Project Website

Here are the websites in the same basic genre as I'm looking to play. No pressure! :-)

Rip Curl
Quiksilver
Billabong
ASP World Tour

The frustration for someone who's into this stuff is that there's not really anywhere that aggregates all this stuff without pushing its own agenda. That's the gap. I don't think I can fill it, but I can start the conversation...

MySQL - Deja Vu

I quite enjoyed the MySQL week as it felt like I was on familiar ground for a change. I had a job a few years ago that needed me to do data mining on the company database to find product use trend analysis and stuff.

And guess which language I had to query in. Yup, SQL! I remember having the entire (head high) back wall of my cubicle wallpapered with the diagrams of the relational tables and digging out primary keys and foreign keys while trying to marry together some pretty weird data combinations. It was a mix of treasure hunt and brain bender puzzle.

I've completely forgotten the language now but it was nice to be reminded, rather than taught fresh, for once this semester! :o)

Design - not my strong point

My aim this weekend is to get a decent start on the layout of my web page template(s). I've got the site architecture already sorted, it's a pretty simple setup. I'm getting seriously stumped on how I want the pages themselves set out.

Seth Godin posted this blog on Friday on "Things to ask before you redo your website", which seemed very apt timewise. According to a passing reference in this blog, it seems the holy grail of commercial home page design is the Apple website. The main focus of the blog though is on the questions you SHOULD be asking yourself, rather than comparing apples with oranges (no pun intended).

I'd really recommend reading through them - a lot of his questions don't relate to what I'm doing but they're still worth asking and a couple of them were really helpful in starting to work out what it's all for.

Reference
Godin, Seth (2009) http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/09/things-to-ask-before-you-redo-your-website.html viewed 12:15pm 15-Sep-09

Images for Still Image Adbusters Presentation

Since the UTS server is having a spaz attack and won't let me upload them to the discussion board:

  

  

If you happen to be interested in either of these campaigns, the links to their Cannes entry videos are below:

Axion Band in a Banner

The Zimbabwean Trillion Dollar Campaign

ad:tech Breakfast

Went to the ad:tech breakfast this morning to listen to Dr Jeffrey Cole - the head of the University of Southern California Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future. Topic was Everything Starts With Internet: Analysing Online Behaviour And Sharing Insights Into The Future Of Media Engagement.

It was great! He was a really engaging speaker, and total kudos, had a packed room hanging on every word for 45 minutes, without PowerPoint or even notes. If you want to know a bit more about the morning, check the Twitter stream for #adtechbb.

I'd really recommend getting onto the ad:tech guys' mailing list - these breakfast briefings are free (although you are expected to give a blue note donation to HeartKids at the door) and their speaker line-up to date has been brilliant.

Draft Macro/Micro Analysis

Well, here's my draft Macro/Micro Analysis. It still needs a fair bit of work but I did have fun with the formatting. :-)

AND only 4 errors in the W3C Validator - a definite improvement on the Learning Proposal!

Structural v Presentational Tags

I've been doing some reading for the Macro/Micro Analysis - feels weird to be going to books for this stuff but I wanted the really Macro view on the various applications, rather than the specs (think strategy v tactics) and books seem to cover this better for some reason.

Anyhow, I'd been wondering about Alistair's use of "em" and "strong" as opposed to "i" and "b" and Holzschlag (2004) has a really good little summary on why "em" and "strong" are preferable.

In essence, it's all about accessibility. Web readers for sight impaired internet users can read and respond to the "em" and "strong" tags by modulating to emphasise the words in question, they apparently don't respond the same way to the "i" and "b" tags - these tags are only about the look, rather than the semantics, of the site content.

Reference
Holzschlag, M.E. (2004) 250 HTML and Web Design Secrets Wiley Publishing Inc, Indianapolis, IN, pg 130.

Potted History of the Internet - Courtesy of SMH

Interesting article on the internet just came through from the SMH website, As Internet turns 40, barriers threaten its growth.

It gives a great little summary of the history of the internet and then looks at the issues and challenges facing the network today.