Month: May 2005

I’ve just read this fantastic article by Richard MacManus and Joshua Porter in which they talk about the “paradigm shift” happening on the web currently to turn it from a series of website islands to a true interconnected world of data. Those connections are brought about through, mainly, XML technologies. And my favourite microformat, RSS, makes several appearences.

I could go on for hours about this article, the number of references to things that have been bubbling in my mind for a while is truly staggering, but I’ll just recommend you read it. Actually, I’m not just recommending it – you have to read this article. I’ll expound on a few areas I’m particularly interested in that they talk about over the next few days, no doubt.

As a little aside, Richard is from New Zealand and Joshua is from the USA. I wonder if they have ever met? Not that it really matters, it just goes to show how the web is changing communication in the world.

I’ve just found this interesting discussion about designing website for larger size monitors. While I can see both good and bad points about both 800 and 1024 pixel-wide websites, I’m sticking with 800 pixels as my base. And for this reason, which Adam Thody said very well:

I don?t think the should be a discussion on ?how wide can we get away with due to monitor limitations?? as much as it should be ?what?s the optimum usuable width for a web page layout??

As mentioned in my earlier entry, an elastic (rather than fixed or fluid) layout may be the best way to go. But whatever width you go for – both in website design or trousers – CSS is a little life-saver. Go web standards, you know it makes sense.

I’ve just updated my website to include a Creative Commons licence. This means I’m happy for people to copy my work (music and images) for free, modify them and otherwise distribute them, but not make money off them. Regarding the software I write, that’s a slightly different matter. It will be released under an Open Source licence, but I’m not yet sure which one.

I’ve not much else to say about this, many other people have written far more eruditely about the copyright/open source/creative commons thing than I ever could. But I realised that if I’m going to abide by the rules laid out by these organisations I had better say so on my site.

You know that summer is really coming when things start to change appearance. The trees turn green, the hedges thicken up, flowers start to bloom and hundreds of websites get redesigned. What? Yes, it’s true – a new site design is one of the harbingers of the summer. So grab a beer, light the barbecue, and check out CSSReboot.com.

Well, well, well. I wondered a couple of months ago if something like this was possible, and apparently it is. Using the libgmailer library it connects to your GMail account and uses starred emails as posts, and replies to those emails as comments. Very, very clever. And, of course, it opens up lots of possibilities.

There’s also a demo for you to see how quick it is. Well done to Jonathan Hernandez, this looks excellent. I’m going to be downloading and playing.

And I’ll soon have an announcement to make here regarding a little utility I’ve been working on. Watch this space.