|
You can use the feeds in this mix as the basis for a new mix - create a new mix from this mix.
adactio: Just listen to the volume of the typing at the 1:15 mark: http://www.vimeo.com/1393885 ? that's the soundtrack of the Clearleft office. [New Window]
adactio: Just listen to the volume of the typing at the 1:15 mark: http://www.vimeo.com/1393885 ? that's the soundtrack of the Clearleft office.
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:59:49 -0500 adactio: Taking my bento box to the Pavilion Gardens. [New Window]
adactio: Taking my bento box to the Pavilion Gardens.
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:16:17 -0500 adactio: @brendandawes Yay! Brighton will welcome the Manchester delegation with open arms. [New Window]
adactio: @brendandawes Yay! Brighton will welcome the Manchester delegation with open arms.
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:13:13 -0500 adactio: Wondering why Upcoming is currently displaying as a blank page with a rectangular red border. [New Window]
adactio: Wondering why Upcoming is currently displaying as a blank page with a rectangular red border.
Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:38:19 -0500 adactio: On the train to Brighton, ETA 22:30. [New Window]
adactio: On the train to Brighton, ETA 22:30.
Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:07:08 -0500 adactio: Finished my workshop (successfully). Now heading for the train South. [New Window]
adactio: Finished my workshop (successfully). Now heading for the train South.
Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:03:58 -0500 adactio: Taking a lunch break halfway through the workshop. So far, so good. [New Window]
adactio: Taking a lunch break halfway through the workshop. So far, so good.
Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:22:47 -0500 adactio: Getting ready to start a day of Ajax training at the University of Liverpool library. [New Window]
adactio: Getting ready to start a day of Ajax training at the University of Liverpool library.
Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:47:15 -0500 adactio: Getting ready to spend the day travelling to Liverpool. [New Window]
adactio: Getting ready to spend the day travelling to Liverpool.
Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:34:38 -0500 Cal eats every last bit [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:14:57 -0500 Niqui snaps Nat [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:14:23 -0500 Please eat m [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:Happy to oblige. Mackerel sushi is my favourite.
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:13:00 -0500 Cal, Emil and Natalie [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:11:36 -0500 Jessica in Moshi Moshi [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:10:19 -0500 Vicky and Dave [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:09:18 -0500 Cal, Josh and Emil [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:08:28 -0500 Jessica on the beach [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:07:05 -0500 Ice cream [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:06:02 -0500 Ice cream [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:05:25 -0500 Steve [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:04:39 -0500 Josh [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:03:51 -0500 Steve, Cal and Jessica [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:03:06 -0500 Dave and Josh [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:02:11 -0500 Veggie breakfast [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:01:13 -0500 Veggie breakfast [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:00:11 -0500 adactio: @gemalynn It would be great to see you there. Maybe we can organise another karaoke outing. [New Window]
adactio: @gemalynn It would be great to see you there. Maybe we can organise another karaoke outing.
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:12:28 -0500 adactio: By the way, anyone planning to go to AEA SF who hasn't yet booked a ticket, use the promo code AEAKEITH to get $50 off. [New Window]
adactio: By the way, anyone planning to go to AEA SF who hasn't yet booked a ticket, use the promo code AEAKEITH to get $50 off.
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:05:55 -0500 adactio: Sending off my (hefty) presentation for An Event Apart San Francisco. I'm looking forward to delivering this one. [New Window]
adactio: Sending off my (hefty) presentation for An Event Apart San Francisco. I'm looking forward to delivering this one.
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:01:01 -0500 adactio: Not saying that Joyent are a shit web host. That would be an insult to shit everywhere. [New Window]
adactio: Not saying that Joyent are a shit web host. That would be an insult to shit everywhere.
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:17:42 -0500 adactio: Heading out to Moshi Moshi for some sushi, hoping to see some of the Brighton Twitterati there. [New Window]
adactio: Heading out to Moshi Moshi for some sushi, hoping to see some of the Brighton Twitterati there.
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:17:04 -0500 adactio: Sitting on the beach having an ice cream with @iamcal, @wordridden, @joshr, etc. [New Window]
adactio: Sitting on the beach having an ice cream with @iamcal, @wordridden, @joshr, etc.
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:59:24 -0500 adactio: @builtbydave I haven't had my egg fix yet so I'm thinking of going to Atlas Lounge. Want to head there afer Gigi's? [New Window]
adactio: @builtbydave I haven't had my egg fix yet so I'm thinking of going to Atlas Lounge. Want to head there afer Gigi's?
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:39:55 -0500 Civilised discourse [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:38:06 -0500 Cake [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:37:20 -0500 Andy and Niqui [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:36:42 -0500 Emil, Cal and David [New Window]
adactio posted a photo:
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:36:05 -0500 adactio: Dittoing what @iamcal asked. [New Window]
adactio: Dittoing what @iamcal asked.
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:25:49 -0500 adactio: Wondering if @themattharris and @bobbiejohnson are on the same flight to San Francisco. [New Window]
adactio: Wondering if @themattharris and @bobbiejohnson are on the same flight to San Francisco.
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:56:26 -0500 adactio: Groggily emerging with a slightly fuzzy head after last night's cocktails. What's the plan for brunch, Brighton? [New Window]
adactio: Groggily emerging with a slightly fuzzy head after last night's cocktails. What's the plan for brunch, Brighton?
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:51:20 -0500 adactio: @chrisdavidmills Mazel tov! Welcome to the world, Elva Violet Mills. [New Window]
adactio: @chrisdavidmills Mazel tov! Welcome to the world, Elva Violet Mills.
Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:23:01 -0500 Traces of Inspiration Blog Archive URL as UI [New Window]
The importance of good URL design. Muxtape [New Window]
This looks like it could be a fun simple little service: upload MP3s to make an online mix tape ...that's it. Extenuating Circumstances ? SXSW: The Web That Wasn?t [New Window]
Dan Hon's very extensive notes from Alex Wright's great talk at South by Southwest, The Web That Wasn't. It's just you. [New Window]
A handy little RESTful ping service to answer the eternal question: "is it just me or is my site really down?" San Diego Web Standards Group [New Window]
Live in San Diego? Interested in web standards? Come along tomorrow to the inaugural San Diego Web Standards Group meetup. You won't regret it. Activate The Death Ray | A demonstration site by Andy Clarke [New Window]
A holding page for Malarkey's upcoming series of workshops. Add you name if your interested. Welcome | Ben Saunders | North Pole Speed Record [New Window]
Intrepid adventurer Ben Saunders is off again. This time he aims to to set a new world speed record from Ward Hunt Island to the Geographic North Pole. He is armed with a beautiful website courtesy of Colly and the lads at Erskine. Captioning Sucks! [New Window]
Joe's latest project is deliberately garish. Metafilter comments vs. Youtube comments [New Window]
Not all communities are created equal. The web needs Metafiltering and less YouTubing. sneeu.com // Fuck. [New Window]
I know it's childish but I think this may be my favourite 404 page ever. 960 Grid System [New Window]
Here's another CSS framework for grids. It could prove to be very useful for wireframing. Silicon Valley meetings go 'topless' - Los Angeles Times [New Window]
A report on the growing trend of banning laptops from meetings. We never have laptops at the Clearleft Monday morning meetings but it wasn't a policy: it's just common sense/courtesy. Pharyngula: EXPELLED! [New Window]
The story of Professor Myers' foiled attempt to see the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled. Jeremy Keith's twitter conversations - Quotably.com [New Window]
Quotably offers a nice well-ordered interface onto Twitter conversations. UIE 2008 | Links from Andrew DeVigal's Presentation [New Window]
Andrew gave a peak under the skirts of The New York Times in his presentation at the Web Apps Summit. Here's a list of the demos he showed. Apostrophe Atrophy [New Window]
Documenting typographical abuse, specifically when single primes are used instead of apostrophes. Jeremy and Eric on the Acid 3 race - Slightly ajar - by David Storey [New Window]
David has no sense of humour. We Tell Stories - 'The 21 Steps', by Charles Cumming [New Window]
The first of the We Tell Stories series is online. It's a clever piece of storytelling using Google Maps to full effect. MOO.com | Sneaky peak of MOO?s latest product: The MightyCard [New Window]
The latest from Moo: the MightyCard. Vitamin Features The thrill of launch [New Window]
A great narrative by Peter Nixey detailing the ups and downs of launching a web app (Clickpass in this case). Edge to edge alignment with CSS | Matt Wilcox .net [New Window]
Here's a very handy CSS technique for floating a group of objects edge to edge. I've been in this situation quite a few times in the past. Funny how? [New Window]
Theres something about watching videos of unnecessary censorshipparticularly of the Sesame Street varietythat cracks me up. Not content with simply finding them funny, I wanted to figure out why they tickle my funny bone so. It turns out that Matt has already figured it out, although he was referring to Nathan Barley: It’s not funny because its rude, its funny because it looks like its funny because its rude.Thats it! At first glance, it may seem over-complicated. After all, arent those videos of unnecessary censorship funny because they look like theyre rude? But no, they are funny because they look like they are funny because they are rude. Thats an important distinction.Matt repurposes this sentence construction in an excellent post about the reports of the death of privacy being greatly exaggerated. He points out the huge danger in confusing the fact that technologies can be used to destroy privacy with the assumption that those technologies therefore will destroy privacy. If we fall into the trap of making that assumption then it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy: It’s not the end of privacy because of these new visibilities, but it may be the end of privacy because it looks like the end of privacy because of these new visibilities.Heres another example. A snapshot on Flickr of the TripLog iPhone app interface initially drew nought but scorn from designers deriding how complicatedand therefore, frustratingit looked. But following a comment from the apps designer and a subsequent analysis on the 37 Signals blog, things werent quite so straightforward. The initial criticism assumed that the app would be frustrating to use because it looks complicated but really It’s not frustrating because its complicated, its frustrating because it looks like its frustrating because its complicated.Could it be that Matt has created a snowclone? Its not X because its Y, its X because it looks like its X because its Y.Maybe Ill add it to the queue and see what Erin thinks.Tagged withhumoursnowclonelinguistics
Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:45:01 -0500 Radiohead/ Remix/ Nude [New Window]
Ever wanted to remix a Radiohead song? Me neither. But for those who do, they now can. New Initiative in Hyper-Localized Social Tagging - The Web Standards Project [New Window]
The WaSP kicks it up a notch. Putting bookmarks in books was just the beginning. Now you can tag bad developers with the web standards equivalent of the scarlet letter. Flickr: Find your friends [New Window]
Now this is how to do the "find your friends" trick. For GMail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail, Flickr never once asks for your password. Bravo! Thriving Office [New Window]
Worst. Business Idea. Ever. A CD of office sounds so that homeworkers can impress clients on the phone with the sounds of industriousness. "Instant credibility for home businesses!" Gmail: Google's approach to email [New Window]
New from GMail: send email back in time. "Gmail utilizes an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality." In all seriousness though, remember when GMail launched on April 1st, 2004 and everyone that it was a joke? ScreenReader.net: freeware freedom for blind and Visually impaired people [New Window]
