Web Design Topic
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Web Culture
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BarCamp Seattle: The Father’s Day Edition
Sunday morning and another Seattle bus adventure means arriving once again late for BarCamp Seattle, thankfully, the sessions also got underway a bit later. Today begins (for me) with a discussion on social media design where I promote Pownce’s friend/fan and group pattern (potentially to be added to the new social media repository announced in the session) and will end with, apparently, Diet Coke and Mentos. -
First impressions of BarCamp Seattle
Probably a result of the venue, what with its actual class rooms filled with podiums, projectors, and microphones, the formality of this Seattle BarCamp is far more implicit than ever it was at the Toronto BarCamps (except for the one held, coincidentally, at the MSN Canada offices). Lots of hallway buzz, but the sessions have been sadly distracted by the jackhammering going on outside the Adobe building. -
Heading to BarCamp Seattle
This is being written on a bus (the 30) as I tardily trek to BarCamp Seattle — only the first of many differences between my experiences with the BarCamp scene in Toronto (although, coincidentally, on my way to the first Toronto BarCamp, I spotted some infamous graffiti on the outside of a Starbucks franchise). -
Web Directions North ’08 kicks off
Coming to this yearâ??s Web Directions North provided me with a very memorable first: entering Canada for the first time as a U.S. resident. (Explaining to the border guard that we actually did live in Seattle and weren’t actually re-entering the country was…interesting)). Thankfully, once we made it across I was happily re-united with my former co-workers at The Globe for an amazingly cooked meal at toothpastery’s< house. -
The year that was
A decade ago, the Web was in a boom that would lead to a bubble — now, it’s in a boom that will lead to… -
Good job posts
When checking the times for (my first) DemoCamp tonight, I stumbled across the TorCamp job board. This is an excellent place for anyone looking to fill local Toronto jobs with potentially qualified people. -
Mix07 wrap-up
Finally made it back to Toronto after a case of mistaken departure and a very bumpy takeoff. -
Seeing the Web’s future
Vegas may be the city you can gamble 24-7, but try to find a decent bar open in The Venetian after 11 p.m.… -
New development platforms
Well, this has been eventful. -
The universal Web is hard to do
Sitting in the keynote for the Mix07 conference, I got intrigued by some of the demos of Silverlight (which is one of the reasons I wanted to come to this). All throughout people like Ray Ozzie have been talking about how its is part of the “univeral web” and can run both on the Mac and other browsers. I happen to to be using a Mac hear (in fact David Crow has the only other that I've seen) and am using Firefox, so… -
Going to Vegas
So, I am on my way to Mix 07 — leaving Toronto from the same place I did for WDN07, only difference, well, almost the only difference is that today it’s warm. -
Web Directions North, Wrap-up
Right now, I’m wearing a sweater, inside a chilly room in snow-covered Toronto… -
Web Directions North, Day 1
The first official day of Web Directions North is now done; and despite my bias, Dave Shea, Derek Featherstone, Maxine Sherrin, and John Allsopp all deserve our collective thanks. What started as the musings on some blogs, has evolved into a stellar conference in the very fog-heavy city Vancouver. -
Going west, and north for Web Directions North
For the past dozen years, my professional life has revolved around two fields: one well-established, the other emerging. And in the past few years the intersection of the two — journalism and the Internet, respectively — has begun changing the business landscape of both. -
Agile advantages
The more I read about Google’s software development mentality, the more it makes sense from an organizational perspective. -
Looking back to the year that 2004 was
The Internet turned 35 this year yet somehow 2004 managed to create an air of excitement about the medium’s potential. The sense of possibility is almost as rich as it was a decade ago. In fact, some of this year’s trends harken back to then, too. Read my year-in-review for 2004 -
The year that was
The Internet turned 35 this year yet somehow 2004 managed to create an air of excitement about the medium’s potential. The sense of possibility is almost as rich as it was a decade ago. In fact, some of this year’s trends harken back to then, too. -
Willingness to get personalized
