How to write biographies…

Mon Jun 12

Theres been a bit of a lull in entries on the Geek Times recently, not surprising when you know what’s happened in our family recently. Yes, he’s fine - a little cutey in fact. And he gave us his first smile on Friday, which was lovely.

Anyway, back to the geeky stuff, or at least something on the web. There are some pretty humourous biographies here, probably more funny to me because they are about musicians. But this is the kind of writing I like; it gets the facts across and puts a smile on your face.

Believr…

Tue Jun 6

So, how about this: a web 2.0 application called Believr. People could go on there and share what they believe - about anything!

What flavour ice cream is the best; what faith they adhere to; why PHP is king; whether mustard or ketchup is best on hotdogs. It doesn’t matter, as long as you believe it, you can be a Believr!

Then (in the true spirit of web 2.0 goodness) you can tag your beliefs and find others with similar beliefs. Hey, how about rating other people’s beliefs, the ones with the most “I don’t believe that for one second, boyo!” ratings (perhaps a threshold?) gets automatically discredited, and everyone that believes a discredited belief gets virtual dried apricots thrown at them.

Of course we could have feeds for beliefs with particular tags. And how about pulling in what politicians from around the world have been saying (via the BBC, Fox News, CNN etc) and saying whether we believe them or not. Coooooool.

There, that’s a freebie for you. If you make a packet with this idea remember where you got it from :0)

Designing for dummies…

Mon Jun 5

I have to admit I’m not the best web designer in the world. A few years a go I had the honour of working with a great designer (hi Paul) who regularly used to make me weep with jealousy at the ease with which he could produce a gorgeous design. But those people are far and few between, and the rest of us webbies have to do our best with the meagre skills bestowed upon us.

So, if you’re more Query Analyser than Photoshop, more EditPlus than Illustrator, and more objects than palettes, these links may help.

You want colour schemes? You got colour schemes.

You want layouts? You got layouts.

You want ideas for spicy elements? You go those ideas, daddio.

In fact, you want complete sites? You got complete sites.

There are quite a few more links here, and if you don’t find something useful here, you’re not a True Web Geek.