News from September 2008
Memories and articles from back in the day
Thank you
There’s so much to come in the hours, days and weeks ahead, but just right now, a huge thanks to all who made Web Directions what it was. Amazing.
We’ll have much more specific thanks coming soon, but for now, the sincerest gratitude from Maxine and me.
McFarlane Prize winners for 2008
The winner of the McFarlane Prize, 2008, is Pro Plaster Products by Propeller Global. Billy Hughes at War for the Old Parliament House, by IceLab was highly commended by the judges. Congratulations to the team at Propeller, at IceLab, and all the finaists, and a … Read more »
WDS08 got you hankering for a change?
Monday morning after a week like the last one can be heavy going no? If things seem just a little pedestrian as you look around the office this morning, and contemplate what you have to do this week, you do have options you know. Take a break round 11 and … Read more »
Follow us on Flickr, Twitter, teh blogs and YouTube
It’s quiet on the blog, but Twitter, Flickr, the blogs and YouTube are are alive with comments, photos, video and more from the conference.
Follow along if you couldn’t come!
A silver lining in the global financial market fallout?
I’m an optimist — it’s in my nature. Not a blithe one, but definitely my instinct is to not see the worst in a situation. Clearly so to is Douglas Rushkoff, author, public intellectual, and all round big thinker.
Douglas has a long essay on the implications of the current … Read more »
The McFarlane Prize Shortlist for 2008
The Jury for the prize has now drawn up the shortlist for this year’s prize. The standard of this year’s entries was without doubt the best yet, demonstrating that each year, the quality of Australia’s web industry’s output improves considerably. I’m sure Nigel would have been most pleased with that.
This … Read more »
Web Directions and web application, social networks, and so on
With a week to go, it’s time to start firing up your social networks, and other online tools in preparation for the conference.
If you take photos, and use Flickr, please upload them with the tag wds08 (or search for photos tagged wds08 to see what others are seeing).
If you … Read more »
Coming to Web Directions? Win a Macbook Air courtesy of Campaign Monitor
The boys from Campaign monitor always make a splash at Web Directions, this year going one better than an iMac, by giving away a Macbook Air during the conference. And they’ve teamed up with a number of speakers to reward you for paying attention — check out their blog … Read more »
Web Directions speaker Jina Bolton — the SitePoint Sexy Stylesheets interview
Jina Bolton, one of the excellent international speakers we have lined up for Web Directions next week features in a detailed interview in SitePoint — so to get a sense of what she has in store for her presentation, head over to SitePoint for her chat with Matt … Read more »
500th Attendee free
We are fast coming up on a milestone that when we started this crazy web directions thing a few years ago, if you’d told me we’d be anywhere near, I would have doubted your sanity. Last year we went just past 500 attendees, and we are again nearing that pretty … Read more »
Session Spotlight — HTML5 with Michael ™ Smith
Keeping abreast with browser and standards developments, latest scripting and styling techniques, let alone next generation developments like HTML5 is a full time job. Since most of us have full time jobs, what we at Web Directions try to do is a lot of that job for you — by … Read more »
Very nice molt:n t shirts — get yours!
Scott and Cheryl of molt:n digital came up with a great design for the t shirts they’ll be giving away at the conference this year.
Make sure you get yourself one by blogging or flickring something about Web Directions and tagging … Read more »
Microsoft Surface at Web Directions!
A couple of weeks back we announced a keynote presentation by August de los Reyes, chief experience architect for the Surface project. Well, not only will we have August speaking, but you’ll be able to get your hands on the Surface itself, in a rare public outing.
Not sure how … Read more »
the World Wide Web Foundation
Sir Tim Berners-Lee has announced a new organization, the World Wide Web Foundation, whose goals are
- to advance One Web that is free and open
- to expand the Web’s capability and robustness
- to extend the Web’s benefits to all people on the planet
Clearly the foundation is meant to complement the technical … Read more »
Win an ipod touch — thanks to our closing night party sponsors 99designs and Gruden
99designs and Gruden have just come on board as our closing night party sponsors, which is great news in itself. But even better is the fact that … Read more »
Adobe’s CS4 launch date — September 23rd
It’s been widely reported that CS4 is to be launched on September 23rd.
And, Adobe is exhibiting at Web Directions South on September 25th and 26th.
So, I’m wondering what folks might be able to se at the Adobe stand at Web Directions South?
Just speculating wildly is all ;-)
Jobs at our job board
Jut a little reminder that if you are looking for employees — part tim, full time, or contractors, or looking for a job, or contract, the Web Directions Job board now has over 40 jobs for web professionals, covering a wide range of job titles.
Posting jobs and applying for … Read more »
Social Events during Web Directions
Plenty to do after hours during Web Directions South this year — rest assured, you will not be going back to your hotel room after things wrap up at the conference and workshops each day.
Please let me know if you’re organising something you’d like me … Read more »
Internet Explorer 8 — are you ready for a CSS renaissance?
Because browsers evolve so rapidly, there really is no time to sit back and feel that you already know it all if you are a front end developer. New browsers give you a lot to be excited about with new levels of support for CSS, but at the same time … Read more »
Web Directions South 2008 — We have Webjam!
Some very exciting news for everyone who’s going to be in town for Web Directions South 2008. Those four days in September just got even better with the Webjam team announcing that the all new Webjam 8 will happen at … Read more »
Wifi at Web Directions South this year — latest news
Following on from all the comments we got on the the two blog posts we put out there last week on this topic, John and I decided to do a bit further investigation into extending wifi into the conference theatres this year at Web Directions South. It hasn’t quite … Read more »
Web Directions South — Discount ends tomorrow!
