Molly Holzschlag on stage at FOWD 2009 - Flickr image from user: vectorfunk

The conference day was in the rather big Kensington Town Hall, which was nice, having met up with Natalie from BluHalo and the @fhoke lads the sessions got underway.

After Ryan Carson introduced the day and told us what we needed to know, there was an impromtu talk from Danny Somekh which looked at applying the agile development model to web sites. Quite interesting, if a little under prepared due to being such a late addition.

Next Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners (http://www.coudal.com/) talked about how the creative process seems to focus on taking a constant and applying variables to it, using the Booking Bands game as an example. Booking Bands says combine a band and a book to make something amusing. I’ve come up with “Oliver’s Twisted Sister” and “The Bloodhounds of the Baskervilles gang”. To do this he emphasised most would take either a band and cycle through the books you know, or vice versa. He also highlighted a short attention span isn’t necessarily a bad thing for creativity.

Next was Meagan Fisher from SimpleBits on the Mobile Web. Not really anything new, but it was interesting and good to know the leaders in web geekery are promoting and fighting for the same things as I am.

Brett Welch (of www.goodbarry.com was good) was next and was really fun. He talked about the business side of our work – the following points sticking with me:

• Talk about the clients business
• Design is a commodity
• Are you worth it?
• Try to join the dots not build from new
• Sell your expertise not a product

He had a way to remember the process, involving Busta Rhymes. Business, Understand, Strategy, Targets, Actions. The end result should be effective and repeat business.

Mark Boulton (http://www.markboulton.co.uk/) was next talking about typography for the web. He made some good points, being a very intelligent bloke:

• Typography can be frustrating on the web
• Design bridges author and reader concept ideas
• Use smart defaults and push people with the ability to influence design to make correct decisions
• Make people think they are being creative
• Use a typography cascade
• Check the Vista defaults for more fonts to use
• sIFR is a pain in the arse (my personal favourite)

The next speaker was slightly different as he had a companion to help him. Who is a guide dog. Because Robin Christopherson is completely blind.

Robin (of http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/) demonstrated the difficulties that blind and users with other disabilities find whilst using the internet. He pointe4d out that a lot of disabled users use a mobile version of a site as it is simpler, that captcha is not viable, gave some tips on making things easier for your users and was overall very impressive. This is something I will take back to the office and push for better accessibility in our sites.

Mike Kus speaking - Flickr Image by vectorfunk

Mike Kus from Carsonified was up next talking about design. His slides are up at http://www.slideshare.net/mikekus/graphic-design-the-forgotten-web-standard A good talk with a good video at the end. Not really my bag though – design and stretching design legs. One good point he made was to to harness the power of the copy you are designing for and think about the copy to inspire rather than dictate.

Sabrina Dent then spoke about the Stalinist web design model. Something that I always have trouble with. Its fine to say no all the time – but I struggle when it comes down to saying the words! Sabrina backed this up with the reasons why and so it might help me say no more often. Sabrina’s blog is at http://www.sabrinadent.com/

Finally Molly Holzschlag (www.molly.com) ran through the future of web standards, covering HTML5, XHTML, Compat mode in IE8, SVG, Canvas, RDFa, Microformats and a lot more besides. Really good and perfect for what I went to FOWD for.

I will cover the workshop content in another blog – after I have conveyed the message I took away to all the good folks at GyroHSR, hopefully changing something for the better too.

So you have the web developer toolbar, have solved all issues in Firefox, only to find IE doesn’t do the same.

What if you could click a bookmarked site, load a piece of javascript, then you simply click on any element on a page to display the element, id, class, hierarchy, positioning, border, margin and padding values in a pretty interface? Well sonny, with X-Ray (from http://westciv.com) you can!

The best bit is that it even works in IE, so you can troubleshoot any box model or double margin problems easily! It’s an excellent idea, and if I hadn’t already voted for jQuery, I would have voted for it in the innovation category of the .net magazine awards. Maybe you could vote in my stead!

So after a few days in work, not very long (but long enough!) I was off away again to Ruf Y Anun’s wedding in Palma, Mallorca. The flight was fine (easyjet aren’t that bad) and waiting for Jen in the hotel was great as I managed to squeeze in four pints.
Standard Mallorca holiday malarkey until the wedding on Saturday 1st September, 5pm local time. The Church was amazing (see above and below). Anunciada went to school there apparently, which is a bit nicer than the brick building in Hamsterley that taught me to read!

The service, in a mix of Spanish and English was lovely, with readings from both sides and the priest even doing his best in English.

Rufous is clearly impressed with the whole marriage lark.

