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The McFarlane Prize for Australian web design — nominations now open

Nominations for the McFarlane Prize for excel­lence in Australian web design have just opened. So, if you’re respon­si­ble for a web site launched or sig­nif­i­cantly updated since September 20 2009 which you think deserves recog­ni­tion for its adher­ence to web … Read more »

Introducing Amped, the hackday, reloaded coming to Atlanta and Sydney

When you hear about the lat­est web tech­nolo­gies and tech­niques do you ever think “damn, I wish I could play with these right now”?

Enter Amped — the Hackday, reloaded.

amped logo

We’ve taken the tra­di­tional hack day, pulled it apart, thought long and hard about what’s great, what’s … Read more »

Learn CSS3 with John Allsopp

Hot on the heels of my recent HTML5 course with SitePoint, is our new CSS3 Live course, start­ing today, August 16. It fea­tures screen­casts, exer­cises, arti­cles, and live streamed FAQs, and runs for 3 weeks.

We cover selec­tors, prop­er­ties, media queries, and more in real depth — so if … Read more »

Sitepoint are looking for a web app developer

Want to work with some of the best devel­op­ers in Australia? Looking to develop world-​​class web­sites using the lat­est web tech­nolo­gies? Keen to be part of an organ­i­sa­tion that is a great sup­porter of the Aussie web industry?

SitePoint are in need of a tal­ented PHP devel­oper — … Read more »

Tech23 — for Australian Technology Innovators

Tech23, in its sec­ond year now, is a great event in Sydney focussing on com­mer­cial tech­nol­ogy inno­va­tion. Featuring a com­bi­na­tion of insights from lead­ers in the tech indus­try, and a shootout for some seri­ous prizes by 23 early stage tech­nol­ogy com­pa­nies, and all wrap­ping up with a great awards … Read more »

HTML5 Live, a two week online course from John

A quick note to all that with SitePoint, a fan­tas­tic com­mu­nity for web design­ers and devel­op­ers, and pub­lisher of many excel­lent design and devel­op­ment books, I’ll be run­ning a two week course, online start­ing next Monday on HTML5. And best of all, it’s only $US9.95 (yep, less than a … Read more »

More Web Directions @media podcasts and slides come online

Thanks to a lot of hard work from Guy Leech, a whole bunch of the pod­casts and slides from Web Directions @media are now online. It’s always great to give back by mak­ing these avail­able, and we’d like to par­tic­u­larly thank our speak­ers for their generosity.

Help us make it all … Read more »

Three must-​​see presentations which came out of Web Directions @media

After any con­fer­ence we always do our best to share the love by cre­at­ing a pod­cast and resource page for each pre­sen­ta­tion from the event. Apologies that it has taken a bit of time to get these out there this time — we’ve had the small mat­ter of … Read more »

Web Directions South 2010

We’re really excited to take the wraps off Web Directions South for 2010. This has been a big year for Web Directions, with our first ever @media just wrap­ping up in London, and the recently announced Web Directions US in Atlanta.

But our home will always be Sydney, … Read more »

SVG Contest closes Friday

Just a quick update on our “No Bit, Sherlock” com­pe­ti­tion, where you can win some great prizes like XBoxes, Mindstorms and a SONY Vaio just for build­ing an SVG but­ton, or progress control.

There’s plenty of great exam­ples you can learn from (remem­ber, “view source” is not a sin, it’s … Read more »

@media is a wrap, and a huge hit

We’ve just wrapped up the first @media event run by Web Directions here in London, and if we say so our­selves, it’s been a huge hit.

An incred­i­ble array of speak­ers, cov­er­ing a wide range of break­ing top­ics includ­ing CSS3, HTML5, mobile web app devel­op­ment, geolo­ca­tion, but much … Read more »

SVG — the Cinderella of web standards goes to the ball

To date, SVG has been rather the Cinderella of web stan­dards (peo­ple for­get that Cinderella was the beau­ti­ful, but over­looked sib­ling before the whole glass slip­per busi­ness). But since the hand­some Prince (Internet Explorer 9) showed inter­est in her, things have been look­ing up. OK, so I’ve pushed … Read more »

Opera Dragonfly Developer survey

Those of you who use Opera likely know about their very cool, open source devel­op­ment and debug­ging tool Dragonfly. It’s in many ways sim­i­lar to Firebug, IE’s devel­oper tool­bar, and Safari’s Web Inspector.

