketing area.

Contextual Enquiries – the who, how, why, and when - Lisa Herrod

Despite some minor technical issues, Lisa Herrod delivery a good presentation on contextual enquiries. It was really just an overview of some of the pain points and ways around them for people wanting to move into this area of contextual research. I found myself agreeing with many of the points she was making. Of particular importance was the classic do's and don'ts. This will be one talk to rewatch on the video.

The Pleasure and Pain of UX freestylin’ - Donna Spencer, Gary Barber

I have no idea what this session was like, as I was presenting it, feedback is always welcome.

If you missed, maybe the slide deck will help, yes it does contain ‘that' slide. Hopefully the podcast and video will follow. Sorry no transcript at this point in time.

The Pleasure and Pain of UX Freestylin

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: freelance UX)

OZ-IA 2008 - Day One

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:48 GMT

So now it's day two of OZIA 08, after having Japanese food thrown at us last night at dinner, it's now time to review the highlights of yesterday.

Where is Square 1? - James Hunter.

James gave us a good perspective of the problems people have getting into the IA industry and how hard it can be to in fact cross train and become an IA. The problems of lack of mentoring, local internships and general training. He raises the question, where are the junior IA positions. He has a very good point, we are just not fostering junior IA development in Australia.

Automated tree testing - faster, better, smarter? - Sam Ng.

The thing I really liked about Sam's presentation (besides the kerning on the font) was that he was talking about testing methods that I have been using for years, with my own home grown term. This makes me think how many tools and techniques do we as IxD use that we all call different things, when in fact they are the same.

UX Strategy: defining and executing strategies for your projects and teams - Steve Baty.

Steve's presentation for me hit the nail on the head in terms of building a UX strategy. But the thing that really got me was he focus of bringing together teams for strategy development. This is something that I have not really considered in the past, however this resonated so well with my freelance work.

Search and sensibility: Four tales of search - Louisa Cameron, Angus Fraser, Scott Bryant, Chris Khalil.

The one thing that came solidly out of the New Digital Media presentation was that search is king. Search has to work, and work well. Search is critical it must work or the site will fail. It was very interesting to see the different types of search methods used and the implementation and testing methods used. In fact a lot of the sessions this year seem to be focusing on search.

The Venue

Okay visually the venue is outstanding, 5 star nd beyond, the attention to detail is amazing. But frankly the Stamford Plaza Double Bay staff are just not used to having the interaction and requirements of a 100 or so delegates of a conference. I would say that they are just used to set and forget types of events like weddings and dinners. Now this is no reflection on the organisers, but the venue management.

Have a happy and safe conference season

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:44 GMT

We are about to head into my favourite times of the year - Australian web conference season! Ausralia's biggest web conference - Web Directions South - is due to kick off on Thursday, and as usual the Perth Posse (sans Adrian and Rose) and heading over. There is even a few n00bs who have joined the clan, making for this years Port80 Sydney even bigger! As previously mentioned, I'm lucky enough to be speaking on OpenID, OAuth and Webservices on Friday. Not to mention always amazing WebJam 8 on Thursday night (Unfortunately a lack of rips in the time-space continuum has stopped me from presenting in that this year - I petition for a 30 hour day - whos with me?) and the always crazy post-conference drinks on the Friday. Let the games begin.

BUT! We can't let the east coast have all the fun - don't forget that Perth first major web conference is happening in less than 6 weeks! Our little sub-committee has been toiling away for the past few months organising the very first Edge of the Web conference and fourth WA Web Awards. Tickets are on sale now for both events, being held on November 6 and 7. There are some awesome speakers coming from overseas and over-east. There is also a number of other soon-to-be announced activities, so what this space.

Excited?

Design Thieves once again

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:48 GMT

Above; the Bam Creative website, circa 2006 until now…

Back in May 2006, we had our first serious copy of the Bam Creative website. My approach at that time was to collect evidence, hire a lawyer and go after the offender. It worked - they took the site down, and ended up settling with us for our claims out of court. My two posts about this incident can be seen here and here.

