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Bluemilkshake web development blogBluemilkshake web development blogTips, and hints and news for web developers and muggles alike 
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The importance of being “nice”
2008-03-12 14:53:00 Many are of the opinion that the word “nice” should be banned from all polite conversation, and that’s a viewpoint I can understand. It’s a lazy word that conveys very little and in some cases for “nice” you can simply read “uninteresting”. But in the world of technology - especially in these days of Web 2.0 - the word “nice” can convey a good deal of information that is generally understood within techie circles: a ”nice” laptop will have all the connections and wireless capabilities that one could reasonably want whilst being light and portable; a “nice” camera will be easy to operate yet packed with features, and a “nice” operating system will be robust, secure and user-friendly. So what is a “nice” website and why is it important? Let me give you an example. Two “life stream” sites exist (there are many more, but these are possibly the two most popular): FriendFeed and Profilactic. They both have much the same functionality: you pile all y... More About: Nice
The pocket Beeb
2008-03-10 21:33:00 When I was at uni I imagined a TV system where no channels existed, and you simply picked a program to watch without having to wait for it to start. A couple of years later, NTL:Telewest made this a reality when they launched their Teleport service (now called On-Demand), and now three years later you can get it on your phone, but for real this time, not in a “isn’t it nice but no-one will use it” kind of way. While I was at uni, not going to clubs, getting slaughtered or missing lectures, I learned a lot about the Big British Castle (as Adam & Joe call it) and really grew to respect this massive corporation. Yes I’m concerned by the ongoing threat of service cuts and yes it would be nice it their podcasts contained more original content rather than just “best of the week” stuff, but when it comes to online media they’re streets ahead of any other broadcaster in the world. In mid-to-late 2007 the BBC unveiled the iPlayer in all its shiny pink and black glory. I too... More About: Pocket
When is a blog not a blog?
2008-03-09 18:46:00 First off, let’s clear something up: a blog is a collection of posts; a blog is not a single post, just like a podcast is not a single MP3 but a series of audio files delivered via a feed…otherwise, it’s just an MP3 and we already have a name for that. Now that I’ve got that out of my system, I’ll get on to what my post is supposed to be about. I’ve been a blogger in various capacities since 2005. Admittedly I never really engaged with it: all I was doing was regurgitating the articles I’d been writing for my MSO Media newsletter, Getting Results. However I had a blogger.com account, I was listed in a couple of directories and had one or two comments, so I thought I was doing alright. Then I closed down MSO Media, moved out of my parents’ house and got myself a flat, during which time I’d setup a new, more casual portfolio site which had a blog filled with thoughts on web development issues and personal reflections. This went al... More About: Blog
Transparency in everything
2008-03-07 01:18:00 I think it’s a given that, if you want to survive in the social Internet, transparency is key: you have to be seen to be blogging honestly, moderating fairly and tweeting often if you want to remain in people’s minds. So in keeping with that ethos I’ve just put a new blog live, which charts the successes and failures of my Dial-a-Rant website. The blog, called Diary of a Social Media Startup lists all of the significant actions that shape my latest project in an effort to provide a useful guide for future web entrepreneurs (whether they choose to follow my actions or reverse them to find a path to success is up to them.) If nothing else, this new blog will help me keep my latest promise to myself: to blog at least once a day, as long as I’ve got something of value to say (I can’t abide blogging for the sake of it), so whether it be here or on SM Startup I should be posting with a greater degree of regularity. Well, we’ll just see about that, won&r... More About: Transparency
Do people still fall for phishing scams?
2008-03-05 15:18:00 Just received another badly written PayPal phishing scam, and it made me wonder whether people still fall for them. Obviously we all know some of the key rules (you will never be addressed legitimately as “valued customer” and you should look out for IP addresses etc) but when email clients are getting so intelligent at spotting phishing emails, it does make me wonder at what point that kid in his bedroom in Nigeria or wherever will finally give up. My original stance remains however: if you fall for it, you deserve to lose every penny! More About: People , Phishing , Scams , Fall
The Great British Gripe
2008-03-05 08:58:00 Just launched a new competition over at dialarant.co.uk, where whomever comes up with the best rant wins themselves a shiny new iPod Nano. There’s a good bit of help out there if you’re running a competition. Sites like ukcompetitions.com and theprizefinder.c om will list your competition for free (some request a link back to their site, which I’m happy to do while Dial-a-Rant is still in its “pre-launch” state). Loquax, aswell as being a competition portal also has some useful tips for those running their own competitions. All in all it’s an easy process, you’ve just got to make sure your rules are tight and you conduct yourself fairly. The competition closes at the end of the month, so if you fancy having a punt, be my guest! More About: Great , British , Gripe
Does DRM have a place?
