West Coast Bloggers

Break Your Own Promises

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:06 GMT

A few weeks ago–September 5 to be exact–I ordered myself a shiny new car.

The experience went along these lines. First, I did lots of research and decided on my ideal vehicle make and model. Then, I went to the only dealership in my city that sells this type of car.

I met one of the salespeople, we took it for a drive, I looked at all the options and discussed all the features, and pretty much made up my mind. This process took a few visits, and then we got down to negotiating the two big questions: cost and delivery date.

Those of you who've worked in the Web for some time will have become accustomed to expecting everything instantly, as I have; however, when we reached this stage, the salesman had some bad news.

He first started by saying that it could take anywhere from two to six months to take delivery of the car, depending on the model and options that I decided on. After a few phone calls, he was pleased to announce that he'd found the exact model and options I wanted on the other side of the country, and that he could offer me a six-to-eight week window for delivery.

I was crestfallen–I wanted the car right then, or next week at the latest. Then I realized this really did boil down to just my own impatience. I decided to go ahead with the purchase anyway, given that I was already in love with the features and the idea of driving the car, and placed my order.

I've been thinking about this experience over the last few weeks, in terms of what a close analogy this situation offers to most web site projects. I'm talking about the common scenario where the client (in this case, myself) becomes sold on the concept of you doing the work, loves the options you've offered them, and they want the finished product right now–but of course, it's impossible to have that site or feature built until after their ideal deadline.

I felt for the poor sales guy at the dealership, who could see my disappointment, and resigned myself to the fact I wouldn't be getting behind the wheel of this vehicle until mid-to-late October.

So you can imagine my delight when I got a call last Friday to say I could pick the car up the following Tuesday, only three-and-a-half weeks after I placed the order!

Not only has it made me super-pleased with the product, but very appreciative towards the sales guy and the dealership. The cynic in me wonders if perhaps they always intended to have the car sooner, but they always add some leeway to their timelines, just in case.

The result of this situation is that they have broken their own promised deadline by weeks, and their business now has a very big fan. With that in mind, look at your own projects–how hard would it be for you to add a few weeks or a month to the deadlines you promise, and then work hard as you can to meet the original date anyway?

We've all heard that cliché about under-promising and over-delivering, but when you're the client, it certainly feels like a great result! Try this theory with your next project, and let me know how it goes–I'm very confident that your next client will become your biggest fan if you manage to deliver quicker than planned.

This post first appeared as part of Issue 416 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

My return to Tablet PC happy land

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:34 GMT

A bit of background: I’m a big fan of the Tablet PC. I had a beautiful Acer C110 machine way that I got back in about 2003 which I used for a very long time. I loved that little thing – it’s still mostly working although the screen isn’t pressure sensitive in slate mode anymore and it’s painfully painfully slow.

I then got a lease on an “upgrade” – a Fujitsu P1610. This was even smaller – it has a 9.8” screen – and so very cute. I thought it was going to be all love and happiness again until I twigged that something wasn’t quite right about the screen. Although it was pen sensitive and, once I upgraded to Vista, actually responded to your finger as well, it was not pressure sensitive so handwriting notes etc was really out of the question. I hadn’t realised what an important factor that was on my previous Tablet. I started to use the Fujitsu in a different way – always with the keyboard out, but jabbing at it with the pen or my finger in addition for a kind of hybrid tablet experience.

I got kinda used to that but as soon as I saw someone using a pressure sensitive Tablet PC – I think it was Donna Maurer’s Toshiba – I realised that I really missed being able to scrawl and scribble when I was taking notes or whatever. Also, the tiny screen was really screwing with my ability to read web sites – I was constantly holding the stupid thing up to my nose. However, with the lease not up on the Fujitsu until February 2010 I figured I’d have to just suck it up. I picked up a hell-cheapo 15” Compaq notebook to use around the house when not at my desktop as a compromise for the screen size problem.

But then… on Friday Dave sent me a link, as he often does… to the Toshiba R400 product page – a 12” convertible Tablet PC. Looking at the $4500 AUD price tag, I was just shooting back to him “why are you torturing me?” when he said that because it was an end of life model, a dealer in the Eastern States had them on sale for $1500.

OMG.

To cut a long story short, one is winging it’s way to me next week (end of financial year tax bonuses, I love you). There’s a review of them here http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_notebooks_toshiba_r400.html and it sounds like it could be another love affair (double and triple checked and yes it DOES have a Wacom-produced pressure sensitive screen). I may post a full review when it arrives and I have finished drooling on it.

Posted from kay lives here

My return to Tablet PC happy land

Was it Good for You Too Honey - UX Getting it Wrong

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:35 GMT

This is the presentation given on Wednesday 24th June 2009 to the Perth Branch of the Silverlight Developer and Designer Network. The slidedeck isn't going to make much sense without the transcript below. Just be aware of that if you are slide deck with out following with this transcripts.

Let’s ground this a little and get real before we even start.

To often we design web sites and applications with a limited amount of information and specifications as to what is really is required. It’s a fact. Let’s not stand around and pretend otherwise.

Designing and developing it this type of environment can be hell. Sure I can talk about how to overcome this issue and pass on a few techniques that could assist you.

But what happens when you have got almost all the information you need and things still go wrong. What then – what are the solutions?

Let’s step back away from the web and desktop applications for a moment and consider an average couple, Simon and Maria. They are a loving young 20 somethings. They both have jobs that they don’t really aspire to. Yet still they battle on to save for those overseas trips and such. And just like you and me they get to experience life and all around them, the ups and downs.

Was it Good for You Too Honey - UX Getting it Wrong

View more presentations from Gary Barber.

Screaming Buttons

Maria and Simon have learnt, just like you and me, that buttons in the real world go off and on. They turn on the stereo. Stop things dead and sometimes they just silence the screaming.

So why does it have to be any different on the web. Why do they have to put up with buttons that just don’t look like buttons at all. You know the ones. They are just impossible to even find out that they are buttons visually. And when you do find out, well you just aren’t that sure what they are going to do. You are always thinking they could - delete the page, make you start over or destroy the world. You are just never that sure.

Really a button should “look” like a button and be labeled as such. Not some arty thing that no one can’t find or even work how they work. Applications and the Web are functional things they have to work or they are just waste of space. Crazy arse buttons are for an art gallery.

However we break our own rules here too. Even if we have buttons that look like buttons as they should. With the maturity of the web the previous experience of people like Simon and Maria really needs to be considered. Just like in the real world they have learnt from childhood what a button is and how to use it. We have learn that the power switch or light switch (which is usually unlabeled) turns on a appliance on the plug socket or the light in a room. Previous learned experience has taught us this.

Same with the web we now have expected instances of button types and iconography that have been ingrained into our common web cultural knowledge, as to have expected outcomes. For Example (and there are many more):

Search
RSS feed
Shopping Cart
Email
Home
Navigational Directional Arrows

In all these cases we know what to expect from the button type or icon. Yes they don’t look like buttons, but the symbolism behind the message works for us.

So in this case we break a few eggs… Still a button should be a button. But the omelets form the eggs does taste nice.

Tools, Functionality and Bears

Back to Simon and Maria. They both use multifunctional tools like the Leatherman. Nice handing tool, bit like a modern Swiss army knife. Has all sorts of gadgets and things hanging of it that are designed for various functions. Such things as a knife, a pair of pliers, screwdriver, nail clippers, and maybe even a coffee maker.

Still besides the great multifunctional of the Leatherman, Simon and Maria still use single functional tools such as knives.

I can understand this, knives are cool. You can cut bread with a knife. Cutting bread with Leatherman is possible, but hey it’s just too hard. A knife makes a single clean cut.

A knife is also really handy when you are faced with the odd suburban random Bear attack. You know the story – you are walking down the street and suddenly in board daylight and this massive Bear out of nowhere attacks you. If you have your trusty kitchen knife you are fine. But handling a Bear with a Leatherman – I don’t think so.

The multifunction tool like the Leatherman can cut things sure, but not that well. Also it’s not that good for locks or fences is it.

On the other hand a pair of bolt cutters is ideal for the odd fence and padlock cutting. It’s also a great accessory for late night “shopping”.

So despite the great multifunctional components of Leatherman, still Simon and Maria prefer to use a Single function tool like a knife. A knife just does the one single job, but it does it so well.

So why do we insist on having these multiple function web sites and applications that are just not doing one core thing well at all. They are constantly presenting us with various different functions all over the shop. Never really doing anything that well, remaining forever average.

Is it that we enjoy having a world of mediocrity where things are always dull and the same. Are we that budget aware that average, a score of C+ is the best we can be bothered with.

Why don’t we have single function applications? I know on the web with the use of APIs this is starting to happen. But still in intranets and the like all I see are these massive over weight corporate spaghetti code fest. What gives?

Applications that do the job well and just interconnect with other single functional applications to make a suite of online applications aren’t that hard to design and code. In fact they are often easier to build. Think back look at how the MS-Office package started. Word was just for word processing. Excel was just for spreadsheets. Now look at the bloatware that it has become. Sure those two applications still do their core functions, but they also do a lot more. Things we often don’t really want in the first place. It is just endless marketing bloatware.

What we need to focus on when we code and design applications is to keep it simple.

Do one thing and do it well, shine at being the best application for that function in the world. Let’s have a little less applications that make me coffee, and comb my hair all before morning tea time.

We need to just focus on the core of the application or web site and translate that into a core message.

Okay that sounds good, in theory, but what do you do when you have lots of demands by your boss or client.

Simple – there is still only going to be a certain number of elements that are important or the core of the application at this point in time.

So like the ATO (Australian Tax Office) have done, we just focus on those elements as required.

By the way, you think you have an issue with functionality and information retrieval. Just take a moment to think about what it would be like to be in the shoes of the web team at the ATO. Still with all those issues they are just focusing on the core issues of the day.

And Now For Forms

I hate forms in real life; I can get bet you hate them too, as does Simon and Maria.

Forms are the bane of our life. I approach them with dread; they are often poorly designed and put together usually by something with no experience in the art of form design. More often than not the lowest level sectional officer gets the form design job, based off the chook scratching of some Director.

Guess what it’s the same on the Web. Yeah you’re not that surprised. The people in charge of web design project seem to have this burning desire to replicate the paper world based world with no consideration for the web.

Now I’m not going to rapid on about forms, I’m sure you are all experts a form design. But I am going to just point out a few things that people love and hate.

So why do forms suck so much.

Well usually it’s simply because of the sheer size of the form. It’s just too big… Frankly it scares the crap out of us. We look at it and think, okay there goes the next few hours of my life on this endless form.

A simple solution to all this is to just have a good look at the form. In most cases it can be segmented into functional or information related areas and you could slice it up onto separate pages.

Yes that is making the completion process longer or is it…

Consider Amazon.com, do you remember how many steps there is to in the process to buy a book once it is in the shopping cart. Is it 4 pages, 5, 7, 10…

Well really it doesn’t matter. Not at all, not one little bit!. Why? Well because of one simple factor - as long as we are seeing that we are progressing towards out goals and they are still in sight then we are usually happy.

The one exception here is a 35 page survey, mind you if you building a survey beyond 2-3 pages, expect a failure. But that is another issue, there is specialized approach to online survey forms that 90% of the surveys on the web just ignore.

It’s all about Confirmation Candy

We all love candy. The sweet tooth takes us all - we want - we lust over candy. Some would even kill for it.

Well in the world of the web, it’s the same. We love getting feedback, the visual candy the sweet and the sour type that lets us know that we are on the path to salvation that final form completion nirvana.

Giving these simple instant visual cues of positive (tick) and negative feedback (cross) let’s feel good or at least wanted for our progress through a form; even if we get it wrong.

The use of these elements is become now so common place that when they don’t appear on a web form, one really does start to question the validity of the form itself.

So why aren’t we using this instant feedback and error message technique on desktop applications. Usually at best we just get a beep or the field goes dull red.

Speaking Nicely to People

Forms are not just about the sweet and sour confirmation candy, they are also about talking nicely to people and making sense.

Take this case from Bankwest’s online banking facility. You would expect to that if I by accident put a dollar sign in the amount field it the application would have been nice about it and just removed it for me.

Well it is a bank… they have to be a little anal.

Still what would it have take to do that, code wise., not much at all.