A “personalization technology platform provider” recently surveyed some Americans and found that a large majority wanted personalized content online. Not surprisingly, their desire dropped when asked if they’d be willing to supply information about their preferences. When asked about supplying demographic data, interest dropped even more. -
ISPs freed
Just in time for Canada Day, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against ISPs paying royalties for music their users download. The move, pushed by SOCAN, was deemed impractical, unfair, and unconventional. One of the judges, Justice Ian Binnie, wrote: -
Lessons from Weblogs.com
The brouhaha over Dave Winer’s decision to pull the plug on weblogs.com-hosted blogs offers three axioms about the Web in specific, and life in general: -
Man knows news (from blogs)
One Steve recently went on a news diet and restricted himself to the blogosphere. Later, another Steve tested the first’s news knowledge of that period. The results indicated you can get the news from just blogs. Of course, the same positive results would likely be obtained if the diet was restricted to discussions with friends at bars and cafes, too -
Off-shoring may benefit Canada
Unlike the U.S., off-shoring hasn’t notuceably affected the Canadian economy. A recent PriceWaterHouseCoopers study suggests there will be about 75,000 Canadian IT jobs sent to places like India during the next six years.The net gain in jobs, though, may be double that figure. Ironically, the effects will be tempered by American companies “near-shoring” jobs in Canada -
Netscape back? Or is it the Net ninjas?
In other news, AOL is trying to resurrect Netscape and a UofT prof is training “net ninjas” to get around government censorship on the Web -
CBC’s online gambit
Following-up on Wednesday’s item on the CBC archives, there’s speculation that the music may be partly to blame. Although the CBC has an agreement with SOCAN for its radio broadcast, it allegedly has none for its Web content. Nor does the broadcaster have online rights to some of the content produced by freelancers. All this may help explain the clips canishing from the Web site. -
Journalists who blog
Journalist are paid to write their opinions, so how do media outlets deal with staff members who blog? Rudy reminded me of a recent column where Steve Outing tried to find out -
Grey Tuesday
Can art be illegal? -
Remember “Generation X”?
I wonder what would have happened to those of us in “Generation X” had the Web not taken off? Looking back at CBC’s early coverage of us starting more than ten years ago, things did look pretty bleak. But around that time, the Web emerged. Many of us found work in the dot-com sector, and the shake-up created by the “new economy” leveled the playing field a bit. We shaped this medium, like the the baby boomers did with television, and in many ways the values of the Web are a reflection of our own ideals -
Webmonkey’s gone to heaven
Admittedly, I only occasionally visited Webmonkey in recent years, but there was a time when I read every word. Today, Webmonkey’s staff has been laid-off, effectively shuttering the place that first taught me the values of good Web design. -
Web award deadlines; Elm Street falls
Looks like another tough year for the Webby’s. Last year, as you may recall, they cancelled the gala awards party; this year they’re extending the deadline for entries. -
CSS supports limit semantic mark-up; Internet as coffee-house
Dave Shea has a detailed breakdown of a stumbling block I’ve been climbing over while rebuilding this site. Strip-down mark-up to its semantically pure form, and it becomes almost impossible to access the needed elements with today’s CSS. As a result, the mark-up needs additional hooks. -
Happy New Year’s; Berners-Lee knighted; advanced tables
A long-time friend just called to wish me a happy New Year — literally. He’s in Sydney and said he just saw the most spectacular fireworks display; this was happening in the background as we spoke. -
Best of 2003; MOZiE; liquid layouts
The New York Times makes smart use of its “E-Mail This Article” feature, and creates a quirky profile of its readers. -
The year that was
A year-end review, without the predictions, of the Internet in 2003. -
CANOE Money’s back; high-speed and dail-up users equal
During the dot-com boom, I was working at CANOE’s financial site, CANOE Money. The ride was fast and crazy and less than a year after I left the site underwent a drastic redesign that rebranded it Webfin. -
Web design generations
Talking about the Web generation(s of designers and design developments). -
CanWest’s subscriptions; new WebDesign-L policies; interviewing Clark
