Silently, and with no fanfare, the Wired News redesign of 2002 turned 3 years old a few days ago. I had to search my own site and find the entry to confirm the date. I almost let it slip by without even thinking about it. ~600 words
I acquired a taste for them a year ago when I visited Australia for the first time. John and Sara had a pack of them at their place when Dave, Joe, and I stopped by for a barbie one night after Web Essentials 2004 was over. ~500 words
Inspirational, energetic, insightful, encouraging. That’s how I’d describe the Web Essentials conference in Sydney, Australia last week. An excellent crowd filled with so many wonderful people. It seems the WE05 team is on to something very successful. Going through the list of other talented presenters for this year, I’m still wondering why they invited me back on stage this year… ~500 words
The inner-workings for a clever little plugin named Photon that enables photo export from iPhoto directly to Movable Type and other publishing tools (to create photo galleries like this) are now available for anyone to explore and build upon. Jonathan Younger, who originally created the plugin, doesn’t have enough time to dedicate for updating and expanding the plugin. So he generously released Photon’s source code under the GNU Lesser General Public License so that others could continue evolving it. ~100 words
Since describing and pointing to my photo galleries back in January this year, I received lots of positive feedback, requests for the templates, and questions asking when they’d be available. Since the galleries are a personal, non-paying hobby, they took a back seat to other more pressing projects. In my spare time for the past several months, I made lots of additions and tweaks to the gallery pages. Meanwhile, I also started generalizing the templates, keeping in mind that I might eventually make them publicly available some day. That day has finally come. ~1,100 words
Jeff Veen had some interesting thoughts last night on speaking at events where access to wifi might be a potential distraction to the audience and the speaker: Is anyone listening? WiFi and the new ADD. I’ve had similar thoughts at recent conferences. ~900 words
On the one year anniversary of the article: Throwing Tables Out the Window, I thought it appropriate to reveal some behind-the-scenes info regarding the Microsoft example discussed in the article. ~700 words
Somehow, I managed to finagle my way onto the program for Web Essentials 05 in Sydney as one of the presenters again this year. The WE team just decided to extend early bird registration pricing until Monday, 4 July, so there’s still time to act before the cost goes up. ~400 words
In a presentation for @media entitled, Zoom the Web, Joe Clark revealed and explained several possible options (a new trend, hopefully) for making sites more accessible and readable for low-vision users. In the continuing effort to make our sites accessible as possible, many have assumed accessibility best practices deal primarily with blind people who often use screen readers. ~1,400 words
I returned to London from Copenhagen one day before flying back to San Francisco, and got my second chance to explore the city. A half day still isn’t much time to see all London has to offer. But a tour around London on the top deck of the sightseeing busses at least gave me a good feel for what the parts of the city are like. ~700 words
On my way home now, I can finally sit down in one place long enough to recap the experience in London around @media 2005. My gratitude to Patrick Griffiths for inviting me to speak at the event, and my admiration as well for pulling off a fun, fluid, very professional conference. ~800 words
A couple weeks ago, my girlfriend and I flew to Orlando, Florida to spend some time with my father. Since he works for Disney, we took a day and hopped through a few of the parks for free. My souvenir is a photo gallery of some of the type and signage throughout Magic Kingdom. ~300 words
Just arrived in London. I decided to fly in a few days early, before the flurry of activity later this week. For me, the end of this week will bring an intense set of speaking engagements, tightly packed together. Two overlapping conferences in two cities over three days. ~400 words
Stopdesign proudly announces the new design for Capgemini, a global leader in consulting and technology with headquarters in Paris, and regional operations throughout Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific. Stopdesign worked with Happy Cog Studios and Capgemini’s corporate web team to redesign the site of this worldwide consultancy, showcasing how Capgemini collaborates with each of their clients as partners, working with them to meet unique requirements. ~200 words
Not one to let an interesting meme die, here’s my part. I’m normally not a fan of chain mail. But when a topic is good, and I can follow the chain back to different blogs and discover a few new artists, I’ll contribute too. Credit/blame Veerle for passing it on to me. ~300 words