A free screen reader. If this turns out to be any good, it could be a game-changer: a long overdue kick in the behind for Freedom Scientific. John Resig - Classy Query [New Window]
You have to be really, really geeky to find this funny. I find this funny. Sound and vision [New Window]
Every creation of Tony Wilsons Factory Records was labelled with the letters FAC (and sometimes T) followed by a number. The first poster was FAC1. The Haienda was FAC51.The Joy Division album Unknown Pleasures was FACT10. The album artwork was designed by Peter Saville. The words Unknown Pleasures dont appear on the cover. Neither do the words Joy Division. Instead, the cover contains a series of 100 lines representing pulses from the first radio pulsar ever discoveredthanks to Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell. It was a groundbreaking piece of graphic design. Its beauty lies in its simplicity: a two-dimensional representation of raw data.That was almost thirty years ago. This week Radiohead released the video for the song House of Cards from the album In Rainbows except it isnt really a video at all. It wasnt shot on film or video. It is a three-dimensional representation of raw data.You can play with the data visualisation, altering it while the song plays. You can even download the raw data. You are not just allowed to play around with the data, you are encouraged to do so. Theres a YouTube group for aggregating the results.Suddenly every other music video seems very flat and passive. Im reminded of a prescient passage from Douglas Adamss essay How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet:I expect that history will show normal mainstream twentieth century media to be the aberration in all this.Please, miss, you mean they could only just sit there and watch? They couldnt do anything? Didnt everybody feel terribly isolated or alienated or ignored?Yes, child, thats why they all went mad. Before the Restoration.What was the Restoration again, please, miss?The end of the twentieth century, child. When we started to get interactivity back.Tagged withmusicvideodatavisualisationradiohead
Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:21:51 -0500 World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King [New Window]
A new WOW hero class has been unveiled: the bard! "direct damage effects like "Epic Solo" that will rock foes into oblivion while powerful Indie debuffs such as "Tape Jam" and "Shoegazer" keep them in check." Seed Conference | Chicago | 6 June 2008 [New Window]
The typography on this page is simply gorgeous. And the event looks good too. Welcome to Game Neverending [New Window]
Game Neverending is back. For real. Get nostalgic with this blast from the past. Open Tech 2008 [New Window]
Open Tech was fun. It was like a more structured version of BarCamp: the schedule was planned in advance and there was a nominal entrance fee of 5 but apart from that, it was pretty much OpenCamp. Most of the talks were twenty minutes long, grouped into hour-long thematically linked trilogies.Things kicked off with a three way attack by Kim Plowright, Simon Wardley and Matt Webb. I particularly enjoyed Matts stroll down the memory lane of the birth of cybernetics. Alas, the fact that I stayed to enjoy this history lesson meant that I missed David Hayess introduction to Edenbee. But I did stick around for the next set of environment-related talks including a demo of the Wattson from DIY Kyoto and the always-excellent Gavin Starks of AMEE fame.After a pub lunch spent being entertained by Ewan Spences thoroughly researched plan for a muppet remake of Star Wars, I made it back in time for a well-connected burst of talks from Simon, Gavin and Paul. Simon pimped OpenID. Gavin delivered a healthy dose of perspective from the hinternet. Paul ranted about the technologies depicted in his wonderful illustration entitled The Web is Agreement.I made sure to catch the state of the nation address from Open Street Map. It was, as expected, inspiring. Its quite amazing how far the project has come since the last Open Tech in 2005. Hearing about the wealth of data available gave me the kick up the arse to update the dConstruct location page to use Open Street Map tiles. It turned out to be a simple process involving the addition of just a few more lines of JavaScript.My talk at Open Tech was a reprise of my XTech presentation, Creating Portable Social Networks With Microformats although the title on the schedule was Publishing With Microformats. I figured that the Open Tech audience would be fairly advanced so I decided against my original plan of doing an introductory level talk. The social network portability angle also tied in with quite a few other talks on the day.I shared my slot with Jeni Tennison who gave a hands-on look at RDFa at the London Gazette. The two talks complemented each other well just like microformats and RDFa. As Jeni said, microformats are great for doing the easy stuffthe low-hanging fruitand deliberately avoid more complex data structures: they hit 80% of the use cases with 20% of the effort. RDFa, on the other hand, can handle greater complexity but with a higher learning curve. RDFa covers the other 20% of use cases but with 80% effort. Jenis case study was the perfect example. Whereas as I had been showing the simple patterns of user profiles and relationships on social networks (easily encoded with hCard and XFN), she was dealing with a very specific data set that required its own ontology.I was chatting with Dan at the start of Open Tech about this relationship. Were both pretty fed up with the technologies being set up as somehow being rivals. Personally, Im very happy that RDFa covers the kind of data structures that microformats doesnt touch. When someone comes to the microformats community with an idea for a complex data format, its handy to have another technology to point them to. If youre dealing with simple, common structures that have aggregate benefit like contact details, events and reviews, microformats are the perfect fit. But if youre dealing with more complex structuresand Im thinking here about museum collections, libraries and laboratorieschances are that some flavour of RDF is going to be more suitable.Jeni and I briefly discussed whether we should set up our talks as a kind of mock battle. But that kind of rivalry, even when its done in a jokey fashion, is unnecessary and frankly, more than a little bit dispiriting. Its more constructive to talk about real-world use cases. On that basis, I think our Open Tech presentations hit the right note.Tagged withopentechopentech08conferencemicroformatsrdfa
Tue, 8 Jul 2008 18:17:58 -0500 Open Tech schedule [New Window]
