News : April 2001
Props to Trish for the link to a great survey about American Demographics.
If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. For everyone who has been bitching about only supafamous designers getting recognized for their works... well, email me and I will give you a list of about 20 projects that could use your help. Don't want to work with someone else? Great, show us what you can do on your own then... show us your mad skills.
Paul Petrunia of Archinect has been featured in an interview on NetDiver today... check out the Close-Ups section.
Today marks Heather Champ's birthday... please flood her inbox with as many birthday cards as it will take before the server is down on its knees begging for mercy!
Just when you thought it was safe, along comes Friday with a brand new issue of A List Apart. This week J. David Eisenberg explains how forgiving browsers have helped breed a world of markup illiterates. Which makes me wonder... If browsers are effecting our markup styles, then what are WYSIWYG editors doing to effect that? Also, you will be happy to know that Kirk Franklin has redeveloped and improved ALA's back issues, which are now sortable by catagory!
Gabe has a good idea and would like some help with implementing it.
Need some advice on how to build a site? Allan is here to help on matters ranging from fonts, to color, to sound. No warranties are expressed by the provision of this link (check the HREF before proceeding please, nudge-nudge-wink-wink). [From thelist]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an excellent Flash presentation that shows how our brothers and sisters of the print persuasion create prints. [From Textism, which cited it as an appropriate use of the SWF format]
Ok, if Shirley's tutorial was not enough for you... here is something worth a read: The Anatomy of a Search Engine.
IBM has an interesting article about a element of usability that is almost always overlooked... It's a good read, How not to make your site accessible. Real life example: go out into the middle of Africa where there is only a single phone line strung tight between poles (to save money by buying less wire) connecting an entire city to the rest of the world... see how fast your site loads. You'd be surprised at how much of the word doesn
A new issue of speechtherapy is up... entitled Death By Information.
It's Sunday—a day for goofing off, right? In this spirit I came across a cool reference on Slashdot that sent me on an "All Your Base" jag. I found a repository of photos including the ones that were used for the Flash movie (most of which are examples of great Photoshop work, in my opinion). I also visited a detailed history of the phenomenon that provides lots of perspective and links along with the info... if it matters. FYI: There's a poll there, for those of you who are bored with the whole thing.
Todd Purgason tells us that Juxt just launched Red Bull's FLUGTAG site and Darleen Scherer tells us that The Chopping Block just released a new project for a little band called Phish! Keep rocking!
Amazingly enough, someone actually donated some funds to the writers, designers, editors and contributors of this magazine... thank you. I just wish more people would do the same.
Friday it is and hot off the press is a new issue of A List Apart. While the information architects fight off the eye-candy and the usability gurus fend off the designers, Mark Bernstein clues us in to a very important component of a successful web site: narrative.
If you are a Homesite user, you may want to take advantage of Homesite 4.x+'s scripting abilities. For example, if you want to cut and paste large blocks of text from Word and then remove all of the hard returns with the clock of a button... or, for another example, if you want to quote all attributes in your HTML or XHTMl tags with the click of a single button... well now you can, check out this great resource of script files for Homesite 4.x+ They are true life savers.
Want to see some inspirational Flash work? Hillman Curtis has a new hotlist in addition to some amazing new Craig Frazier Studio animations.
Design Is Kinky features Thomas Brodahl in the latest profile. Check it out, it's a must read!
If you are concerned at all about your privacy online, then this is something you may want to read.
You gotta love Steve Champeon's pizzaz ...though this article may be outdated, the concept still stands, RTFM: A Guide to Online Research.
Tomorrow is Toke's birthday! How old is that baldy anyway? Well, anyways, cheers to ya bro. Send him an email and tell him he's too damn young to be supafamous.
eCompany has a humorous list properly titled "Boo! And the 100 Other Dumbest Moments in e-Business History." After nearly busting a gut, number thirteen remains to be my favorite on the list.
Xygoxen hits issue 10. Check out the slick design they have going on. Also, they are still accepting journals for the Online Journal Project, so get yours in there!
A press release April 15th announced that Blogger and Trellix are doing business in a big way. Blogger technology is now licensed by Trellix. Dan Bricklin, founder and CTO of Trellix, in his own Blogger weblog entry of April 15th writes How the Blogger Deal Happened, the story of his interest in Blogger and then how the purchase transpired. It will be interesting to see where this new path takes everyone, from Pyra to all the Blogger users (including this page at Digital Web).
Some related links:
Press release announcing deal between Blogger and Trellix
Blogger / Trellix Q & A
Blogger Web site
Trellix Web site
If you're graduating high school this spring, or in your 1st-3rd year of undergrad, and have been a member of MetaFilter you can apply for the MetaFilter Scholarship. This is Matt's way of giving a little back. Hats off the great idea, Matt, and we are certainly glad to see education on the minds of everyone again.
Many people ask me what I would do with all my free time if I didn't work on Digital Web Magazine, A List Apart, my own book or want to direct a movie before I leave this world. I think I have finally found the answer. Legos, quite possibly the most creative gift you can give someone.
Today is Good Friday... and Friday the 13th.. go figure.
A very interesting article that may help push us ahead: The Semantic Web by Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila. Thanks to B.K. DeLong for the link.
The dog turns five! Mad props to Lance. BTW, if you have not met Lance Arthur yet, he's not hard to find in a crowd.. just look for the guy with his hair on fire.
WebReview's new article, Web Accessibility: HTML 4.0 (Part I), by Michael G. Paciello, gives some fast and easy HTML tag ideas to remove roadblocks for accessibility.
