Around the Web

Web Directions now with Connections

2006-09-22T14:32:00.000+10:00

Web Directions 06 begins next week in Sydney and I'm not the only one looking forward to it. The line-up of speakers is fantastic, and their topics sound nice and geeky. Not only that, but it's a great chance to catch up with friends and colleagues, and others working in the Australian web industry. I always come away from these conferences seriously inspired.

Talking about seriously inspiring, in preparation for the conference Cameron Adams and Tim Lucas have built a great web app called Web Connections. Conference attendees can login and use the app to find fellow attendees, find conference-related events, view geo data on where people are coming from, find out who else is attending and what they look like, and discover people with like-minded interests through tags, and more. Cam sums it up beautifully: "... It's got maps, tagging, AJAX, and microformats spouting from all orifices ..."

The tagging functionality is extremely useful, not to mention great fun. By browsing the tags, I have discovered there are other new dads going as well, meaning I'll be able to compare Flickr baby photos :-) On the other hand, I'm don't want to ask what this tag means ...

The Web Connections app is a very well implemented example of using the available free data that is out there (thanks to API's) to create something that's not only extremely useful, but well designed and fun to use. Great work, guys.

Technorati Tags: wd06, tv, conference, web, application, web2.0, Cameron Adams, Tim Lucas

10 Things That Would Improve Foxtel Digital

2006-06-23T13:27:00.000+10:00

Foxtel, for those who are unaware, is Australia's answer to America's cable TV. Originally it was broadcast in analog format, but in the last few years they have transitioned to a digital format and Foxtel have been heavily promoting this digital format as something that will "will change the way you feel about television forever".

I would have to disagree. I am frustrated with some aspects of Foxtel Digital, and after reading about what some of the cable companies in America are now offerering, here is my opinion on what Foxtel Digital could do to improve their service.

Redesign the on screen TV guide to make it more useable.
Allow me to watch missed shows - when I want to.
Allow me to watch movies when I want to, not at designated times.
If I pull down a movie, give me at least 24 hours to watch it. At present, I am locked out of all downloaded movies at 2:00am, even if I downloaded it at 1:00am.
Get some new content. I must have watched the same 2 series of NYPD five times now.
Do something interesting with the interactive component. If an ad for a show that I want to watch comes on, why can't I add that show to the planner right then with a click?
Don't charge me an expensive monthly fee just to enable time shifting ie, Foxtel IQ.
Make the channel websites more interesting. Not just flash promos, but make then an interesting extension of the channel content, involve users and create community. HBO have done a great job with the Sopranos website.
The planner only shows future shows for the next 3 days. If I've just seen an ad for a show I want to watch and it's on next week, I can't add it to my planner until next week.
Allow the planner to give me an option to select a whole series, rather than single episodes. Why do I have to go back every week and add the same show to the planner?

Some of the above issues are standard features on much of the cable networks in the States. I understand that the market here in Australia is smaller and therefore less profitable, but I do feel that Foxtel could be doing much more with what they have.

Do you agree with the list above? Are there any other features you would like to see on Foxtel Digital? If so, leave your comments and let me know.

Technorati Tags: foxtel, tv, digital, digital tv, cable, television

Too Many Google Accounts

2006-06-07T16:20:00.000+10:00

I like testing out and using a lot of the services that Google are building and experimenting with. For example, I use Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Notebook, Google Desktop, Google Analytics, Personalised Search, Personalised Homepage, Adwords and Adsense to name a few. I signed up to some of these services a while back, while I have only recently signed up to others.

Therein lies the problem. Way back before Google Accounts was launched, it was necessary to sign up to some of these services using a non-Gmail email address. With some of the newer Google services, you have to sign up using your Gmail address. This means that for some services I have more than one account and I can only use some services with a Gmail address account. I have to login and out frequently between services, therefore segragating all my data and losing the value of some of the services.