Afterwards we got a few buses to the Hotel Delta Beach Club, on the coast with a great view, great food (the beef was EXCELLENT, as was the sorbet!). I think being seated at the Bride and Groom’s table was a bonus – it meant Hufty could entertain us! Free wine flowed freely and the dancing was inspired (I cleared the floor at least twice!). I just wish someone had told me the Spanish were going on to a club when the bus home dropped us off in El Arenal about 5am, since I definitely could have partied on into the day – at least I think so!

Anyway, a few more days of beach, burning, pool and Tapas later we all went home and back to daily life. This may be a little short, but then again, I was drunk most of the time and memories fade when intoxicated!

Ole!

So holiday time has come and gone, and I have been far too lazy to blog in the slightest.

Cornwall was excellent as normal, however the highlights include:

• Much Risk, and not coming last in one game!
• 2 barbeques
• Pubbage
• FInally meeting Del
• Wii
• Boat exploits
• Tintagel, legendary birthplace of King Arthur
• St Michael’s Mount

The best part of the whole holiday (apart from the sentimental “time with friends” rubbish) was surfing. It was excellent, and I even caught one wave, stood up and rode it all of 25m to the beach. I am definitely going to try and do it more often, either by getting down to Brighton and hiring a board and wet suit or seeing if Seaham is a possibility if I go back up North – followed by a full week next year dedicated to surfing. 2 hours is nowhere near long enough!

For the record that alcohol consumed that week include (but is not limited to):

• 1 x 18 pack Fosters
• 7 x red wine (bottle)
• 1 x Sierra Tequila bottle
• 1/4 x Tesco value vodka (aka meths)
• 1 x 18 pack John Smiths Smooth
• 1 x 24 pack John Smiths Bitter
• 10+ pints Tribute Cornish Ale

Please be aware the above list is what I consumed in full! Just me. No help (except a little on the Tequila from Claire Levison!) Good, eh!

Photos are up! Gallery, Flickr and Zooomr

Tarra for now!!

I think probably, no reason why not, especially if everyone helps.

This is the image:

Good luck Rory!!

Read more about the bet at http://heathermcneil.blogspot.com/

Today I finished a web site favour for a friend of my friend Smidge. The web site is for a choir back up North who unfortunately lost the member that handled their web site. I created a wordpress managed site, using a theme which I heavily modified, new images, slight reorganisation and a lot of photoshop work. The site lives at www.northernspiritsingers.co.uk

I never saw the previous site so I am yet to find out if it is an improvement, I hope it is.

I took on the project after Smidge mentioned it in an email spurred on by what my friend Gareth created for the Ex-National Youth Choir of Great Britain web site. Thanks for the inspiration Gareth! Now after a few updates and some training on the use of the Wordpress admin section, the choir can update and use the site to its full potential.

So last Thursday I went all Hip Hop on your ass and went to see Cut Chemist of Jurassic 5 fame at the Islington Academy with Ruf, Anun, Hufty, Ruf’s brother Rob (I think…) and his partner Dave.

I was pleasantly surprised and will definitely carry on listening to and buying more Hip Hop, just got to remember to steer clear of all the terrible Gansta Rap and all that rubbish.

Also adding to the quality night was spending time with Hufty and Ruf and managing to get a hangover the next morning.

Something interesting Hufty and I talked about on the way home, apart from much rubbish, was how good a photograph of hundreds of people queuing single file to get on a London bus or Tube train would be. With all the impatient pushy people, I thought it would be a fantastic image to behold. Now just to work out the logistics of creating it… erm… ahem…

The last site I did for a friend was featured on the BBC web site – as Kate was on Five Live and the nice people at the bbc linked to and mentioned the site – listen again to Kate (and Matthew Bannister mention my site!) – http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/morning.shtml

I”ve also just completed writing an RSS feed from the blog on the site, the first time I’ve done so, and I can see me doing it a lot more now! It was easy!

So there we have it, a popular web site and RSS. I am officially a web geek!

So I suppose that makes me a worldwide artist? Should that go on me CV or something, or should I get James back down for more recording sessions and get an album’s worth recorded? Or should I stick to being a geek and save the guitar playing for retirement!!

I’m still in a bit of shock, but it’s nice to know that long recording period of my youth is being appreciated by someone somewhere. I am waiting to hear the reaction of James.

I was extremely annoyed yesterday due to the collections company explaining that when they said my payments would be up for review, they actually meant “Pay us it all now.” Needless to say I had a barney and the monthly payments continue, but they have risen to £340 a month, which is way too much for me to enjoy myself. It’’s more than my rent for God’’s sake!!! I will have to see if I can afford it, if not, some form of goodwill payment each month will have to keep them happy, since it’’s not really worth me going bankrupt (especially since they wouldn”t get paid off that way anyway!

And finally, on a lighter note, the picture you can see below is my good friend Mr Neil Collins on Countdown. I know!!! He has hair!! Amazing isn”t it!!

Well, back to work me thinks!