Do you write and manage large CSS files? Ever get tired of scrolling up and down in search of a specific rule or set of rules? The CSS files I work with for client projects are often quite long, requiring constant scrolling up and down several screen’s worth of text to alter rules or add new ones. While working on a current project, I just made a tiny little addition that makes finding what I want almost immediate. ~700 words
I love the optimism in Janice Fraser’s latest essay for Adaptive Path: It’s a Whole New Internet. Normally, an article similar to this would have just been another link. I guess this one deserved more. Janice captures a lot of the enthusiasm and energy building up around a new connected experience. ~100 words
I’ve grown tired of the need to choose which syndication formats I support (between Atom and multiple versions of RSS). I’m not about to join the debate over which format is better. I simply don’t care. I acknowledge that RSS/Atom syndication is an important technology that has changed the way we distribute and access information. But my decision to publish a feed shouldn’t be complicated by which format or how many of them I publish just to ensure I cover all possible bases. ~900 words
Garrett Dimon shares his view of a design firm’s responsibility in “One Idea is Better than Three“. His premise is that presenting three directions to a client, then leaving it up to them to choose between the three falls short of our duty to create — and guide them to — the best design. ~600 words
Once again, I find myself in Hong Kong on business. Out of the fourteen hours of our flight last night, I slept for about seven of them. Never very solidly, as we kept hitting patches of mild turbulence every half hour or so. I drank plenty of water during the flight, and am continuing to do so. Nevertheless, jet lag is already punishing me in full force. ~400 words
Prior to seeing The Flop, you make judgements as to how strong your hand could be based on two cards dealt to you, face-down. You peek at the cards, calculate the odds, then call, raise, or fold, knowing the flop is coming. Remember, the flop can change everything in an instant. Just don’t get too cocky, because a turn and a river are potentially just around the bend. ~100 words
When I finally met Hugh Forrest for the first time in Austin this past week, I told him I keep thinking each year that SXSW is the biggest it can possibly get. That there’s no way the following year can top the previous year in terms of the talent he pulls in for speakers, and the amount of interesting people attending who are so open and receptive to new ideas. Each time I’ve been wrong. ~600 words
Joshua Heyer wrote me today with a question which I’ve never given much thought. Writing out my answer surprised me in how much I could articulate that which I do almost subconsciously. Joshua wrote: “I have a simple question for you. How do you stay organized? I’m struggling with keeping things on point and I’m wondering what you use. […] Any thoughts on how to improve my organization with software, practices, etc… are much appreciated.” ~1,100 words
After two years of sharing space with good friends at Adaptive Path, Stopdesign finally moves into its own office. Over the past week, I’ve been painting, moving, and assembling, creating a clean, comfortable space that Stopdesign calls home. I now sit high above Market Street in a funky little office with lots of windows and incredible views over downtown San Francisco. ~300 words
After more than a year of implementing my own measures, I think it’s time to help raise awareness of email security. And in doing so, document the way I use SSH to secure email when I’m on a wireless network. If you’re concerned about strangers having open access to your usernames and passwords, and all the email you send and receive while connected to a public wireless network — whether you use a Mac or not — you’ll want to read this. ~3,000 words
In conjunction with the launch of Microsoft’s new search effort, MSN gets a pretty significant makeover. Significant, not because of the new look, nor because of the multi-million-dollar ad campaign which will attempt to oust Google out of the #1 search spot. But because the underpinnings of the home page represent a considerable move toward web standards. ~900 words
A byproduct of doing so much traveling lately is the overabundance of photos I’ve taken. I promised the many people I met from far and away that I’d make them available when I returned. Problem is, I’ve never been satisfied with the photo gallery services currently available, especially for mass quantities of photos. So I looked into alternatives. I’ve been using iPhoto to manage photos and galleries locally on my PowerBook, and I have lots of familiarity with Movable Type. All I needed was a bridge between the two. Update: The templates are now available. ~3,000 words