The folks at Opera are run­ning a short sur­vey to help get a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what … Read more »

@media approaches — along with many web related events

We’re gear­ing up for our first @media fill­ing the huge shoes left by founder Patrick Griffiths, and things are shap­ing up really well.

But @media’s not the only thing on next week. The excel­lent folks at London Web Standards are hold­ing HTML5 and Flash, where are they now?, … Read more »

SitePoint interviews @media speakers Jonathan Stark and Tom Hughes-​​Croucher

Our fine friends, and long time sup­port­ers SitePoint have been doing a num­ber of inter­views with @media speak­ers in the lead up to the event next week. Craig Buckler speaks with Jonathan Stark, on build­ing native mobile apps using web tech­nolo­gies, and Tom Hughes-​​Croucher on Server Side JavaScript … Read more »

Announcing Web Directions USA!

Our tra­di­tional early year time­frame for Web Directions North has come and gone, so you might have been won­der­ing what’s been hap­pen­ing with Web Directions in North America.

We’re really excited to be able to say behind the scenes a lot has been going on, and we’re excited to be able … Read more »

State of Web Development 2010

We’re late to our own party here, but ear­lier this week we released the results of our sec­ond State of Web Development sur­vey (last year it was the state of the web sur­vey, but we changed the name to more closely match the aim of the report).

You can … Read more »

White Pages Australia new API — beta testers wanted

In a move that hope­fully points to where Sensis is head­ing with their data, Australia’s White Pages are look­ing for beta testers for their new API. So if you’ve got an appli­ca­tion that could ben­e­fit from all that data on busi­ness, gov­ern­ment and per­sonal con­tacts, get in touch … Read more »

jQuery conference in San Francisco next week

jQuery comes up all the time in our con­fer­ences (we’re par­tic­u­larly priv­i­leged to have jQuery founder John Resig speak­ing at @media in London in June).

So, it makes more than a lit­tle sense to point out that the next jQuery con­fer­ence is on in San Francisco this com­ing week­end. … Read more »

A dao of web design turns 10

A decade ago, I wrote an arti­cle “A Dao of Web Design” that the then youngish A List Apart pub­lished appar­ently exactly 10 years ago today.

At the time, I prac­ticed a lot of Tai Chi (which is closely asso­ci­ated with the phi­los­o­phy of Daoism) (sadly, I do so much … Read more »

iPad, Work Discipline and Post Industrial Capitalism

When Apple finally revealed the world’s sec­ond worst kept secret (Ricky Martin today revealed the other one — good for you Ricky), I pub­licly and pri­vately expressed, along with many oth­ers, my ini­tial, if not dis­ap­point­ment, at least state of being under­whelmed. Whatever it was, it wasn’t rev­o­lu­tion­ary (and … Read more »

McFarlane Prize 2009 — The Book

At Web Directions South last year we announced that we would be com­mem­o­rat­ing the 2009 McFarlane Prize by pro­duc­ing a beau­ti­ful high qual­ity hard cover book con­tain­ing all 48 of the short­listed entires. Thanks to a lot of hard work … Read more »

Introducing #wdx

There have been words out and about regard­ing the name of our London event for this year, Web Directions @media. To explain a lit­tle where that name has come from, the con­fer­ence this time around is a hybrid as we take over the reins of the highly … Read more »

SVG and IE9

Today at MIX, Microsoft announced the first devel­oper pre­view ver­sion of IE9, a far from fin­ished, but usable look at where IE is headed. Microsoft will update this pre­view very cou­ple of months or so.

There’s a great deal new, and much for us in the web design and devel­op­ment … Read more »

The Myths of Innovation — Remixed and Remastered

A few years back, Scott Berkun gave one of the most highly regarded pre­sen­ta­tions we have ever had at a Web Directions event. It was called the Myths of Innovation, and peo­ple still but­ton­hole me to say how great it was, or to bemoan the fact that their life­time regret … Read more »

Bob Harris’s closing Keynote at Web Directions North 09

Jeopardy cham­pion, fan­tas­tic come­dian, author, inven­tor, tele­vi­sion writer (cred­its include CSI and Bones) and much more, Bob Harris came into my life in a way unimag­in­able only a hand­ful of years ago. My wife was well over due with our first child, and far from con­tented. She … Read more »

State of the web survey — closes today

A quick note for those web design­ers and devel­op­ers out there who’ve not yet taken this year’s “State of the Web” sur­vey — it closes today, so if you have a few min­utes, please head along and take it.