Similarly with credit card fields, would it be that hard to filter out the spaces or dashes when you submit the form, instead of making the user do it.

It gets better. I like Bankwest, I’ll let you into a little secret they have invented a time machine, yeap it’s “Back to the Future with Bankwest!”

If you make an internal account transfer on certain days it seems that if you put in today’s date, it tells you that you are in the past or the future! Wow – I wasn’t that aware I had time traveled. Again - another error message, that will a little care could have been corrected. Clearly the system was not really independently user tested.

You know I hate stupid error messages that aren’t friendly and considerate.

What we should be doing is not leaving the error messages to the development team.

The marketing people, the copywriters, should write them. Funny thing is in the real world I can’t see that happening, can you.

Playing Hide and Seek.

Sometimes you know we make things too complex, when a simple solution would have helped.

Take this Linksys router support site. Nice design, overall UX makes me think these guys are professionals and know their stuff. Until you start the game of find the download link for the drivers.

I expected it to be under the drivers section on the page - but no you have to select a version then the driver will appear.

Still then you have to hunt visually for the correct link, as it’s the same colour as other page text elements. Finally you find the download link.

Simple things to fix, but for the sake of a “clever interface” the UX is lost.

Also, what if I don’t know the version or can’t find it… didn’t think of that one.

It’s all Confusing - Stepping beyond the problems

Yes it can be a little confusing. But what we are talking about is the fine detail. The things that make it a average experience to a mind blowing one.

This isn’t rocket science. It’s just thinking about the people using the application, and being considerate.

Still after you have you application perfect and it’s delivering the best user experience it can. You can still have issues. You may not be getting the conversions and sales you want. Well it maybe a few simple things that are not helping.

Are you considering AIDA – that’s number of design rules you can follow on your interface:

Attention: get the users attention and make them feel wanted.
Interest: now you need to spark interest in people quickly, showing of your best aspects.
Desire: you have to spark the desire of the user for your product; this is usually a totally visual sell in most cases
Action: finally give the user an action point that they can progress to, somewhere they can take the page to the next step.

Also consider the Gutenberg rule. Basically this maps out a thing we call reading gravity (in the western world). It tells us that people tend to end up with their eyes hovering in this Terminal Area (see below). Of course this enforces the reverse F patterns we see in eye tracking.

Still at the end of the day your application needs to be good experience at any cost. Sure you can make it average if you like, if the budget in time or dollars is just not there.

However trust me on this one, people like Simon and Maria will just consider you a roadblock and will work around you. Remember in the PC verses Mainframes conflict of the mid 80’s. The accountants brought PCs into the workplace as the Mainframes where not providing in their arrogance the needs of the corporation. Hence the mainframes became a roadblock, and the users removed it.

Don’t under estimate your users ever. They aren’t stupid people; they are just like you and me. If they are forced to use a bad system, sure they will pay lip service to it and develop their own system with the tools they can gather around them. Things will appear to be well and good, with no issues that management will see. Except in reality your users have just reworked the system to make it usable if you will not.

In summary it’s easy to remember

Streamline the focus of your application or web site
Segment any forms or procedures that are too long.
Simplify things down to its core functionality

One final thing whatever we build it's not for you or me for but for them, the unseen users.

Upgraded to Wordpress 2.8

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:50 GMT

I've upgraded to Wordpress 2.8 (from 2.5). I promise never to be so lazy again. Please let me know if you experience any problems with the site.

Thank you.

I promise, there are real posts coming soon.

Nine Ways to Have a Better Lunchbreak

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:00 GMT

Do you stay seated at your desk for just about every lunchbreak? Is the line between work time and break time increasingly blurred? We're all guilty of doing that from time to time. It's a nasty habit though, and not good for you or your productivity. Here are nine ways to have a better lunchbreak.

Go for a 20-minute walk. It could be around the block, or choose somewhere further from the office (or home, if you work there) to buy your lunch, and walk it. The trick here is to gain that extra bit of walking into your working week.
Eat smart. Go for fresh fruit and vegetables and avoid processed food. Eating healthier foods for lunch means less sugar highs and lows, better nutrients and fibre intake, and a better metabolism. See this site for more fruit and vegetable information.
Have lunch with a friend. We're all guilty of skipping social contact in favour of more work. Regain some social contact by arranging regular lunch dates with friends–the social contact will do you a world of good, and your friendships will benefit.
Join a health club. Is there a health club nearby? Even half an hour on a treadmill or exercise bike can boost your fitness, and improve your motivation for the afternoon. If there isn't a club nearby, consider hiring or buying some basic equipment for the office or home.
Learn. Download podcasts, print out interesting articles, find a short course you can do nearby for less than an hour. The key here is to stimulate the brain and finish the week with more knowledge than you started with.
Meditate. Just five or more minutes of silence can not only relax your mind and reduce stress, but it's also likely to allow you time to solve some other nagging issues as well! You'll probably have to leave the office for this one, or close your door and take the phone off the hook.
Swap your coffee for a glass of water. As I've already mentioned, water is so good for you. Instead of reaching for the coffee machine, grab a bottle of water and keep it on your desk.
Read something new. Join a library, buy some new books; whatever you do, get away from that monitor for a while and read a newspaper, book, or magazine. It'll expand your knowledge and take your mind off your projects for a short period of time, which is a very good thing.
Get away from your computer. If you must work during this lunchbreak, stand at a whiteboard or sit in a different place and write on paper. Whatever you do, give your eyes and posture a break and try a different location or activity for a while.

You needn't start all this at once–try to start incorporating one of these tips into your lunchbreak every week. Even better, combine a few at once, such as walking while eating an apple, or put headphones on and chill out while reading a book or this week's Tribune (for example!).

This post first appeared as part of Issue 415 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

The Best Business Insurance

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:51 GMT

It's no coincidence that many of the popular goals on 43 things are related to health and fitness. Stereotypical as it may seem, office-bound workers are normally not as physically active as those in other occupations, and probably not the healthiest eaters during the business day, either.

This situation is even further compounded if you are a business owner or a freelancer; your lifestyle is likely to be even more hectic than others, and skipping lunch or exercise is a common occurrence.

Let's consider this sobering fact–if you end up very sick, or worse still, hospitalized, the business is going to suffer more than had you spent some time every week looking after yourself. You'll also take longer to recover than if you'd gone for that 30-minute walk each morning.

Of course, we don't normally think of these situations until they happen to us. Maybe we would listen more seriously if the marketing pitch for fitness and wellbeing were more along the lines of “health and wellness is the best business insurance.”

However, there's always a list of excuses available to you. Too busy, too many meetings, too hot or cold outside, too many emails to answer, and the like. You can embrace these excuses and do nothing about your wellbeing, or you can set them aside and do something about your health.

So, where to start? Let's look at the basics of the improvements we can make to our lifestyles fairly easily:

Eat well. There are plenty of diets and other programs out there, but the facts are quite simple–eat a variety of foods from all the main food groups, and eat everything in moderation. Sure, we all grab fast food once in a while, but it's back to that moderation clause. See the tried and true Food Pyramid for more information.
Drink water. It's said that you should try and drink 50–75% of your body weight (pounds) in ounces. For example, if you weigh 130lb (59kg), you should drink 50fl/oz (1.9L) of water per day. See this useful article for further tips.
Reduce your consumption of alcohol. Most of us wouldn't deny enjoying that wine or beer, but if you find yourself drinking every day, it's time to consider your lifestyle choices carefully.
Quit smoking. This is an obvious one. Did you know that smoking is the single most preventable cause of death in the US?
Exercise regularly. I'm sure you are like me, and don't have two spare hours a day to exercise. However, with a little planning, there's no reason why you couldn't find 30 minutes per day or every second day to look after your most important asset.
Manage stress. I know, I know; easy to suggest, not so easy to do. However, recent studies have shown that stress is responsible for 60–90% of illnesses, so it's crucial that you look at ways to reduce your stress level. See helpguide.org's Understanding Stress page for some figures and ideas.
Control your work/life balance. It's great that you work hard, but it's equally important that you live life too. Take time for social activities, and learn to recognize and acknowledge when you need time out. Control the hours you work, and balance them with other rewarding pursuits.

This all sounds so easy, doesn't it? The point is that we can all make little changes over time to improve our lifestyles. Read on for nine tips for looking after your health–you can even do them during your lunchbreak.

This post first appeared as part of Issue 415 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

The first SchwaCMS goes live!

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:10 GMT

After the last announcement of MadPilot’s new CMS, I'm proud to follow it up with the announcement of the first site to use Schwa as it's backend: Greenvale Mining NL.

Greenvale was designed by the ever-so-talented Adrianne from bird.STUDIOS, and was sliced by the latest edition to the twotwenty family: Niaal Holder from Speak.

We have a number of sites being launched over the next couple of week so watch this space!

10 Rules for Small Business and Social Networks

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:30 GMT

Does small business really need online social media. Is it really going to provide those instant benefits that the media and some experts are raving about.

Online Social networkers (or media) is now all the rave. It's the new kid on the block, the dream that some many people in business are now chasing as the quick fix. Now I have seen this wave of blind business hesteria all before, it's nothing new.

What's Old is New Again.

Back in last century when business really discovered that the web had benefits that could help extent and promote their business, there was a wave of businesses one after one all wanting to get online. The primary reason was, just to be there, online, no real sound business logic was applied to any of the decisions back then. They just wanted a web site, because it was basically there and other people had one. It was the cool factor. The need to follow the sheep.

No consideration was given to the on going costs in time and other resources that were required to run a successful web site. In many cases they took up the web site challenge , had a web sites developed, placed it out on the web, and that was it.

So they walked away from the young seedling web sites and let them wither and die in the cold wilds of the brutal web.

There was an expectation that somehow the sites would bloom and grow, flourish and dominate their environs. The truth as we know it was far from this faerie tale that the business owners were expecting.

Have Things Really Changed.

Fast forward to 2009. Have things really changed that much. Sure people take a little more consideration into getting a web site now. Whether this is sign on the maturity of the web industry is another matter, still the fact is that people are considering a web site a serious venture in the most part.

However in the realm of social media, it seems as if every business now wants to leverage the likes of facebook, twitter, myspace, corporate blogging, friendfeed, linkedin or the like in order to get that edge over their competitor.

Then the self proclaimed social media experts step up, with 5 minutes experience of dipping their toe into the online social media world (a bit like life coaches - even taxi drivers are life coaches now! - but that's another story). This plethora of social media experts is now urging business owners to make that final leap into the social media. Mostly will little personal experience at all in the medium.

All this without any real plan or consideration of the longer term implications that this is going to have on their business and its impact on time and resources.

Without due consideration of what their customers are doing and if they are in the demographic of the audiences of these social networking sites at all.

Step Back, Smell the Roses.

Basically if you are in a business and you are going down this road or have just done so.
STOP.

Yes right now, slam on the brakes, hard!

You really have to beware that like running a web site, operating a social media presence is something that will take up full time resources for your organisation. It's not just about putting out the odd tweet or facebook status update every week or so.

If you are serious about committing to adopting social media for your business please consider the following:

Look for the market.

Is there an existing market demographic or potential one that uses the social media you are looking at. Not much good doing a social media campaign for “turbo charged motorised wheelchair driving grannies” on a youth social networking site is there.
Plan ahead.

Set out a plan of attack, as you would with any marketing campaign, you need to consider all the following aspects below as well in this plan. In a way it will be like nothing you have done before. This is not like taking out an advert in the local paper or on radio. Social networking is not like traditional media at all.
Be Honest.

Ensure that you are honest and straight with your customsers online, remember you are building trust and you online reputation. If you are false and hollow, your customers will see through this immediately.
Let go.

You have to learn that in an online world of a social network you are not in control at all. Your customers or audience are in control, they will dictate what and when they read your information. If you try and control them, they will build their own network online behind your back where they can discuss the truth. Yes that is right the online world is not kind, it does not care about your business.
Live it.

You need to live the social media, don't just dip your toe in the water of the social media world every few days or so with some statement or status update. It is the companies that are living the social media that are winning peoples hearts and dollars. But be warned this takes time and resources, there is no magic bullet here.
Be real.

The person in charge of your presence needs to project their real personality into the social media. If they are just projecting the corporate public relations and marketing spin the audience will tire of this pretty quickly.
Don't hire a Social Media Expert.