CanWest has unveiled its some details about its subscriptions for canada.com, although there’s no obvious mention of the changes on the site. The news portal will become a pay-to-view site next Monday, with four planned levels: -
Cutting the new media fund; best bloggin practices; Opera 7.20 out; P2P to the rescue;
As if the new media industry (when does it — i.e., the Internet, interactive television, wireless devices — stop being “new media”) isn’t hurting enough, the CRTC has a made a seemingly inconsequential ruling that will cut 40 percent from the fund that capitalizes many projects for Canada’s small digital media shops. -
Why we write for the Web
Just spent sometime reading two essays, one by Josh Allen and the other by Paul Ford. Both are contemporaries in terms of age (as most us doing this are) and attitude toward the Web, and both were writing on why they write for this medium. Suffice it to say, I agree, and that, in turn, got me thinking about this site’s whole redesign -
Meet Zeldman; CSS menus
Meet the Makers has a conversation with the always entertaining Zeldman. Interviews, especially of the Q&A variety, are never an easy thing to pull off well but somehow Brian Alvey manages to consistently produce engaging and informative ones of extraordinary length. My only complaint, and it’s a minor one, is that reading the interview means clicking through seven pages — it’d be great it there was a single-page option. -
Webstandards.TO site; Sympatico and MSN; CSS3 selector support
Joe’s got a page for Webstandards.TO, which meets again this Thursday at 7 West at 7. Unlike the meetups (and barring an ice storm) this won’t be cancelled, so if Web standards are your bag, come on by. -
Advertising lite; Canadian media growth
John Dowdell points to an interesting online-ad campaign that successful plays to people’s annoyance with things like Shoshkeles™. -
CNMA winners; stopdesign’s process; IE bug demos
The winners for the 2003 CNMAs were announced last night, and are now available online. Look for the next big awards, the Webbys, to be announced Thursday in a live webcast. Thursday is also the Web standards Meetup, happening in Toronto at the Rivoli at 8 p.m — come by if you’re in the city. -
Microsoft buys(-off) AOL
In case, for some reason, you haven’t heard: Microsoft paid AOL a bunch of money to forget about the “past” (i.e., Netscape) and embrace the “future” (i.e., Microsoft). -
MSN for Mac OS X; saila.com in Russian; decriminalizing pot; PNGs
Following on the release of a new version of Internet Explorer for the Mac (called MSN for Mac OS X), CodeBitch did tested it for the known CSS bugs in the previous version. The results were posted css-discuss. -
Top 5 CSS problems in IE; “dead” site still living
The top five CSS-related problems in Internet Explorer 6: -
Relaunches out of style; multimedia journalism; patent policy for the W3C
I was just thinking about this: “The Quiet Death of the Major Re-Launch.” The whole concept now seems as much a part of the bubble-era as Aeron chairs and brick-and-beam loft offices. (Via Digital Web.) -
Copyright term extensions; Digital Web Magazine at seven
Canada looks to be following on the heels of the U.S. in granting copyright extensions. Here it’s been dubbed the “Lucy Maud Montgomery Copyright Term Extension Act” because the unpublished works by the creator of Anne of Green Gables would enter the public domain January 1, 2004 if this doesn’t pass. If it does, Anne would be protected until 2018. -
Web browser at 10
News.com is running a four-day series on the traditional Web browser’s 10th birthday. The report is a nice overview of the long and tumultuous history of a simple application and its far-reaching influences. -
Laid-off via PowerPoint
Online news content is being reduced everywhere, it seems, including the BBC, where staff were told of the job cuts via a PowerPoint slide presentation. How unbelievably callous. -
Post-boom job guide; Mozilla 1.3
Webmonkey has another good article, this time a seven-page post-boom job guide. Even those still employed should read it…just in case. -
“Big idea” essays; war and online journalism
Two “big idea” essays today: -
Mackenzie King diaries online
Seems blogging isn’t that new: in the olden days, people apparently wrote in what was called “diaries.” Canada’s great, wacky, slacker PM kept extensive diaries for almost 60 years, and thanks to Cold Wind North, they’re available online. The diaries are fully searchable, and available in handwritten and transcribed versions. These project represent the true potential of the Net. -
Clearing the link-backlog
A good estimate of my workload level is the density (or frequency) or my entries here. Normally, I run across a few link-worthy items a day. Often times, I grab the link, drop it on my desktop, and write up an entry when I have some downtime (usually lunch). -