I’ll be heading up to the University of London tomorrow for Open Tech 2008. The last Open Tech was in 2005 which was, by all accounts, a legendary affair—it led directly to the creation of the ORG.I’ll be speaking about microformats, probably reworking some of the things I was talking about at XTech. It looks like there’ll be quite a lot of discussion around social networks, portability and privacy so I’m going to concentrate on XFN and hCard. Speaking of which, be sure to read Ben’s excellent article on Digital Web and then check out David’s superb implementation of the Social Graph API: what a productive pair of flatmates!I put together an hCalendar schedule for Open Tech so if you’re going along, you might want to subscribe. I recommend subscribing over downloading as the schedule is likely to change. I’ll do my best to update the hCalendar document accordingly. Depending on the WiFi situation and how knackered I am after the early start from Brighton, I may try to do some liveblogging.Tagged withopentech08opentechspeakingmicroformatshcalendar
Fri, 4 Jul 2008 11:52:24 -0500 dConstructicon [New Window]
The day before the mass exodus to Copenhagen was an exciting one at the Clearleft HQ. Tickets went on sale for dConstruct 2008.Sales were going at their usual quick pace until five eighths of Clearleft were safely ensconced in Denmark. At that point, Murphy’s Law struck with a vengeance. The server at Joyent, where both Clearleft and dConstruct are hosted, decided to experience—to use the modern parlance—epic fail.This was no minor outage. Our sites were down for days while we frantically moved our cyberworldly goods to a different host and waited for DNS changes to propagate. Joyent did finally managed to get our sites back up but we were faced with the unwanted time travel experience of losing five weeks of changes: that’s how infrequent their backups had been. Fortunately we had a somewhat more vigorous backup routine in our office so we were able to get things back to their pre-fail state.So if you were trying to get hold of a dConstruct ticket but found your quest frustrated, I apologise. If you weren’t trying to get hold of a dConstruct ticket …are you crazy!? Don’t you realise that for a measly 125 (including VAT) you can attend the kickassingest conference there is?Just look at that line-up: local games geek Aleks Krotoski; newly-published author Joshua Porter, designer-extraordinaire Daniel Burka, the microformats man himself, Tantek elik. Last year we had one brilliant Matt, this year we have two: the Dopplr duo of Jones and Biddulph. But most exciting of all, the event will be keynoted by Steven Johnson, author of Emergence, Everything Bad Is Good For You and most recently, The Ghost Map.So what are you waiting for? Register now!Oh. Wait. I think I’ve just figured out why you might not have yet grabbed a ticket. Perhaps you’ve noticed the little glitch in the line-up.‘Tis true, I’m afraid. If you fork over one hundred and twenty five of your hard-earned squid, you’ll have to suffer through one of my rambling pretentious flights of fancy (unless you duck out early).I have no idea what my name is doing on such an illustrious roll call but I’m going to do my utmost to live up to the honour. That means that, as September 5th approaches, I will be shitting bricks with ever-greater frequency. Why not come along to dConstuct 2008 at the Brighton Dome and watch me make me a complete idiot of myself?Tagged withdconstruct08dconstructbrightonconferencebook:isbn=0684868768book:isbn=1573223077book:isbn=1594482691
Thu, 3 Jul 2008 18:55:17 -0500 The Copenhagen Report [New Window]
Reboot 10 was everything I thought it would be: chaotic, stimulating, frustrating and fun. It’s an odd conference, pitched somewhere between TED and a BarCamp, carried off with a distinctly European flair.The speakers delivered the goods on a wide range of subject matter. Howard Rheingold was as thought-provoking and interesting as you would expect, Jyri shared his thoughts on social interaction online and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to David Weinberger riffing on Charles Babbage and Claude Shannon. With at least three tracks of simultaneous talks at any one time, and with plenty of catching up to do in the corridor, I didn’t get to see all the talks but a superb round of micro-presentations gave me the opportunity to get the quick versions of talks I missed.My presentation seemed to go down fairly well although I thought I was just rambling on. Maybe the fact that I was accompanying myself on mandolin meant that the audience was more forgiving. I didn’t really have slides, just a few hyperlinked documents to tie the narrative together.The theme of this year’s Reboot was Free. Fittingly, my presentation resulted in my receiving two free gifts. Michael Rose, a local piano player, gave me a CD on which he accompanies a series of Irish tunes. Nikolai—who was introducing the speakers and taking care of the sound in the room where I was presenting—was reminded by my mention of Lawrence Lessig that he had boxes full of The Future of Ideas that were originally destined for the Danish parliament. They were distributed amongst the attendees of Reboot instead.Tagged withrebootreboot10copenhagenconference
Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:03:00 -0500 Rebooting [New Window]
Im off to Copenhagen for Reboot 10. Reboot is always a fun gathering. It might not be the most useful event but as part of a balanced conference diet, its got a unique European flavour.As usual, Im going to use the opportunity to talk about something a bit different to my usual web development spiels. This time Ill be talking about The Transmission of Tradition, a subject Ive already road-tested at BarCamp London 3: This talk will look at the past, present and future of transmitting traditional Irish music from the dance to the digital, punctuated with some examples of the tunes. This will serve as a starting point for a discussion of ideas such as the public domain, copyright and the emergence of a reputation economy on the Web.At the very least, it will give me a chance to debut that mandolin I picked up in Nashville.This will be my third Reboot. My previous talks were:In Praise Of The Hyperlink andSoul.I recently discovered the video of that last presentation. Jessica was kind enough to transcribe the whole thing. She also transcribed my talk from this years XTech. Go ahead and read through them if you have the time.If you dont have the time, you can always mark them for later reading using Instapaper. I love that app. It does one simple little thing but does it really well. Hit a bookmarklet labelled read later and youre done.Heres a little sampling of documents Ive marked for later reading:The Web Time Forgot by Alex WrightCan the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?, a report on Jan ChipchaseA (very long) Conversation with Dopplrs Matt Jones by Ryan FreitasTwo Legs, Thing Using and Talking: The Origins of the Creative Engineering Mind by Professor F.T. EvansMaybe I should fire them up in multiple tabs and read them on the flight to Denmark. Or I could spend the time brushing up on my Danish.If youre headed to Reboot, Ill see you there. Otherwise Farvel!Tagged withrebootreboot10copenhageninstapaper
Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:04:29 -0500 Supernova 2008 [New Window]
San Francisco. A cathedral to geekdom. The aisle of Market Street divides the city in two. The spire of the Transamerica Pyramid soars through the fog. The city rests on the San Andreas fault, a bedrock as safe and secure as the new economy. Erstwhile home to the gold rush of 48, San Francisco is now the epicentre of a whole different land grab.I showed up on the weekend and spent a few days with Cindy checking out the street art in San Rafael, sampling some excellent sushi and making a fool of myself on the Wii. By Monday morning I had transferred over to Port Zero and together with Tantek, I headed out to the opening of Supernova 2008.This was a very different conference to my usual diet of design and development. There was a definite whiff of thought leaders in the air, tinged with the odor of entrepreneurs and consultants. The day got off to a good start with the inimitable Clay Shirky followed by Esther Dyson. Things took a bit more of a corporate twist when Rob Iannucci from Nokia began boasting of the companys market share. My usual reaction to hearing these kinds of statistics is the same as seeing the latest music or movie charts to me, it all just reinforces Sturgeons Law.The downward spiral continued with a panel devoted to television and advertising, two crappy flavours that taste crappy together. I dont hate these subjects because they are outdated and doomed;I hate them because they are boring. Once again, Buzzword Bingo saved the day. At least three people in the front row (myself, Tantek and Kevin) were shooting buzzword fish in a buzzword barrel to save us from having to gnaw our own legs off.Then, just when I thought that things couldnt sink any lower, Arrington The Hutt waddled on stage, sucking the last remaining vestiges of cool from the room, leaving only a slime trail for attendant VCs to eagerly lap up. But at the last moment, the day was saved with the utterance of those two magical words: free booze.Day two was very different. It started off with one of the best panels Ive ever had the pleasure to attend. BJ Fogg expertly moderated the clumsily-titled People: What We Know, and What it Means? featuring Charlene Li, Eszter Hargittai and Elizabeth Churchill. Not only were all three excellent speakers, but they also brought a wealth of research with them to support their findings on user behaviour. The panel was entertaining and stimulating; the perfect antidote to the previous days channelling of Adam Smith by Rob Iannucci, who was convinced that all motivations were transactional in nature a creepy, misguided viewpoint that completely fails to account for the rich tapestry of emotions that drives our activities.The afternoon was taken up with a themed track of talks called Open Flow which had been put together by Tantek. In a nod to the spirit of openness, he projected a backchannel onto the wall: any Twitter postings containing the words supernova2008 open flow. Ariel and I rickrolled it just once or twice.Tantek took the moderation reins for a panel entitled Whose Social Graph?, a title that prompted an absent Zeldman to propose a breakout session on advanced webcockery, my favourite comment of the day. The panel featured Kevin from Google and Dave Morin from Facebook, very deliberately separated by Joseph from Plaxo. Tantek pulled up Davids blog post entitled It Seems that Google and Facebook Still Cant Get Connected and watched the sparks fly. Arguments around privacy and terms of service were tossed back and forth between Dave and Kevin until Dave finally played the lawyer card and refused to discuss the situation any further.I was due to moderate the final panel and, much as I like to stir the shit when Im the gamesmaster, I knew I could never follow the perfect shitstorm that Tantek had so cleverly whipped up. I could, however, have some fun.A few times during his panel, Tantek confused Googles Friend Connect with Facebooks Friend Finder or maybe it was Frend Feed? Anyway, its an easy mistake to make. It seems that most of the hippest new technologies are named by simply combining positive-sounding words like connect”, friend” or open”. So while the other panels were still going on, I hacked together The Social Buzzword Generator (it seems to have tickled the funny bone of at least one journalist at the Wall Street Journal).When it was time for my panel, I debuted the buzzword generator and also pulled up buzzword bingo, encouraging the audience to play along with both toys. The panel was called Bottom-Up Distributed Openness and I had Tantek, David, Chris and Leah lined up. The order of the line-up reflected the age of each technology I had them speak about:Tantek described microformatsthree years old this week.David talked about OpenIDless than two years old.Chris gave the skinny on OAutha specification since November.Leah described oEmbedjust a few weeks old.I was interested in finding the commonalities and differences between all these communities. As we delved into the inner workings of each one, it became clear that they were all open” but to a deliberately limited degree. But thats no different than, say, the open source movement. Its clear that Linus Torvalds contribution to Linux is going to count more than a complete strangers. I posited the idea that it was no different for each of the panelists in their respective communities. The term benevolent dictatorship was tossed around. A comment on Twitter summmed it up nicely: Open is as open does.All in all, it was a good panel and a good day. Best of all, there was a visual journalist on hand throughout the afternoon, doodling all the ideas and connections that were flowing.So Supernova was a bit of a mixed bag overall but when it opened up to real people who genuinely had something worthwhile to say, rather than company shills pitching their products, it really shone. Kevin put a lot of work into organizing this conference and it was a pleasure to be a part of it. In some ways, Supernova is the perfect reflection of San Francisco warts and all.Tagged withsupernova2008sanfranciscoconference
Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:36:35 -0500 Nashville [New Window]
I’ve finished my little bout of timezone parkour to Nashville and San Francisco. I attended a conference in each place and enjoyed both in very different ways.Voices That Matter had an eclectic line-up of speakers. Whereas other conferences are organized around a theme or a set of technologies, the only commonality at this conference, organized by New Riders, is that the speakers have all published books through New Riders. While this means that the conference doesn’t have a specific focus, it does offer a nice varied range of subjects. Talks ranged from the specifics of using CSS for colour, typography and layout right through to discussions of user-testing and social networking.I enjoyed getting the nitty-gritty details of CSS fonts from Jason Cranford Teague. He and Richard are clearly kindred spirits. The revelation of the conference for me was hearing a great hands-on presentation from Zoe Mickley Gillenwater on liquid and elastic layouts. Okay, so I might be a bit biased but I think it’s great that this subject is getting coverage and Zoe is just the person to do it. She’s currently writing a book for New Riders on this neglected area of web design. It should be out by December. Pre-order it now.For my part, I gave a half-day workshop on Bulletproof Ajax, which seemed to go well, and I reprised a talk I had given once before called Microformats: what are they and why do I care?I missed a few talks because I was whisked away to be interviewed for a future video podcast. Under the very professional-looking lights and cameras, I participated in a one-on-chat and also a thoroughly enjoyable discussion with Christopher Schmitt and Steve Krug. I missed more talks because I wanted to get outside the hotel and explore Nashville a bit. The highlight of that exploration was getting a guided tour —thanks to Ari—around the historic Hatch Show Print where they have been making letterpress posters for musicians for over a century; a great place to soak up some design inspiration.My ulterior motive for escaping from the conference hotel was to seek out a mandolin for myself. I went to the Gibson outlet store at the Opry Mills shopping mall on the outskirts of town but even the cheapest mandolin there was still beyond my price range. They sure were a pleasure to play, though. Fortunately for me, I stumbled across a flea market in the same mall where I happened upon a cheap second-hand epiphone. It’s not brilliant but it’s suitable for my purposes; a decent little instrument that I can take travelling with me. I’ve got a suitable travel bag to go with it. It has the shape of a tennis racket case but all the pockets of a laptop bag. I may even try to pass myself off as some kind of freakish sporty geek hybrid.All in all, I think I managed to get a good look around Nashville and get plenty out of the conference too. I was only there for a few days before it was time for me to head on to San Francisco for Supernova 2008. That was a different kettle of thought-leading fish.Tagged withconferencenashvillevoicesthatmatter
Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:59:59 -0500 City Hopping [New Window]
Now that I’m done travelling for pleasure, it’s time for me to travel for business again. I’m heading out to San Francisco for the Supernova conference. Tantek has roped me into moderating a panel called Bottom-Up Distributed Openness.I’ll be showing up in SF next Friday. Until then, I’ll be in Nashville for the somewhat embarrassingly-titled Voices That Matter conference where I’ll be delivering a half-day workshop on Ajax and a presentation on microformats.While I’m in the heartland, I’m planning to treat myself to a new mandolin. Then I can bring that mandolin with me when I go to Copenhagen at the end of the month for Reboot 10 where, if my proposal is accepted, I’ll be talking on The Transmission of Tradtion. The video of my talk from last year, the pretentiously-titled Soul is available for your viewing pleasure. I’ll see about getting it transcribed and added to the articles section here.All that’s ahead of me. Right now I need to prepare myself for the long and tedious trip across the Atlantic. See you in Nashville, San Francisco or Copenhagen.Tagged withtravelsupernova08reboot10nashvillesanfranciscocopenhagen
Sun, 8 Jun 2008 19:53:55 -0500 The need for speed [New Window]
Another day, another incremental release of jQuery. This one is sporting 13% faster CSS selectors and 103% faster event handlers.Meanwhile, as the JavaScript libraries continue to evolve and improve, the browser engines are also focusing on speed improvements. Dave Hyatt and the WebKit gang have announced a brand new JavaScript engine called SquirrelFish. This looks like being about 60% faster than the previous WebKit interpreter so you can expect quite a speed boost in the next version of Safari.If you’re interested in what happens under the hood with Squirrel Engine, Dave shares some of the philosophical underpinnings: SquirrelFish owes a lot of its design to some of the latest research in the field of efficient virtual machines, including research done by Professor M. Anton Ertl, et al, Professor David Gregg, et al, and the developers of the Lua programming language.You can find plenty of gory details on the Surfin’ Safari blog.
Wed, 4 Jun 2008 11:57:54 -0500 Radio on the TV [New Window]
I was in the illustrious surroundings of Rissington last week to deliver a DOM Scripting workshop. My good friend Ann was in attendance. During the latter part of the workshop which was deliberately more loosely structured than the rest of the day she pointed me to a really lovely bit of JavaScript form enhancement.Take a look at the UK and Ireland TV and radio listings on Yahoo. See that search form in the upper right corner? Its using the standard design pattern of allowing you to specify exactly where youre searching. But unlike most implementations, this one is built on a rock-solid foundation of semantic markup.Steve Marshall has the lowdown. Under the hood the form is using radio buttons for choosing where to search. Then, using a combination of JavaScript and CSS, this default representation is augmented to look and behave as desired. Switch off JavaScript and you can still use the search form perfectly well.What impresses me about this isnt so much the code (although Im sure its top-notch), its the thinking behind the implementation: start with solid semantic markup with good ol fashioned form elements for interaction; then think about how it can be enhanced. Nice one, Steve.