This sounds silly, but use someone that doesn't confess to be a Social Media Expert. There are just too many con artists and quick fix merchants out to make a quick dollar in the market. Hire someone that is already deeply entrenched in the social media world. A person that is across all these issues discussed here and more.
Start small.

In the world of online social media, it is best to start small if you are unsure of the impact or if you even have an audience. Maybe do some blogging, build an audience. Or maybe use twitter and present a personal approach, or look into services like get satisfaction. Don't try it all at one time, test and evaluate as you go, especially if your organisation is learning and new to this, Nothing worse than you stepping away from a social network when you have failed at it. It projects to the followers you leave behind that your business has failed or is failing. Not something you really want.
It's all or none.

Social media is the type of thing where you can't have only one division of an organisation embracing it. You need to have the entire enterprise taking it on board. By which I don't mean just paying lip service to social media - the enterprise needs at an executive level to understand and embrace the outcomes of the use of social media. If you don't do this then people we see you as just playing at the game and not really that serious.
Understand it.

Even if you do all the above, you still may not understand the basic principles as to why people even use various social networking sites. Mainly it comes down to the desire to share and communicate, often for free. As a business you have to truly understand that it is about paying it forward. A social networking site is not an advertising campaign, the ROI will not be the same at all. This is not your traditional world or traditional media.

In summary, the use of social media in business is like your web site, but more of a resource hog, best to start small and be real. Remember the lessons of the past ignore good advice and you will waste time and money or worse simply fail.

Are you ready to Bar Camp?

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:47 GMT

Yes, it's back on again! After the success of previous BarCampPerth events, in 2007 and 2008, BarCampPerth3 will be held on July 18, 2009 at eCentral TAFE.

If you've read my last post, Why you should attend two conferences a year, you'll appreciate why these events are a fantastic opportunity to grow both professionally and personally.

Unlike a traditional conference, you don't fork out any money, and you don't get a slick conference bag or even know who is going to present before the event. You are also encouraged not to just sit on a chair all day, but get involved yourself.

A BarCamp is grass roots education and networking at its best. You come along, and offer to help in any way you can. That could be helping hand out name tags, it could be serving coffee, running AV equipment, taking photographs or doing a presentation yourself.

Everyone pitches in to do their bit, and the day turns out to be great. You meet new people, you learn about new topics, and you leave with a new respect for your craft, the work of others, and the ideology of a grass roots quasi-conference.

My experience of the last two Perth ones have been great. I've met plenty of passionate people, I've heard some great presentations, and I've even given one myself. I encourage you to attend BarCamp3 and see what all the fuss is about. It'll be free entry, free (and fantastic!) coffee and possibly even free lunch as well - who could ask for more than that?

For the Love of Type

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:57 GMT

Sometimes you come across something that you just have to share. The other day I got the chance to go back in time. Back in the past, to feel and to see something of raw beauty that I personally have not experienced before.

Im talking about the work that I found in an exercise book and the craftsmanship in some Victorian era books.

The work in the school exercise book was lovely completed by a middle class Irish 10 year old, under English rule at the time. Those 03 dates on this work are not from 2003, but 1903, all the way back to the Edwardian era.

Look at the workmanship, the beauty in the character formation. The level of care. Looking through this simple school book, one can see into an era that was a lot slower. Where the time was taken to learn a skill, to master it. Where the time was taken to do things right. Please remember these are not preseved works, they have had no special care, so they have bled out in places, but still you can see the degree of care taken. There is just something raw and untamed in these works, something that the digital world can't produce.

To often we are locked in our digital design words, away from the feel of paper, the smell of ink, the texture of the canvas and the grease of the paint. Maybe it's time as designers from time to time we re-found this old school world of the analogue

Draft, Draft and Draft Again

However you may think that this was the first draft the student did in these books. Not so I also have access to the draft workbook also, in which everything is drafted in pencil. This just goes to show that even in an Edwardian era things have a parallel to present day.

It seems sometimes that we forget that the best way to get close to perfection is draft the work, over and over. To this day that still holds true, even if we do tend to forget it, in our rush, rush disposable world of pixels and images that are a flicker of the eye.

For the Beauty of Old Books.

Now that we have gazed over this typical school work of the 1900's lets roll it back with a common Victorian era book. If you have opened a book of this era, you will totally understand what I'm talking about, they are amazing, an artwork in themselves. The quality, even in just like the type setting, the typeface, the marbling, the binding is to behold. Things that I love about these old books is the wood carving or plate etching artwork that is contained within. The level of detail is just amazing considering the handcraft process on how the books on this era where constructed.

I know some of my readers are going to say, so what, this is just a 120 year old book. Fine yes it's not that old in the scheme of things, but for Australia it is old, very old, it's all relative, see we are a young country. Still you can turn your nose up at it, but for me it's a doorway to a world of wonder of fine forgotten craftsmanship.

So what things from the past inspire you, what old “design” treasures to you love to look over?

Why You Should Attend Two Conferences a Year

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:26 GMT

So why attend a conference? Let's start with education. You'll learn more from attending one conference than all the books and blog posts you can read in one month. This may sound like a tall order, but seriously, if you are actively listening to the presenter, it's hard not to learn more than by simply being there.

Secondly, the fact that you are there in person (as opposed to, say, listening to a podcast) means that you participate in the full experience; non-verbal cues (such as body language or facial expressions), as well as presentation slides and Q&A sessions that are normally cut from the podcast, are all factors that can make a session more rewarding, and provide valuable insights too.

Then there's the networking. Some may derisively call it schmoozing, however, this is a very important benefit of conferences that should not be underestimated. The contacts that you can make by grabbing a meal or a coffee during a break can be worth the cost of the conference alone. I've won at least $50,000 worth of business just by attending the last two Web Directions South conferences–and that's without even really trying!

I've also found that by socializing with the presenters, I learn more about their areas of expertise than by just watching them on stage. I've become friends with a few speakers as a result, and have regular email dialogue now with my international contacts.

So how can you benefit the most from attending a conference? Here are seven tips:

Gain as much advance notice of the schedule as you can. Normally, with more than one stream, you'll need to make some decisions–which presentations to watch and which ones to miss. You'll want to read up on the presentation topics to ensure you make the best choices. Bring along a list of your preferred schedule to avoid missing an important session.
Make contact beforehand with other delegates you know personally. If you're going by yourself, you can arrange to meet for coffees and not feel so isolated. If you don't know anyone attending, you might like to introduce yourself on the conference blog, or alternatively, search the blog posts for other like-minded attendees and arrange to meet up with them.
Stay for the whole conference. Don't get the day two doldrums and skip sessions. It goes without saying that the presentation you miss will be the one everyone raves about afterwards.
Don't be hesitant to ask questions. If they don't cater for question time during the presentation, seek out the presenter at the break and ask them; you'll be amazed at how approachable they are.
Schmooze. You'll meet loads of new people at the social events that accompany these conferences, who may eventually become friends, colleagues, employers, or clients. Be genuine though, and don't set out to “work the room.”
Buy the book. If they are selling books, get hold of the ones you believe you'll benefit most from, and get them signed whilst you're there. It's a great souvenir of the conference and a valuable education tool as well.
Find accommodation in the conference's vicinity. You don't want to be traipsing across a busy city every day, and you'll probably need to charge that laptop or digital camera every so often.

This post first appeared as part of Issue 414 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

Australian Web Awards now open!

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:14 GMT

It's out of the bag; the Australian Web Awards are now open for entries, and have now been announced to the world.

What started as a humble black tie cocktail event in Perth four years ago has grown from 2005 to be a large glitzy event in Perth, and now, after many requests, we're taking it nationally.

Previous winners and attendees of the WA Web Awards will tell you how great it is. Not only is it a great opportunity to don a more formal outfit and enjoy a great meal and networking with other web professionals, becoming a finalist is a joy for those who manage to get to this point.

We're starting off ambitious however cautious. This year, we'll have two cocktail events in two capitals; being Brisbane, QLD and Sydney, NSW first, before concluding with the national awards to be held at the end of the Edge of the Web conference, held in Perth.

I'm already being asked if we plan to grow to include events in other capital cities in the future - the answer is we hope so! It's not an easy challenge both financially and logistically to hold these events, so our caution this year is to only hold two events before getting too big for our boots. We'd love to see them in every capital city; however that may take some time to achieve.

As for always holding the finale event in Perth, no, it isn't set in stone for the future, so don't be surprised if it does shift cities in the future - who knows what the future holds.

Thanks also to the amazing volunteers of the Australian Web Industry Association, who put this whole thing together in their spare time, along with the wonderful ladies from Red Horizon Events. This wouldn't be possible without you, Helen, Jan, Kay, Myles and Rebecca - a HUGE thanks!

The Australian Web Awards are truly a showcase of outstanding work from Australian Web Designers and Developers. As they say, you need to be in it, to win it, so support this great initiative, by heading on over and entering your best work right now. Entries close July 7th, so get cracking!

Learn to Say Sorry

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:27 GMT

Earlier this year, I organized a loan for my new house with my usual bank. All went well, they approved it quickly and before long, I had removalists at my door.

Then the trouble began … payments not deducted, double payments deducted from the wrong accounts, inept bank employees who tried to argue with me, more double deductions … the list goes on.

After a while, I was close to giving up–even considering changing banks and organizing new loans. Then, one day I got a telephone call from one of the handful of managers who handle this bank's business in my state.

He opened with “I owe you an apology.” I was over the moon! This manager had taken the time to phone me and say that he'd heard about my plight; he wanted to assure me they didn't believe anyone should be treated the way I was.

Not once did he even attempt an excuse, nor blame others. Here was an executive who was in charge of dozens of bank branches and yet, he took it upon himself to call and say that he and the rest of the organization he works for were sorry.

This manager was attentive and keen to hear my views. We ended the call fifteen minutes later with him providing his cell phone number, and asking me to call if other issues arose.

We've all been there. A web site project goes awry or one of your team makes a mistake, and before you know it, you are metaphorically huddled under your desk, frightened that the client will call.

What your client wants to hear is “sorry.” Everyone is human and when mistakes do happen, what we all want is for our suppliers to recognize when they have erred and offer a simple apology.

It costs you nothing besides a few minutes of your time, and believe me, you'll feel better being proactive and apologizing before the client gets a chance to be angry.

So, swallow that ego and make the call–you'll be relieved afterwards, and your client will respect you for it.

I'm still with that bank and the service has improved. I've even recommended them to my colleagues, based on that manager's one call. Wouldn't you rather your clients do the same?

This post first appeared as part of Issue 413 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

Book Review: Online Marketing Inside Out

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:18 GMT

The great thing about writing your own book, is when it comes to reading other books, you have a new found appreciation to what effort has gone in to create what you're holding.

There's certainly some effort put in on SitePoint's latest title, Online Marketing Inside Out. Two authors, Brandon Eley and Shayne Tilley collaborated on this tome; their upbeat, personal styles intertwine fluently, and certainly not disjointed as you may expect when there's two writers involved.

Pitched at business and website owners who are looking for the knowledge to promote their services or products online, this book is a great starter for those without intimate knowledge of traditional marketing techniques, or who don't have a decade of social media and web development experience under their belts.

The 210 page colour book is divided into nine logically grouped chapters. Chapter one outlines the changing face of marketing; it covers the basic reasons why organisations can't ignore online marketing as part of their mix, and wraps up with some great reasons why you'll love online marketing.

Chapter two, '21st Century Public Relations and Media' covers the modern Press Release, blogs and importantly, how to monitor social media for mentions of you or your product.

The third chapter, ‘Turn Page Views into Profit' may seem shallow for those hardcore technical types, but I'm sure just like me, you'll learn something from it. The chapter covers those all important on-site tweaks that you can do, to improve accessibility, usability, browser testing, content, landing pages and testing.

Search Engine Optimisation is covered in chapter four, and is a fantastic read for both beginners and advanced SEO gurus alike. This would be a great stand alone chapter to give web development clients who want to know what SEO is, without needing a PhD.

Chapter five is very interesting, covering Social Media such as micro-blogging, photo and video sharing, social bookmarking, podcasts and more. This is a great guide for those wanting to build a social media strategy.

Email Marketing gets a nod in Chapter six. This takes you from building your recipient list, to creating the content, to designing the delivery (and choosing the method), and even covers those tricky frequency and scheduling questions. Great thing here is the very clear warnings about spamming and buying email lists.