Then, in September last year, we had another thieving designer pick up the Bam Creative website, code and all and use it on a client website. This time, I only posted about it once, and I called them ‘lazy designers'. I didn't ‘name and shame', I didn't even link to the offending website, as I felt sorry for the client involved. In this instance, we had our lawyers contact them directly, and the site was removed, and our case was quickly sorted out.

A few weeks ago, once again, a fellow web company owner points me in the direction of two copies of our site. Now, is this flattery, when not only do they swipe our XHTML and CSS, but also the photo of the window at the front of our office, and most of the text? (Exhibit A, above)

Then again, this one (Exhibit B) using most of our words, XHTML and CSS. The thing that disappoints most of the team at Bam Creative though, is the lack of quality improvements, as opposed to the dodgy additions that get added.

Anyway, both the above examples have now been sorted out - websites gone, apologies accepted, etc.

Now, what should we do, next time around? What do you feel is a fair punishment for this behaviour?

Images: The ‘Stolen from Bam Creative' 2008 Collection.

tags: bamcreative, copyright, copyright theft, design thief, site piracy, site rip, stolenfrombamcreative

Pulling out the Jams

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:30 GMT

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that it is now conference season here in Australia. Over the next two weeks or so you are going to be getting nothing but posts on conference related activities. Sorry if this isn't not what you were expecting.

Presently I'm in the belly of a 737-700 just crossing the eastern side of the Great Australian Bight on my way to Sydney for Oz-IA 2008 and Web Directions South 2008. This year there is yet again another special event, besides the traditional Port80 meetup on the eve before Web Directions South (proper). Yes its WebJam time again, that crazy time when 18 or so web peeps take to the stage and delivery what can only be described as a roller coaster of information in 3 minutes or less.

The WebJam crew (Lachlan Hardy, Lisa Herrod and Tim Lucas) have yet again puled out all the stops. This year its on Thursday 25th Sept, starting at around 7:30pm to late, upstairs in the Bar Broadway, Corner of Regent Street and Broadway, Opposite UTS tower .

But remember you have to RSVP to attend. I would be sitting around about RSVPing either, there is a limit to how many people the venue can handle. So go on get over there and register.

What makes it very cooler, is AWIA and the conference Edge of the Web are sponsoring WebJam as well. So this means we that Edge of the Web supporting peeps demonstrating the Edge of the Web. Awesome.

So if you are at any of these events come up and say hi. I don't bite.

RoRO Perth - September Meetup (15/9)

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 07:03 GMT

Well, half the Ruby crew are now ~~living~~ working at 220 Carr Place in Leederville, so it only seemed natural that the event would end up at a new home around there

So, for the first time in a number of months, there will be a Ruby on Rails Oceania (Perth) meetup at Fibber McGees in Leederville (map just below for those who don't know where it is)

View Larger Map

So all your Ruby/Rails developers (and anyone else who feels inclined to show up and talk shop), see you at 5pm on Thursday the 18th of September (this Thursday…I'm a little slow, Myles beat me by weeks :P)

Abusing JavaScript for fun and profit: Redux

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:46 GMT

The fine lads at Sitepoint have just just notified me that part I or my article outlining my JavaScript Mario Brothers game is up on the front page. This part goes through the JavaScript and CSS techniques I used - it's a bit theoretical, but if you are a frontend developer and want to get a better understanding of how to use JavaScript classes, go and check it out.

The next part will get into some game
theory (not that I'm really an authority on that) but it really was a fun experiment.

A room with a view

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 08:12 GMT

Whilst not being one to make gross generalisations (heh!) I like to think there are two schools thoughts on databases - those that use “extended” features such as triggers, views and temporary tables, and those that don't. I, for one fall firmly in the latter - usually.

However over the past few days a major project that I've been working on brought forth a requirement for some hardcore reporting. Due to the database structure that was required (there was a lot of dynamic fields and association tables) doing it in ActiveRecord was near impossible - in fact, doing it in native SQL was equally painful.

