Tag Archives: web design

FOWD London – overview of the morning

So I’m at Future Of Web Design London today and tomorrow thanks to X Communications. So far, so good. Here’s a general gist of what we’ve been listening to and seeing, more in-depth posts will come later…

Brendan Dawes, Magnetic North – Play. Destroy. Create.

An interesting take on creativity and where to find inspiration for your work. He loves maths and applying it to create new information structures and interfaces. Check out one of his projects, DoodleBuzz.

Dan Cederholm on CSS3

A great practical look at how and where to use CSS3 in current web projects. Check out his experimental project (both in terms of content and code) at css3exp.com/moon.

Remy Sharp, jQuery for Designers

A quick yet accessible overview of jQuery for people who don’t do hard-core code and want to add some visual gloss to their web projects. Some useful bits and pieces too for those of us who’ve been tinkering with jQuery for a while such as the FireQuery plugin for FireBug.

Robin Christopherson on accessibility

A rapid overview on web accessibility at present particularly in a mobile context. Using CAPTCHA? Consider using TextCaptcha instead for greater accessibility for all.

Carsonified introduce membership.thinkvitamin.com

A subscription service of varying price levels offering web designers and developers video tutorials, online conferences and reduced price tickets to FOWA, FOWD etc. Launches next month, 50% off for FOWD attendees if they sign up during the conference. See membership.thinkvitamin.com for more.

Dolly Mix 04.03.10 – Dublin Airport Map, Rounded Corners & Hometown on the Telly

Ballyvaughan beach in February

The destinations map on the Dublin Airport Destination Map annoyed me the other day when trying to look up routes to Germany. A lovely big interactive map squished into matchbox, effectively. So I pulled out the iFrame link and here it is in fullscreen glory.

Generate your CSS3 border-radius goodness with preview of results and with ease using this handy tool.

Weedle beta kicking off this afternoon.

My native Ballyvaughan and surrounding area of North Clare get featured on No Frontiers this Sunday evening. Curious to see how the place comes across during the hibernation season when pretty much EVERYTHING is closed.

Vimeo Plus Stats for Vimeo Plus users. Looks great, looking forward to a play.

Web dev for iPhone

iphoneI’ve spent some time this week developing HTML templates for an iPhone version of a web application we’re working on at X Communications.

It’s been a really pleasant experience thus far. Having only one (reliable) browser to test in and being able to take advantage of some lovely CSS3 properties has been just fabulous.

Better yet there’s loads of documentation out there, mostly supplied by the good folk at Apple.

Below is a list of some of stuff you might find useful for similar projects:

Happy coding!

Junior Spider Awards

I just heard an ad for the brand spanking new Junior Spider Awards on Today FM and so to the Google machine I went to find out more, quite skeptical about what I might find.

I’m happy to say that any cynicism or dread felt at the idea of the Golden Spiders spawning babies has been quelled. Well, for the moment anyway. Here’s the skinny:

What are the Junior Spiders?

“The eircom Junior Spider Awards were established as a parallel programme for students at primary and post primary school level. The idea was originated by Business & Finance, working closely with main sponsors eircom.” [via]

The important stuff

  • It’s free to enter
  • The closing date is November 6th 2009
  • The shortlist will be announced on 30th November and winners announced on December 18th

Prizes

  • Primary students
    • 1st place winner receives a trophy and €200
    • 2nd place winner receives a winners’ certificate
    • 3rd place winner receives a winners’ certificate
    • All entries receive a participants’ certificate including teachers
  • Post-primary students
    • 1st place winner receives a trophy and €300
    • 2nd place winner receives a winners’ certificate
    • 3rd place winner receives a winners’ certificate
    • All entries receive a participants’ certificate including teachers

Categories

  • Primary & Post-primary schools:
  1. Best concept (website/application )
  2. Best Online content (including websites, blog, podcasts, Social Networks )
  3. Best website design & functionality
  4. Best educational website
  5. An suíomh no spas ar an idirlíon is fearr as Gaeilge
  • Post Primary students only:
  1. Best web application
  2. Watch your space award
  • Overall (both Primary and Post-primary):
  1. Best teacher contribution (web/internet)
  2. Grand prix

You can find out who the judges are, what the judging criteria are and everything else under the sun about the Junior Web Awards at juniorspiders.ie. They’re also on Twitter as @juniorspiders.

5 things I learned today

In no particular order…

  • Virginia Agricultural Show (Cavan) is 68 years old, has over 400 judging classes and €50,000 prize money up for grabs
  • Damien has a chocolate allergy but can handle the lower cocoa value stuff
  • You can do the local lotto for many GAA clubs in Ireland online at locallotto.ie
  • Microsoft will support IE6 until 2014
  • Gmail has been putting a lot of genuine emails into the Spam folder lately and it is rather annoying