Chapter seven takes us through the topic of ‘Affiliate Marketing'. For those with a clearly affiliate ready business model, this sure looks like an exciting avenue to take. This chapter clarifies what this mystical affiliate world is all about, and takes out the snake oil component.

This book wouldn't be complete without a chapter on online advertising - here's where the penultimate chapter eight steps in. Banner advertising, PPC, text links, cost per mille, agency relationships and more are clearly explained.

The ninth and final chapter, ‘Tying It All Together' does just that. It asks and helps steer your strategy by reiterating what you've learnt, how to create an online marketing strategy, setting goals, and then encouraging you towards writing a detailed plan.

Although I found I knew much of the books content already (but then I have years of interest in marketing, both online and offline), it certainly helped polish my knowledge, so the book was still valuable for someone with more than a decade of experience. I also started seriously considering the possibilities of distributing copies of this book to a number of my clients.

Online Marketing Inside Out is a great book for those who want a no-hype understanding on the how and why of online marketing, written by two people who have succeeded in this field. Perfect for the web developer or indeed their clients, this book is easy to digest (I read it easily on a four hour flight), and is the perfect level for anyone yearning for online marketing knowledge, who would be happy without pages of geeky code snippets.

Well done, Brandon and Shayne!

Disclaimer: the publisher of this book also published my book. I was given a PDF copy of this title, however will not see any personal gain from writing this review. I feel no obligation to write a good review, and if I had, I wouldn't be posting one here.

Dear clients…

Wed, 27 May 2009 02:02 GMT

Please watch:

Introducing meftos.com

Mon, 25 May 2009 10:35 GMT

I've been pretty busy lately, and haven't had anytime for some good old fashioned hacking. I've also been copping some flack for letting my ruby-fu lapse (it seems a lot can happen in three months. Actually a lot happens in three minutes), so I decided to clear a couple of hours last weekend to have a play with GitHub, haml and sass, and just to generally get friendly with ruby again.

I recently read a couple of articles about the doom and gloom around URL shorteners and how if a couple of the big ones collapsed the entire intergoop would fall on it's face. Whilst that is a little bit of an over exaggeration, there is some food for thought in that statement. I was also reading about the collapse of magnolia (I know - old news. Sue me). Many an innocent bystander lost many months or years of bookmarking just because one site went down. Whilst I'm a fan of the cloud, I'm also a bit of a control freak, so this was a little scary.

I've been using del.icio.us for a while, but only for the bookmarking facilities, not the social part. And even though Yahoo probably won't go broke any time soon, I was wondering what would happen if they decided to close the big bookmarker in the sky down. So meftos.com was born.

meftos.com is a personal bookmarker and url shortener built in Rails. It only has one user (you), and you host it yourself. From a URL shortening point of view, there is no one point of failure - sure if a number of individuals remove their servers, you will have some broken links, but that if far less impact than one mega site bombing.

If you have a server that can run Rails, you too can install your own copy - feel free to skin it, and change it's same. All of the source code is on GitHub, and I'm told you can nearly use it out of the box on Heroku. Play around, feel free to kick the tyres. There is still some stuff to do - namely search, better user management (There is no simple user management gems in Ruby any more - I'll probably have to write my own) and some other bits and pieces, but it seems to work ok.

More importantly, I got a little glimpse again of why coding makes me happy. That should keep me warm on those cold, winter nights…

Crumpler Yee Ross Review

Wed, 20 May 2009 06:30 GMT

I have been using an inexpensive no name backpack to carry the necessary baggage (work clothes but not shoes, cycling clothes for trip home, tools and spare tube) for the ride to work for the last couple of years, and it has done the job.

However, I start riding the recycled single speed to work and that did not have mounts for drinks bottle. One of the reason I bought that specific noname backpack was it could also be used as a hydration pack. So I tried to use it as a hydration pack, and it did not work for me. The tubing was in the wrong spot, the provided bladder pack was difficult to use, the mouthpiece leaked and my CamelBak 1.5l bladders did not fit the pack.

Then purely by accident I saw the Crumpler Yee Ross on the Crumpler web site, a Crumpler backpack that can be used as a hydration pack. So I went to my local Crumpler store, check it out and walked away after purchasing last year's model (more on that later).

A few days later it was pressed into service as a hydration pack with a CamelBak 1.5l bladder and it performed exceptional well, the routing put the mouth piece in the right spot and the CamelBak 1.5l bladder did it's job providing me hydration. It was also far more comfortable to ride in than the noname backpack. The weight was well distributed, the shoulder straps where in the right spot for me and did not dig in.

I started using the Yee Ross as a regular backpack for all my other commutes and I am completely sold on it. The comfort factor has it.

Pros

Comfortable, even with a moderate load.
Works as a hydration pack with a variety of bladders.
It is a Crumpler it will be durable.

Cons

Smaller than most backpacks, need to pack carefully.
Tight squeeze sliding a MacBook Pro in, not a problem with the Acer Aspire One though.
It is a Crumpler ;-)

There is a difference between last year's model which is made from thicker more durable material, has a waterproof pocket and wider belt straps than this year's model which comes in more funky colours. So if you want one and I recommend last year's model for durability and practically I would head into your local crumpler store now. I have owned mine for 8 weeks and I would highly recommend it.

Taking Port80 on the Road

Tue, 19 May 2009 08:16 GMT

You know when you go to a networking event that is low key with no pressure, just friendly welcoming people that are just their to get to know you - networking that is a casual social affair. No clique snobby groups. The kind of event where you can see strategic partnerships and people finding new opportunities happening all the time. All this in fun relaxed environment with your fellow industry peers.

Well this is what the Australian Web Industry Association - Port80 Meetups are like. All that magic that seems to have stayed too long in the West is moving East. Next week Miles Burke (AWIA Chair) and I are taking this Port80 magic on the road to Melbourne and Sydney for a stella two city roadshow.

Port80 Melbourne - 26 May

First we are rocking into Melbourne to promote the Port80 on Tuesday, May 26th, to be joined by fellow AWIA committee member and newly incumbent Melbournite Harriet Wakelam.

Why not come down to the Softbelly Bar and join us for some nibbles, free entry and a cash bar:

Tuesday 26th May, from 7.00pm

The Lounge @ Softbelly Bar
367 Little Bourke Street
Melbourne VIC 3000

Check out a Google Map for the event.

Port80 Sydney - 27 May

After Melbourne, Miles and I land in Sydney to be joined by Sydney local and fellow AWIA committee member, Marc Lehmann, for Port80 Sydney on May 27th.

Same deal, free nibbles, free entry and free drinks (thanks to our event sponsor, Saasu!) all this at the Saasu offices in the Sydney CBD.

So mark this one in your calendar now:

Wednesday 27th May, from 7.00pm

Saasu Offices
Level One, 111 Elizabeth St
Sydney NSW 2000

Check out a Google Map for the event.

Remember these Port80 events are all not have long boring speeches, it's a casual social event. A chance for anyone in the Web Industry to get out of the office and come relax for few hours in a no pressure atmosphere.

So if you are in Sydney or Melbourne it would be really good to catch up with you all. But don't just stop there, why not let your co-workers and colleagues know and get them to come along too more the merrier.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all in Melbourne or Sydney for a class or two.

Crumpler Part and Parcel Courier Bag review

Sun, 10 May 2009 09:15 GMT

This is my infamous bag that has been reported to the local Crumpler store on more than one occasion, because I had the audacity to stencil my blog URL on it, to clearly identify as mine.

Three years ago, I bought a Crumpler bag on the recommendation of a couple of friends, to protect my then laptop, an ancient and battered Ti Powerbook from my daily adventures. I had used at least four other bags, but none had the durability, protection or usefulness offered by the Part and Parcel. The fact it was a full blown courier bag, that I could use while cycling really swung it for me.

Shortly after purchasing the Part and Parcel, I was heading to Web Directions 06, so to clearly identify my bag from the other crumpler loving geeks at the conference. I created a stencil and using a small foam roller and acrylic paint put my blog URL on the top flap. I did not even get to the first workshop on the first day, without seeing an identical bag. I sat down to breakfast at a nearby cafe and at the next table was an identical bag sans URL.

Over the three years, I have used the bag with a number of different laptops, including the current MacBook Pro. The Part and Parcel must be doing a good job, because the MacBook Pro is far less battered than Ti Powerbook was at the same stage of it's life.

The bag has been used on an almost daily basis to take a laptop to work. Except when I am riding most or all of the way in. I started using the Part and Parcel to carry clothes (a change of clothes for work, no shoes and cycling clothes for the return trip) and emergency tools for my 90 minute plus, 42km commute into work. The problem was after an hour or so, I would start losing sensation in my left shoulder, which had the bag slung over. This is the shoulder that has suffered a couple of major fractures and nerve damage in the past dozen years, so it should not be the same for you.

I bought an inexpensive backpack for the long cycling commute and continue to use the Part and Parcel for everything else, including the regular ride to the station with laptop.

I have used the Part and Parcel for a lot more than lugging a laptop, it has been used to carry a variety of objects various distances by foot and by bike and it does the job well.

Pros

Durable
Practical
Looks good

Cons

Not that comfortable after an hour with moderate load.
Too popular.
Brand fanatics

Conclusion

I am very happy with the Part and Parcel, it is a practical and durable courier bag that doubles as a laptop bag. And yes I would recommend it to anybody who needs a laptop bag and particularly anybody who cycles.

When it’s not Freelancing

Sun, 10 May 2009 02:42 GMT

Freelancing can be really interesting, you get to often do different types of work that can vary widely, from very hands on mundane tasks, to consulting, research and report writing, and everything in between. Sometimes you can even get a section of a project that you can work on at your own leisure, as long as you meet the nominated deadlines. Other times you are just an extra pair of multi-skilled hands. It's never a dull moment.

Now I have found over the years that with most project you usually reporting back to a project manager or the firm owner. They act as your central laision, controlling all the usual client communications and interactions. Leaving you to focus on what you do best and provide maximum return for their dollar investment.

Now from time to time you may be have to work in close liaison with a client on an aspect of the project, but at the end of the day the profitability and final decisions on a project are not yours to make as it's basically not your project. You just need to bring your section of the project in on budget and everyone will be happy.

So what really makes it freelancing, the key I've found is really two fold:

You can do the tasks on your timetable, as long as they're done in a professional manner, on time and budget. This is the key to freelancing, the being free to set your own agenda.
You are not response for the project as a whole, but just a segment, for example the CSS design, the Information Architecture or the usability. Again you are free or responsibility.

That's Not Freelancing

So when is it not freelancing. Well this really comes down where your start to draw the line in the sand on your own freedom as a freelancer.

Still let's consider a few examples, these in general I feel are not freelancing at all but its sibling contracting:

You are working 9-5 at the firms own or their clients offices filling in a role as directed. Just like an employee, but with none of the benefits. No real freedom here, eh.
You are in complete control of the project, client liaison, profit, the lot. All your boss (client) does is bill for it. Even queries after the launch are your responsibility. It's like having a pseudo client. Would be interesting to see where the liability angle lies on this one.

Hence with contracting the freedom disappears, as you are just like another employee, but with different hiring and firing conditions.

What do you think is there a difference in the way you hire or are hired as freelancers or contractors. Or are they one in the same as far as you are concerned?

Reasons for a Private Twitter Stream

Mon, 04 May 2009 08:32 GMT

People have often asked me why is your twitter stream is set to private. Why don't you just open it up to the rest of the world like everyone else does. Don't you get this social networking thing. Why are you just trying to keep things private, when if you have a footprint on the web it's just a little pointless.

Well yes there are lots if good reasons to open up a twitter stream to the public, here are a few:

It's really easy for people to decide to connect with you if they can read your previous tweets.
It can be handy for the odd self promotion and the digital footprint if people can connect with you easily.
You can build a better community around you of like minded people if you are easy to connect to.
You can have more conversations with a greater community.
You can integrate your twitter stream with all sorts of cool tools using the twitter API with ease.