Here's an example:

Using the Gmail Notifier extension for Firefox, I am alerted when email arrives in one of myGmail accounts. I open Gmail and read that email.
Now, I go to my Adsense account. This uses my non-Gmail email address, so I have to log out of my Google Account and sign in again to Adsense.
I want to add an item to Google Calendar. I have to login to my Google account again, making sure that I use the same Google Account linked to my preferred Gmail account, otherwise Calendar sends email to the wrong account.
I want to check my web stats, so I have to log out of my Google Account, and log into Google Analytics using my non-Gmail email address.
Between all this, I do some searching. I have been swapping between Google Accounts and Gmail addresses for a few hours, so my Personalised Search History is now divided between 3-4 different accounts, making it almost useless to me.

I'm not the only one confused and frustrated by this. A quick search reveals that Danny Sullivan has posted about the same issue.

To solve this, I think there needs to be a way to consolidate all your Google services to one account, using one email address. However, I can't see any way to do this - in fact I believe there is no way to do this. Can you move Gmail data between accounts?

Is anyone else frustrated by the mess of different Google accounts and logins? Is there a way to consolidate it all? If you have found a way to do so, please reply and let me know.

Technorati Tags: google, accounts, gmail, confusion

Whirlpool Releases Australian Broadband Survey Results

2006-05-26T15:18:00.000+10:00

Whirlpool, the Australian Broadband news site, have released the results of their Australian Broadband Survey 2005. The survey was actually held from 29 December 2005 until January 2006 and was completed 16,590 times by Whirlpool readers.

Not suprisingly, as most of the Whirlpool readers are 'informed consumers' or 'prosumers', Tesltra cops some flack. Only 1.9% of those surveyed think that Telstra's management team are doing a good job and 81.5% believe that other ISP's need to reduce their reliance on Telstra's broadband network.

VOIP (Voice Over IP) use has doubled since last year's survey with 29% now using it. However of those that have used VOIP, only 6% mainly use VoIP and keep their landline connected for emergency calls, whilst only 1% use VoIP for all their home telephony and have disconnected their home phone line. I am using VOIP through iiNet for the majority of our calls and the service and quality has been fine up until recently, when I started noticing that I would be randomly disconnected at times. Unfortunately, as with most VOIP contracts, there is no Quality of Service Agreement. But at 10c untimed for a call, I'm not complaining (yet).

Overall, the survey provides an interesting insight, and is worth reading.

Read the results of their Australian Broadband Survey 2005. Do you agree with most of the results, or fit the profile of these broadband users?

Technorati Tags: broadband, survey, results, whirlpool, telstra, voip

Hacker saw UFO images

2006-05-08T14:06:00.000+10:00

Gary McKinnon, an Englishman accused by the US Military of perpetrating the "biggest military computer hack of all time" by hacking into the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Department of Defence and NASA, has given a video interview to the BBC where he says he was motivated by trying to uncover photographic evidence of UFO's and suppressed technology. He also says he found that evidence.

In a rebuttal to US press hysteria over the case, McKinnon says that he broke in by finding Windows computers that had emtpy Administrator passwords, used RemoteAnywhere to do control the remote desktops, and there were constantly other hackers from around the world on these systems already. "There were no lines of defence" says McKinnon.

Things get really interesting/strange when he says that he was told by a NASA photographic expert that NASA "... regularly airbrushed out images of UFOs from the high-resolution satellite imaging." McKinnon says he found a satellite image before it had been retouched, viewed it on the remote system and started to download it, but was discovered and disconnected. Wouldn't you know it?

The story has been debated by uber-geeks over at Slashdot, where most agree that, technically, some parts of his story don't hold up. Some Slashdot readers suggested that McKinnon actually broke into a NASA honeypot, a deliberate trap filled with false, though tantalizing, information in order to catch hackers.

