Category: musings

• Accidental Clicks 03 April 2008

  When you start trying to click on your Photoshop mockups, that's when you know you've got a good interface. When you start trying to click on your Photoshop mockups, ...

• There are no social networks 03 September 2007

  There is only one social network. My social network. Flickr is part of my social network. Twitter is part of my social network. So is Facebook, Upcoming, MySpace, Last.fm, ...

• The graveyard of E 23 August 2007

  Here lies "e". Faithful letter, loving vowel, and caring brother to "a", "i", "o" and "u" ...

• Quote of the day 13 November 2006

  "True happiness is only appreciated when it's lost." "True happiness is only appreciated when it's lost." ...

• The emerging Australian Web community 08 November 2006

  One of the things I've always envied about the United States is the sense of community amongst Web developers there. It seems like you could duck out for some coffee on the streets of San Francisco and see about 27 ...

• That conference buzz 11 October 2006

  I've got it bad. The kind of bad where I make two blog posts in less than a fortnight (!) It's an addiction, attending conferences. Right after you've been there's an unbridled ...

• It's cool to be old school 05 January 2006

  When you're working in a technology field it always seems like the motto is "newer is better". Having just turned the Web 2.0 corner, we're now looking ahead to Web 3.0, and dreading Web 4.7. Don't use PHP, use Ruby ...

• We're professionals, but do we have a profession? 25 November 2005

  Web professionals, it's the topic du jour. (Follow-the-link goes: Andy Clarke , Molly Holzschlag , Roger Johansson , WaSP , PPK ... and on.) If you aren't going to read all that, the premise is that we should be able to ...

• Putting the "client" in "team" 12 May 2005

  Have you ever had a client that you felt bad for charging, simply because it was so enjoyable working with them? It's always fun to read quotes from the bad clients , and if you took those quotes on ...

• JavaScript is not the devil's plaything 12 April 2005

  JavaScript has only ever played a bit part on the Web. Back in the 90's it was good for making things go whoosh , but it wasn't used for much more than mouseovers and cursor trails. Gradually, however, it has been making itself ...

• This is not another XMLHttpRequest article 02 March 2005

  You're probably sick of articles expounding the virtues of XMLHttpRequest by now, well this isn't one of them. While I am suitably impressed with the uses that have brought dynamic retrieval of data via ...

• The gentle art of persuasion 10 January 2005

  The customer is always right ... sometimes. It's an inescapable fact that when you're designing for money, it's always subject to someone else's approval. If they don't give your design the go ...

• The 51st State 07 September 2004

  When you log onto the Internet you leave your house. You leave your state, you leave your country. You enter a global morass of words, thoughts and images. That is the Internet – borders no longer exist. You can ...

• Design your own way 17 August 2004

  Last week I was depressed. (Don't worry, this won't be an angst-ridden LiveJournal entry; I was just at an imagination impasse) It was around about 3AM on Thursday that my frustration reached its peak. I was ...

• Evolve to design 01 July 2004

  Design, like many things, relies more on history than you might expect. The well worn path created by the footfalls of those before you represents the evolution of years of experience. For every web site that has ...

• Killed with his own spanner 23 June 2004

  Have you heard the news? Webmonkey's EKG has beeped unexpectedly in the silence of the night, signalling its return from an untimely death. No official word, but a fresh article and "Today's Monkey Bite" seem to herald ...

• You are winner 16,547,371 21 June 2004

  When you win an award it means you're only guaranteed to be as good as your competition. If you win an award for "most improved body odour", you better have a look at the people around you before patting yourself on ...

• Simplicity, always 06 May 2004

  The interesting discussion on Keith's site over visited links , and the general outcome that they are still mostly useful, made me think of Tim Berners-Lee and how his vision of the World Wide Web has evolved ...

• Love/Hate 11 April 2004

  I'm sure that you've hated something. The Spice Girls , Cherry Coke , the new VW Beetle . And I'm sure that you've hated something, but found two years later that you love it. The Smashing ...

• Future-proof 17 March 2004

  This site gave me a good laugh when I clicked on the splash image in IE 6. For anyone whose user agent actually does identify as "Netscape", I'll save you some trouble and tell you that ...

• Online dating 13 March 2004

  It's all well and good to have a fire in your belly over Web Standards, but sometimes it's the small things that make all the difference. The giant leap to Standards isn't the only thing that can improve the way a ...

• On the road 12 February 2004

  This is my fourth day of travelling interstate. 4 days, 4 flights; one more. I'm not what you'd call an experienced traveller – last time I flew was ten years ago – and combined with my ...

• Separate meaning from language 06 February 2004

  The virtues of separating document structure from style are well documented, and in fact is the cornerstone of the XML/CSS pairing. The aim is to keep data entirely isolated from the way it is presented, allowing ...

• Well framed 05 February 2004

  I'm a thoroughbred Windows user. Not necessarily by choice, but circumstance: work environment, DOS upbringing, Counter Strike. This means that whenever I use OSX I still go "oh, cool!", and when I see web site ...

• When the war is over 24 January 2004

  Most of the sites I visit regularly at the moment are Web Standards related. And already, as more people get with the program and we develop a useful pool of tips, tricks and templates, I'm beginning to find myself ...

• Information, 75% OFF! 19 January 2004

  People are embarassed of information: when you're designing something for them they always feel like they have to make up for the information by putting in pictures of smiling people, a rainbow of colours, ...

• Drowning in voices 13 January 2004

  Yesterday I had a bit of free time and went a bit comment crazy on other people's sites. But not as crazy as I could have. Sometimes when I'm reading an article and feel moved to respond I'll scroll ...

• Knowledge vs. perception 30 December 2003

  Hope you had a good Christmas break. Holidays don't mean rest to me, they just mean I'm reduced to browsing the Web at 56kb, instead of using work's 2Mb line. Whilst downloading web pages at ...

• Iconoclastic 21 December 2003

  While designing my latest desktop wallpaper , it got me thinking about how personal someone's computer desktop becomes. It's really the only (non-case mod) part of your computer that truly becomes your own. ...

• Punctuality 18 December 2003

  I'll admit it ... I was afraid of the semi-colon. It seems to be one of those characters that people shy away from; its usage shrouded in a punctuational mystique that can only be interpreted ...

• The good, the bad & the ugly 12 December 2003

  Look around your local shopping centre and you'll find plenty of businesses that seem to rely on the ugliness of their identity to create brand recognition; you know, the sort of people that use comic sans in ...

• Karaoke code re-use 06 December 2003

  I've be an infrequent reader of weblogs for a while now, but this week was witness to quite a few hours of weblog scouring; meandering from place to place, wherever my mouse dared take me. And I've come to a conclusion ...

• Network effects 04 December 2003

  You do it everyday on the Internet — find priceless treasures that you just have to pass on to friends, colleagues, and any hapless person that comes within the range of your speakers just as you fire up ...