It's Not that I Don't Like You

Okay that's good, yes you can engage with people easier if you have a public twitter stream. But there is also a good number of reasons for not having a public twitter stream such as:

Google - This is the primary reason that my stream is private, I don't want any Google bots spidering and indexing my tweets. I don't what any of my tweets being used out of context or being lodged in the grand Google repository of knowledge for evermore. Of course this would be solved if Twitter had a no index option for each account.
SpamBots - Whether they are real people or bots, you get other twitter accounts following you just so they can direct message spam you. With an open stream you get this a lot more than a closed on. Easiest thing to do is restrict their access.
Auto Follow Bots - It's amazing, If I tweet about coffee, suddenly ten coffee bots start to follow me, this auto following trend on an open stream is a real pain. These are not real people, just some programing script.. Sure the twitter crew cull them from time to time, but really I just don't want some random non person following me.
Auto Publish Bots - Just like Auto Follow bots there are now auto publish bots that detect various keywords in the public stream and retweet your tweet they have detected or even quote the tweet in a blog style entry somewhere. Now that means we can all be constantly taken out of context even more. Now this doesn't happen with a private account.
The Creeps - Now I don't get this much, but I know a lot of my female friends on twitter get some weird creeps following them, some just outright digitally stalking them. These people are often just end up being blocked. With a private stream you restrict who follows you.
Social Media Experts - These are another breed of experts people that have suddenly appeared on Twitter. Seems they are out to teach me how to use online social networks, with their all of five minutes experience. I really think these people need to reconsider their approach to social media. Maybe folks like me that have been around for a while do get it. It's just we don't be blowing our trumpet all over the relevant social networking sites about it. Best way to avoid these people is control their connection into you community, like the creeps above.
My Community - I know it's all about community, but the social network is centered around me, it's my social network. It would be nice if I had control who can easily listen in on my network. Who is in that community. I want to ensure that they are relevant to me. I want to know the people in my conversation, I want to select the people around me. Seems a little anal or self centered, is it really. Consider all the other social networking sites, you get to select who you can connect with, so why should Twitter be any different. Think about it, your social network isn't for your neighbour or the kid down the road it is for you. So you should have a say in it.

It's Private, but Just Ask.

Sure my twitter stream is set to private. Yes its not that private, as my followers can access my tweets so my privacy is only as good as my community. But my followers aren't the nasties listed above. They are the reason I'm on twitter for the community.

So if you think you belong in my community and we have a common interest, go on request to follow me. I don't bite.

Port80 May 2009 Roadtrip

Sun, 03 May 2009 19:33 GMT

It's true that I'm passionate about Port80 events; I've seen so many great things come out of Port80 Perth, I really want to see them established in other Australian capital cities.

Well, the Australian Web Industry Association are hitting the road again - this time, we're bringing Port80 to Sydney and Melbourne, with aspirations that these cities then take the baton and grow their events locally.

Gary Barber (AWIA Treasurer) and I will be promoting the Port80 Melbourne concept on May 26th, along with fellow AWIA committee member, Harriet Wakelam, who recently moved to Melbourne from Perth.

We're putting on some free nibbles, free entry and a cash bar at the funky Softbelly Bar. The full details are:

Port80 Melbourne
Tuesday 26th May, starting at 7.00pm, at:

The Lounge @ Softbelly Bar
367 Little Bourke Street
Melbourne VIC 3000

You can see a Google Map here.

Then, Gary and I are also joining fellow AWIA committee member and Sydney local, Marc Lehmann, at Port80 Sydney. Once again, free nibbles, free entry and even a few free drinks (thanks to sponsor, Saasu!) on May 27th, at the Saasu offices in Sydney CBD.

The full details for this one are:

Port80 Sydney
Wednesday 27th May, starting at 7.00pm, at:

Saasu Offices
Level One, 111 Elizabeth St
Sydney NSW 2000

You can view a Google Map here.

If you're going to be in either city on these days, I'd encourage you to attend. We promise no long boring speeches, this is a casual social affair. Port80 events are a chance for you to meet other web designers, developers, project managers and others in the web industry in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere.

Mark these dates in your diary, and please feel free to invite your colleagues and co-workers in the industry. I hope to see you there!

Freelancers Coffee

Sun, 03 May 2009 00:55 GMT

Now Perth can be busy place, with lots of professional networking events every month, seems that there are even more now with this financial hiccup, as people scramble for those networking contacts.

Funny thing is that most of the new ones now want to sell me something or get me to join some exclusive networking group that will bring me riches and world domination by afternoon teatime. All I have to do is just sign over a few thousand dollars a year and feed thew group them all my business contacts for good measure. Now I don't know about you but the only bugger getting rich here is the person that set that scheme up in the first place. Pyramid anyone, just without money.

Bring on the Coffee

Still all the these usual events, either cost ($10 to $90) or are very industry specific and top that off with that they are all at night. Now that is great for the average punter that is working the 9-5 treadmill. The evening networking events suit these people - just pop along to the event after work.

However things are a little different for freelancers, so this got me thinking. Why not have an event that freelancers and solo workers can attend, that is not in the evenings when family ties can hold you back from coming along.

Make it easy to get to, cheap, causal and relaxing. Now everyone loves going to a coffee shop, even if it's not for coffee. So why not have a regular event that people can relax, socialise and network at the same time at a coffee shop.

Hence Freelancers Coffee was born.

It's just really a concept, to help freelancers get out and meet people and stop being isolated, nothing more than that. No pimping of other networking or marketing snake oil groups. Just a simple meetup, ideally across all industries from bookkeeping, photography, marketing, graphic design, web design and so on. The more diverse the better.

Perth Freelancer Coffee

In Perth , we have a monthly Freelancers Coffee meetup, each one being at a different place each time, always near a train line, or good public transport. Such that it moves around the suburbs, attracting different people.

This month it's on Thursday 7th May from 10:30am at Mooba Central, 3/22 Railway Rd (near Outridge Crs), Subiaco. If you are a freelancer of solo worker why not come along, it' free. Well you do have to pay for your coffee. No registration, no rsvp, no hassles, just rock up, friendly people.

What would be ideal is if the concept of Freelancer's Coffee were to taken up in other places around Australia if not the world. All it takes is a few freelancers to get together and spread the word to others.

Wanna go to WebDU for nix?

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:04 GMT

Geoff and the Daemon team have a couple of economy-stimulating initiatives that might be of interest to anyone who would like to come to the WebDU ~~geek rock concert~~ conference next month.

From today’s email:

Whether it be economic or pandemic, zombie invasion or bikie warfare,
escape it all at webDU in the Star City Casino where the doors can be
barricaded and there’s a few weeks supply of water and food.

Sounds good, yeah?

If you’ve been negatively affected by the economic downturn, there’s a scholarship program you can apply for. http://www.webdu.com.au/about/scholarships

If you want to win a ticket, there’s a Twitter competition on too. The guys are giving away five tickets for the most creative reasons to want to go. http://www.webdu.com.au/about/twitter-competition

There’s heaps of flight deals at the moment too, on Virgin Blue, QANTAS and JetStar, so you can get over there pretty cheaply from anywhere in Australia or the surrounding regions.

I’m going to be going, and I’m pretty stoked – I’m a conference junkie and it’s going to be great. I’ll also be reporting on all the action for SitePoint.

Code Wars will be running on Day 0 as well, as has now become traditional, and I’m going to be part of the WANZAC team (West Australian/New Zealand Awesome Coders) with AJ Mercer, Kai Koenig and Campbell Anderson.

So who else?

Posted from kay lives here

Wanna go to WebDU for nix?

It has been awfully quiet round here

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:22 GMT

It has been three months since my last post, and while I have not posted here or at my other blog, I have not abandoned either site.

As I have only worked 50 of the last 100 days, this blog should be full of interesting posts on CSS and other web geekery. Instead nothing, why?

Most of my blog posts are written on the train to and from work. Working less and cycling more has reduced this time from five hours a week to less than two.
Work often provides inspiration for posts, however, instead of working with HTML, CSS or web 2.0, I have been working with JavaScript, jQuery and the intricacies of MySource Matrix workflows. While this keeps me busy, it is not pushing any boundaries or providing material to blog about.
I am spending more time on my other passion, cycling, including acquiring a couple of project bikes to build. While I am happy and confident in my web mechanic skills to blog about building anything web related. My bicycle mechanic skills are limited and I rather not exposed them to the everybody.

So what does this future hold for this blog, well until I my interest in CSS, HTML and web 2.0 topics is fired up, you will see a few cycling related posts. Most will be reviews of cycling related products (I have a couple of c
Crumpler bags to review) as well as some progress reports on my project bikes. It will not be another 100 days of silence.

Product Review: Sumo Lounge

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:15 GMT

The original bean bag was created in Italy, back in 1968. An icon throughout the 1970's, the bean bag is back, and even more comfortable with the arrival of successful bean bag brand, Sumo Lounge, into the Australian market.

I got my hands on an Omni Chair a few weeks ago, and I'm hooked. The size of this 135cm x 165cm (4.5′ x 5.5′) super comfortable seat will make you want to refer to it as something other than a bag. Think of it as more a lounge, filled with beans. Perhaps ‘bean furniture' would be an apt phrase?

Showing my age, I recall the bean bag craze of the late seventies, and now I understand what all those retro hipsters were on about. The first time I put the filling in (I used 300 litres of beans, and it could possibly do with some more), I climbed in and didn't want to move. The whole family are now fighting over who gets a turn, yet the massive size means that both Miss 5 and Master 8 can both chill out on it in front of their favourite TV shows, or alternatively Master 9 months and I get to play with his toys, and still have room spare.

The material (Ballistic Nylon for those fabric geeks) is hardy, and held together with some serious triple stitching; the result being that the Omni looks fairly indestructible. The nylon looks easy enough to wipe clean, and the bean insertion area not only comprises a zip, but also enough velcro to make it a challenge for younger ones to even get to the zip.

I can see myself dragging this outside near the pool during the warmer months. Cooler months will see it being used as a spare bed, as well as an ‘in front of the movie' couch.

I'm thinking the only drawback of this great Sumo Lounge product is that once you're in it, you don't want to get out - now you know what to blame for my lack of blogging!

You can get your hands on an Omni (available in five colours) from their online store for $199, which includes delivery. Sumo Lounge now has local presence in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States. They even offer a money back satisfaction guarantee, for the skeptical out there.

Disclaimer: I was provided an Omni Chair for the purposes of this review. Just because I got one for free doesn't mean I feel obligated to write a positive product review. This really is one seriously cool lounge accessory.

RORO Perth - Sinatra presentation

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:00 GMT

Here's my Sinatra presentation from tonight's Ruby on Rails Oceania (Perth) meetup

Sinatra

View more presentations from Matt Didcoe.

Who are we … I am not a Developer

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 05:30 GMT

The other day I went to get my business cards reprinted, you know it's a thing you do from time to time, and with that process you naturally review the information on them.

Now I have two sets of business cards. One set I hand out to the general business owners, potential clients and so on. The other set I distribute to agencies, the web industry and IT people.

Why do I go to all this trouble. To start with business cards are cheap, ($88 for 1000). I also discovered years ago that non industry people just didn't get the specialist roles in which I worked. Sure you can explain it to them, but at the end of the day unless you make an impression, they will no understand the specialist terms, or job title on the business card.

So I have one set that is generic, I'm Gary Barber, Director, of radharc a web design consultancy. Then I have cards that are for the web and related industries that understands, at least in part, what user experience, information architecture and usability is.

It's interesting that the A List Apart 2008 survey shows tell us what we are calling ourselves, and it's all over the shop, as you would expect. As Craig Buckler points out it doesn't really matter that much what we call ourselves, in the longer term, as there just isn't established job titles in our young industry anyway.

Combine this point with Jesse James Garrett's comments in his closing plenary at IASummit 2009, that have caused a little bit of a stir in the information architecture and interactive design community:

Information architecture does not exist as a profession. As an area of interest and inquiry? Sure. As your favorite part of your job? Absolutely. But it's not a profession.

…there's no such thing as an interaction designer either. Not as a profession. Anyone who claims to specialize in one or the other is a fool or a liar. The fools are fooling themselves into thinking that one aspect of their work is somehow paramount. And the liars seek to align themselves with a tribe that will convey upon them status and power.

There are no information architects. There are no interaction designers. There are only, and only ever have been, user experience designers…

…We are not information architects. We are not interaction designers. We are user experience designers. This is the identity we must embrace. Any other will only hold back the progress of the field by marginalizing an important dimension of our work and misleading those outside our field about what is most important and valuable about what we do. Because it's not information, and it's not interaction.

