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LinkedIn Bootcamp Infographic
2011-12-29 14:28:00
Mindflash have produced this nice Infographic to help you get the most out of Linkedin for marketing yourself and your work. Related Posts: The Anatomy of a [Facebook] Fan 8 Status Ideas to improve your Facebook EdgeRank [Infographic] The evolution of the web [infographic] Manage your social media with Sprout Social
More About: Promotion , Inspiration , Strategy

Dark Patterns ? a guide to evil websites
2011-11-29 12:30:00
Have you ever filled in a form online and, before clicking the send button, you had to negotiate a check box with a label that reads something like this: Please uncheck the box if you don’t want us to exclude your contact details from our mailing list opt-out. We won’t pass your contact details on ...
More About: Design , Strategy , Websites , Dark , Guide

Google+ pages are up and about
2011-11-22 00:40:00
When Google first opened Google+ to the public, they tried their best to dissuade people from creating accounts for business and organisations, promising that something would be available soon to meet those demands. Now we have Google+ pages and they are a bit like Facebook pages (big surprise). In the spirit of discovery, I’ve created ...
More About: Promotion , Strategy , Toolkit

Typographic rhythm and scale with Gridlover
2011-11-07 11:26:00
Rhythm in typographical terms defines the vertical spacing of the lines of text. In order to maintain the vertical rhythm, each element should adhere to a base line height or multiple of the base line height. Defining and using vertical rhythm ensures that you don’t get page elements which are vertically out-of-sync – a visually jarring ...
More About: Design , Code , Rhythm , Typography , Toolkit

Animate.css ? plug-and-play CSS animations
2011-11-02 17:14:00
animate.css is a bunch of cool, fun, and cross-browser animations for you to use in your projects. Great for emphasis, home pages, sliders, and general just-add-water-awesomeness. These will only work in browsers which support CSS3 animations; currently Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox. Microsoft have also promised support for Internet Explorer 10, and support has been announced ...
More About: Design , Play , Code , Plug , Toolkit

A web app framework to save Gotham City?
2011-10-20 13:31:00
If you’re interested in working with the very latest in web development platforms then you’ve probably already played with node.js. Personally, it’s still on my to-do list but I’m tempted to try it out along with batman.js – a web app framework for node.js by Nick Small, Shopify‘s resident Java Script guy. I’ll let Nick explain: batman.js is ...
More About: Strategy , Code , City

7 Disruptive innovations that changed the market
2011-10-19 19:54:00
7 Disruptive Innovations That Turned Their Market s Upside Down [INFOGRAPHIC]. Related Posts: Open Web Awards – vote now LinkedIn Bootcamp Infographic Web Advent Day 9 – Tech Blogs The Anatomy of a [Facebook] Fan
More About: Inspiration , Strategy

Easy subscription billing with Recurly
2011-10-18 11:46:00
Recurly is a service that sits between your website and your payment gateway to handle all the tricky logic involved in subscription billing and account management. It will also handle one-time transactions, discount vouchers and even trial periods. You don’t need to have a merchant account or payment gateway to sign up with Recurly, they ...
More About: Hosting , Java , Strategy , Script , Code

The Most Popular Infographics on the Web
2011-10-13 15:13:00
A commentary on the proliferation of certain styles of infographic that can be found around the web. MOST POPULAR INFOGRAPHICS | Flickr – Photo Sharing!. Related Posts: 8 Status Ideas to improve your Facebook EdgeRank [Infographic] HTML 4.01 vs HTML 5 illustrated The new multi-browser test JPEGmini – super photo compression
More About: Design , Popular

Go and build something cool with Heroku
2011-10-12 16:42:00
Heroku is a Cloud Application Platform. It provides platform as a service (PAAS) for developers who want to build and deploy cloud-based applications including (but not limited to) Facebook applications or custom tabs. The service is put together and priced in such a way that it is accessible for sole developers or large teams with ...
More About: Hosting , Strategy , Cool , Code , Toolkit