The year that was
A year-end review, without the predictions, of the Internet in 2002 -
Email at work; meeting Mr. Clark; Ghostzilla
Admittedly, I’m one of the power users this survey on email overload mentions (given I receive in excess of 300 non-spam messages a day, a quarter of which are for me directly), but it confirms what I’ve long suspected. -
25dates.com; Cashets; Guerilla News
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Jakob jumps the shark; International New Media Festival
A tangential thought: saw this, and thought of Jump the Shark, which led me to wonder when did Jakob jump the shark? I’ argue it was his partnership with Marcomedia, and those who read his last Alertbox column just might agree, especially given his earlier feelings about Flash. -
CSS photos; libel online
Inspired by Steve Champeon’s experiments, R.Livsey posted to evolt’s thelist a PHP script that quickly accomplishes the same thing. -
Zero Knowledge and Sympatico
Zero Knowledge Systems, the poster company for privacy in the late nineties, is offering its services to Sympatico cutomers for $5.95 a month. Not only is it affordable, its a great deal for both Zero Knowledge and the ISP’s customers. Ironically though, those customers can get most of those services — for free — by downloading a little browser called Mozilla -
MSN smarts; Google art; and webcasting fees
Seems some MSN TV (née Web TV) users have been falling for a prank email that changes their dialup number from the ISP’s to 911. Not going to make any comment that might reinforce any stereotypes about certain types of Net users… -
Online banking taking off
Couldn’t access Google for a little while today, so Hugh Blair (via thelist) recommend I try the Google mirror. Glad I did. -
eBay buys PayPal; new leaders
The little company that began as a nifty way to share money via Palm devices, has been bought by the Web site that began as a way to trade Pez dispensers. Though both systems deal in hard dollars, this long-expected deal could prove to become a stronger beachhead for the cashless society. -
Best of Europe; TechStuff.ca
Europe has picked its best in online journalism. Although BBC News Online did quite well, a number of independent and non-English services won as well. The justification for the awards should be read by every one of the so-called “big, traditional media institutions.” -
Maclean’s redesign; Amazon.ca arrives
The Maclean’s redesign is gorgeous. Not only does it seem to have a strong editorial sense of itself — which feels like a return to its prime days in the ’60s — but visually its a crisp, easy to read design thanks in a large part to Ross Macdonald’s body typeface, “Maclean’s Text,” the first designed for a Canadian magazines. -
Russell Mills explains; Webby winners
Russell Mills publicly explains, in today’s Globe, what happened — which includes allegation CanWest was willing to pay him off for his silence on the issue. -
Email etiquette; CSS outliner menu
Scott Andrew LePera wishes Netscape 4.x a happy birthday. -
Mozilla; WaSP returns; writing for the Web
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Mafiaboy; journalism: awards and blogs
Mafiaboy successful brought down some major sites in 1999, and the National Post has a book excerpt about the 14-year-old Montrealer’s exploits. -
Banner ads; Mozilla 1.0 arrives
Somewhere, out there, there’s a group of people responsible for defining the size of ads that appear on Web pages. But that space doesn’t always have to be filled by a commercial message, it could display art. That’s the idea behind the Banner Art Collective. -
New job, new economy
Settling into the new job and running into some old faces and putting faces to people I’d only known as names. -
A new Post and an Amazon for Canada
This from the National Post on June 11 the online version of the paper will unveil its new look by “jazzing up the National Post Online interface, adding new features and tinkering with the technical innards of the site” according to a message from National Post Online producer, Mitch Cooper. Good that the site is letting it’s readers know what’s happening with the site. -
Take some time away from work
The Europeans have been doing this for a longtime, and I have been a quiet proponent of the ideas as well: taking a month off to recharge one’s batteries. -
Canadian New Media Awards finalists; CodZilla update
The 2002 Canadian New Media Awards finalists were announced today, and although I wasn’t a finalist for my nominated category of Best Educator, my buddies at ThinData were. The Toronto Web design firm is nominated, for the second year-in-a-row, in the Best Employer category; and CEO Chris Carder is a finalist for Best Volunteer. -
