News from October 2008
Memories and articles from back in the day
All Web Directions South 2008 slides and podcasts now online
Thanks to a huge effort by Guy, we now have all the slides and podcasts from WDS08 available at the site, which means it is officially “a wrap”.
Please spread the word about these resources: we make them available like this because we believe too much great content comes out of … Read more »
Interview about Scroll and Web Directions at Opera Developer Network
Bruce Lawson, and Opera Software, recently interviewed us about Scroll and the conferences. For those interested in knowing a little more about the conference, or the magazine, there’s quite a bit of detail there.
In particular for those interested in the conferences, we tried to go into a little of … Read more »
On (digital) gardens and wilderness
Nearly 3 years ago, after yet another rip off of our site design (I’ve lost count of the number of times people have ripped our design, a lot of our content (in one case submitting it to a notable publisher, and being only days away from being published as a … Read more »
Web Directions North 09 is launched
We’ve just launched the site and registrations for Web Directions North 09 — to be held in Denver Colorado in the first week of February.
We’ve got an amazing lineup of experts, sessions and workshops, — check out all the details at the site.
This year for the … Read more »
Ubiquitous web font embedding just got a step closer
[Update 1] A couple of months back, I surveyed the scene regarding a long cherished dream of web designers and developers — font linking and embedding.
[Update 2] Opera 10, and Firefox 3.1 now support linking to TrueType and OpenType (but not EOT) in currently shipping alphas or betas.
A short … Read more »
A glimmer of hope in the current economic climate
Unless one lives under a rock, or is hiking in Bhutan, the current chaotic and clearly difficult state of the world economy will have not escaped attention. So, Google’s recently reported 30% year on year increase in revenues is something of a glimmer of positive news at least in … Read more »
Opera: 4.13% of the web is standards compliant
Via Ars Technica, news of a survey by Opera Software, long time supporters of Web Directions, makers of fine browsers, and strong advocates for an open, standards based web, that finds, to probably no one’s surprise, that the vast majority of the web is not standards based.
The good … Read more »
Great moments in Hypocrisy (mine)
So, some while back I wrote quite scathingly about native iPhone apps. I still stand by what I wrote there — but that hasn’t stopped me downloading some apps, and even paying for a couple.
But one really stands out, and I bought it this morning, sight unseen, less … Read more »
Fauxmunity
Those of us who’ve been round online a while will have seen at least one, and probably several occasions where large organisation starts blog/forum/online community, then proceeds to try hamfistedly to control the conversation, whether by deleting adverse comments, stacking the community with “sock puppets” (community members who are employees, … Read more »
Cameron Adams “cloud versus bird” remix — now with Dinosaurs
As if the man (in blue) doesn’t have enough to do, he’s now remixed Carla Hackett’s wonderful “Cloud v Bird” cartoon featured on the cover of Scroll (and at Web Directions South about eveywhere).
It’s also available at RedBubble should … Read more »
Douglas Crockford interviewed over at SitePoint
Kevin Yank over at SitePoint has an in-depth interview with Douglas Crockford over at SitePoint. Conducted right after Douglas’s presentation at the conference, Kevin follows up on some of the key points in that presentation.
Happy Birthday A List Apart
The (now officially) venerable A List Apart is now 10 years old. For old folks like me it seems like such a short period of time, and yet so long as well.
Congratulations to Jeffrey Zeldman, and all whom over the years have contributed to the success of this … Read more »
Scroll Magazine is launched
Those who came to Web Directions left with something special — a brand new magazine for web professionals — Scroll. Designed by Veerle Pieters, with a fantastic name courtesy of Maxine Sherrin, and largely the fruit of incredibly hard work by Maxine, Scroll features in depth articles by … Read more »
Web Directions North — launching next week
A quick note for visitors new and old, that Web Directions North will be launching next week. We are just finalizing speakers and workshops, so that when we launch, you’ll know exactly why you should be coming.
This year, Web Directions North moves to Denver, Colorado, for a whole host … Read more »
State Library of NSW photos on Flickr
Today’s Sun Herald reports that The State Library of New South Wales joins the PowerHouse Museum, along with institutions like the US Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institute in posting parts of their extensive photographic collections online at Flickr.
Great work SLoNSW and Flickr!
Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours — Joe Clark’s new book
Many in the web professions will be familiar with (and rightly so) Joe Clark. He spoke at the first conference we were associated with in 2004, and is well known as one of the earliest web accessibility experts, and author of the groundbreaking Building Accessible Websites.
Joe has just … Read more »
Web Directions Jobs — more than 50 up there now
Just quick note to say we now have over 50 reputable, legitimate jobs at jobs.webirections in just a few short weeks. There’s design, development, IA, and many more positions at the likes of the ABC, Atlassian, Gruden, Medicare, and many more. If you are looking for contractors part timers … Read more »
First batch of slides available!
The moment you’ve (perhaps) been eagerly awaiting: we’ve added in the slideshows for 10 of the presentations from the recent Web Directions South to the Resources section of this site. We’ll be adding more as time goes by, along with podcasts of the sessions. Check ‘em out:
- Jeffrey … Read more »
Photos from Web Directions South 2008
I’ve just uploaded almost 500 photos taken by our photographer this year, Wade Millican, who might I say did a thoroughly excellent job — thanks Wade!
Check them out for yourself. Even better, if you have time and inclination to tag … Read more »
Ignite Geospatial
Stephen Lead is putting together what I think might be one of the first “Ignite” events in Australia — Ignite GeoSpatial. While it’s not entirely web focussed, it’s not hard to see the importance of geo data for the web, and the web as a delivery platform for GeoSpatial … Read more »
Firefox in Australia — the survey
While the audience of Web Directions probably somewhat skews the sample, Mozilla are looking to get a better understanding of the use of Firefox around the world. So if you have a few minutes, please do head over to their survey.
In fact, even if you don’t use Firefox … Read more »