Design By Tim

I got my Canon 20D today! I am finally a digital camera “prosumer“. You can check the stats out yourself - but in summary it’s 8.2 megapixels of goodness. Some people take off from their daily job for a movie or game - I am seriously thinking of not working tomorrow for my camera. It is absolutely beautiful. Then again this comes from someone without high hopes for digital (considering my last digital camera was a used coolpix 700). I’ve always been of the mindset if you can create great work with little there is no reason to go expensive… well finally the 20D dropped to a price I could stomache and I am not regretting it.

I love action shots and nature and have hung through thick and thin to my Rebel 2000 - I even had a 10D for about 2 weeks while I had a camera repaired. It just didn’t capture me like this camera has. But enough on the camera - more of that will come, I want to take time to personally recommend Profeel as a great vendor. So in this post I will cover the experience of the buy as well as my thoughts on their company and site. Read the rest of this entry »

When designing websites I use a full arsenal of tools (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator etc… *gasp*). There is no reason that when presenting the site that multiple methods of presentation should not be used either. JPEG and GIF have ruled the web image community long enough, make way for PNG. PNG graphics are certainly not new and have been successfully accepted as a web safe graphic choice. One of the things that make PNG file special is the ability to use 256 degrees of transparency. Transparent images are certainly not new, transparent GIF images have been commonplace for quite a long time. However, with GIF transparency each pixel is either “on” or “off”. The PNG specification changes this limitation. Thanks to flaky browser support, PNG has been impractical for most web uses; but now, with a few simple workarounds, we can finally put one of its most compelling features to use. Read the rest of this entry »

With the web development community moving to more creative design theory it is not often you find unique navigation flow that become trends. However, two strategies that I have noticed taking hold are “Skip to” links and “Verify this site” content. Read the rest of this entry »

The Art of Innovation by Guy Kawasaki struck a nerve this evening. I find that when working in my current employement situation that I get boiled over little things that shouldn’t matter in our department, like naming conventions that make no sense and that are not consistant. I think it has something to do to the stifling nature my job is starting to have on me. I have lost my innovative spirit to create crap just for me. This list really pepped me up to do something about it. Btw this list is primiarily copied from his article with notes of inspiriation added by myself. This should be a creative department’s 10 Commandments. Read the rest of this entry »

Since posting Learn To extract(); I have gotten a lot of great criticism that has helped me revise my thinking of the uses for extract(). Along with reading The Problem With ‘extract’ on SitePoint - here is my conclusion to when/where to use extract.

Thanks to Danny, Oscar, Sandy, Ed, and Mitchell for their insights on the proper use of extract().

It appears that I was late in coming to the game on problems with extract. Per SitePoint:

Using extract() is a confusing code practice leads to real problems in the overall security of code. The harder code is to read, the harder it is to debug or review and the easier it is to inadvertantly introduce security holes.

So I stand corrected: I am hard pressed to find any real reason why one would want to use extract to surmount the security and coding concerns, as it really doesn’t gain you anything. Sure, it might be less to type out ($Variable vs. $Array[’Variable’]), but is it really worth all the confusion? My new opinion? Nope.

I’ve added a bit of JavaScript to the footer of this template in order to track how well this blog is doing. Previously I’ve been pouring over weblogs using several online analyzers trying to figure out how to improve my content for readability. With phpMyVisites I feel comfortable that I am not missing data and it provides it in a simple to read and install, plus with the feature to monitor multiple sites and RSS and email capabilities I no longer have to manually pull the logs. I recommend this app as a great launch pad to web stats. While the interface is a bit bare - it is simple and easy to use. Always a good thing. It’s not as overboard as AWStats, which I absolutely love, phpMyVisites combines sophisticated reporting that AWStats has with simplicity and quick loading interfaces. Granted it is powered by a simple web bug which for the moment works for me so I am not too overly concerned about it. Check out their demo @ phpMyVisites.

UPDATE I stand corrected: I am hard pressed to find any real reason why one would want to use extract to surmount the security and coding concerns, as it really doesn’t gain you anything. Sure, it might be less to type out ($Variable vs. $Array[’Variable’]), but is it really worth all the confusion? My new opinion? Nope.

The days of explicitly declaring variables passed in from a form for use - or (gasp) using $_GET['varName'] in your code is no longer needed! Clear as well as clean code is the discussion for variable setting today, and we get to explore how easy it is to extract(), Typically you would have call the variable and then set it.

[code lang="php"]
$username = $_GET['username'];
$password = $_GET['password'];
[/code]

The world is changing. While that is not bad for small forms or simple tasks but what if your project is larger or lets just say after reading this article you abondon gathering all the $_GET data from your simple form? Wouldn’t it be nice if PHP could automate it for you? (and easily in one line of code) Read the rest of this entry »

The realization that small, self-directed teams powered by Pareto’s Principle can quickly create sleeker stuff that works better is not merely bracing but dynamic… That may not sound like much. But ours is a medium in which, more often than not, big teams have slowly and expensively labored to produce overly complex web applications whose usability was near nil on behalf of clients with at best vague goals.

It really galls me that this is probably the most overlooked aspect of team management in Real World Work 2.0. Web 3.0 is ALA’s (A List Apart) call out of what defines Web 2.0. I love how the article reinforces the urge to develop simpler solutions built by leaner teams, since the stuff labeled “Web 2.0” tends to have technological commonalities.

It is sad to see business project management stumble over itself looking for this complex, over the top next generation idea. I fall prey to this weakness. Even now while working on Startup 3.0, I have been racking my brain for the next great slice of bread. All buttered bread is butter and bread. Simple concepts working together - (add a little heat for flavor) - for a great end result. The latest craze ironically are mashups. Now, what is the best way to invent sliced bread? Hell if I know, I’m not that smart.

Find something someone can really use and you will be a success.

Read the rest of this entry »

The BBC posted this morning that Motorola has announced plans to enable users of its mobile phones to access Google’s internet search engine at the touch of a single handset button.

The companies said they wanted to encourage more mobile users to access the internet using their phones.

As I was reading this - I kept thinking - it’s about time that Google (or any mainstream internet search engine) became mainstream on celluar technology. According to the article cell providers have struggled to boost revenue from services which allow users to surf the web or even view internet based multimedia.

“People are going to spend all their time on it eventually,” Eric Schmidt is quoted as saying.

Just imagine when Google video finally hits the phone nearest you. Motorola said it planned to launch special Google-enabled phones, which would give users access to the world’s biggest internet search engine at the touch of a single button, later this year.

Eventually the company plans to embed Google technology in all of its future phones.

Just when we thought spam was reaching new heights of broadcast reach WSJ columnist Jeremy Wagstaff has to spoil the fun by saying there is more. Advertising has become a lucrative business to drive anyone insane, with the advent of web advertising new catch words are being dropped right and left to promote one’s method of reaching the masses better than the previous. New ways to advertise a mousetrap come around every day as well as new ways to deaden the effect. With most modern browsers there is at least one adblocking preference or plugin. Now that has become one step harder - although I do believe this is a genius and subtle method of bringing the message home.

T&S Advertising has developed a way for your website to rent out space in the title bar of your browser and its status bar (the bit at the bottom) to outside advertisers.

The idea here is that such advertising doesn’t take up any extra space, isn’t intrusive and could be easily configurable. A website would rent out space there in the same way it would rent out space to Google Ads, banner ads, or whatever. It’s the brainchild of a 23–year old Dutch student called Johan Struijk, who according to a press release made available yesterday hopes that at only $1 per 1000 views this is a low cost but effective form of advertising. “I think this will mainly appeal to modern, forward thinking businesses,” Johan said, “and perhaps some of the larger blue chip companies who have established brand names and slogans.”

I agree with Jeremy that it will be hard (and probably a while) for this technology to take off since those places on a screen are so unobtrusive as to be invisible, but I could be wrong. I think it is good to see the community exploring unique ideas in order to promote new methods of advertising.