Quite jokingly, MySQL views were suggested, but then in a cold flash back to my days working in Government environments, reminded me that DBAs used views for this stuff all the time, so time to investigate.

The idea is pretty simple: a view is a virtual table that is based on a SQL query that you can run queries against, which means you can easily flatten associated tables and turn complex search queries into simple ones. Example…

Say you have a structure that looks something like this:

(Excuse the diagram - My windows laptop is in the other room and the graphics editors in Linux are balls)

So as you could imagine, you may have companies that have many projects which in turn have many shifts. Who would you calculate all the shifts from a particular company? You would probably end up with something like this:

SELECT shifts.id, shifts.start, shifts.end FROM shifts INNER JOIN projects ON shifts.project_id = projects.id INNER JOIN companies ON projects.company_id = company.id WHERE company_id = 4

Which, whilst fairly simple, is a pain to write - and it can only get worse if the data model becomes more complex. This is where views make life so much easier. By creating a view using a simple query:

CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW shift_reports AS SELECT company.id AS company_id, company.name AS company_name, project.id AS project_id, projects.name AS project_name, shifts.id AS shift_id, shifts.start AS shift_start, shifts.end AS shift_end FROM shifts INNER JOIN projects ON shifts.project_id = projects.id INNER JOIN companies ON projects.company_id = company.id

we now have a virtual table called shift_reports with columns: company_id, company_name, project_id, project_name, shift_id, shift_start and shift_end ehic you can query just like any other table. (I am aware that the query is much longer than the one we are trying to replace, but you only do it once per database, and the example is contrived - humour me). An example query would be: SELECT * FROM shifts_reports WHERE company_id = 4 - much cleaner! Where this becomes even cleaner is if you are trying to link this up to a search form - everything matches up with a much bigger bow (especially if you are using a framework like Rails).

Whilst on the topic of frameworks (like Rails) - because it is exposed as a regular table, you can point ActiveRecord at it - just create a corresponding model and find until your heart is content, just don't try to modify the records, as it will fail miserably (views are read-only).

So next time a client asks you to create an impossible report, your cold sweat may be slightly less shiver-inducing…

Conference Time

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 03:58 GMT

It is that time of the year again, I am off to four conferences, three in Sydney and a number of social occasions in the next 11 weeks.

First up is OZIA, on the 20 & 21 September. I am really looking forward to this one, I have enjoyed the past two OZIAs and they have been real learning experiences for me.

Then it is of to Web Direction South on 25 & 26 September, though before that I could attend Web 2.0 Executive Bootcamp, unless somebody needs it more than me. If you are a manager or leader in government or business and are looking at adopting Web 2.0 tools and practices in your business and happen to be in Sydney on 23 September, head over to Incentive redux - free pass to Web 2.0 Executive Bootcamp and tell Stephen why. The only competition for the free ticket at the moment is me and if you beat me out, there will be no hard feelings, I am no executive.

On the evening of 24 September there is Port 80 Sydney and 25 September there is STUB. The last couple of Web Directions, have been more of a social events with a dash of inspiration and couple of presentations that made my think and I don't expect this year will be different.

3 weeks later I am back in Sydney for the MySource Matrix User Conference on October 16 & 17. This time I am presenting, it will be a quick run down of the forthcoming State Library of WA website, the details on it's information architecture including the process and decisions involved as well as the features of MySource Matrix used to achieve the result. As with most conferences, the really interesting conversations are between the sessions and at the end of the day. What should be more interesting than last year, is more people will be doing show and tell on their MySource Matrix websites.

Then is back to Perth for Edge of the Web on November 6. A fully fledged web conference in my home town. I am not sure exactly what to expect. I have seen most of the presenter in action before and they are all good, the schedule requires some tough decisions and it will be a good conference. I hope it has that buzz that happened at Web Essentials 05 or OZIA 2007 that will make it a special conference.

If you happen to be at any of these conferences or social events, then come up and say Hi, I am not that difficult to spot, I do look like my profile photo/avatar and being a shameless self promoter you should be able to spot my crumpler or that tshirt I don't bite, honest.