The sur­vey, fol­lows up on last years and aims to … Read more »

@media early bird registration extended to March 7th

A quick note for those think­ing about attend­ing @media — we’ve (as has become some­thing of a tra­di­tion) extended the super early bird dis­count of £100 off until March 7th. So, if you’d thought you’d missed out, you’ve got a few more days to reg­is­ter at this pretty amaz­ing … Read more »

Boagworld Big Breakfast at @media

Web Directions is very proud to be host­ing a really spe­cial and fun event on the Friday morn­ing of @media: the Boagworld Big Breakfast. Boagworld is the longest run­ning web design pod­cast with a pas­sion­ate and ded­i­cated com­mu­nity from all back­grounds. The show offers some­thing for every­one from … Read more »

John Resig speaking at @media

That’s right, some­one we’ve been try­ing for lit­er­ally years to get to come and speak at one of our events, John Resig, father of JQuery, is speak­ing on JavaScript test­ing at @media in London in June.

As web appli­ca­tions mature, the need to test sys­tem­at­i­cally and thor­oughly is becom­ing … Read more »

AIIA 2010 iAwards

The Australian Information Industry Association, a long time indus­try Partner of Web Directions, has recently launched the 2010 edi­tion of the iAwards, now in it’s 16th year, and Australia’s pre­mier tech­nol­ogy inno­va­tion awards program.

With 18 cat­e­gories, includ­ing star­tups, tools, tourism, stu­dent projects, edu­ca­tion and gov­ern­ment, what­ever solu­tions you … Read more »

Reflections on the first 24 hours of the Web Direction South 2010 “Tell us what you want” survey

Yesterday I launched our “Tell Us What You Want” sur­vey for Web Directions South 2010. In essence this is a call for papers really, it’s just that we don’t like using that term as we think it makes us sound like some sort of ante­dilu­vian aca­d­e­mic sym­po­sium, which, I’ll … Read more »

Want to speak at Web Directions South 2010? Got Feedback and Suggestions?

If you want to speak at Web Directions South this year, here’s your chance to pro­pose a topic.

Even if you don’t want to speak, you can also give us feed­back and your thoughts on what you’d like to hear about this year, and who you’d like to see … Read more »

State of the Web Survey for 2010

In late 2008, we did our first com­pre­hen­sive State of the Web sur­vey, with well over a thou­sand respon­dents from all over the world answer­ing. The aim was to cap­ture a snap­shot of the tech­nolo­gies and impor­tantly prac­tices and philoso­phies of pro­fes­sional web design­ers and devel­op­ers. We pub­lished the … Read more »

Announcing Web Directions @media — London, June 8 – 11

In 2005, not long after WE04, the first con­fer­ence we helped organ­ise, well known UK web indus­try expert Patrick Griffiths, of HTML Dog fame, launched @media. An instant suc­cess, @media and Web Directions have always shared very sim­i­lar DNA — a pas­sion for the web, stan­dards, acces­si­bil­ity and best … Read more »

MOB Case Study now​.web​di​rec​tions​.org

The amaz­ingly tal­ented folks at MOB pro­duced a cou­ple of fan­tas­tic things for Web Directions South 09. Working with YiYing Lu, they pro­duced the won­der­ful “you are what you tweet” Augmented Reality project. They also built now​.web​di​rec​tions​.org, an iPhone opti­mized web appli­ca­tion (yes, yes, the design deci­sion … Read more »

Google’s new approach to China

Google had just taken what we believe is a huge step for­ward for the web, and the world

We have decided we are no longer will­ing to con­tinue cen­sor­ing our results on Google​.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be dis­cussing with the Chinese gov­ern­ment the basis … Read more »

Web Directions South 09 Resources — many more now online

Thanks to the tire­less efforts of Guy in prepar­ing all the pages and pro­duc­ing all the pod­casts, we now have a whole raft of the pre­sen­ta­tions from WDS09 now avail­able online, so, if you’re look­ing to catch some­thing you missed because you you went to another track, or you couldn’t … Read more »

Got your Google Wave invite? Scratching your head?