We're in the experience business. User experience. We create things that people use…. - Jesse James Garrett

As you can see, seems Jessie thinks we should all be User Experience Designers. After listening in full to the audio [M4A file] of this session, I tend to agree with him, I can see his point, in part.

However I do find this debate very amusing.

Perth, Western Australia, the city which I operate from is not really on the leading edge with the latest trends in design. Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful place, great lifestyle. Just not Sydney, New York or London.

Just the other day I was quizzed by a friend over the term Web Architect. He was 100% verbatain that I was pulling the wool over peoples eyes, as he knew I was not an Architect. That's true I don't have a degree in Architecture, but we are not talking about the construction industry are we. Then there is the term User Experience Designer, yeah that gets the same reaction. So in my local business community anything other than web designer, as a title, is going to be looked on as being a little pretentious.

Sure it's an education issue, from a business view point it's about educating people as to what an Information Architect or User Experience Designer is. But after all these years, it's just easier to call myself a Web Designer and then explain my various specialisations that I can offer.

So it may work for you, Jessie, but locally I don't think the term User Experience Designer is going to work outside of the web industry and large organisations.

Sometimes I do wonder about if I really fit in this User Experience community at all. I love to do the user research, the planning, the designing and building of user tested web interfaces, even down to the graphical design elements. Being creative is in my blood.

Maybe I'm just a fool or a liar, or just a Web Designer. All I know is I don't develop web sites, I can plan, design, implement and project manage them, just no server coding for me - the rest of the deal I do.

So what do we call all that?

Get an Idea(s) about Accessibility

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:54 GMT

AWIA has run a number of “Ideas” seminars in Perth over the past few years – well, four others to be exact. Each time we’ve brought speakers from interstate and overseas to share their wisdom on various topics deserving of some deep thinking.

This time around – April 22 - Roger Hudson and Andrew Downie, two noted Australian accessibility experts, will be giving their insights on the impact of version 2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Just exactly what do they mean to the average (or not so average) web developer?

Ideas5 is an evening seminar to help the web community understand WCAG 2.0 and prepare websites with improved accessibility.

Where?

The Melbourne Hotel
942 Hay Street
PERTH WA 6000

View Map

When?

Wed. 22 April 2009
7:00pm +

How Much?

AWIA Members: $40
Non-Members: $55

Tickets are available online now. If you’re in Perth, I hope to see you there.

Posted from kay lives here

Get an Idea(s) about Accessibility

Ideas 5: The accessibilty edition

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:41 GMT

The Australian Web Industry Association, together with Web Industry Professionals Association, present Ideas 5. This year's Ideas is is focussing on Understanding WCAG 2.0 & Preparing Websites with Improved Accessibility. If you are a web developer, and you aren't thinking about accessibility then you REALLY need to get your butt down to the Melbourne Hotel in Perth on 22 of April 2009. Tickets are only $40 for AWIA members ($55 if you aren't. In unrelated news, AWIA memberships are pretty cheap)

The two talks will be given by Roger Hudson and About Andrew, both experts in their fields, so seriously, it's a great opportunity to hear from people that know what they are talking about.

Go to the website and get more info. Go on. Seriously.

cf.Objective(ANZ) wants to hear from you…

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:23 GMT

The call for speakers is now on - and the cf.Objective(ANZ) team want to hear not only from potential speakers, but from everyone who is thinking of attending - what (or who) would you like to see? What topics are you interested in? Email news@cfobjective.com.au and let us know.

Some of the sessions have already been confirmed, but the final program won't be decided until after the public call is closed on April 24 - so you still have time.

A little birdy told me a more complete web site for the conference is only just around the corner. You can already sign up to the newsletter at the site or follow cfOjective(ANZ) on Twitter (hint: that's where confirmed speakers are being name-dropped!).

I feel like I'm repeating myself but it's true - I'm just so excited that there's growth in the ColdFusion conference space and that the “hardcore CF” cfObjective brand is coming to our region. All very good stuff.

Posted from kay lives here

cf.Objective(ANZ) wants to hear from you…

A Review - Sexy Web Design

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:30 GMT

Rating:: 4

If you have read as many web design books as I have you find that they fall into basically two categories:

The ones in which the author waxes on about how wonderful they are at design, show off page after page of their own portfolio. The entire book becomes a publicity fest.
Then there is the type of book that is presented in a level headed manner, it is a great reference of the step by step process that web designers go through to product a web site.

Well Sexy Web Design by Elliot Jay Stocks is the latter, a well balanced guide that takes you through a clean conversation on how to create that next awesome web site.

The thing that I really like about this book is that it is to the point, it's not overly weighty on the design theory, as it assumes you already have some of that skill locked away already. However this book would still be ideal for a beginning designer.

Was it personally useful for me, well I'll be honest, no it wasn't. While I was reading this book I was just ticking off the points made one by one, noting that in reality there was nothing that I hadn't already gained from experience. Now I have been doing this a long time, so I do get this a lot. But it is good to know that Elliot in mu mind has covered off all the aspects of web design.

The book is divided into 6 chapters.

Overview of the design process, in which the design goals of an interface and the overall process are discussed.
Design Research, this chapter was so welcome, explaining why the brief is important, moving onto the design inspirational process.
Site Structure, being involved with information architecture, I'm going to have a little bit of a bias here. It's nice to see the consideration of this design element before jumping into the high resolution design.
Navigation and Interaction, again I'm bias here, Elliot runs through a whistle stop tour of the common web interactive elements, and what works where and when.
Aesthetics, in this solid chapter Elliot looks at the usual design techniques, the grid, layout types (fixed, fluid, flexible, etc), color, mood boards, imagery types, typography and the impact of emotion on the overall user experience. In a way this book is well worth its cost for this chapter alone.
Final wrap is with the Deliverables, so now you have that sexy design, how do you organise your Photoshop layers, deliver that mockup, slice the design quickly and write that style guide, well in this chapter Elliot tells us how.

I have yet to read the perfect book. This one had a few things that annoyed me, there was one instance where I thought the layout of the pages could have been executed in a different manor. But overall that was a minor point. Nothing that I would discount the book for.

Sexy Web Design is by in large a good reference book.

Full of little hints and tips that will help all but crusty old designers like me. And even then if you have had your eye off the ball for an instant, I bet you will still get something out of this book.

Now if you are looking for a Photoshop guide or a CSS design book, this is not for you, this is about design!

So if you have a design flare, and need to know how to design web sites then this is the book for you.

Ideas5 - Time to Learn About Accessibility

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 18:30 GMT

The Australian Web Industry Association is doing it again. Putting on one of those must go to educational web events. This one goes under the moniker of Ideas 5.

They are having an evening of discussions with leading Australian accessibility experts Roger Hudson and Andrew Downie. Roger will be giving the low down on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2 (WCAG 2), while Andrew will be presenting some practical advice on PDF Accessibility. There is also the usual round of networking with your web industry peers and a cash bar.

When: Wednesday 22nd April, from 7:00pm

Where: The Melbourne Hotel, 942 Hay Street, Perth

Cost: $40 for AWIA Members

Now if you are fully up to date, you will know that WCAG 2 has been ratified by the W3C, but it yet to be adopted here in Australia. However I can say that it is very close to happening. So this event would be an ideal time to get your brain space around the new accessibility guidelines.

Okay I know there is lot of PDF use out there as a cheap web publishing means, so it would also be a good idea to also come along and see first hand what type of issues that our bad PDF documents are causing accessibility wise on the web. So you get two must see events for one! Cool, eh.

Now what you waiting for go on, go get a ticket, yes right now. I hope to see you at Ideas5 to learn all about WCAG 2, PDF Accessibility and to have a drink or two.

My .vimrc

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:07 GMT

I've had a few requests for my Vim settings recently. I might as well share it in a blog post. So here's my .vimrc.

SchwaCMS goes live

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:58 GMT

For the past couple of months, I've been locked in my room, hacking away at a (probably not-so) top secret project - which I have just pulled the big switch on. So ladies and gentleman, let me introduce you to ?CMS. It's a hosted CMS product that has taken ideas from many years of toiling away on other peoples' CMSs.

There is a complete feature list on the website, but some of the geek highlights:

Upload progress bar
Proper use of HTTP status codes (including 410 - Gone)
Full UTF-8 support (Check it out — the ? isn't a HTML entity, it's a real schwa)
Weight based keyword extraction from content
Full-text search, including a Did you mean? function
Integrated spell checking
Just-in-time scaling and caching of images
HTML is automatically cleaned on save
The ability to export the menu as an ordered list for inclusion in third-party apps, such as blogs or forums
A demo that is tied to the browser session, as as soon as the user logs out, their demo site gets blown away

I'm pretty excited about this release. It's built on a custom PHP framework, and is hosted on my very own hosting box - it almost feels like MadPilot is a real web company now! (It's only taken 8 years :P)

Go check it out: http://www.schwacms.com

Why is the iPhone a big deal?

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:04 GMT

I know this. Put an iPhone into my hands, and I want to build software for it. There is just something about this device that compels me. I want to write something for it, even if I end up being the only user of my creation.

I never have this reaction when I interact with Windows Mobile & co. I wouldn't even bother downloading the SDK unless I'm working for a shop that builds applications for one of these platforms.

So I do download the iPhone SDK and check I it out. And I go wow, I can do all this with minimal fuss? This thing makes me look good! But wait it gets better. They give me an app store that allows me to reach millions of customers. Sign me up!

And ladies and gentlemen, this is why the iPhone is a big deal. There are thousands and thousands of developers out there who are thinking the exact same thing.

Ada Lovelace Day: My Local Heroines

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:37 GMT

So the day has finally come for my Ada Lovelace Day post, and although I’ve been thinking about who I will write about for over a month now, I’m still no closer to making a decision. So, I decided to stop fighting it and write about all of the Australian women in IT who inspire me.

These are not the people who get accolades (well, not all of them). But they each possess qualities that I admire and so this post is a little thank you to them for being wonderful.

First up is Sonja Bernhardt. She’s somewhat well known as a spokesperson for the issues facing women in IT and unlike the other women I’m going to talk about, she does get accolades, and they are well-deserved. I admire Sonja for looking at the gender problem and actually doing something about it. Not of all of her ideas succeed, but she has the drive to keep trying different things regardless and she deserves recognition for that.

Second of all I’d like to call out someone near and dear to me: Helen Burgess. Helen is a lecturer at Central TAFE and faces a daily uphill battle to get web development best practices taught to students, in line with industry requirements and expectations. As I write “a daily uphill battle” I can’t help but imagine her battling through a computer-game like world, blasting away at budgetary restraints, stuffy traditionalist teachers and restrictive guidelines as she goes to get her morning coffee. I’m sure it’s less dramatic than that. Helen sits on the Australian Web Industry Association committee (as do I), and is also the Judging Chairperson for the WA Web Awards - so she’s keeping us all honest.

My next local heroine is the fabulous Harriet Wakelam. Harriet works with all kinds of educational technology. I admire Harriet not only for what she achieves, but for her passion for educating which can’t help but come through when you speak to her. Harriet is also on the AWIA committee and when I first met her (at a Port80 networking event at the pub) I was impressed by her ability to juggle a young family and a technology career and still have time for the occasional beer at the pub with some colleagues. She’s a superwoman for sure.

Next I’d like to welcome to my imaginary stage Maxine Sherrin. Maxine is one of the organisers of Web Directions, the web tech conference that has basically become a full time endeavour for her over the past few years and has inspired all kinds of other events, including but not limited to our own Edge of the Web conference in Perth. Maxine is unbelievably cool, and she makes stuff happen. Also she gets to hang out with cool people. In fact, when I grow up, I totally want to be Maxine.

As I write this I realise there’s more and more people I could write about, but I’m going to limit myself to one more: Cheryl Gledhill. Chezza and I share some common ground in that we both decided to start our own businesses in the web development sphere with our partners. I look at the way Molt:n have approached their business and have picked up some things that I think we could be doing better (and I wear my Molt:n “I like code” tshirt with pride). I also love Cheryl’s attitude, which comes through in her blog posts and tweets – this girl does not take shit from anyone.

So there you have – just a few of the Australian women in IT that I admire.

Posted from kay lives here

Ada Lovelace Day: My Local Heroines

Topre Realforce 86U

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:42 GMT

I've had the Topre Realforce 86U tenkeyless (no numeric keypad) board for several months now. It is my all time favorite when it comes to keyboards. It's got a superlative key feel and a fantastic build quality. Plus it comes with a red esc key. That has to count for something ;)

The tactile feedback; the soft, rhythmic thock thock of the keys on the way back up; the sheer poetry of cutting code in Vim while I'm in the zone. That's the drug I live on. The creative high that I keep chasing. The reason why I program.

New Vim colour scheme - vylight

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 03:49 GMT

I have recently started playing with Objective-C and Cocoa. One of the first things that I did was to tell Xcode to use MacVim as my default code editor. In the past, I have mostly been using Vim colour schemes with dark backgrounds.

However, I now wanted a colour scheme with a light background. Something that would fit in well within the Xcode environment and OS X in general. It had to be subtle and easy on the eyes. I looked around, and couldn't find one that I liked. So I made my own. I'm calling it vylight.

Here's a screenshot showing syntax highlighting for Objective-C. Search strings are highlighted in light yellow. Selected text is in light blue to fit in with aqua. TODOs and FIXMEs are highlighted in light green in comments.

This is what omni completion looks like:

Syntax highlighting in PHP:

And JavaScript:

Installing vylight

Download vylight.vim
Copy the file to your ~/.vim/colors/ directory
In Vim, do :colorscheme vylight

Using SSH to run remote commands using PHP. A cheat guide.

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 06:22 GMT

I'm working on a soon-to-be-released project that needed to run commands on a Linux server. Whilst it would be possible to use something like the exec command to run it, this would mean that the user that Apache was running as would have to have permissions to run the commands, which is less than cool. I could have messed around with sudo, but even that would open up some gaping holes, as all other websites hosted on the same box could theoretically run the same commands.

As it turns out, there is a PECL project that allows you to remotely login to a server using SSH, which would actually kill a number of birds with one stone:

I can sandbox the commands that get run, by setting a special user that only has access to commands that are needed (using sudo)
The web app would be able to talk to multiple servers, which wouldn't have been possible with exec alone

The flow is simple: Login to the server - I'm using a username/password pair at the moment, but only because I haven't been able to get public key exchange working on the server yet (interestingly, it works if I call the code from the command line), run the command, then check the output and response. There was a slight issue here, ssh2_exec returns a pointer to a stream, which needs to be read. If there is no response (some programs complete without returning anything), then the process would block indefinately. Also, if the program fails, it might not output anything to stdout, instead outputting text to stderr, AND you miss out on checking the return status code (which quite often gives you some interesting information about the status of the program).

To get around this, I wrote this really simple bash script, that runs the command on your behalf and wraps the stdout, stderr, pwd and result in an XML envelope ready for parsing. Because you will always get the envelope returned (unless the process daemonises) you won't get the blocking problem.

#!/bin/sh


tmp_stderr=`mktemp`
output=`$* 2>$tmp_stderr`

result=$?

error=`cat $tmp_stderr`

rm $tmp_stderr
echo ""

echo ""
if [ -n "$output" ]

then

  echo "  "

  echo "    
  echo $output

  echo "   "

  echo "  "

fi
if [ -n "$error" ]

then

  echo "  "

  echo "    
  echo $error

  echo "   ]]>"

  echo "  "

fi

echo " " echo " $PWD In a nutshell, when you call the script, it runs the program supplied as an argument, then pipes the stderr out to a temporary file, and pipes stdout into a variable. It wraps this, and the current working directory and return value in XML, and prints it out. Pretty simple, but it works.

]]>

Building SoundFolder

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 03:12 GMT

Its no secret that I've been working on an awesome new web start-up called SoundFolder.

Grant Bissett, the brain child and owner of SoundFolder has setup an Enki install where we're going to blog about the business of setting up a start-up from scratch and the technology we use to power SoundFolder.

There's already three posts up there:

You can read new articles at the blog - http://backstage.soundfolder.com

Debugging JavaScript in Internet Explorer

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:48 GMT

As anyone who has ever received the dreaded Object doesn't support this property or method error in IE can attest, debugging using everyone favourite browser is a right, royal pain in the heiny. Using Firebug in Firefox really has spoilt us as frontend developers (Hey, what am I talking? These ARE BASIC TOOLS that every other development platform has had since Ada Lovelace was in small britches, but I digress), so what is a cross-platform developer to do?

Little known fact outside of the .NET world: Visual Studio has a complete JavaScript debugger built in, which allows you to set breakpoints, add watches, mess around with variable values and more importantly, gives you better error messages, and actually highlights the line where things went wrong.

Download and Install Visual Studio Express Edition (which is free as in beer).
Create a new Web Site - call it what ever you like, it's just a placeholder
Hit “Run” (or F5) on the blank problem - a local server should start, and IE7 should load a blank page
Change the URL to the page you want to debug. Once the page is loaded the debugger is good to go - in fact, if your page has any errors, Visual Studio will get focus, and politely tell you as such
To add a break point, flick back to Visual Studio Express and open the JavaScript file you wish to add the break point to, and then refresh the browser - once context hits the point, you will be able to step through the code.

Whilst still lacking a DOM browser (Firebug Lite might be able to help out with that), this takes some of the fun out of debugging JavaScript IE, from the point of view that it is now actually possible.

MythTV + XBMC = HOT SAUCE

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 05:23 GMT

In December, I blogged about my new Atom-based MythTV setup. Whilst is was OK, I've since bought a Jetway J9F2 coupled with a Core2 T5500 (1.6Ghz) CPU. Let me state this now: it is the best MiniITX based media centre setup there is. It has HDMI and DVI outputs, two gigabit network ports and digital audio, and has enough power to happily decode free-to-air HDTV. The layout suits my case better than both previous boards, as there seems to be more airflow - with two caveats:

You NEED to use low-profile RAM if you want the DVD player to fit. I got some Kingston dual-channel sticks off eBay (2GB worth).
Because I use right-angle PCI riser for my trusty AverMedia DVB-T card, I had to slice some of the plastic off the SATA cable to make it fit (The SATA ports are in a really bad spot). The SATA cable that comes with the board is slightly non-standard, which made it possible to perform the surgery - I don't think it'll work on regular SATA plugs, as they are thicker.

But besides that, it really is an awesome rig. Oh, it turns out that the “power” issue I had was actually because the DVD wasn't sitting properly with the old board, which was causing something to jam, which in turn drew too much power and shut the system down. With the new board (and the low profile RAM) DVD playback works perfectly. I'm yet to try burning.

Anyway, since everything is now working properly, I thought it time to mess around with some more software! It is no secret that the MythTV UI is pretty bad (understatement!) - particulary the video and music plugins. Whilst we use the PVR features A LOT, we also watch videos and listen to music quite a bit, and with the library growing and growing it was getting harder and harder to find what we wanted to watch or listen to.

My little brother introduced me to XBMC a while ago, and I was really impressed. It actually feels like a real media center - it has slick effects, nice themes and just feels better. Up until November last year, it was a Windows only affair, but now the port to Linux has been released, so I have installed it. And it is ace. It's not perfect, but it sure beats MythTV for video and music watching. Some highlights:

When you are watching a movie, and need to go back to the menu, the video continues playing in a smaller window
You can browse music by Artist, Album and Song (unlike MythMusic which is a horrendous tree setup)
It is smart enough to group TV shows together AND it can pull meta data out not only for TV shows, but episode in those TV shows
You can group different directories, so, if you are like me and have a couple of external drives, you can group movie directories from both drives into one list
I've said it before, but (almost counter-intuitively) having nice animations and transistion makes things feel more polished and it does.

Although it does support the MythTV protocol partially for watching live TV, it isn't ready for prime time yet - you can't easily change channels, or view the EPG, nor can you change signal inputs or hit record to record a program which means I still need to run MythTV. Mind you, when they implement the API fully, I would happily drop mythfrontend for XBMC.

So make life a little more remote control friendly, I've added a custom menu item for XBMC into my /usr/share/mythtv/library.xml that just runs xbmc -fs (full screen mode), so I can select it from the Media menu item in MythTV.

There is still some outstanding issues though:

I need to get my remote mapped properly - for some reason it ignores my arrow keys, which is really annoying. I guess I just need to mess with the Lircmap.xml file to sort that out.
I need to work out how to add an exit menu item on the main menu - I haven't got a key I can bind to the shutdown menu, which makes to make dropping back to MythTV impossible without a keyboard
There is no interlacing support in the Linux version yet (that I can find anyway) so HD tv is unwatchable - no biggie - I use MythTV for that.

Other than that, give it a go - it is what MythTV SHOULD be. 4 1/2 stars.

Triple J Hottest 100 - 2008

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:14 GMT

Firstly, Happy Australia Day

Today Triple J played the hottest 100 tracks from 2008 as voted by the listeners.

The top 5 in the hottest 100 were:
1 - Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
2 - MGMT - Electric Feel
3 - Kings of Leon - Use Somebody
4 - Empire of the Sun - Walking On A Dream
5 - MGMT - Kids

You can see the whole list at http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hottest100/popup.htm.

Some artists took out more than one spot in the top 100, here's the complete list in order of how many each artists took out.

Kings of Leon - 4
Vampire Weekend - 4
Flight of the Conchords - 3
MGMT - 3
The Grates - 3
The Presets - 3
Birds Of Tokyo - 2
Bliss N Eso - 2
Cog - 2
Dizzee Rascal - 2
Drapht - 2
Empire of the Sun - 2
Josh Pyke - 2
Ladyhawke - 2
Lily Allen - 2
Muph & Plutonic - 2
Pnau - 2
The Herd - 2
The Killers - 2
The Ting Tings - 2
Architecture In Helsinki - 1
Art vs Science - 1
Ash Grunwald - 1
Band of Horses - 1
Ben Folds - 1
Birds of Tokyo - 1
Black Kids - 1
Bliss n Eso - 1
Bon Iver - 1
British India - 1
Children Collide - 1
Cold War Kids - 1
Cut Copy - 1
Death Cab For Cutie - 1
Does It Offend You, Yeah? - 1
Dukes of Windsor - 1
Emiliana Torrini - 1
Faker - 1
Fleet Foxes - 1
Flight Of The Conchords - 1
Franz Ferdinand - 1
Gyroscope - 1
Hot Chip - 1
Ida Maria - 1
Jack White & Alicia Keys - 1
Kaiser Chiefs - 1
Kanye West - 1
Laura Marling - 1
Lisa Mitchell - 1
Little Red - 1
Lyrics Born - 1
Metallica - 1
Muscles - 1
Mystery Jets - 1
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - 1
Pendulum - 1
Pez - 1
Rise Against - 1
Santogold - 1
Sigur Ros - 1
Soko - 1
Something With Numbers - 1
Sparkadia - 1
Tame Impala - 1
The Butterfly Effect - 1
The Getaway Plan - 1
The Kooks - 1
The Living End - 1
The Rapture - 1
Ween - 1
Weezer - 1
Wiley - 1
Yves Klein Blue - 1

Drop caps, first-letter and Firefox

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 06:57 GMT

I have been experimenting with the :first-letter pseudo-element to try and write up a tutorial on using first-letter, adjacent selectors and @font-face to produce drop caps and I have run into a problem in the form of Firefox. Because you need to apply the property float: left to stop first-letter being an inline element and Firefox applies different rules to floated :first-letter pseudo-element than the other browsers, making it difficult to vertically align a floated :first-letter pseudo-element and the the remaining text.

The specs for :first-letter pseudo-element state:

These are the properties that apply to :first-letter pseudo-elements: font properties, … ‘line-height', … margin properties, padding properties … UAs may apply other properties as well.

Width and height are not properties that have to be applied to first-letter. Only the WebKit family (Safari, Chrome etc.) apply these properties. The main issue is line-height which could be used to control the vertical size of the first-letter pseudo-element, as according to the specs.

To allow UAs to render a typographically correct drop cap or initial cap, the UA may choose a line-height, width and height based on the shape of the letter

Internet Explorer, Webkit and Opera have chosen not to apply line-height and unless one is specified, a :first-letter pseudo-element will inherit line-height from the parent element. Firefox has chosen to apply a line-height to all first-letter elements equal to the height of the element and you have no method of changing it. This automatically aligns the top of the floated :first-letter pseudo-element in the parent block element.