Whatever the truth, it makes for an interesting story whichever way you look at it. The US want McKinnon jailed for 60 years and are trying to extradite him from the UK. Are the US Government's networks really that insecure? Did McKinnon find real information or was he deliberately fed misinformation so he could be caught? Is 60 years too much for accessing an insecure system? Let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags: Gary McKinnon, hackers, ufos, technology, NASA

Do You Trust the Internet for Your News?

2006-05-03T21:33:00.000+10:00

An recent article in The Age newspaper titled 'Internet gains trust as news source', outlines the findings of a recent Reuters poll where 10,230 participants from 10 countries were asked to name their most trusted news sources.

Not suprisingly, national television was the most trusted news source overall for 82 per cent of the participants. This was followed by newspapers and radio. 25 per cent said they trusted internet sources, such as blogs, while another 23 per cent admitted they did not trust blogs.

However, internet sources were seen as the most important news source among 19 per cent of those participants aged between 18 to 24. No suprises there either.

I depend on a few blogs and aggregators to report and break news stories, especially in the areas of the web and technology. But like anything else, you need to choose your sources carefully.

Now, if a story I watch on TV interests me, I will sometimes follow it up online where I can see people's pics of it on Flickr, read eyewitness accounts on blogs and discuss it with others on Metafilter. There's a convergence of different mediums happening, which enables the viewer to also become the participator.

Do you follow up news stories online? If so, what other techniques and sites do you use to do this?

Technorati Tags: poll, news, sources, trust, convergence

Dylan on XM

2006-04-27T20:05:00.000+10:00

Xm Satellite Radio recently announced they have signed up Bob Dylan, who will be hosting a one hour weekly radio show starting next week on May 3rd. Dylan will play his own selections of music, based around a weekly theme, and will relate stories and anecdotes as well as answer listener emails.

That's a pretty big coup for XM. It's also a strange, but exciting new direction for Bob Dylan, and it sounds like it would be fascinating listening. According to a Reuters article, in a preview of the first show, in which the theme is 'the weather', Dylan plays and chats about tracks ranging from 'Blow, Wind, Blow' by Muddy Waters to 'I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine' by Dean Martin to and 'The Wind Cries Mary' by Jimi Hendrix.

Future themes will include cars, dance, police and whiskey.

Also of interest is the story behind how XM landed Bob Dylan, told by Lee Abrams on his blog. What comes through in Lee's blog is how passionate he is about both Bob Dylan and music in general. It's refreshing to hear him talk about how he's not sure that everyone at XM 'got it' with the Dylan thing, and how "... Bob is not a typical content deal that takes money and a good PowerPoint. This is engaging BOB DYLAN to do something that you’d never think he’d do ...". Dylan's business manager tells Abrams, "... You know Bob is not a 'CEO' kind of guy ..." when it is suggested by XM that their CEO chat with Dylan.

Here's an exec that gets it. There's no business speak here about marketing, return on investment or any other bland terms, but rather an honest, passionate account of how he convinced one of the world's most innovative and reclusive artists to do something new and exciting.

Being in Australia, I'm going to have to subscribe to XM Radio Online to hear this. Is there a better way for non US residents listen to satellite radio? If you know of one, please let me know.

Technorati Tags: dylan, xm, satellite, music, radio, lee abrams

How CEO's Work

2006-04-06T15:48:00.000+10:00

Fortune online are running an interesting series in which a handful of CEO's from major (American) companies are asked about how they work. The two interviews that I found interesting where with Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Marissa Mayer (Google).

Both use more than one screen to work. Bill uses three, while Marissa uses two. Bill says his work area is paperless, and he gets about 100 emails a day. Only 100? Well he uses filtering to keep it to this level, with only email from previous correspondence and any of his partner companies going directly to him. All other email is presented to him as a summary write-up, compiled by his assistant.

Marissa, on the other hand, says she receives around 700-800 work related emails a day. On weekends she spends between 10-14 hours straight catching up on email. Doesn't sound like much of a weekend to me at all, and I would say this process definitely needs refining!