2008-03-03 09:14:00 I’ve just downloaded Duffy’s debut album Rockferry, from 7Digital, a nice music site offering music downloads, protected and non-protected alike. I could have sworn I’d seen this advertised on play.com as a DRM-free download but when I looked on Saturday, Duffy was there none, which leads me to wonder whether there was some sort of a falling out between Play and Universal Ireland (her record label) or Universal had decided against going DRM-free Since I wasn’t able to find the album (legally) without DRM on any other site I guess it’s the latter. So I trotted off to 7Digital, bought the album in WMA format and reached straight for Tunebite, a lovely piece of software which harks back to the late 80s by reviving the term “high speed dubbing” (ask your parents). The software plays back your protected WMA or M4A files using its own virtual sound card and can play up to 9 tracks at once, meaning you can strip the protection from the average album in about 10 minutes ... More About: Place
Stop, you’re killing Facebook!
2008-02-26 00:10:00 I’m sure I’m not the first - and I won’t be the last - to comment on the future of Facebook , but the simple fact is that it needs to be said: if we’re not careful, Facebook will die a unique death: not because of spam (like MySpace) or constant crashes (no, that fate is reserved for Twitter) but simply because of its very beautiful but much abused applications architecture. The Facebook community is very savvy to this, hosting a number of groups that call for the developers to either ban applications from demanding that the user invites their friends, or scrap the entire architecture completely. The second will never happen because systems like Photos, Videos and indeed Groups are built on this architecture. I think the first suggestion is a good one, but it doesn’t stop the problem because, although I receive very few application requests now, I still see the items in my News Feed and am constantly assailed with statements like “Steve has added the Are You a Fish or a... More About: Stop , Killing
What happens when web apps don’t make money
2008-02-26 00:08:00 If you have a great idea for a new web app, you can often come unstuck when you come up against the problem of making money if the app is free to use. Do you give some of your space over to advertising? Do you cripple the functionality for non-paying users and offer “pro” features at a premium? Do you put it all online, make a loss and wait for Google to ring with a takeover bid? Sometimes we come across services like Twitter and we wonder “how can they possibly make money?” Unfortunately some don’t. And what happens when they don’t make money? They die. Stage6 was the DivX team’s answer to YouTube, offering free, streaming video but with much better quality (through its own codec) and the option to download videos without jumping through hoops. Today they announced that their service, which offered high definition videos including feature-length presentations was going to be shut down on Thursday because it was too expensive to run. In their words: “…the cont... More About: Money , Make Money , Make
“It’ll never happen to me”
2008-02-25 14:45:00 …but it did. Just less thana year ago my wallet and all but one of my debit cards were stolen, including one for a business account that’s no longer used. Now I find I’ve racked up an overdraft of £54. Not a huge amount, but frustrating nontheless. A month or so ago I got a call from the company I used to bank with when I ran my former consultancy, MSO Media. They did their usual trick of asking me to tell them who I was, and when I refused I was sent a letter…to an old address. They rang back today to tell me that I had an overdraft and to ask when I would be thinking of paying it. I explained that I’d had my wallet stolen quite a few months ago, but that when I had tried to report the loss of this particular card to the bank after reporting it to the police, the number I was given by their website didn’t work! How’s that for customer care? Because there was no balance on the account and (I thought) no overdraft facility, I saw no harm in letting it g...
