Ben's Blog

A good article at Site Point on some of the things you should be considering when looking for a Web Designer .

Other than me of course.

The Woman of Words needed a website to help her find some freelance work.

The site is about as plain vanilla as they come but my rationale was that when you are promoting someone who works with content their site should be as transparent as possible to ensure that nothing detracts from such content.

Incidentally the site is the exact same markup as this one, just with a different stylesheet attached. Not anymore.

Xylescope has been designed and developed for looking underneath the surface of web pages as you surf the web – it couldn’t be easier. Using Xylescope you can look forward to analysing complex CSS designs with incredible ease and experimenting with third-party sites, without having to download them onto your own computer first.

Xylescope – very handy indeed.

Tim Berners-Lee on what what the web is, what the web isn’t and what the web should/could be.

“One of the fundamental properties of the Web is the fact that it is just one space, and its a consensual space. It should be independent of the hardware you use. It should be independent of the software you use or the operating system its running on. It should also be independent of what culture you’re in, or whether your’e writing a wonderful, carefully edited document, or whether youre scribbling something on the back of the proverbial envelope. And it should be independent of what language you’re using, what character set, whether your letters go up and down, left to right, or right to left. Also, people should be able to access that information even if they have disabilities. At W3C we call this concept one Web for anyone, everywhere, on anything.”

Tim Berners-Lee

Semantic Data Extractor

The aim is to show that providing a semantically rich HTML gives much more value to your code: using a semantically rich HTML code allows a better use of CSS, makes your HTML intelligible to a wider range of user agents (especially search engines bots).

In the last few months I have come across some nice pieces of software that have made my life just that little bit easier. I might as well share them.

• Quicksilver : You will hardly ever use the dock on OSX again
• Synergy: OSX and XP become one… sort of
• Synergy: Not the same as above. iTunes plugin that gives you total control
• Audio Hijack: Nice recording app for streaming audio
• Tinker Tool: Pop the bonnet on OSX

Of course there are lots more great applications out there.

The wait is over. Get Firefox 1.0

Finally Firefox has reached its full release. Now we can officially push the use of this browser to our friends, family, workmates and even network admins.

While I love and fully support Firefox and its cause it is worth remembering that there are other browers out there that are excellent too.

Day Three

Wonder Woman was my tour guide for the day so we had breakfast in the Queen Victoria Building before heading to have a look at the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. The weather was cloudy but it did not take too long for the sun to come out which made the day considerably warmer. Being a long weekend there were people everywhere and there were plenty of buskers around… but none of them were all that great.

We then had lunch at Bill and Tony’s on Stanley Street in Darlinghurst. I am told it is a bit of a local institution and I can understand why. The focaccia I inhaled was delicious. The next stop was Oxford Street where I bought some new shoes for work and some sunglasses that will be good for bike-riding and tennis.

After that we were going to head up Center Point tower to enjoy the views but it was $22 and the cues were monumental. Stuff that!

Later back at the hotel I saw Dave Shea and Doug Bowman waiting around in the lobby. I did not really get to speak to them during the conference so now was my chance… but I chickened out. They looked like they were relaxing so the last thing they need is another geek coming up and bothering them. They are going to be in Melbourne for drinks so I will pester them there.

Went with Wonder Woman to visit one of her friends in Tempe and we had dinner at a place called The Bank in Newtown (I think) The meal was absolutely delicious. I am now supposed to meet Sawks and some other Infronters somewhere at The Rocks but I am tired so I am going to pike. I hope I do not get too much of a grilling as a consequence.

It has been a great trip so far. I really like Sydney and it will be a shame to head home tomorrow afternoon.

Day Four

Headed to Bondi for some breakfast and relaxing in the sun but not before misplacing my phone and driving all over Sydney’s east trying to find it. Turns out it was in my bag all along. Good grief!

Anyway, Bondi was great. It was busy to not too hectic. The weather was orgasmic and their were plenty of fake boobies to look at for a laugh. I guess I was at Bondi beach… what else should I expect?

I flew home a few hours later feeling a bit grumpy but satisfied after an excellent few days. Luckily I am off to Sydney again in a few weeks so I can’t wait.

I was lucky enough to go to Sydney to attend the we04 conference.

Getting There
Left Melbourne at 3.30pm and had a bumpy flight to Sydney that seemed to take forever even tho it was only 55 minutes. I have the attention span of a box of hammers so I think flights take forever no matter how short they are.

Checked in at the Mercure on Broadway just before six o’clock and headed out for a look around. It was a wet and windy night so the pleasure factor was lower than it should have been. I wanted to go up Centre Point to enjoy the view but it was too foggy. I ended up at Darling Harbour and had a shitty Nasi Goreng and a flavourless Jasmine Tea for dinner. I must be getting old as I am choosing Jasmine Tea over beer nowadays as my beverage of choice. I guess it I should have known better than to eat at Darling Harbour as it is a pretty spot but hardly seems like the place for good cuisine. Walked round for another hour or so before crashing in my hotel room round half ten. Sawks called shortly afterwards to tell he was tired and had a lot to do so we decided we could not be bothered catching up for a pint.

I was bored so I tried to hack into the erotic TV channels for a while before giving up and finally falling asleep around mid-night.

we04 Day One
Beep beep! Sawks’ text message woke me up at 7.28am. I met him and his workmate Anthony downstairs for a meat pie for breakfast. Mmm classy!

An hour later we were listening to Dave Shea talking about Zen Garden. The most interesting point Dave made was his guestimation that Firefox would hold 25% of the browser market 12 months for now. I really hope Dave is right and I do not doubt his assumption. IE’s security holes are now getting epidemic so I can’t see what else people can do besides switch. Or to be extra safe maybe they could really switch.

Most of the technical info of the day I could say I was already across so for me the highlight was John Alsop. John is the author of one of my favourite articles about the Web and Website design and what it really is. Don’t worry that the date of the article is several years old. It is still very, very relevant. John seems like an eccentric genius who sells himself as neither a web designer or developer but a “web philosopher.” I swear that many of John’s points are already somewhere in my head however I could never express them as concisely and eloquently as he does.

Dean Jackson was up next and gave me a new viewpoint on the W3C. How can someone so humours and lively work for the W3C? He even lives in Canberra! Seriously tho, Dean was great and he is heavily involved in the development of SVG. I can’t wait until that gains momentum.

Later in the day we heard one of my favourites Doug Bowman speak. Doug was followed by Dave Shea once again. I don’t need to elaborate on Doug or Dave, they are simply legends in this industry to which we all as either developers or users owe a small thanks to. I requested the mic at question time to ask them a question that I already knew the answer to just so I could hear them talk a little big longer.

Sawks, Anthony and I had drinkies afterwards before heading back to our hotel for some R and R. Wonder Woman showed shortly afterwards and then we went out for more drinks and some dinner.