Tag Archives: clearleft

d.construct: Full of questions

Posted in Development on by Paul Boag

This will probably be my last chance to post before I am off to d.construct. I have a manic day tomorrow trying to get everything sorted before I go, however I wanted to share with you a couple of thoughts about the upcoming conference.

It’s funny how things work out sometimes. I had not really taken the time to look at what d.construct was covering this year. I enjoyed it tremendously last year and was confident that the guys at Clear:Left would pull together a great line up again.

It therefore came as a pleasant surprise to discover that the primarily focus was on web services and APIs. This was especially good, as I had just decided to address the issue on the boagworld.com podcast.

I have felt for a while that web services and APIs were something that I should address on the podcast but to be frank I don’t know much about them, so felt inadequate to speak on the subject. I had decided to ask Dustin Diaz on the show to give me his take on them but we were having trouble arranging a time (although I still hope to get him on soon!). You can therefore imagine my relief when I discovered d.construct would be covering the same area.

Questions and concerns

must confess, I have loads of questions that I am hoping will be answered. What little I know on the subject leaves me with some doubts about their usefulness to the average website owners. I can see the use for an enthusiastic bloggers who wants to sell amazon books or show their flickr photos. However, what do APIs offer large corporations or public institutions?

Even if a web service does appear useful, this in turn throws up a load of additional questions. For example, what if Google decides to discontinue its mapping service and your site is dependent on it? What if your site pulls in RSS feeds from Feedburner and their server goes down? In my experience, clients do not like being reliant on third parties for their site to operate successfully.

As you can see, I have all kinds of questions. As with so many of these emerging technologies I am left wondering how it will benefit my clients. I am happy to admit that I am blissfully ignorant in this area and my hope is that d.construct will show me the light.

I’ll tell you what I learn in next weeks show.

Say hello

If you are going to d.construct then please come over and say hello. I am always keen to chat with people that read this blog or listen to the podcast. That way I am not standing in the corner looking like billy no mates!

Podcast 35: An interview with Andy Budd

Posted in Classic shows on by Paul Boag

This week on boagworld.com Paul chats with Andy Budd, author of CSS mastery, founder of clear:left and “international” speaker. Paul and Andy discuss the state of web design, working with clients and a bit about Andy’s background and expertise.

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Despite what I may like to think, myself and Marcus don’t know everything which is why we felt it was about time we started to get some other web professionals on the show.

In the first of what will hopefully be a regular series of interviews with different web designers, I speak to Andy Budd. Andy is a prominent figure in the web design community and is well known for his book on advanced css as well as his personal blog. However, Andy is also a founding member of clear:left the web development agency which arranged last years grass roots web 2.0 conference; d.construct.

Myself and Andy discuss:

  • How Andy got involved in web design
  • Why he is passionate about it
  • The general state of industry today
  • clear:left and how it came about
  • Andy’s book on Advanced CSS
  • How web designers should keep up with our constantly evolving industry
  • What web managers should be focusing on over this year.

Coming soon

Our next interview will hopefully be with Aral Balkan who is an expert in flash applications. With any luck he will be able to put me in my place regarding this overly criticized technology!

In the meantime be sure to download next week’s show where we look at the basics of creating a solid information architecture.

Web Design Podcast (14) – Real World Web 2.0

Posted in Classic shows on by Paul Boag

In this episode of the boagworld podcast, Marcus Lillington and I try to take the characteristics of Web 2.0 and apply them to real world websites.

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Over the past few weeks, I have written a lot about Web 2.0 on boagworld.com. However, most of what I have written consists of questions rather than answers. In this episode of the boagworld podcast, Marcus Lillington and I try to take the characteristics of Web 2.0 and apply them to real world websites.

One of my greatest concerns with Web 2.0 is that it seems to have been adopted by only a handful of largely technical consumer websites. Few of these sites seem to have a traditional business plan and so bare little resemblance to the average organisation’s website. In this podcast, we look at what Web 2.0 actually is and how those underlying characteristics apply to the mainstream websites we all work with on a daily basis.

A lot of this podcast is based on Andy Budd’s presentation at the d.construct Web 2.0 conference here in the UK. Andy did an excellent job at defining Web 2.0 and explaining why perhaps the buzzword does have its place. What we do in this podcast is look at what can be learnt from this new generation of websites and moved across into the mainstream.

More on Web 2.0

Listen to the Podcast of Andy Budd’s presentation

Where’s the money?

d.construct and Web 2.0

Web applications

Boagworld.com news

Boagworld.com is proud to be included on the 9Rules Network

Check out the Boagworld.com “web design” search mentioned in the podcast

Check out Google’s new website statistics service – Google Analytics

Enlightenment for the web?

Posted in Reviews on by Paul Boag

Well, I have just got home from the d.construct conference and want to post my last few impressions of the day.

First of all I want to thank everybody at Clear:Left for putting this together. I know they all have a lot on their plates and it would have been easy to turn down the opportunity to do this conference. I am glad they didn’t.

Alchemy or science?

For me a lot of the day was actually summed up by Cory Doctorow from the Electronic Frontiers Foundation. At the start of his talk, Cory spoke about the Dark ages here in the UK when Alchemists competed against one another to turn lead into gold. They worked in secret fearing that others might steal their ideas. It was only as these people started collaborating, sharing ideas and working together that the superstition of Alchemy turned into the discipline of science and the Enlightenment dawned. I feel like in many ways that was what today was about.

Sleeping with the enemy

I was fortunate enough to spend a few minutes talking to Andy Budd from Clear:Left and it struck me how strange a situation I found myself in. Here I was sharing ideas, and chatting about new innovations with a man who has set up in direct competition with me! It’s wonderful that instead of all working in secret we can talk and innovate together. I have received so much from so many online, people who have had the vision to look beyond corporate competition and share with the wider community. I hope that to some extent this blog and podcast returns the favour.

I could go on and start talking about how perhaps if we keep this collaborative vision we too might see our own enlightenment, but then that would be just too cheesy for words ;)

Web Design Podcast (9) – Jeremy Keith Interview

Posted in Classic shows on by Paul Boag

This week Paul is joined by Jeremy Keith, author of DOM Scripting and joint head of the WASP DOM Scripting Task Force. Paul and Jeremy look at how to take the principles of web standards a step further by separating function from content as well as just design.

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Below are links to a number of resources discussed in the podcast:

A better way to build websites
A boagworld.com article introducing web standards and explaining their benefits.

Web standards at all costs?
A boagworld.com article discussing whether there are occasions where table based design can be justified

Adactio
Jeremy’s personal website including a shed load of invaluable articles!

DOM scripting book
A superb book my Jeremy aimed at introducing designers to unobtrusive JavaScript.

DOM Scripting task force
Apart of WASP this group is dedicated to bringing the quality of scripting up to that of XHTML and CSS.

Unobtrusive JavaScript Tutorial
An excellent introduction to Unobtrusive JavaScript by Chris Heilmann.

clear:left
Jeremy Keith, Andy Budd, and Richard Rutter have joined forces to form clear:left, a new web design company based in Brighton.

d.construct
The UK’s first grassroot web 2.0 conference. Unfortunately this is now sold out.

@media 2005
The @media 2005 conference brought together the biggest names from around the world to talk about the hottest topics in web design – web standards and accessibility.

HTML dog
The web designer’s resource for everything HTML and CSS, the most common technologies used in making web pages.

WASP
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards that ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.