November 30th, 2006
If I could have any sort of computer rig it would involve this, what would you choose in your ideal rig? Mine would also have a beer dispenser and something to do with JD & Coke seeing as I am going to move my computer into my boys room / office.
November 27th, 2006
Woo hoo! My mate Adam Cavill has converted his website to Wordpress and has started blogging, it was a true pleasure working with this guy and I miss his insane antics, I decided I should give props to his conference call coffee cup lid.
Watch this space as I’m sure there will be plenty of wierd and wonderful to come…
November 21st, 2006
My daughters computer currently runs XP Home Edition at the speed of a dead slug and doesn’t serve much purpose other than that of a photo holding tool, an expensive chat client and a rather neglected office suite. What I want to know is if any of you out there have had any encounters with using Edubuntu?
Now I have been using Ubuntu and have been really happy using it and have noticed a great increase in responsiveness and a lack of spyware / malware related slow down. I would love to do a similar thing for my daughter but at the same time give some other stuff that she can do with her laptop.
Edubuntu looks like is could be really good for her, the KDE Edutainment Suite looks like it could be really good for her when it comes to learning things like Fractions and the whole OS looks like it has a lot of things she would be able to play about with when bored.
Is it a wise thing to push something like this on a child who is used to using Windows? Gaim looks like it can be customised enough to soften the blow of moving away from MSN messenger. Okay, so it’ll never have all the tools that messenger has but it works, it does its job and she would still be able to talk to friends and relatives. She would be less likely to get involved in illustrious smiley downloads and garbage that comes with and circulates around the whole MSN thing.
I currently have Open Office installed on her machine as there is no point in forking out the price of a small car for a set of tools I can get for free and at the moment she could use The Gimp for image editing as it is probably easier to learn than having to un-learn Photoshop. I do have a concern though, schools use Microsoft Office so will she be at a disadvantage learning in duality?
What do you think? Is this a wise move? I’m sure I can tweak the machine to see to her every need, the repositories and package manager for Ubuntu are second to none so I’m sure she might actually have some fun looking for software that she wants to use. Rather than impose an operating system and software on her, I could encourage her to explore her computer and embrace open source (ha ha… my evil plan).
I think this is probably one of the better ideas that I have had and in the future I believe that Open Source will play a bigger part in the commercial environment so it is probably a good thing that she is exposed. Beyond that though I really really appreciate any feedback I get from you all as this isn’t just cleaning her computer out, it is sending her on a completely new journey into the land of computers and I want to make sure it is the right thing to do…
November 19th, 2006
Bang & Olufsen have teamed up with Samsung to bring you a ridiculously expensive but pretty sleek phone called Serene.
Quite nice huh? This is what it looks like when it is open…
Now I would say that it is looking even sexier but not only does it look good in your hand and have a sexy jog wheel for navigation, it will also impress your mates when they walk into your office and see this little beauty docked.
All of this can be your for a mere $1200USD… Now if only I can get a note to Santa before he gets here…
November 18th, 2006
The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be. - Bruce Lee
How many times have you built something from scratch? One of the key elements of web development is building a library of snippets of reusable code. Whether it be a drag and drop Wordpress theme that you use as a base model or even a stylesheet template that you use for all of your work, it saves you time and allows you to develop quicker.
What sort of templates do you use?
November 17th, 2006
We just got this picture back from the nursery, Elsie has her photo taken a while ago and this is the best one by miles… Just thought I would share it with the world seeing as I got it on CD!
Isn’t she beautiful!
November 16th, 2006
Dunno how many of you are cartoon fans but I have been watching a really fun series recently called OBAN Star Racers. The series is made by a French studio called Sav! The World Productions and in their words…
The result of six years of development and two and a half years of intensive production in Tokyo and Paris, Ōban Star-Racers sets itself apart from other series by the quality of its 2D/3D animation and its attention to detail – carefully crafted designs, rich characters and story – which are similar to those usually found only in feature films.
The show has been running on Jetix and I have had immense fun watching the omnibus on Sunday mornings. They have been showing the program every day at 5:30pm and then showing an entire weeks worth of the show on sundays which meant a full 2.5 hours of total OBAN immersion, unfortunately I missed the beginning but this has all changed now.