Build a Facebook integrated online store in minutes
2010-11-05 16:45:00
One of the biggest issues with selling product online is the time it takes to set up an online store. If you have a small range of items or a limited number of products then it’s fairly normal to just use ebay where you products have to jostle for interest amongst millions of other items. A better solution would be to have a simple store that looks good and you can integrate easily into you site or sites without spending lots of time on changing the site structure and integrating a shopping cart and payment processor. Wazala hits the mark big-time, in minutes you can have a store that requires only a block of script adding to your site. It can work as a standalone site and through the Wazala Facebook application; you can integrate the store into your Facebook pages leaving you with just the job of promotion to do. This is all achieved through a simple web-based interface with no technical expertise required. The demo that I’m using on this page took me about ten minutes...
More About: Store , Online , Online store

Get Free Website Templates
2010-10-25 13:00:00
Would you like to build a brand new website or improve the one you have? Then, why don’t you learn about Free Website Templates ? Many designers, webmasters and creative bloggers have found them to be extremely helpful, and now it’s your turn. A Free Website Template is a nice looking web design that enables you to start a corporate website or a personal blog. Since any template comes with source files, you can easily edit it and make your future website look exactly the way you want it. As you may guess by the name, these Website Templates are free to download and use. There is one restriction, however: you are not allowed to remove the footer links. Now, when you know what’s special about Free Website Templates, you can find the template that would work best for you. The following list offers website templates in different categories, such as business, travel, real estate, sport, music, etc. Of course, each template is free and can be used for any website you have in mind. T...

Recommended Reading for Web Designers
2010-10-22 17:32:00
I’m a regular book buyer, and it seems that about half of the books I buy at the moment are related to web design and development. Here are a few of the books that I’ve found useful over the past year or so. Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability I would class this book as an essential read for anybody involved in the building and maintenance of a website. Even though the book is largely aimed at interface designers and developers; the points outlined in this book can also shape the thought process of copywriters, content editors and approvers. The book has been kept intentionally short, you can read the entire book in a few hours but the information has been cleverly organised and written so that you never feel cheated and never get bogged down in too much detail. It is a testament to the popularity and relevance of this book that it seem to be quoted from or referred to, in a lot of the best web interface design books. Buy this from Amazon...
More About: Reading , Designers

Concrete5 performance optimisation
2010-10-20 10:16:00
We recently launched the new Quantiv website. It was built in Concrete5 and some of the pages are quite image-heavy for the time being – though I have plans to change that without spoiling the design in the near future. One of the key post-launch activities was to optimise the site for performance. This is a quick guide to the steps I’ve taken to improve responsiveness. Concrete5 Settings Firstly, the most simple thing is to make sure that Concrete5′s native caching is turned on. This will reduce the processing time on the server before each page can be served. Use YSlow YSlow is a Firefox/Firebug plugin from Yahoo which analyses your site and scores it for performance optimisation – It helpfully points out ways that you can improve your score where things aren’t as good as they could be. I ran the YSlow tests against the site and then found ways to improve the site in accordance with the advice offered. Reduce the number of stylesheets linked I use...
More About: Performance

FOWA 2010 – Video from The Next Web
2010-10-11 12:47:00
I’m still compiling my thoughts on the Future of Web Apps conference (and still not watched the videos of the speakers that I missed) but here’s a nice report from The Next Web. Click here to view the embedded video. Yes, I did post it here because I’m in it. Update: I somehow ended up in this video from Microsoft about their canvas printer too. Click here to view the embedded video.
More About: Video

Future of Web Apps – London 2010
2010-10-01 13:54:00
Just a quick heads up that I’ll be at Future of Web Apps in London from 4-6 October 2010. If anybody wants to meet for a chat or discuss ideas, ping me on Twitter.