It looks like all the Google Wave invites for WDS09 atten­dees, cour­tesy of Stephanie and Cameron (thanks again guys!) went out over the weekend.

If you’re scratch­ing your head as to what to do next though, and you’re in Sydney, why don’t you come along on Tuesday the 20th to the … Read more »

First batch of WDS09 resources now available

You wouldn’t believe how many things there are to do in the week after an event — I actu­ally feel like I have been busier this week than I was in the week lead­ing up to the con­fer­ence. But one of the big things we have been treat­ing as an … Read more »

Trip to Japan for Web Directions East — winner announced!

A cou­ple of months back we announced that we were going to be giv­ing away a ticket to Web Directions East to one lucky attendee of Web Directions South.

Well, that lucky attendee turned out to be Dylan Fogarty-​​MacDonald, who has already let us know that he is very excited to … Read more »

Web Directions — The Soundtrack

I’ve got a few enquiries here about the music we played dur­ing the con­fer­ence, so I thought I should really give credit where it is due and write up some­thing comprehensive.

Between ses­sions in the rooms we played XX by The XX — which came rec­om­mended by Luke … Read more »

GovHack, Canberra Oct 30 and 31 — produced by Web Directions

On Friday after­noon at Web Directions South we were excited and hon­oured to be able to announce GovHack, an event we’ll be pro­duc­ing in can­berra at the end of the month. GovHack is an ini­tia­tive of the Government 2.0 TaskForce, in sup­port of MashupAustralia, a com­pe­ti­tion encour­ag­ing … Read more »

Tech23 startup event in Sydney

Hot on the heels of our amaz­ingly well received Atlassian Startup Space at Web Directions South, Tech23 is a full day startup focussed event in Sydney on October 27.

If you are a startup, an investor, or some­one think­ing about start­ing up — get along, learn and net­work. … Read more »

Web Directions South 09 — Our best ever

Web Directions South is over for another year, and judg­ing by the com­ments in per­son, in blogs, via email and of course via twit­ter, it would seem many think it is the best to date, some­thing we’d have to agree with. Sometimes the stars seem to align — extra­or­di­nary pre­sen­ta­tions … Read more »

99designs Are Hiring A Front-​​end Ninja!

99designs, the sis­ter com­pany of our media part­ners, SitePoint, are look­ing to hire a full-​​time designer from their Melbourne office. In their words, they’re after a “front-​​end ninja” with tal­ents in graphic/​interface design, usabil­ity, acces­si­bil­ity and cre­at­ing standards-​​based HTML/​CSS.

If this sounds like you and you’re in Melbourne (or pre­pared to … Read more »

Special event for Web Week — go deep in the bowels of a leading data centre

Thanks to our spon­sors Anchor Hosting, and Australia’s largest car­rier neu­tral data cen­tre, Global Switch, we’ll be run­ning two, lim­ited places 1 hour tours of their data cen­tre facil­i­ties, in Tuesday the 6th and Wednesday the 7th of October at 345pm (and fin­ish­ing up at the … Read more »

Win a ticket to Web Directions South from Opera Software

If you’ve not been able to get along to the con­fer­ence next week, our excel­lent friends over at Opera Software are giv­ing away a place to Web Directions South 09.

All you have to do is sub­mit an abstract detail­ing what you would do to show­case the new breed of web … Read more »

Atlassian Startup Space at the Web Directions Expo

Thanks to the sup­port of Atlassian, Aussie star­tups turned world­wide suc­cess, at the Web Directions Expo this year we have a ded­i­cated startup focussed area, the Atlassian Startup Space.

7 recent star­tups, with a broad range of prod­ucts and ser­vices rel­e­vant to the web indus­try have been cho­sen for this … Read more »

McFarlane Prize 2009 Shortlist

The Judges have been hard at work with the higher than ever before stan­dard of this year’s Prize, and have decided on the short list for the 2009 Prize.

Last year’s win­ning design­ers, Propeller Global, after two gru­el­ing rounds of judg­ing have three sites they designed in the short list … Read more »