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Thursday, December 10th, 2009
As is the tradition at the end of a year, we tend to look back at the lessons and achievements from the past. A lot of these lessons I learn come from the books I read, because of this I thought I’d share some of the gems from my reading this year.
So without further a do here are the top 5 books I have read this year:
“$135 million, 18 months…a dot.com story from concept to catastrophe” – Boo hoo is an enthralling read outlining one of the most tragic stories from the early 2000′s dot com crash.
I couldn’t recommend it enough, if you’re interested in the business of the web you should really pick this one up.
Planet google, similar to boo hoo, with a totally different outcome is the story of googles rise to success and what effect this is having on our lives.
It’s a fascinating insight into the biggest companies in the world.
Over the past couple of years as a professional web developer I have come to terms with some hard lessons, fresh out of uni I wasn’t the know it all that I thought I was.
This was one of the books that helped me really focus my mindset and mature my opinions. I would recommend this book to any new programmer / developer hoping to find their feet in the industry.
We think centers around the ideology that mass innovation can lead to great things. Written from the perspective of a journalist delving into the world, this book does a great job of presenting each argument for adopting this way. In an attempt to convince the reader that encouraging your audience in shared thought can provide better products and ideas.
Couldn’t recommend this one more for anybody interested in starting up their own company.
Inside Steve’s brain is an in depth analysis of one of the worlds most influential people. This book looks at the attributes that make Steve Jobs a great business leader.
Anyone interested in how to achieve consistently great products needs to take a look at this one.
I’d be interested to hear what were your favourite web geek reads of 2009. Answers on a postcard below 
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Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Disclaimer: the views on this post are mine and mine alone, so should not to be taken as representing the views of the company I work for.
With the dizzying array of content management systems out on the market, it is getting harder and harder for consumers to decide on one that will fit their needs. Although there are a lot of great products out there, the choice is still quite hard, once you start down one road you can end up being locked in.
Through the creation and development of an in house CMS for the web marketing agency I work for I have come to believe that they should hold the following key ideas:
1. Abstract code from content
2. Handle media
3. Be simple to use
4. Closely match logical structure of the content displayed on the site.
5. Does not lock down a user to one specific content management system.
The reason for these are quite apparent but surprisingly a lot of CMS systems get this wrong, why is this? I think this is because the key idea of making a generic content management system for all to use is not possible, or quite simply hasn’t been invented just yet.
I think there needs to be a lot more discussion between the CMS vendors, especially towards the 5th point. We need to share common vocabulary so that we can better understand ways to solve the same problem.
- Is it possible to get an architecture right that is simple but also allows for handling the complexities of a big site?
- Can portability between one content management system to another be achieved, if so how do you see that working?
- Should we be developing custom CMS’s or rely on the generic ones on the market?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
On Monday I upgraded my Mac to the new Operating System dubbed ‘Snow Leopard’. At £29 there’s really no reason not to. I installed it as an upgrade, only took just under an hour, with not issues and by the looks of things no data loss. However on connecting to the internet I noticed the response was really, REALLY slow.
After routing around, I decided to put the firewall on, and turn it off again to see if that would make a different. Much to my dismay, that resulted in the Wifi connection being completely lost. The strange thing was, I could still connect to my router, but could not access any web pages.
When I googled some more (on another computer) I came across a post which outlined that for some reason the DNS had changed. So I changed it back to the DNS for the router and success it worked.
So all you need to do is:
1. Go to; System Preferences -> Network -> Advanced (on Airport) -> DNS
2. Add your router’s IP to the DNS Servers section.
This should fix the problem that took me aages to figure out. Hope that’s helpful for anyone, not entirely sure why the DNS settings would have been messed with but I guess those it reverts back to the factory settings.
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Sunday, May 10th, 2009
After just reading this article on sitepoint.com. I am amazed that this idea has been given any serious thought at all. It has one major flaw, how are blind people going to use it?
Currently there is a system that, however badly, does seem to work. Google provide an image, audio representation and also if you’re still stuck, you get to send your request directly to a customer service representative. I think this set of solutions should be looked into further. Something as simple as providing the user with a phone number if they can’t use your CAPCHA system could increase customer satisfaction greatly.
In a web where the emphasis is put on trying to automate everything, there should be a place for real world person to person contact. Let me know what you think?
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Thursday, April 16th, 2009
So we all know the issue with IE6, the debate has been done to death, but over at for a beautiful web Andy Clarke makes a relative good case for continuing support for IE6. You can view the article here.
