Friday, February 08, 2008
Hey Kent, I posted the links
Here are more of the links used in the Dreamweaver classes:
Testing your pages in many different environments using BrowserCam
Jeff Zeldman’s excellent blog covering web standards.
Pixy’s Color Scheme Generator to generate color schemes and testing them for different conditions.
Search engine resources:
Search engine education from Search Engine Watch. Follow the link in the left-hand navigation labeled Search 101 with a great deal of good information.
Understanding Google’s approach to search is critical to getting exposure for your sites. Their fine set of Webmaster tools
Make a search engine for own site with Rollyo
CSS resources:
Jason Santa Maria’sblog about CSS, web design, tools, and design.
Mezzoblueabout design and CSS. From the creator of the CSS Zen Garden
Nicely done site using multiple, user-specified style sheets from the Tulsa Preservation Commission. I really like this. And I like Tulsa. And I like their old buildings.
Images for your site:
Inexpensive, high quality stock images from iStockPhoto.
Your don’t want your site to end up on Vincent Flanders’ site
Posted by Keith on 02/08 at 09:46 AM
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Saturday, January 12, 2008
Cringley says Apple will buy Adobe
Cringely thinks Apple will buy Adobe in 2008
Cringely’s latest post posits that Apple will buy Adobe in 2008. He makes a good case, but “Someone’s buying Adobe this year” seems to be a perennial favorite for technology company watchers.
The purchase would certainly tweak Microsoft, as an operating system company (Apple) would then own a media distribution technology (Flash), and the tools to create the content (Photoshop, Capitvate, Premiere). If you view Microsoft’s introduction of Sliverlight as a operating system component hedge against Flash, then Cringely’s hypothesis may not be so far out.
Thinking about Flash often leads to a narrow view of the product. People tend to think of animation when thinking about Flash, but the better use of Flash is delivering and manipulating video. Consider the ubiquity of YouTube today as compared to two years ago. Apple does have QuickTime, but Google’s acquistion of YouTube vaulted over QuickTime because it let anyone with a camera create content. Now, 90% of that content may only appeal to the creator and his 3 friends, but putting ease of content creation into the hands of users leads to widespread use. Apple buying Adobe would potentially pit Flash Video against YouTube.
Or maybe Cringely just wanted to start off the new year with a wild one. Buying ADBE could be an interesting play.
Posted by Keith on 01/12 at 11:42 AM
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Friday, January 11, 2008
Adobe apps phone home; tin foil hats on, everyone!
Anyone using Macromedia applications over the past few years, and was also paying attention, and was also a bit paranoid, realized that Dreamweaver, Flash, et.al., connected to Macromedia at startup. The “navigation page” or “startup page” that appeared in the MX2004 versions contained a section in the lower right corner that notified you if a new update or version was available, or if new content was available in the product line Exchanges. The only way that behavior could happen is if you had an active internet connection when starting the application, and if the application, Dreamweaver, for example, sent version identification back to Macromedia (otherwise, how would the application know if an update was available for *your* installed version?).
A blog post over the holidays at Uneasy Silence revealed details about the process. On January 9, 2008, Adobe posted a Technote describing the behavior and the steps to disable the connection.
The issue seems to be that we have chosen to ignore the data mining occurring on the web, and the tracking behavior of applications falls into the same category. Part of being connected in a digital world also entails leaving a path through that world. Gathering our tracks by data mining companies is not only simple, but built into most any connection we make to the net. Whether this data gathering is a problem depends on the level of trust we have for the people gathering and using this data. Transparency was cited by many posters to the article at Uneasy Silence. The problem is that many, many organizations with a web presence gather tracking information. And deleting cookies is no guarantee of fixing the problem.
So, what to do? We may have crossed a line, and there is no way to get the data removed, cleansed, or deleted. For better or worse, our digital lives may be better documented than our physical lives. The problem is that we don’t own the digital, personal data. The web analytics companies own it, and they’re not making it easy to control it. Simply unplugging won’t fix the problem. Eliminating computers from our lives is probably impossible without radical change that would be worse than living with a digital shadow.
Posted by Keith on 01/11 at 12:36 PM
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Thursday, January 10, 2008
“Does My Business Need a Blog?” Notes from a presentation for the Center for Business
These links and notes for the attendees at the Johnson County Community College Center for Business Lunch and Learn presentation on Wednesday, January 9, 2008, provide background and resources for the topics touched on during the presentation.
The presentation for the Lunch and Learn at Johnson County Community College Center for Business revolved around the question of whether a business needs a blog. If we consider that a blog is simply one more method of connecting to our audience, customers, or colleagues. We considered five topics: We defined the term blog; we examined some examples of business blogs; we looked at methods to create them; we discussed best practices for putting material online; and I pointed out resources for further study. This post provides pointers to the sites examined, best practices, and other documentation as you consider building a blog for yourself, your business, or your community.
Who’s blogging in the business world?
SocialText provides the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki.
Bob Lutz’s Fastlane blog at GM
Jonathan Schwartz’s blog as CEO of Sun Microsystems, has a long-running blog.
How to find bloggers and what they’re talking about
Blog search at Technorati
Trend tracking at Blogpulse
Blogging tools
Fast, simple, easy blog creation at
Blogger
Fast, easy, more customization using WordPress
TypePad and Movable Type from sixapart
Expression Engine from Ellis Labs
Best practices and guidelines:
IBM
Sun Microsystems best practices
Posted by Keith on 01/10 at 10:26 AM
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Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Site changes and updates
I moved the site to a new host, media temple, and updated the site software from an ancient version of pmachine to their shiny new Ellis Labs, makers of Expression Engine. Many things need to be fixed, so if you’re browsing old posts, do not be alarmed about funky formatting, source code showing where it shouldn’t (akin to walking around with a dry cleaning tag hanging from my coat), and other odd bits.
Expression Engine is levels of power and control above their previous product, so the learning curve starts all over. New content and a new look is on the way.
Posted by Keith on 01/02 at 09:23 AM
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Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Tools should reflect our work style
My web work uses a variety of tools, such as Dreamweaver, Fireworks, some FTP clients, some content management system tools, and word processing. But I’m finding that Dreamweaver provides most of the necessary tools surrounded by a large number of things I never touch. Building web content comes down to a text editor, a CSS editor, and an FTP client to move content to a server. Dreamweaver offers those, but at the expense of many things I rarely, if ever, use.
Coda seems to answer a need for those basic tools in a simple interface, at the right price. Most people like simplicity in the things they use, and Coda provides that simplicity. Add a 30-day trial to the mix, and it becomes a web tool that feels comfortable and capable. This is worth a look for Mac users
Posted by Keith on 06/20 at 09:30 AM
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Monday, May 07, 2007
ALA asks web designers about their work
It seems obvious that web designers would be well profiled, given the amount of web-based content on the subject, but unlike other professions, the designation of “web designer” is both broad and deep. And it turns out that we really don’t know what that profession looks like demographically.
Jeff Zeldman and the ALA folks are championing a survey of web designers to see actually what a web designer looks like. So take the survey and get a contest entry, already.
Update: The survey is finished, and initial results and conclusions are at A List Apart
Posted by Keith on 05/07 at 08:06 PM
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