Bill also says that desktop search has had a major effect on boosting his productivity, by giving him instant access to information across his network without having to navigate through folders.

For me, being a lowly web designer, my email load isn't anywhere near this, so I am able to manage my email manually without any problems. I BCC everything to a GMail account which I use as a free online backup of all my email.

I use two screens when I am working on site at BHP, and I really have found that it makes a difference to productivity. At home, where I am forced back to one screen, it becomes slightly frustrating and slower to move windows around and switch between everything again.

My experience with desktop search has been liberating as well. I use Google Desktop and can find an old email or document in a few seconds. It's rare now that I have to trawl through folders to find something. Some of the plug-ins for Google Desktop are useful as well, enabling me to instantly see stock prices, email accounts and RSS news from various sites by simply sliding my cursor to the slide-out sidebar.

How do you work? I'd be interested to know of any tips and tricks you have for enhancing productivity.

Technorati Tags: lifehacks, billgates, email, google, desktop, work

Cracks in the Google Share Price?

2006-01-19T11:30:00.000+11:00

Jonathan Berr, in an article called Two Abandon Google Bandwagon, is reporting that two US analysts from Standard & Poor's are advising their clients to sell their Google stock.

Berr reports that analyst Scott Devit, in a note to clients, says "... we believe Google is an outstanding company..." however he then goes on to say "... we believe that the shares are overvalued."

I tend to agree with him. Google stock has increased around 300% since it's IPO in August 2004. The last few weeks it has been interesting to watch the stock, as it hit a high of around US$475, and now today has slowly dropped back to around US$444. With some analysts predicting $2000 a share, all this speculation seems to be getting a little out of hand, and slightly reminiscent of 1999.

Technorati Tags: google, shareprice, stock

del.icio.us is hicupping

2005-12-14T21:22:00.000+11:00

Hopefully it's just teething problems, but after the big news last week that Yahoo acquired del.icio.us, tonight I am receiving intermittent errors, along with raw dumps of error mesages when trying to connect to del.icio.us.

Other users are noticing this as well.

With most of the blogosphere watching at the moment, and a large amount of new users since the Yahoo announcement, this must be causing some headaches somewhere at Yahoo.

Update: Looks like it was a power failure at their datacentre, and all is resolved now.

Imagine ...

2005-12-09T15:00:00.000+11:00

On this day 25 years ago, John Lennon was murdered.

I remember, as a kid, cutting out all the newspaper articles about John's death and pasting them into a scrapbook. I wasn't really sure what John Lennon or the Beatles were about then, but I knew that his death had a significant impact on many people around the world.

Years later, when I discovered the magic of The Beatles and Lennon, I remember being quite upset and angry whenever I thought about him being cut down in his prime by an insignificant, mixed up individual.

I sometime wonder what he would be doing now, if he was still alive. I don't think there ever would have been a Beatles reunion, but that's probably a good thing (see the Rolling Stones today). What type of music would he be making today? What would he be interested in? While reading a 1980 interview with John earlier today, I found the following quote from him particulary poignant. He was being asked about the Beatles ever getting back together, and he had the following response:

"... Everyone always talks about a good thing coming to an end, as if life was over. But I'll be 40 when this interview comes out. Paul is 38. Elton John, Bob Dylan... we're all relatively young people. The game isn't over yet. Everyone talks in terms of the last record or the last Beatle concert... but, God willing, there are another 40 years of productivity to go. I'm not judging whether 'I am the Walrus' is better or worse than 'Imagine.' It is for others to judge. I am doing it. I do. I don't stand back and judge... I do."

One can only imagine what he would have achieved, given those next 40 years of productivity ...

Time to stop using CSS hacks

2005-11-28T15:12:00.000+11:00

The Internet Explorer development team have already said it, now the person who, in his own words "..opened Pandora's Box (Model) of CSS Hacks..." is adding to the message: It's time to stop using CSS hacks now, and start using valid, standards compliant code.