Play beat Amazon to the punch
2008-02-15 16:06:00 play.com, the place for CD and DVD on the cheap has beaten Amazon .co.uk to the punch by selling DRM-free music downloads online, via the catchy URL http://www.play.com/Music/MP3-Download/6- /DigitalHome.html. As a rule, all of their content comes without digital rights management (so no limits on burning or transferring your tracks) and there’s no horrid propriatory software to download. Once you’ve bought your tracks, you can access them again and again through your account. Brilliant! The selection they’re offering is surprisingly good, considering they must’ve done a hell of a lot of negotiating with the Big 4 in order to secure their distribution rights. and they’re boasting quite a respectable “coming soon” list, including the superb Duffy. Last year Apple were beaten at this game by Amazon in the US, who offered a much wider range of unprotected music than iTunes Plus, also without the need to download their hideous software, but Amazon UK have been lazy,... More About: Play , Beat , Punch , The Punch
How to make sense of your blog
2008-02-14 01:28:00 The Web is a pretty relaxed place, and no-one really gets too hung up on “correct” use of English, but not everyone’s content makes sense because people often forget some of the simplest rules of the language. If your content doesn’t make sense (if you say “was” instead of “were” for example, or you capitalise random words or forget to format your text), it might make sense to you and to many others, but little wrinkles like that can become a minefield for those for whom English is not their first language, or for people using screen readers or text-only browsers. Because I love writing for the Web and reading what others have written, I thought I’d present my Three Pillars to Better Online Writing. Please note, I’m not trying to wag my finger at anyone or be a grammar bully, but if we all obey a few simple rules, it makes reading people’s content a lot easier. It’s worth mentioning before we get into the ... More About: Sense , Blog , Make
Chris Moyles: arse about Facebook
2008-02-11 23:31:00 BBC Radio 1, not content with polluting the air with garage music and low-grade techno have now found a new, even clumsier way of “relating to” us kids. It’s called Facebook . Heard of it? Well this is the new bee-in-the-bonnet for Chris Moyles and his team: Aled, their sometime day producer has made it his personal mission to setup and promote what he calls the show’s “fan page” on Facebook. It’s a reasonably-well put together page, and Aled makes good use of the site’s update system. But what niggles me is not the page itself, it’s the idea that someone thinks they “should be on” Facebook. Essentially the people who inhabit social networking sites “because they should” are those who, ipso-facto, are the least suited to do so (to paraphrase Douglas Adams). If you’re not going to take the time to understand and then fully engage in a site like Facebook - or even, heaven forbid MySpace - then why bother signing up in the first place? The Chris Moyles Show i... More About: Arse
Please God, let it be good!
2008-02-11 00:45:00 You find me sitting in my dirty flat with my neglected cat Misty munching on a crisp sandwich and feeling very sightly drunk. The flat is dirty because I’ve been focused diligently on my latest project for the past 48 hours and have not had the time to clean. The cat is neglected because I have been knee deep in audio clips and have not had the time to give her the love and attention she deserves, and I am munching on crisp sandwiches because I am an unsophisticated man who likes crisp sandwiches. I am slightly drunk because I have drunk a decent amount of alcohol. This is in turn because my new baby is having its first day at school and I’m worried it might get bullied. The first episode of the New Media Junkie podcast which was uploaded today, is the first of what I hope to be a long-running series. I’ve always been a massive fan of radio, and even as a kid wanted to be a DJ. Maybe the podcast will demonstrate why I’m not the right man for the job. It’s a very odd posi... More About: Good
Link exchange request
2008-02-05 13:10:00 An email I just received from oswaltech.com More About: Link Exchange , Exchange , Link , Request
Link exchange request
2008-02-05 13:10:00 An email I just received from oswaltech.com More About: Link Exchange , Exchange , Link , Request
Embrace the change
2008-01-26 18:08:00 Why am I intent on writing everything myself when there are so many great web apps around? More About: Change , Embrace
Embrace the change
2008-01-26 18:08:00 Why am I intent on writing everything myself when there are so many great web apps around? More About: Change , Embrace
Embrace the change
2008-01-26 18:08:00 I used to think of web apps like WordPress, FeedBurner and Flickr as tools for the uninitiated, the non-programmers, people who want a quick and easy website and a quiet life. I didn’t for a second begrudge the fact that fewer “techies” were contributing to the Web; my reasoning was that, by using these apps and linking to them on your site rather than developing the functionality yourself, you were sacrificing control. And that’s still true. You can’t tailor Flickr to render your slideshow as you might want it - what if you don’t want cross-fading? What if you hate Flash? Blogger templates might be fiddly and WordPress is written in a language you might not be familiar with. But the question is: why does all that matter? Why does everything need to fit so nicely? Do people look at sites that embrace these apps - sites like carsonified.com or jonbounds.co.uk who are both developed by developers incidentally - and think “well they obviously don’t know what t... More About: Change , Embrace
Say goodbye to the ?BBC style?
2008-01-14 14:26:00 The BBC's new layout goes into beta More About: Style , Goodbye
Say goodbye to the ‘BBC style’
2008-01-14 14:26:00 The BBC's new layout goes into beta More About: Goodbye
It’s all broken!
2007-12-06 15:21:00 I can’t help wondering why almost nothing works propertly anymore More About: Broken
It’s all broken!
2007-12-06 15:21:00 I can’t help wondering why almost nothing works propertly anymore More About: Broken
It?s all broken!
2007-12-06 15:21:00 I can?t help wondering why almost nothing works propertly anymore More About: Broken
It?s all broken!
More articles from this author:2007-12-06 15:21:00 I can?t help wondering why almost nothing works propertly anymore More About: Broken 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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