Afterall isn’t that the point of accessibility, that no matter what device you use, no matter what medium you work in, you still have access to the content.
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Sunday, November 30th, 2008
WCAG 2.0 is coming of age. On tuesday, the W3C Advisory Committee Members will no longer be invited to send formal review comments to the W3C team on these guidelines. So what does this mean? Well, it means that WCAG 2.0 will soon become a fully endorsed W3C Recommendation.
What does this mean for the web developer? Not too much at all, if you’re doing your job right that is. The standard broadly describes ways of providing the information on your site to as wide an audience as possible. Such as:
- Provide text alternatives for any non-text content so that it can be changed into other forms people need.
- Provide alternatives for time-based media (subtitles, transcripts etc).
- Create content that can be presented in different ways (for example simpler layout) without losing information or structure.
- Make it easier for users to see and hear content including separating foreground from background.
- Make all functionality available from a keyboard.
- Provide users enough time to read and use content
- Do not design content in a way that is known to cause seizures
- Provide ways to help users navigate, find content and determine where they are
- Make text content readable and understandable – Make Web pages appear and operate in predictable ways
- Help users avoid and correct mistakes
- Maximize compatibility with current and future user agents, including assistive technologies
(The above guidelines were taken directly from the guideline’s table of content.)
Because naturally, developers are forward thinking beasts, we won’t see much of a difference in the industry. In educating the new crop of developers however it will be another step forward for the web, so I look forward to this with great enthusiasm. Bravo WCAG 2.0!
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Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
Today is a great day, Obama won the election to be the next, and first african-american president of the United States of America. But that really isn’t anything new, we all know this. My point is that out of the two candidates that ran, Obama had more charm and personality throughout the whole race than McCain. This can be said about previous elections too…
Bush – Kerry
Bush – Gore
Clinton – Dole
Clinton – Bush Senior
The list goes on, it’s quite a simple equasion really, the most photogenic, hollywood type figure wins. They capture the spirit and imagination of voters and by correlation get voted for. Of course other factors can be involved.
What does this have to do with the humble developer? Well today I was reading an interview with Ryan Carson by Paul Boag about building an online brand. It struck me that a lot of what makes a brand a success is the same as what makes a politician a success, especially on the web. It’s all about getting yourself out there as he who shouts loudest gets heard.
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Friday, July 18th, 2008
It has come to my attention today that Opera and Yahoo have teamed up to provide a Web Standards Curriculum. This is great news as I found education of web standards was really kept among the techy already web savvy developers. Although it is still vital we have books out there that people can read and learn from such as bulletproof web design by Dan Cederholm, there has always been a need for a ground up approach to educating people about web standards.
Bravo Opera and Yahoo!
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Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
I have just finished a preliminary (beta) version of twitter timeline ready for feedback, so anyone who uses it please comment here on any additions, changes you think might make it better.
Thanks
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Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
Accessibility is hot topic right now. As web developers we are still learning the potential of the medium and how it can affect our lives. We are realising the impact it can have on people, especially in liberating those with disabilities. But instead of ranking websites in favour of their accessibility to people with disabilities, Google are providing a separate search site for accessible content.
It would be easy to think that everyone developed for every common denominator, but that simply isn’t the case. There are a lot of developers out there glossing over the fact in favour of getting the job done. I don’t blame them, people have to start somewhere, and without looking into the issue how can you really know who you are catering for? However under UK law your site must be accessible to disabled people.
What does it mean to be accessible? Well to understand that we really need to know what kind of disabilities are out there, from Dyslexia to the hearing impaired there are a whole range of disabilities varying in complexity.
Disabled people have a lot of different ways of viewing web sites, sight impaired people would need to use screen readers to read the content for them, dyslexic people may need the content broken up for them and shown in high contrast. The hearing impaired would need video content served with subtitles.
So why if in a world where the search engines rule, do they not take a step forward and punish those sites that do not comply to web standards in terms of accessibility? Maybe it’s because there is a lot of complexity involved in the varying degrees of disabilities, maybe it’s because there is no hard or fast rule that suddenly makes a site fully accessible. But I believe Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have an obligation to push this field forward and make it an issue that affects a websites exposure and ultimately its profitability.
I’d be interested to hear anyone elses opinion on the subject, so what’s your view?
Tags: Accessibility, SEO
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