Because the line-height is the height of the type, you get different line-height for different characters eg a, t and p. Which makes it virtually impossible to use lower case letters to produce drop caps like effects.

So you need to reduce the line-height of first-letter to the cap height of your chosen typeface then use margin-top or padding-top to vertically align the top of first-letter with the top of the remaining text. Not only is this more complicated than just changing line-height, you need to do two calculations instead of one. Internet Explorer applies margin and padding to floated :first-letter pseudo-elements differently than other browsers. By fixing the :first-letter pseudo-element in place after applying line-height then applying margin and padding to it, which does not effect surrounding elements.

Five different browsers rendering floated :first-letter pseudo-elements with slightly different properties. Chrome produces the same results as Safari. Note IE8b2 does strange things to backgrounds both colour and images of the:first-letter pseudo-element.

So to get a cross browser drop cap effect using :first-letter pseudo-element that vertically aligns, you need to apply float: left, then find the height of the typeface cap height, reduce the line-height to that, adjust margin-top so it aligns correctly in Firefox and in Opera or a WebKit browser, and then using conditional comments for an IE only stylesheet remove margin-top and change line-height to correctly vertically align the type.

It would of been a lot easier if Mozilla Corporation and Microsoft read the CSS specifications the same way as everybody else and applied the same rules.

I am not the only one playing with CSS3

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:01 GMT

Andy Clarke got me interested in what you could do with CSS3 with Five CSS design browser differences I can live with over at For A Beautiful Web blog. I realised what I was missing and start looking at what CSS3 properties that could be applied now, css3.info was an invaluable resource.

Then on December 1 24 Ways showed what could be done and how not to do it with regards to graceful degradation. After problems with the initial design, there was a couple of great articles on using CSS3 for progressive enhancement by John Allsopp and Elliot Jay Stocks.

A few days ago, Smashing Magazine published Push Your Web Design Into The Future With CSS3, which is a general introduction to CSS3. It also lead me to the Zen Elements blog of Alex Mitchell, which like me is experimenting with CSS3 properties and putting it on display for everyone to learn from.

I have not forgotten my demonstration of @font-face, first-letter and adjacent selectors. I am having issues with vertical alignment cross browsers. You will see that demonstration is the near future.

Browsers I rather not support

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 21:54 GMT

There has been a little bit of noise about the blogsphere recently about wanting to drop browser support for a certain browser this year. So here are the browsers I would like to stop supporting, why and why I will continue to support them.

Internet Explorer 7

This would of been a great browser if it was released in 2003, instead it was released in 2006. The improvements over IE6 were good but not worth waiting 5 years for. It still has a number of the IE6 idiosyncrasies that require work arounds. It is the most popular browser is common use today, and likely to remain
so for another year, before succumbing to IE8. Still you will supporting it for a few years to come.

Google Chrome

A fast, lightweight browser, which I was happy to use while in beta. Since it reached 1.0 release, I have become aware of a few short comings. It branched from the webkit evolution far too early and has not included recent improvements that other webkit browsers have. For example the problem with border-radius and box-shadow, lack of support for @font-face. In addition the Chrome renders type differently from all other browsers. Still while it has a decent market for a new browser and the opportunity to improve exists it needs to be supported.

Internet Explorer 6

A great browser in 2001, which should of been replaced in 2003 and disappeared from view by 2006. It has a number of idiosyncrasies that require work arounds, and you have to spend considerable time after getting a design to work in IE6 after you had it working in more modern browsers. However, over two years after being replaced it still commands around 20% of the IE market share. This has very little to do with computers not being able to support IE7. Less that 5% of all IE6 users are on an OS other than XP.

Unfortunately IE6…s reign of 5 years cemented it…s position in the corporate market and their intranet systems. A large number of corporate networks could not upgrade to IE7, because major tools like the finance and human resources system (in our office) would not work with IE7. These are not quick and dirty locally built tools, but major applications built by vendors like Oracle, IBM and the ilk. However, more than 2 years after it…s release, IE7 is now getting support from these applications and as corporates upgrade these system, most are also upgrading their corporate browser to IE7. Unfortunately this will take a couple more years, before IE7 or IE8 rule the corporate sector.

A more disturbing trend is the netbooks and inexpensive laptops that connect to the free wifi at work, over 50% of the machines running XP use IE6, compared to less than 25% of the XP machines accessing the regular website. I do not know if this is because IE6 is the preferred browser for low spec machine running XP or something to do with the large number of Chinese and Korean language devices.

Still while IE6 is our corporate browser, I will have to support it, no questions asked. As I will while it remains popular in either in the corporate or low end netbook/laptop sectors.

Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile 6

If you thought supporting IE6 or the old IE5 was painful, you have never had to support IE for WM5 or WM6. It does not know if is a mobile browser or a full blown browser for the small screen, it loads both screen and mobile profile stylesheets, it only supports XHTML-MP which is missing a few key elements from HTML4. JavaScript support is interesting, some scripts work, other do not and some use crash the browser. Unfortunately it is one of the major mobile browsers and Windows Mobile is popular in the corporate sectors. Around 10 times more popular than the iPhone and Mobile Safari and a lot more than Opera Mobile, my favourite small screen browsers.

Browsers I will stop supporting this year

I have already made a decision not to worry about getting the new website I just launched for work, perfect in Firefox 2 and Safari 2. they accounts for less than 1% of all traffic. So as long as it functions correctly that is all I am concerned about. Minor defects are acceptable. On the other hand, Firefox 2 support will be a concern if I every get round to redesigning this blog because it accounts for 5% of all traffic. Apparently web geeks are twice as likely to stick with Firefox 2 than the average Firefox user, probably something to do with the trusty web developer toolbar. Still I will review that later in the year.

I am a little more ruthless than the Yahoo browser support chart, I have already dropped Windows 2000 support. I currently only worry about XP, Vista, OSX 10.4 and 10.5 and Ubuntu as OSes and IE6, IE7, Safari 3, Chrome, Opera 9.5, Firefox 2 & 3 as browsers for computers. Though I looking at dropping Chrome and Firefox 2 to functional only while adding IE8 and Opera 10. I also support Mobile Safari, Opera Mobile, Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile 6 and would support the latest S60 browser if I had access to a test device.

Cambria and Chrome

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:48 GMT

After reading Eight Definitive Font Stacks over a SitePoint, I decided to have a look at the differences between the font choices, particularly the use of the Vista fonts (Cambria, Constantia, Calibri, Corbel, Segoe UI and Consolas) so I fired up the Vista virtual machine to have a look at the differences between Cambria and Times New Roman, the two windows fonts in the first stack at 50px for closer inspection. If you have Cambria and Times New Roman installed this is the test page I used.

On close inspection, I like Cambria and the idea of using it for body copy. Just need to find a suitable Mac font and a fallback for those XP machines without it. Times New Roman has never cut it as a body copy font for me. On the other hand Times New Roman looks so elegant at large text sizes, that I could not bear to use Cambria as a display text(Title and headings) if Times New Roman was available.

Mindful of the recent Chrome and Safari render the same…or do they? discussion on the WSG mailing list. I fired up all the test browsers on that machine to see if there are any differences in font rendering between IE8, Firefox3.1 beta, Safari 3.1, Opera 10 alpha and Chrome. The results have been combined into single image.

The shock was how differently Chrome rendered the text to all the other browsers. The type is significantly heavier with Chrome, looking more like a semibold version of the typeface, when compared to all the other browsers, which rendered the type identical to my untrained eye.

I have always known that type on the web is far from perfect. But by selecting the right fonts and using relative sizes, you could deliver a fairly consistent typographical experience to most users no matter what OS, browser, installed fonts and user settings they had. Chrome takes your carefully constructed typography and makes it darker and dramatically changing your design. Oliver Reichenstein said Web design is 95% typography that is because Google Chrome now has a 5% market share.

The State of the Web survey

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:04 GMT

aka thoughts on what everybody else is doing

I have just finished reading The State of the Web survey results. I was surprised by the results of the survey of current web practices, I always considered myself an early adopter of design and development practices and technologies when it comes to HTML, CSS and the ilk. With an early adopter audience for this survey, I expected to be in the middle of the pack of with my design and development practices.

Well I am with my choice of OS, Tiger on the laptop, XP (not my choice) at work, browser of choice Firefox 3 (well 3.1 beta) and even our work environment with linux, apache, PHP, PostgreSQL and MySQL. But then things do take a surprising turn.

Around 25% of respondents test sites in a mobile browser, 33% use microformats, 4% use RDFA (it has been in my footer for a couple of years now), 4% use @font-face (I was one of the six respondents to use both TTF/OTF and EOT formats), all things I do and most for a year or two (@font-face excluded).

So I am ahead of the early adopters and this scares me. Because for the last two years I have not been pushing my craft, I have been reading less, particularly leading edge web development blogs and up until a few weeks ago not experimenting.

So if I have lazy for the last couple of years, why am I still ahead of the pack. Wishful thinking is that most people have been gaining knowledge with javascript libraries and frameworks, as well as back-end frameworks. A couple of areas I need to invest some time in, but looking at the survey results I could still be classed as an early adopter with javascript libraries and frameworks and my back-end skills have never been good.

Instead I believe not enough people are pushing their skills, not spending enough time seeking out what other people are doing, learning new and cool stuff and just having fun experimenting. Well I am not going to be one of them, so I hope you will at least join me for the ride if you are not going to push yourself.

!important keyword and IE

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:52 GMT

Yeah in a comment to my recent @font-face post suggested that you should place the conditional comments last because how IE6 does not handle the !important keyword correctly.

I will stick with my original decision of placing conditional comments first, because while IE7 and below do not handle the !important keyword as per the W3C specifications, they do apply !important consistently.

IE7 and below does apply !important correctly in all but one circumstance:

If you have access to IE7 or below view a demonstration, otherwise here are the screenshots.

IE7

IE8 (which does apply the !important keyword correctly.

West Coast Bloggers

Break Your Own Promises

My return to Tablet PC happy land

Was it Good for You Too Honey - UX Getting it Wrong

Screaming Buttons

Tools, Functionality and Bears

And Now For Forms

It’s all about Confirmation Candy

Speaking Nicely to People

Playing Hide and Seek.

It’s all Confusing - Stepping beyond the problems

Upgraded to Wordpress 2.8

Nine Ways to Have a Better Lunchbreak

The Best Business Insurance

The first SchwaCMS goes live!

10 Rules for Small Business and Social Networks

What's Old is New Again.

Have Things Really Changed.

Step Back, Smell the Roses.

Look for the market.

Plan ahead.

Be Honest.

Let go.

Live it.

Be real.

Don't hire a Social Media Expert.

Start small.

It's all or none.

Understand it.

Are you ready to Bar Camp?

For the Love of Type

Draft, Draft and Draft Again

For the Beauty of Old Books.

Why You Should Attend Two Conferences a Year

Australian Web Awards now open!

Learn to Say Sorry

Book Review: Online Marketing Inside Out

Dear clients…

Introducing meftos.com

Crumpler Yee Ross Review

Pros

Cons

Taking Port80 on the Road

Port80 Melbourne - 26 May

Port80 Sydney - 27 May

Crumpler Part and Parcel Courier Bag review

Pros

Cons

Conclusion

When it’s not Freelancing

That's Not Freelancing

Reasons for a Private Twitter Stream

It's Not that I Don't Like You

It's Private, but Just Ask.

Port80 May 2009 Roadtrip

Freelancers Coffee

Bring on the Coffee

Perth Freelancer Coffee

Wanna go to WebDU for nix?

It has been awfully quiet round here

Product Review: Sumo Lounge

RORO Perth - Sinatra presentation

Who are we … I am not a Developer

Get an Idea(s) about Accessibility

Where?

When?

How Much?

Ideas 5: The accessibilty edition

cf.Objective(ANZ) wants to hear from you…

A Review - Sexy Web Design

Ideas5 - Time to Learn About Accessibility

My .vimrc

SchwaCMS goes live

Why is the iPhone a big deal?

Ada Lovelace Day: My Local Heroines

Topre Realforce 86U

New Vim colour scheme - vylight

Installing vylight

Using SSH to run remote commands using PHP. A cheat guide.

Building SoundFolder