The Principles of Successful Freelancing

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:27 GMT

I've been quiet here on Miles' Blog for some six months now, partly because we've moved house, changed kids schools and had a third child join us, and partly because business has been booming, but also because I have been spending those hours I'd normally be posting to this blog, quietly authoring a book.

Yes, a book; one of those fancy printed things with paper and a cover and sit inside book stores (as well as online stores…).

The Principles of Successful Freelancing, published by the good folk at SitePoint, will be hitting the shelves in early December.

Without saying too much at this stage, the book is ‘Full of anecdotes and practical advice, this short, hands on guide is written for people who want to become freelancers in the technology sector.‘

I'll post more about the book closer to the release date. If you'd like to be emailed when The Principles of Successful Freelancing is released, feel free to add a comment below…

Image: Manuscript for The Principles of Successful Freelancing.

tags: book, freelance, freelancer, sitepoint book, the principles of successful freelancing, web freelance, sitepoint

A Review - Painting the Web

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 03:23 GMT

Rating:: 3.5

Painting the Web by Shelly Powers is not the type of book I would normally pick up. Having 14 years web design experience means that you tend to have absorbed something in the way of use of graphics on the web, from raster images, to Scalar Vector Graphics (SVG), which is what this book is all about.

Looking at this book from its title alone, I first thought, Painting the Web was a book on SVG. But I was wrong, well partly wrong.

Shelly, takes you through what makes up the graphics on the web now and into the future in a chatty friendly manner, however this book can be a touch dry when it comes to technical explanations.

Raster to Start, Plus a little SVG

It moves through image and colour theory onto a review of professional to budget applications both desktop and online. The book presents a no nonsense explanation of the software. It also supplies a few how to recipes on the building of raster graphics for the web.

A good third of the book is dedicated to the use of vector graphics on the web. Dealing with X3D, VRML (now that brings back memories), VML, SVG (noting it's restrictive browser implementation). I was expecting maybe a little discussion on desktop vector applications, but instead there is comprehensive introduction on SVG. It's not just a few pages folks, this goes from the simple to complex examples. There is also a good overview of the SVG tools and editors in the marketplace to round it off.

Web Design Basics

There is a small section looking at CSS. Now this is not meant to be a primer, it assumes you know your CSS, and I'll assume you do. The book looks at the more advanced elements of CSS 2, not bad if you're not using all the browser compliant elements already. It runs us through concepts such as pseudo-elements, specificity and styling microformats. Like with Raster graphics there are a number of CSS recipes as well.

For me this is where the book slips up a little; if we are uber CSS designers then we should know all the basics that she explains such as layered background, conditional statements, font unit resets, unordered list menus.

There is a section on the principles of good design, as well, detailing how to layout a good semantic web page, be that static or via a flexible layout grid.

One small point on the microformats front, a footnote reference to the microformats wiki would have been a nicety, it's not a biggie, something to consider for the 2nd edition. There is also no explanation what microformats are and how they are used. Slap on the wrist to the technical editor.

Lets Go Dynamic

Dynamic Web Page Graphics is also gets a look in. I was expecting a section on Silverlight, Flash, a little AIR and maybe a some Ajaxian animation. What the book presents is DHTML (shudder - does anyone still use that term anymore). This book steps through the DOM and the usual manipulation of the CSS styling moving onto lightbox and accordion functionality using the standard unobtrusive Javascript implementation. Again this is a quick visit into the ajaxian world.

Paint the Canvas

There is a interesting exploration into the realm of the canvas and it's extension into the use with SVG. This book explains the creation of simple objects and their comparison to SVG, to the use of canvas effects and transformations. The canvas element is one of those under used elements that I can see getting a greater use in the near future.

The section ends with an extensive bringing together of SVG and the canvas with a little Javascript and manipulation of the DOM. It is the use of this type of animation techniques demonstrated in the book, that make me really question the need for implementation of like functionality in traditional animation rendering platforms like Flash.