Where did this week go? You tell me? Cause I have no clue.. maybe it's because time flys when your having fun? Or perhaps time flys when it's the 11th hour and there is a deadline at stake. In any case, a new issue of A List Apart is out exclusivly for those with 'browsers' and 'wireless devices.' Featured is an article, hyperlinked from hell and back, by Chris Kaminski about the road to dystopia. It's all fun and games until someone loses a dot-com.
MarchFirst files for Chapter 11, nothing surprising here.
There's a great new white paper at Evolt.org by Flazoom's Chris MacGregor, Developing User-Friendly Flash Content. This extensive tutorial provides tremendous insight and information about how to use Flash effectively while also ensuring wide accessibility and usability. Great examples, interesting reading.
Props to Shirley for the linkage in Tips and Tidbits. And a reminder to anyone who is interested in contributing to our Magazine... we are still looking for feature stories and tutorials as well as cover art for up and coming issues. Interested? Good, this is were to go for more information.
Is it just me, or is the 5K Chess game and the Legend of Zeldman game just too damn hard to win? I mean think about it... a human being with the capacity to understand things like fusion and genetics.. aginst 5k worth of binary and ASCII data... the data wins every time.
Scientific American has a fantastic article about the possibilities offered by XML and RDF. [from Wired News] Elsewhere, The5k can put you in check (if, like me, you're a really bad player). [from dack.com]
Hey everyone, my homeboy JAZ has a track headed for the top 10 on MP3.Com and I think you should go and check it out. The track is called "I Have It All" and it can be found here: JAZ FX Productions.
The5k Contest entries are in, go forth and vote! My favorite... well.. without giving away too many details, it's the one with stingers involved.
A new issue of Digital Web Magazine is out. Featuring "Visual Architecture: The Rule of Three" by Carole Guevin of NetDiver. A tutorial about designing for search engines by Shirley E. Kaiser of WebSiteTips. Also a product review of Adobe's LiveMotion 1 by Jesse Nieminen of SleepWalk. Not to mention a interview with James Widegren of THREE.OH. New columns by Peter Fielding of Pixelflo and Stephen Van Doren of WTF. To top it off, we have a great cover by Christophe Martin of OrangeBleu.
For those of you in a nostalgic frame of mind, apple-history.com is here to help you get your fix. [From Slashdot]
TPC tells us the environment is something worth fighting for... do your part and follow the instructions on the site.
Check out the designs that were submited for the Monson Boards Design Contest 2001-2002, lots of cool art there.
The W3C today released Modularization of XHTML as a recommendation.
Lots of new personal portfolios on display in the Classifieds section, check them out!
Say goodbye to NBCi... as quick as a click it was here and gone.
For those of you still cursing your FONT tags, check out CodeBitch's latest column: The promise of style.
At last, I am not the only one who thinks Sony's computing site is akin to the muck found in the bottom of a dumpster. Check out Signal vs. Noise.
Another fine example of the KISS theory, check out Localoladesignteam... very clean, very simple.. to the point.
Happy late birthday to Jesse Nieminen. For those that do not know, Jesse is the man behind all of the product reviews you see on Digital Web, we are happy to have him involved with the mag.
When was the last time you wrote a style guide for a site you designed? Writing and Using a Style Guide is a very good resource that explains the process of doing just that. Props to L. Michelle Johnson for the resource link.
Heather Champ has written a short article on her experiences at SXSW 2001 for WebReview.com. Check it out: Cash Bar and Grilled Cheese: SXSW Interactive 2001
Issue number nine of The Remedi Project is out. Killer design by far.
Today XHTML 1.1 became a proposed recommendation.
WebDesign-L celebrates it's fourth birthday. Mad props to Steven Champeon and all of the Hesketh crew for making the list a reality.
Just a little over 2 days left to submit your entry for the 2001 5k competition!
It's Friday already and another issue of A List Apart just came hot out of the oven. It's a double issue: Michael Cardenas shares tips to help you get started started building Flash-based e-commerce sites.... A U.S. law scheduled to take effect on the 20th of this month will force libraries and schools to censor Internet access or lose their funding. Librarian and web developer Carrie Bickner explores the politics of censorship and the digital divide. Read more about both of these topics on ALA.
Help support the authors and artists of Digital Web Magazine by donating to the independent content producers.
Animal Logic, the Australian company behind the visual effects in the Matrix, Babe 2 and more has a great new site worth exploring.
Steve Champeon writes a brilliant article for O'Reilly about his SXSW experience, or shall we say, his Web experience. My SXSW Swag: The Fate of the Web.
The April issue of SurfStation is up... check it out.. a new interview with Ziggen, a new Revolution with the theme Profit, new Hypocrit: the almighty Zander for Kiiroi and loads of other new content and even a new section.
Macromedia's Shockwave Player 3D is open for Public Beta. Check it out.
Have you ever been ripped off? No, not mugged, I am talking about design theft and open source here. Check out this issue of Second Site by Zeldman... an expanded version of this column can be found in the printed version of PDN-Pix.
I have been in a state of Designer's Block for my bit to add to Xygoxen's Online Journal Project... I have some ideas, but my tools are failing me... maybe I will just do it with pen and ink?
Adobe strays from the web zine and redirects to push the product again. This may be a wise move according to the current direction of the economy, but I miss the zine aspect of it all. Props to Ry of Kiiroi for the update.
Please direct you browser's attention to the following link: NewBreed Librarian. If you haven't visited the site, or maybe you did to check out the Zeldman interview, I would highly recommend you stay a while and dig around in this site. You will find piles of useful information and links... this is one of the unsung resource heroes on the web. It's time to write a new song.
Just got back in town from another road trip. Sifting through my 256 new emails I see that Gabe has informed me that a new issue of Born Magazine is out... one of my favorite mags on the net.