They are actually showing the series again from the beginning and there is an episode every morning at 8:30am which is the perfect run in to my day. Yes, I am a sucker for a good cartoon but this one has made me stand up and take notice, I think the only other one to really have that effect on me would have to be the Spiderman cartoon which I used to get up and watch on a Saturday morning no matter how drunk I got the night before lol…
Here is a quick summary of the story…
Every 10.000 years, the greatest pilots in the universe face-off in a mysterious and mythical race: the Great Race of Ōban. It is said the outcome of the competition will radically transform the balance of power within our Galaxy…
Sav! The World Productions
The series spans a total of 26 episodes and has a pretty good storyline, okay, the die hard anime fans would probably say it is panzy assed bullshit but I like it and would recommend it to anyone. There are a host of cool characters in the races, one of my favorites being Spirit who is a character that actually morphs into his star racer and has a bizarre face within a face…
A face within a face…
Morphed into a star racer
A close up shot of Spirit
The actual star racer ships are all quite cool as well, they basically get launched into each race track and then have to scan for the actual gateways they need to race through in order to win the race. Once they have found them it is no holds barred with each ship having all sorts of weaponry and several of the racers get upgraded throughout the series also.
There are tonnes of pics over at the Unofficial UK Ōban Star Racers site so I won’t post any more as this is beginning to eat into my morning but I just thought I would share my morning joy with everyone as this truly is a kick ass series!
WATCH IT!
November 15th, 2006
Good evening one and all, NotCot have done it again and come up with yet another inspirational toy only this time I can actually use it to deliver a message to you. Why don’t you have a read of it and I look forward to your reply…
November 8th, 2006
Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it. LEARN, MASTER AND ACHIEVE!!! - Bruce Lee
Like every good tradesman it is important that you master your craft and in web design it is equally important. In previous articles I have talked about being flexible whilst working and also some techniques you can employ to help you on your way but the most important thing is to learn your craft properly.
Like in every trade there are shortcuts that can be used and with time lines and project deadlines it isn’t always possible to go with the ideal solution. Quite often there is compromise involved in order to meet client demands but one thing that is important is to know the rules before you bend them…
Thinking outside of the box is one of the most fun things in the world but it has to take some grounding from somewhere first, there has to be a box to think outside of. How many sites do you see at the moment that are successful and use an almost carbon copy of the last design?
Take what you see somewhere, be influenced but do not copy, take your skills, master them and play with them, learn from successful sites and then innovate, break the mold and maybe you will be the next thing.
November 3rd, 2006
True refinement seeks simplicity. - Bruce Lee
Websites are a funny old thing, for some reason they make you want to add more to them all the time and I for one love doing it but where do you draw the line? When it comes to web design I think we can draw parallels to the economy of motion theory but in order to clarify what I mean let me quote something from Wikipdedia then take you through the various points.
A. Stop hits & stop kicks
This means intercepting an opponent’s attack with an attack of your own instead of a simple block. JKD practitioners believe that this is the most difficult defensive skill to develop. This strategy can be a feature of some traditional Chinese martial arts. - Wikipedia
One of the key elements in web development is understanding the problems that lie ahead, what with all the browser quirks and inconsistencies in CSS support between them it is important to know what might cause you problems. For example, a bad way to enter into a project would be with the gung ho approach, coding full tilt and adding CSS Hacks , non semantic containers and inline styles all over the place just to get the job done. Along that road lies trouble!
A sensible way of approaching coding a web page is to look at the information you are presenting and then mark it up using the relevant tags that represent the type of information you are displaying. Proper use of heading tags and paragraphs might seem like a simple thing to do but so many people just don’t think about HTML on even such a basic level.
With a good understanding of the information you are presenting and an awareness of the pitfalls that lie ahead you can then employ your own web design version of the stop hit / kick to make sure you stop things before they get out of hand.
In case you are wondering what I mean, here are some simple examples of what I would consider to be stop hit / kicks in the land of web design:
B. Simultaneous parrying & punching
When confronting an incoming attack; the attack is parried or deflected and a counter attack is delivered at the same time. Not as advanced as a stop hit but more effective than blocking and counter attacking in sequence. This is also practiced by some Chinese martial arts. - Wikipedia
I think building websites is a pain in the ass but I still love it, just like in a fight you are constantly jostling for position (or maybe I should heed my own advice) and maneuvering the pieces of your web page puzzle into place. A good understanding of CSS bugs is a good place to start, I’m not going to claim to know them all inside out but I have a good idea of how to get to the bottom of a problem.