Tantek has written an informative article, shedding some information on how the infamous Box Model Hack came about, explaining what a hack should and should not contain, and offering some useful tips for pressing forward with new browsers.

Tantek's message is excellent, and the guidelines he mentions are valuable to any web professional. He points to using standards, validating your work, not relying on browser defaults, only using hacks for obsolete browsers (if absolutely necessary) and keeping the pressure on browser vendors as ways of helping to eliminate hacks from your work.

Email Newsletters

2005-11-22T20:55:00.002+11:00

I've recently completed an email newsletter for a client, which would have been a difficult and time consuming job if I had to set up everything manually. However it turned out to be a streamlined, enjoyable and educational project because I used Campaign Monitor, which handles every step of the process, and handles it well.

Unlike other email marketing software I have tried, Campaign Monitor has a clean, usable interface, intuitively handles subscriber management, allows clients to obtain reports on their campaigns and doesn't mangle my standards compliant XHTML. It also responsibly handles bounces and advises on how to avoid sending an email campaign that may be mistaken as spam.

One feature request I would like to see (and I have asked for) is to allow an option for clients to manage their subscriber lists from their client login, if they client wants to. At present, they need to use my admin login to do this. I am hesitant to give my admin login to clients, as they then potentially have access to my billing information, as well as other client's email campaigns.

Flock looks promising

2005-10-21T23:14:00.000+10:00

I'm posting this from Flock, the latest Web 2.0 app that is creating quite a buzz today. If you haven't heard about it, Flock is a browser based on the open source Mozilla code base that integrates with del.icio.us, flickr, Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad and soon, many more social web services.

Some of the features I have discovered so far are that favourites automatically sync with del.icio.us, tags can be added to favourites, RSS feeds based on sites, tags or favourites can be aggregated within the browser and blog posting is also integrated within the browser.

Of course, there are already Firefox extensions which can do all this, but they way Flock has integrated these services does feel nice, and the UI is quite smooth. Already some of the popular Firefox extensions, such as the Web Developer Toolbar, work in Flock.

It's still in beta, at version 0.48 at the moment, but from my perpsective it certainly looks very promising. Having all these tools and services in the one environment helps with productivity, blogging, tagging and all the other things that web geeks like to do. Oh, and it's also seems to load pages faster than Firefox, but that may just be my system..

Web Essentials 05 - Better Each Year

2005-10-05T14:55:00.000+10:00

Congratulations to Russ, Peter, John, Maxine and everyone else involved for organising a fantastic event. WE05 gets better each year.

I came back to Melbourne with a new sense of community, as well as feeling inspired, overwhelmed, excited not to mention hung-over. Not only are the sessions by key international figures in our industry inspiring and informative, but it's a great chance to catch up with colleagues and people with whom you normally only interact with online.

Highlights of the 2 days for me included:

Jeffrey Veen's inspiring talks about usability and Web 2.0
Doug Bowman's different, but definately thought provoking, talk on what may lie ahead for the web in the future
Tantek Celik's informative session on Microformats
Cameron Adam's easily understandable and hilarious presentation on AJAX

Also, by showing the audience how to use Technorati and Flickr when talking about the conference, the organisers have made it possible and easy to keep the community spirit of the event going, well after it has finished.

Microsoft Rebrands Internet Explorer 7

2005-08-17T22:54:00.000+10:00

From Beta News:

"Microsoft developers on Friday unveiled a new logo for Internet Explorer 7, along with quietly changing the way the browser is branded. IE7 will now be known as Windows Internet Explorer 7, emphasizing its integration with Windows Vista. IE7 will, however, be released as a standalone upgrade for Windows XP SP2 users."