Sun, 11 May 2008 10:06:14 -0500 Comprehension [New Window]
Don’t tell Paul but I sometimes listen to the Boagworld podcast. I’m sharing this dark secret with you because recently the podcast featured a good interview with Christian Heilmann.Christian talks about best and worst practices in writing JavaScript today. It’s well worth a listen.But when the subject turns to Object Oriented Programming, Christian makes a pointed reference: And there’s not much magic to it. I mean I get annoyed when I see JavaScript guys going on stage and saying like: Well guys, this is a function and when it’s an object it’s a method and why should I know this? Well you should know this because you need to communicate with other developers as well sooner or later.Um… that would be me. In my books, presentations and workshops I’ve often explained methods and properties as being like functions and variables, just within the scope of an object (hence the dot syntax). But I never, ever said And why should I know this?What I was trying to do was explain objects using reference points that I think most people will understand. I know that for me personally I had a lightbulb moment when I grokked methods and properties as being like functions and variables. The whole point of explaining this terminology is precisely so that people can communicate with other developers. As Christian says: And these people speak that lingo and rather than you having to explain yourself for 15 minutes you could communicate in 3 minutes.Exactly! That’s why I think it’s important that I take the time to at least explain the terminology of objects (i.e. methods and properties) even if I don’t delve into the technical details. My aim, like Christian, is to encourage better understanding and communication.Evidently Christian takes issue with my teaching techniques. That’s fine. But I wish he wouldn’t put words in my mouth by claiming that I’m telling people that they shouldn’t have to learn the terminology around JavaScript objects.Then again… maybe his comment wasn’t aimed at me at all and there is some other conference speaker out there who is going around telling people that they don’t have to know what the words “method” and “property” mean. If that’s true, then I agree with Christian. Such exhortations are not useful. But in lieu of any source for Christian’s imaginings of what he thinks he heard, I’ll take the egotistical paranoid route and assume he’s talking about me.Anyway, I guess I’ll have to make sure from now on that I’m clearer about what I’m saying. More importantly, I’ll have to make sure that I’m clear on what I’m not saying.
Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:47:49 -0500 ABBRacadabra [New Window]
In Chapter 8 of the DOM Scripting book Ive got a little script that looks through the contents of an HTML document, finds any instances of the abbr element and then constructs a definition list with the information contained within them. Then theres a section in the chapter called A browser bomb in which I explain how the script needs to be forked because Internet Explorer refuses to recognise the abbr elementpart of a longstanding spat with Netscape. This means not only that you cant do any scripting on abbreviations, you cant style them either.But now it turns out that Internet Explorer has an interesting quirk. If you write:document.createElement("abbr");suddenly the browser recognises the element and you are free to script and style abbreviations (you dont even need to append that newly-created element to the document). This applies to any elements that IE doesnt recognise, which could be very hand in migrating to HTML5.It doesnt qualify as an error so Im not going to add it to the errata but I sure wish I had known about this when I was writing the book.
Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:24:53 -0600 Bulletproof Ajax workshop in Brighton [New Window]
My first public appearance in 2008 is coming up in two weeks. Ill be spending a day delivering a Bulletproof Ajax workshop. In case you couldnt tell from the title, its based on the book of the same name (wot I wrote). The workshop will be held in the cosy and comfy environs of the Clearleft office building in the heart of Brighton.This is an entry-level introduction to the hows and whys of implementing Ajax. Ive given this workshop before and its always gone smoothly though I think I might update some of the material; maybe ditch some of the introductory DOM Scripting stuff and spend more time on implementation and design challenges. Id love to do more hands-on stuff and get people writing stuff but I find this a real challenge when it comes to code (its a lot easier with something simple like microformats). Id be interested in hearing any ideas for making this workshop more interactive.If you can convince your boss to part with the asking price of 395 per person, maybe Ill see you on January 25th and we can climb that Ajax learning curve together.
Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:48:25 -0600 @media Ajax, day 2 [New Window]
The second day of @media Ajax certainly kicked things up a notch. While day one covered a lot of the day-to-day questions of JavaScript that I could relate to, day two was a trip to the future.The tone was set in an opening keynote by Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, giving us the lowdown on JavaScript 2. I last saw Brendan speak at XTech 2006 in Amsterdam. Back then he was telling us what was coming; here he was showing us whats arrived. I understood about 50% of what he showed us, which I thought reflected well on Brendans explanatory prowess.John Resig, creator of jQuery, gave a rundown of his library, focusing on prototyping. By taking questions throughoutand responding to all of them thoroughlyit was clear that he wasnt giving a canned demo; he could have happily talked for an hour about any aspect of coding with jQuery. A lot of people in the room were already using jQuery and, by the time John finished, I suspect a lot more are going to investigate it. I picked up some nifty tips and tricks for myself.Dan took to the stage and invited us on a mind-bending journey into the depths of metaprogramming. I always knew that JavaScript was a very flexible and adaptable language but Dan really showed just how malleable it could be. But, as Dan pointed out, the best way to really get your head around this stuff is to code it for yourself. Alex Russell of Dojo fame was up next but instead of just diving into his library, he painted a much broader picture. From my own conversations with Alex, I had a feeling that he would be a great speaker and he was. He began by applying Maslows hierarchy of needs to applications and took us forward in time to a Web of the future thats being hacked together today. I didnt agree with everything he had to say but boy, did I ever enjoy listening to him say it!Then it was the turn of Douglas Crockford who had earlier been compared to both Yoda and Gandalf by Brendan. Douglas covered some of the same territory as Dan, demonstrating the flexibility of JavaScript as well as showing its weaknesses. He also expressed his concerns about the direction that JavaScript 2 is headed.All of that set the scene nicely for a lively closing panel.As always, I really enjoyed moderating but I definitely felt a bit of my depth. The panel consisted of:Brendan Eich,Douglas Crockford,Alex Russell andStuart Langridge.They were a little reticent at first but once the subject matter got on to the burning issues like security, the conversation took off. Highlights included Alex bitchslapping Yahoo for not being truly open source with YUI and Douglas declaring that CSS is inherently shit.All in all, I think it was a good way to wrap up a really good conference. I was very impressed with the level of presentations and the audience interaction. The two-day schedule was clearly very well thought-out. Perhaps the Ajaxians should have been on day two and John could have been on day one but thats a minor quibble. Overall, @media Ajax was pretty darn great.
Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:56:31 -0600 @media Ajax, day 1 [New Window]
Day one of @media Ajax has just wrapped up in a very wet and rainy London.The show opened with a State of Ajax address by the guys from Ajaxian in which they gave their perspective on where Ajax and the Web is headed. I have to say, their perspective seemed somewhat alien to my experience of Ajax in the here and now, but I think theyre talking about fundamentally different use casessituations where the browser eclipses even the operating system and JavaScript drives everything from the interface to the core processes. Hey, you can even use JavaScript to create CSS layouts! Yes, they really said that and no, I dont know what theyre smoking but I want some.I think their otherworldy perspective makes sense if youre, say, Google and youre trying to figure out how you can hack around that awkward beast that is the Web (by doing everything in Java, apparently) but I couldnt help but feel that in their enthusiasm to port the desktop to the Web, the Ajaxians are missing the core attributes that make the Web so appealingthings like hypertext and markup, to which technologies like JavaScript and Ajax should be subservient.In complete contrast, Mike followed with the story of how, instead of trying to make everything work in a single technology he already knew, he explored a whole range of technologies and methodologies opened up by Ajax. In effect, Ajax drove him to become something of a renaissance man.Derek then proceeded to give a storming presentation on JavaScript and accessibility, wonderfully illustrated by some snapshots of real-world instances of bad design that he has come across just in the few days hes been in the country (which reminded me that most of the examples of bad design in Donald A. Normans The Design of Everyday Things were gathered from the time he spent in the UK).Stuart followed with a presentation about breaking the web. His tongue was firmly in cheek and possibly also in horses, judging by his continuous reference to horse pornography. It was a good lighthearted way to make some serious points.I found Christians presentation to be a great breath of fresh air. He opened by declaring, It doesnt matter what JavaScript library you use, or whether you use a library at all, or what coding style you use, as long as your team all agree on it. He went in to a lot more detail on how to manage code and the developers working on that code but he had me at It doesnt matter.PPK wrapped the day up with a case study that compared data formats (XML, JSON, HTML, etc.). It was also an illuminating study of the Plantagenet and Tudor royal housesit turns out hes something of genealogy geek.Overall, a great day of talks, in my opinion. Itll be interesting to see how tomorrow goes. While the first day is pitched at covering the building blocks, day two is going to cover the bigger picture. In preparation for the closing panel, Ive been trying to gauge the backgrounds of most of the audience members; are they front-end developers, server-side developers, designers, what?Ive had some great pub conversations with the conference attendees. In the course of these chats, some people mentioned to me that they thought the first day was covering stuff they already knew and they said they were looking forward to the meaty stuff in day two. Personally, Ill consider myself lucky if I can even follow all the high-level programming stuff thats bound to come up in the talks on Dojo and JavaScript 2.
Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:32:13 -0600 Questioning Ajax [New Window]
@media Ajax is about to kick off in London. I’ll be there but I won’t be giving a presentation—I’ll leave that to the experts. Instead, I’ll be moderating the closing panel. The line-up hasn’t been set yet but seeing as all the speakers are world-class, it’s bound to be a great constellation.I’ll be spending my time at the conference (and its attendant social events) quizzing the attendees on what they interested in finding out. If you’re going to be there, say hi and let me know what you’d like me to talk about on the panel. Even if you’re not going to be there, I still want to know what you think I should be asking the finest JavaScript minds on the planet.So tell me… what’s on your mind?
Sat, 17 Nov 2007 20:31:48 -0600 Spry redux [New Window]
About a year ago, I wrote about my disappointment with Spry. Spry is yet another JavaScript library, this time from Adobe. My beef was with the way that Spry required proprietary markup and then claimed to be using Hijax. Roger Johansson also called them on it.It looks like Adobe were listening. In fact, I know they were listening because not long after Roger and I published our rants, Scott Fegette recorded an interview with me that was split in two; one for public consumption and the other for developers at Adobe.Version 1.6 of Spry looks a big improvement on what’s come before. Roger is pleasantly surprised and so am I. I’m glad to see that Adobe do listen to what we have to say but more importantly, I’m glad that they are providing solid documentation that stresses the importance of standards:Spry and Web StandardsProgressive Enhancement with SprySeparating Behavior from Structure - Unobtrusive SpryValidating SpryDocumentation like this, which shows how to use code responsibly, is vital to any library. After all, it doesn’t matter how powerful or fast your code is if people then use it to break the Web.Anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge the changes that Kin Blas and his team are making. I was quite vocal in pointing the problems with Spry; it’s only fair that I’m equally vocal in pointing out the improvements.
Fri, 16 Nov 2007 05:49:26 -0600 Unobtrusive Ajax [New Window]
This somehow slipped under my radar when it was released in July: Unobtrusive JavaScript is part of O’Reilly’s Short Cut series. It’s written by Jesse Skinner and tech edited by Christian Heilmann. It’s PDF only so if you want a dead-tree version, you’ll have to print it out yourself.I haven’t read it but judging from the description, it sounds like good Hijax-like advice: This short cut will focus on the practical benefits of using Ajax and JavaScript unobtrusively and show you that unobtrusive web development and progressive enhancement benefit both web developers and users of the Web. You’ll get to see many simple examples of building web interfaces that are unobtrusive. You’ll quickly see that it is actually very easy to make web applications that everyone can use.The PDF book grew out of a presentation from The Ajax Experience in 2006 which is well worth checking out.
Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:42:51 -0500
| 