Even the best laid plans go to rest as some folk say, in the event that you do run into trouble it is important to have a backup plan and that is where debugging comes in. The beauty of building tabless web sites is that everything is done at the block level, you are dealing with chunks of code and a document tree which allows you to work your way back until you have a solution.
The way I tend to work is to isolate what is causing the problem by creating a test case, I re-save the document I am working on and then start to remove parts that do not affect the problematic area. For example, I might remove everything within a navigational area but keep the navigation block in place to see if that has any affect, if it doesn’t I might then move onto a content chunk and remove that.
This is largely a trial and error process and can sometimes take a while but eventually you end up with what I call a test case, the bare minimum of code required in both a CSS stylesheet and HTML document to replicate the error. Once you are rid of all the non essential components it is then much easier to find a solution to your problem and once you have done that you are free to carry on as you were, much closer to your goal of winning the fight.
Simplicity is again key in this technique as you are cutting away the clutter in order to have a moment of clarity.
C. No high kicks
JKD practitioners believe they should target their kicks to their opponent’s shins, knees, thighs, and mid section. These targets are the closest to the foot, provide more stability and are more difficult to defend against. However, as with all other JKD principles nothing is “written in stone”. If a target of opportunity presents itself; even a target above the waist one could take advantage of the situation without feeling hampered by this principle. - Wikipedia
I have talked in this article about how you should keep things simple and how simplicity can help overcome problems but what about doing all the funky stuff? I would class this as a high kick and should be used sparingly which brings me to the concept of progressive enhancement.
Progressive enhancement is the high kick of web design, you can take an already stable, well constructed page and add little niceties that add value to your user experience and a little bit of flare to your page. There are many ways in which you can enhance you pages but any enhancements must degrade gracefully.
For example, an .htc file can be used to allow you to use the hover anything technique in Internet Explorer. By making good use of JavaScript & the DOM you can do all sorts of lovely effects that are just not possible by using HTML alone, sprinkle a little bit of the XMLHttpRequest and the Hijax technique and you can be doing server requests on the fly to update your page without leaving it. These techniques can be used to great effect by adding visual cues for your user and creating a more seamless browsing experience but they also have their pitfalls if done wrong.
I once saw a beautiful technique which is only possible in the Safari browser where you can add really nice drop shadows to text, this technique is fine but just won’t work in other browsers, Mike Rundle has done a great write up on how he did the site if you want to read more about it. Another technique you may want to implement might be using Microformats to add another semantic layer to your document, embedding usable data within your existing code that adds even more value to your finished product.
One last thing I wanted to bring up on this point is MOSe which I think is a totally sensible way of approaching progressive enhancement.
MOSe relies on IE6’s inability to pick up child and adjacent selectors, or > and + as they’re known by. As well, some basic CSS3 selectors are becoming more and more usable in everything but IE (see CodeBitch’s CSS3 support chart) so we can use these to our advantage as well. - Dave Shea
I think and often forget that using attribute selectors and some other CSS3 can be an immensely powerful, think about simple things like styling external links for example. Visible to good browsers and not slightly less advanced browsers, completely valid and a perfect example of progressive enhancement.
So where does that leave us? High kicks are always impressive, although screw them up and you are likely to cause yourself an injury and this is why you should not rely on them to get a job done. Wow factor is just wow factor and if the rest of the puzzle isn’t in place it doesn’t hold much water, there are many sites out there on the web that have wow factor and no functionality… and that is even before we go to look at full Flash sites.
So, that about wraps this article up, web development is a fluid medium, things are always changing and just like a good martial artist, you should get yourself a good grounding in the techniques before you start trying to pull of fancy maneuvers. Bruce Lee got it right with JKD, understand all of the tools at your disposal and use the right tool for the job, don’t restrict yourself to one method when there is a more economical and effective technique to get the job done.
Exciting isn’t it?
Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur,