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Musings and things

Manchester Beetham Tower during sun-setAs you may have noticed, things have been quite around here. As I keep saying, quiet on the outside means much business in on the inside. This is very much the case at the moment as I am currently working on four web sites for clients, plus the new Polaris Digital site which is shaping up very nicely. Unfortunately it will not launch as originally intended, but clients work always has to take precedence.

Well I have been waiting for various clients to call, I have been busy working on some new projects. One of these projects revolves around the wonderful world of social networking. Most of the good social networking sites have a public API, allowing third-parties to develop their own applications that can harness the tools and services provided by the likes of Flickr, Upcoming, Facebook, Last.fm and many more - noticeably MySpace doesn’t have have a public API and I feel it is only right to ‘out’ them on this sad fact!

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24.Jun.07 Uncategorized Comments (0)

A taste of the past




DSC00021.JPG

Originally uploaded by pinkymcsian

This photo I totally forgot about. I don’t think I’m the most photogenic person around, but every once in a while one appears that I enjoy.

Here is me standing in Nice - Ville station in September 2006 waiting for our TGV to whisk us back to Paris before returning home. I am wearning my new hat and wasn’t at all trying to be anything even resembling India Jones - honest gov’

21.Jun.07 Uncategorized Comments (3)

The big wheel keeps on turning

The old Polaris Digital web siteThe eagle-eyed of you will have noticed that the old Polaris Digital web site has now faded into the dust and gone, for good. Yes, it is indeed true that after many months of planning using a humble pen and notepad, the new Polaris Digital web site is about to be rolled out into the bright of day.

I was hoping to have it up much sooner than this, like January. But as usual work gets in the way and it is actually a good thing too. Between January and now I have learnt even more about accessibility and user experience issues and put as much of that knowledge into this site. ‘Keep it simple’; ‘Content is king’; and ‘The user is queen’ were the motos jotted on each page.

Just as it was ready to roll out the day after returning from @media ‘07, I decided to pull the launch for a week because of all the new stuff I learnt about accessibility, user experience and microformats. So this last week is now being spent adding some additional features, but in the mean time there is a pretty splash page.

Oh and by the way, the splash page design has no relation to the final site design. More to follow.

12.Jun.07 Uncategorized Comments (0)

Back from @media 07

The @media 07 final questions panel, Jeremy Keith may make it back to @media 08 (wink)I have returned from @media 07 with a fresh sense of direction. It was a such a great event, especially giving me the chance to debate and query some of the founders of todays modern web, as well as an excuse to get drunk for free. I want to say a massive thank you to Jon Hick’s in particular for the nice conversation and beer we had on Friday afternoon outside The Old Queen’s Head in Islington.

I have a lot to post about, particurly about the end of the debate on accessibility issues, or at least the end of Joe Clark’s debating, plus the great presentations from Jon Hick’s about how to be a “creative sponge”, Andy Clarke on western design and it’s detrimental effect on the rest of the world, Jeremy Keith providing a great talk about Ajax, HÃ¥kon Wium Lie on CSS3 (he wrote the first specification for CSS by the way), Dan Cederholm on Juggling Interfaces and many many more besides - not forgetting Jesse James Garrett especially for kicking off things so well.

However, one thing I enjoyed at the time and haven’t been able to leave alone since then is last.fm, which was presented by Hannah Donovan. I had heard of the service, but didn’t realise how great it is or how relevant it is to me until I had a demo of it, in front of hundreds of other attendees it should be mentioned. Last.fm is very hard to explain, so I”ll just give you my current radio station and let you join/play around as much as you like.

More on @media 07 to come…

10.Jun.07 Uncategorized Comments (0)

Off to @media’07

@Media 2007, LondonToday I am off to @media’07 in London, the third and final leg of a tour that has taken in Asia and the US before finally finishing here in the UK for the Europe event.

For the un-initiated, @media is a global event for world wide web designers and programmers to discuss issues effecting web site design, especially accessibility and usability issues and how designers can overcome the so-called limitations this imposes on design.

Else where big players such as Adobe and Yahoo! discuss future issues and products that can aid user experiences on the web. It’s all very geeky, but “Geek Chique”.

If you’re there, I’ll see you there; if not hopefully see you next year.

06.Jun.07 Uncategorized Comments (0)