Overall

Overall it's not a bad book, like I said previously, not something I would pick up, but I'm a little jaded on the subject and looking for the edge. Still the sections on SVG and the canvas where informative.

These sections on SVG and canvas to some may seem to be worthless. Well I have the feeling that we are going to see a greater use of these to with the development of various dynamic canvas libraries as with have with Javascript. This book has just seeded the ground for this with a good primer in the subject. With the increasing compliance of browsers with SVG, it will not be long before this is another standard technique for front end developers..

However, the book could do with the gleam of a good technical editor, there are sections of the book that I was wincing over, not that they are technically wrong. It was just the sequence of the chapters and the information therein, a little too much on digital imagery and photographic aspects for my liking for instance.

This with some of the disjointed sections it tended to give me the impression that the book was all over the place not really knowing what it wanted to be, graphics, CSS, AJAX, SVG, Canvas or design overview; it does it all. A little streamlining and this could have been a better book.

That said if you want a good comprehensive overview on the graphical elements of the web, especially SVG at 600+ pages, Painting the Web, by Shelly Powers is a good place to start.

Side note

There is no way Shelly could have know about Javascript dynamo Dmitry Baranovskiy's awesome Raphaël JavaScript Library that provides cross browser support for browser generated vector graphics such as SVG. Considering the book was published in April 2008, I sure, if she had known this would have been included.

West Coast Bloggers

Will that be one leg or three?

Time to Drop Web Standards?

Elephant in the Room.

Bring on the Darkest Hour.

Freelancing in a Recession

Don't Panic

Be Conservative

Last in First Out

Try Contracting

Consider Post Graduate Study

Look Overseas

Web Sites are Cheap

Get Tough

Freelancers are not Employees

Australia is not the US

What makes a great WebJam presentation?

Why freelancers should go to conferences

So good you could steal it

Interview with Tim Lucas

WebJam9 is coming to Perth

Edge of the Web on Twitter

Free the Content, Maybe Not.

Small Business?

Stepping it up

WA Web Awards Finalist!

Goodbye IE6

Webjam 9

2008 WA Web Awards - Finalists announced

AUC /dev/world/2008 - Quick summary

Web Directions South 2008

Day One - Sept 25

Lynne G Johnson - Keynote

Dimitry Baranovskly - Web Vector Graphics

Tim Lucas and Pete Ottery - Developing for the iPhone

Javascript Libraries

Jeff Croft - Elegent Web Typography

August de los Reyes - Predicting the Past

Day Two - Sept 26

Jeffrey Veen - Designing out way Through Data

Jina Bolton - Creating Sexy Style Sheets

Michael ™ Smith - HTML5

Douglas Crockford - Ajax Security

Mark Pesce - This, that and the other Thing

Overall

Venue, Food and the lot

Final Word

What I learnt at Web Directions South 08

Day 0

Day 1

What I learnt:

Day 1.2

Day 2

What I learnt:

Closing night

What I learnt:

OZ-IA 2008 - Day Two

Website to Webapp – designing for workflow - Shane Morris

How many seconds does it take to order a burrito? - Zafer Bilda

Contextual Enquiries – the who, how, why, and when - Lisa Herrod

The Pleasure and Pain of UX freestylin’ - Donna Spencer, Gary Barber

OZ-IA 2008 - Day One

Where is Square 1? - James Hunter.

Automated tree testing - faster, better, smarter? - Sam Ng.

UX Strategy: defining and executing strategies for your projects and teams - Steve Baty.

Search and sensibility: Four tales of search - Louisa Cameron, Angus Fraser, Scott Bryant, Chris Khalil.

The Venue

Have a happy and safe conference season

Design Thieves once again

Pulling out the Jams

RoRO Perth - September Meetup (15/9)

Abusing JavaScript for fun and profit: Redux

A room with a view

Conference Time

The Principles of Successful Freelancing

A Review - Painting the Web

Raster to Start, Plus a little SVG

Web Design Basics

Lets Go Dynamic

Paint the Canvas