HTML 4.01 vs HTML 5 illustrated
2010-09-14 17:00:00
Just a quick post with a picture which amused me – it is an interesting representation of the differences between the standards. Image by Glutnix HTML 5 is complicated. Here’s a handy reference illustration to help visualize the differences

Learn About HTML5 and the Future of the Web
2010-09-09 02:55:00
Click here to view the embedded video. San Francisco Java, PHP, and HTML5 user groups hosted an event on May 11th, 2010 on HTML5 with three amazing speakers: Brad Neuberg from Google, Giorgio Sardo from Microsoft, and Peter Lubbers from Kaazing. In this first of the three videos, Brad Neuberg from Google (formerly an HTML5 advocate and currently a Software Engineer on the Google Buzz team) explains why HTML5 matters – to consumers as well as developers! His overview of HTML5 included SVG/Canvas rendering, CSS transforms, app-cache, local databases, web workers, and much more. He also identified the scope and practical implications of the changes that are coming along with HTML5 support in modern browsers. This event was organized by Marakana, Michael Tougeron from Gamespot, and Bruno Terkaly from Microsoft. Microsoft was the host and Marakana, Gamespot, Medallia, TEKsystems, and Guidewire Software sponsored the event.
More About: Future , The Future , Learn

Firefox 4 Beta 2 – HTML5 / CSS3 Preview
2010-09-08 13:00:00
This preview of the Firefox 4 Beta rendering HTML5 and CSS3 looks pretty slick. There are some really cool examples on display here though I’m tempted to think that this is running on a super-powered development rig rather than a 9-inch netbook. However I will put aside my scepticism until I see it for myself. Personal favourites in this video are the masked video player and webGL 3D stuff. Click here to view the embedded video. More details about these demos: hacks.mozilla.org
More About: Preview

The new multi-browser test
2010-09-07 04:30:00
Remember when browser testing was IE and Netscape on Windows and Mac? Test ing media queries – Another late night illuminated only by numerous devices and my own quiet madness. Image by Simon Collison
More About: Multi , Browser

Dreamweaver CS5 HTML 5 Pack
2010-09-06 16:00:00
Adobe have released the HTML 5 compatibility Pack for Dreamweaver CS5. Personally I don’t often use Dreamweaver but this seems like a useful set of extensions, particularly the CSS3 media queries to help with authoring sites for the desktop, tablets and smartphones. Click here to view the embedded video.

Understanding CSS3 Gradients
2010-09-04 02:55:00
A great quick tutorial from the brilliant Tuts+ network Click here to view the embedded video. Refer here for the full tutorial: net.tutsplus.com The process of creating an image only for the purpose of displaying a gradient is inflexible, and is quickly becoming a bad practice. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, they very well might still be required, but hopefully not for much longer. Thanks to Firefox and Safari/Chrome, we can now create powerful gradients with minimal effort. In this video quick tip, we’ll examine some of the differences in syntax when working with the -moz and -webkit vendor prefixes.

The Wilderness Downtown Video. Power of HTML5.
2010-09-02 21:30:00
You may have already seen this doing the rounds, rock band Arcade Fire, together with Google and artist Chris Milk, launched an interactive video set to the band’s track “We Used to Wait.” Called “The Wilderness Downtown ,”. This clever video starts by asking you to enter your childhood address which serves as the setting for the video. This experience has been optimised for Google Chrome and is a great example of how powerful HTML5 is, even at this fairly early stage in the implementation of the new standards. Some of the clever techniques used here include: HTML5 Canvas 3D engine renders a flocking bird simulation that reacts to the music and mouse. HTML5 audio plays music and keeps track of timecode. HTML5 video plays film clips in custom sizes. Choreographed windows are triggered by the music and placed relative to screen size. Images extracted from Google Maps and Street View rendered as scripted 3D views. Animated elements dynamically composited o...
More About: Video , Power

Hacked! but getting better
2010-09-02 00:26:00
I’ve been flagged as a Malware site, this is quite distressing but the hack has been found and killed and I’m just waiting for a review to remove the flag. In the meantime, for anybody interested, here’s what I found and how I fixed it. The first step was to examine the google malware diagnostic page: the pertinent bit here is the line: Malicious software is hosted on 1 domain(s), including crocro.biz/. I used Firebug to examine the DOM for my loaded page and sure enough there was a script tag pointing to a file hosted on the crocro.biz domain followed by a hidden iframe element which had been generated by the script. I’d found the results of the hack, now I needed to find the root of the problem. Thankfully a quick bit of Googling landed me at the Unmask Parasites Blog where the post, Pqshow .org Scripts – New Plague On MediaTemple Sites, explained what to look for and how to help protect against further attacks. The hack inserts some script into an exis...
More About: Hacked

