Eclectic Dreams

Thoughts on a Decade of Professional Web Jobs

Matt — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:12:52 +0000

Apparently I seem to have lost a decade somewhere… Maybe down the back of the sofa? No? Oh, that’s right, it went mostly on building websites, with occasional sitting in pubs ranting about usability. I thought, given that it’s 2010 and clearly the future, it would be worth distilling some of the wisdom of ten years [...]

What would you build to save the planet?

Matt — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:02:31 +0000

That’s the rather broad, but exciting, question that Multipack are attempting to answer tomorrow. Let me explain… The whole thing began back at the Multipack Presents event last year, Being Green, where Paul gave a presentation about his frustrations with waste in the web industry (particularly conferences like SXSW and their regularly-binned goodie bags). Paul envisioned a [...]

Twitter and your new job

Matt — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:49:37 +0000

Recently I gave up the life of a University web developer and moved to the exiting world of semantic web and library web services. One of the nice things about the whole experience has been that Twitter has worked as a great bridge into the new role. It’s that whole ambient intimacy thing. Before I’d even [...]

The Browser That Wouldn’t Die and the Two Tier Web

Matt — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:31:38 +0000

Internet Explorer 6 has been a hot topic again of late. At Multipack last week we had the inevitable discussion on just when people will give up on it. We estimated six to nine months. But then we estimated that 6 to 9 months ago… So now Digg won’t support it for certain activities and Youtube [...]

Marketing a Plumber using Twitter and Yahoo Pipes

Matt — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:44:18 +0000

This is just a random thought that occurred on the train home. A friend was talking about how it might be tricky to do SEO for a plumber or electrician. I didn’t quite agree, but it occurred to me that for a local business marketing such services in the interweb age, there’s some quite clever [...]