Technorati tags: IE7, Microsoft

In Brief

2005-05-20T15:56:00.000+10:00

Plain English, Please

2005-05-15T01:58:00.000+10:00

Dan Stilicho highlights an issue with the Wikipedia entry for 'Web 2.0' - basically it was so full of business-speak and marketing catchphrases that it was almost illegible.

The entry is now being edited by Dan so as to be readable, but you can read excerpts of the original entry, and his comments, at his blog.

It contains such gems as:

"The technology dichotomy of standards based content syndication formats and service invocation endpoints provide the infrastructural essence of Web 2.0."

Yes, right. Anyone who writes like this should probably employ the services of these people.

Web Essential 05

2005-05-04T11:28:00.000+10:00

Building on the success of WE04, Web Essentials returns this September 29 and 30 even bigger and better. Featuring 7 industry leaders in:

standards based web design and development
user experience
accessibility
workflow and strategy

WE05 will instruct and educate and like no other conference this year.

With 22 sessions in two streams over two big days we've got 50% more content than last year, and more than twice the number of international speakers. Most importantly we're totally focussed on practical hands on instruction in XHTML, CSS, AJAX, accessibility, user experience, semantics, microformats and more.

Read the program line up

The lineup includes:

Molly Holszchlag
Eric Meyer
Jeffrey Veen
Tantek Celik
Kelly Goto
Derek Featherstone
Doug Bowman

Read about the presenters

Web Essentials is genuinely thrilled to be bringing such an incredible group of experts to Australia for WE05, and at the early bird price of just AU$700 (paid before July 1) this is well and truly the bargain of the year.

Not just a conference

This year Web Essentials won't just be about the conference. We've made plenty of opportunities for you to network and socialize with the speakers and your peers. There's the official Web Essentials Party (along with book signings by many of the speakers), a closing night party, and a new, optional breakfast featuring web legend Tantek Celik.

We want to build a genuine web industry here in Australia: you won't just be more knowledgeable when you leave WE05, you'll also be better connected with your peers in Australia, and the wider web development world.

The deal

Early bird registration is now open, so register now and pay before July 1 for just AU$700.

Then start ticking off the days to September 29th.

technorati tags: web essentials, we05

Quick Online Tips

2005-04-28T16:44:00.000+10:00

Quick Online Tips is a blog about web based services, which seem to be growing more popular by the day.

As well as news about web services, the site has lots of information and links on how to get the most out of services such as Flickr, Furl, Del.icio.us and Google apps.

technorati tag: web services

iTunes Plug-ins

2005-04-28T00:39:00.000+10:00

A couple of iTunes plug-ins I have been playing around with:

Now Playing is a plug-in by Brandon Fuller that creates an XML file containing metadata about the song currently playing.

It can also upload the song via FTP to a server, so you can display the information on a website. The plug-in also retrieves information from Amazon, such as an image of the album cover art and a link to the Amazon product page, prefaced with your Amazon affiliate ID. It can also be used a a podcasting tool, although I prefer to use FeedDemon for that purpose.

Audioscrobbler plugs into iTunes and sits in the background, building your musical profile based on the songs you play.

This profile is sent to the Audioscrobbler server, where you can view your statistics, be matched to people with similar musical tastes, have songs and artists suggested to you and a lot more. It's Open Source, which opens up a lot of possibilities, and there's development happening on Sourceforge with it.

technorati tag: iTunes

In Brief ...

2005-04-27T14:31:00.000+10:00

Gmail adds new features, now 2GB of space

2005-04-04T20:36:00.000+10:00

Gmail has celebrated it's first birthday by adding some new features.

Firstly, they have doubled the storage amount to 2GB, and in what is a unique marketing move, have pledged to add more space "as we are able". There is now a javascript counter on the gmail homepage which is slowly incrementing, counting the amount of available space you have available at the present time.

Also added is rich text formatting, which in my opinion is more of an annoyance than a feature in the wrong hands. I'm not looking forward to gmails containing garish coloured fonts of different sizes and formatting.

technorati tag: Gmail