Web Design in 2 Minutes
2010-09-01 01:39:00
I found this whilst trawling YouTube. Click here to view the embedded video. This is a time-lapse video of what was originally about 2 hours. This video doesn’t portray how a website is really made. It takes hours upon hours of researching, designing, developing and testing in different browsers as well as platforms. It’s not particularly enlightening or useful but I find stuff like this quite hypnotic to watch
More About: Web Design , Design

Sencha and Sencha Touch
2010-06-30 19:30:00
A current project of mine involves defining a web-based UI framework for applications. I was initially thinking of using the jQuery and jQuery UI libraries but it soon became apparent that the requirements were for much more complex applications than the jQueryUI library could handle without extensive use of plugins and additional bespoke coding. I then turned my attention to Ext JS, a UI framework that I’ve known about for some time but not yet used. Ext JS has an extremely accomplished tool set and the biggest barrier for me was to get used to the idea of defining pretty much the whole interface in Javascript. It’s a concept that feels quite alien for an HTML jockey like myself but after a while you start to see the benefits. For instance, the ability to store the entire UI configuration as a JSON string opens up a world of possibilities e.g. serving user-customised interfaces from a database or generating the UI config on the fly, based on application metadata. Meanw...
More About: Touch

My new favourite CMS – Concrete5
2010-03-02 01:28:00
I found Concrete5 through a list of upcoming new content management systems a few weeks ago and it looked worth trying out. After a short spell of testing it, I recommended it to a client as a replacement for a bespoke CMS on a site which they’d been struggling to complete for several months. The upshot is that the site has been almost completely rebuilt in a little over a week and I’m finding more an more to like about this system. Take a look at this introductory video showing how simple the editing interface is. Click here to view the embedded video. I’m all for a system which makes life easier for end-users (fewer exasperated support calls, less training etc.) but Concrete5 does something which many other systems fail to do. There is very little back-end development experience needed in order to build themes for the system, though the solid MVC framework which underlies the software does give developers plenty of scope to play. The following video demonstrates ...

how to fix the IE z-index bug with jQuery
2010-01-20 18:30:00
I recently had cause to do battle with IE6 and 7 whilst implementing some updates to various sites. One of the bugs I came up against was IE’s odd z-index implementation. The site features a list of items which include thumbnail images. When hovering the mouse pointer over the thumbnail, a larger version of the image is displayed – tooltip style. The problem is that the larger version of the image overlaps the preceding and following list item. In IE 6 & 7 the following list item displays on top of the large image, despite it having been given a higher z-index in the CSS file. Intended Effect IE Bug This bug is caused by the fact that the list items have relative positioning (in order to position the elements within each item). IE resets the z-index stack for elements within positioned elements. In Internet Explorer positioned elements generate a new stacking context, starting with a z-index value of 0. Therefore z-index doesn’t work correctly. quirksmode.org ...

The folly of the agency-built CMS
2010-01-12 16:00:00
There is a trend within web-agencies to use in-house content management systems (CMSs) for client websites. I’ve worked with a few of them and built one or two myself and to be honest in most cases they are a waste of time and resources. Developers love to build things from scratch, by building a system from the ground up, they have an intimate knowledge of every part of it. Unfortunately, in a commercial agency environment, limited timescales and budgets force corners to be cut and these systems – unless tightly planned and controlled – can become a nightmare of kludgy code added to satisfy bespoke requirements for a number of very different projects. The CMS landscape Web-based content management systems are a fairly mature technology these days, ranging from high-end enterprise systems to well-supported open-source solutions and some recent projects designed to support the latest thinking in usability and web-standards. Most of these system are under continual d...
More About: Agency

Minor update to Context Voice API
2009-08-22 03:15:00
I’ve finally got around to updating my Context Voice API Library to include the latest addition to the API. The new parameter for the reactions method of the API is “threaded”. When set to true, the API returns retweets (or reactions-to-reactions) as child elements of the original reaction. I’ve also updated the demo to include the new ...
More About: Update