On- and offline reading
Gotta love the weekend rituals. First read the Globe while drinking some coffee (today’s mug: a two-cupper from promoting excite.ca), then grabbing my email and reading the latest Netsurfer Digest, from whence these came: -
Not online journalism
The only thing the following bits have in common is the fact there is no mention of the state of online journalism in Canada: -
Annotated reading list
Between visiting family and friends for fun, feasts, and festivities my inbox and reading lists have been growing quite large. Here’s an annotated list of what’s on the list: -
The state of the Net
Bruce Sterling, always an interesting read, has a good article in The Austin Chronicle, ostensibly about SXSW Interactive, but really about the state of the Net now. In it he initiates a great little meme: “What if it turned out that the Net was just plain too much for business to handle? That it was downright toxic to free enterprise?” -
Client-side is not server-side
Hear hear! -
The year that was
A year-end review, without the predictions, of the Internet in 2001 -
First Usenet post, first Web visit
After following Joe Crawford’s (of ArtLung) first Usenet posting, I decided to see if I could dig up mine. Could never find it in Deja, but Google Groups has dug it up: “Re: What do Coffee Drinkers Want out of life?”, from November 2, 1994. -
Devolution of blogging
The events of September 11 has brought on the worst in some weblogs. -
The day after
Watching the online community react to yesterdays events at the World Trade Center and beyond has strengthen my belief in the power of this medium. (The New York Times has an article about this as well.) -
Canadian community sites
Despite an incredibly awkward title ('Digital gunslingers take aim for 'third sector' Web projects') an article in CanadaComputes is a good look at what's happening in the world of Canadian community/forum-based sites, such as Buzz.ca. Worth a read -
New-media grants
Mark Evans has an interesting take on the government's plan to give the new-media industry $108 million. He argues, in his column on CANOE Money, that the plan is exactly what should not be done. -
Stick men fight
What with the popularity of the Xiaoxiao movies (1, 2, and 3); the logo icons found throughout Plastic; and the "hosts" on sites like Lookandfeel (all likely inspired by the various stick figure death, dancing and tarot card sites; along with the 24,000 pages other pages found by Google), it looks as tho the stick figure has become the new design motif du jour. -
CBC’s new, new-media initiatives
Bored with a repeated episode of CBC’s Ideas, I wandered through my bookmarks looking for some intelligent audio online. Too much stale content brought me back to the CBC and todradio.com. Tuned in and enjoyed an hour’s worth of technorealist-focused live audio. That lead me to CBC’s other new media initiatives: 120seconds.com, NMC, and Just Concerts. The Flash-heavy designs seem to be hiding some quality music, animations, and video shorts. Might make them part of my regular rounds. -
One-word: Plastic
First off, my bias statement: I'm a big fan of the two of the sites launching this service. That being said, their new community site (based on the Slashdot.org engine) Plastic, could introduce open-source journalism. Despite pioneering the style, the “News for Nerds” nature of Slashdot created an sense that this was an exclusive group. Plastic wants to be more open. Essentially covering pop-culture news items, submitted in part by professional journalists, Plastic might encourage the average person to actively participate in the media fray. I’ve been skeptical about open-source journalism in the past, but a number of things I’ve seen in the past few months are changing my mind. Plastic will be an interesting site to watch and participate in. -
Always online
Starting to understand why this whole “always connected” thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, sitting in front of a computer for 11-12 hours straight really begins to wear on one’s eyes, wrists, back, and mind after a few weeks. Haven’t even done any Christmas shopping yet—which probably remains my one chance to get out and walk given I’ve missed most of the e-tailers delivery deadlines. Oh well, and least I’ve got some Shoutcasted music to keep me vaguely conscious. -
One more Internet bubble: MP3.com
Looking at the astounding IPO of the music portal, MP3.com. -
Technorealism
Filtering the signal from the noise of Digital Hype. -
Web History 101
This is a brief history of the Web and how it relates to Canadian journalism.