Only one more day to get the $100 discount for Web Directions South. Don’t miss out!
Introducing Aconex, our student scholarship sponsor
Since we started Web Directions, we’ve tried to make the conference accessible as possible. Which doesn’t just mean accessible to people with special needs, but also as affordable as possible. One way we do this is by making the conference as reasonably priced as possible. Now, you might say $1050 … Read more »
The history of touch interfaces
Via Web Directions speaker Gabriel White’s blog “Small Surfaces”, is a detailed article of the history of touch technology in user interfaces, going back into the dark ages early 1970s, in the Economist magazine’s quarterly Technology Review. Well worth a read ahead of Web Directions, where both … Read more »
Thanks to our significant supporters — Opera
All of us in the web industry know about Opera, the browser, and probably have installed it for testing, and maybe even our everyday web use. What many of us don’t really realize is the sheer reach of the Opera platform.
The browser in the Wii is powered by Opera
Hundreds … Read more »
JavaScript libraries roundup
Keeping up with developments in the world of JavaScript libraries is increasingly a challenge — with new libraries seemingly springing up by the week. If you are interested in what’s out there beyond “the usual suspects” of JQuery, Prototype and so on, Six Revisions has a round up of … Read more »
Web Directions South 2008 t shirt remixes
There’s some cute remixes of the Web Directions T shirt over at Redbubble already. Very droll, all of you :)
You can order “Cloud vs Bird” at Redbubble today … Read more »
Discount period extended ’til next Wednesday
In what appears to have become something of a tradition, we’ve extended the discount period, which was to end tonight, until next Wednesday. So, if you still need to make arrangements, bribe the boss and so on, you have a few more days.
This year looks set to be even better … Read more »
Great backchannel stories of our time
John wrote here yesterday about Wifi availability at the conference venue this year. The good news is, if all goes according to plan, we should be swimming in the network, which is great.
There’s been … Read more »
Many thanks to our Key Sponsor, Adobe
Last year, Adobe became involved with Web Directions, as a key supporter. For those of your who’d been to previous conferences, I hope you felt that across the board, the quality of the conference had improved — from the venue, to the number of sessions and tracks, to the … Read more »
Cappuccino arrives
I’m more of a latté kind of guy (well, not really), but today sees the arrival of the long anticipated Cappucino framework, from 280 North, makers of the beautiful web based presentation application (think Keynote for the Web) 280 Slides.
280 Slides particularly excited me as a web app, … Read more »
Web Directions Expo almost full
There’s only a place or so left for this year’s Expo — so if your company might be interested in exhibiting to what is doubtless the finest audience of web professionals in the country, then let the right people in your organisation know, as there’s not much time left. … Read more »
Campaign Monitor 2.0 sneak peak at WDS08
For those many folks who use Campaign Monitor, the great email campaign management tool built specifically with designers in mind (we’ve used it for some years here at Web Directions!), then make sure you check out their stand at the Web Directions Expo, where they’ll be showing off sneak … Read more »
Wireless access at Web Directions South — the past and the future
In 2004, at the first conference we ran, there was no wireless access — and I think barely a single person even mentioned it to us.
In 2005, we organized wifi connectivity at UTS, which worked fine if you were on a Mac, but caused major headaches if you were using … Read more »
Local Government on the Open Web — Presentation by Lachlan Hardy
A couple of weeks back I had the pleasure of attending the closing keynote at the Local Government Web Network Conference. It was an excellent presentation by Lachlan Hardy on the possibilities created by the ideas behind … Read more »
Sydney Workshop with Indi Young in November
I’m sure I’ve spoken about Indi’s excellent presentation from Web Directions North earlier this year before. It was such a clear headed explanation of her Mental Models methodology for aligning your design strategy with how people actually work. … Read more »
What does it all mean?
I laughed out loud the moment I saw the very first iteration of Carla’s idea for the Web Directions T Shirt. It always appeals to my sense of humour to reflect on those painful moments of misunderstanding you have to go through if you are going to participate in that … Read more »
SitePoint interview with Jeffrey Veen (and more)
Long time supporters, and media partners with Web Directions, the great Aussie based publishers of web and print based books articles, and much more for web designers and developers are currently running an interview with keynote speaker, Jeffrey Veen, by Josh Catone.
Once again Sitepoint are showing their support for … Read more »
The Google Browser
It appears that the long fabled browser from Google is indeed real, and will be coming soon to a desktop near you. Soon it would seem as in tomorrow according to Google themselves.
There are plenty of posts round the the intarwebs about this, including a 38 page … Read more »
Web Directions South 2008 t shirts by Carla Hackett
Update
Our first remix, by Gary Barber.…the whale puts in his inevitable appearance.
And here’s a cute one from Susan MacGillivray — Cloud vs Tweet
This year we wanted … Read more »
Discount pricing ends this Friday — Save $100
Another quick note about time running out, this time for our $100 discount, which ends Friday.
If you are keen to come, and haven’t signed up, make sure you do so before Friday night!
If you know someone keen to come, please let them know they can save $100 before … Read more »
McFarlane Prize nominations close midnight
A final reminder that nominations for this year’s McFarlane Prize for Excellence in Australian Web Design close tonight at midnight.
Nominating is as simple as filling in a two field form.
As usual we are having a late rush on nominations. So, don’t miss out on the opportunity to have … Read more »