Merry Christmas
December 21st, 2006
My last day at work today. I’ll back back after the holidays. Have a good one y’all!
Archive for 2006
Prescott’s New Sign
December 21st, 2006
I’m sure many of you will have seen the story that Mr.Prescott has spent £645 of tax money on changing his office sign. And for the most part I agree it’s a complete waste of money. I did, however, find ITV’s report on the story a bit laughable, and at worst the kind of sensationalist repoting that I hate.
To demonstrate the high cost of Prescott’s sign the reporter was seen buying a “sign” in a near by prontaprint shop. They then went on to say “This cost us £9, that’s a difference of £636 that Mr. Prescott could have saved the tax payer.”
What they didn’t point out was that the “sign” that they’d had mad was simply a printed piece of A4 paper (£9 was a bit of a rip-off to be honest) where as the sign for the deputy Prime Minsters office obviously needed to be a little more robust than that.
Oh well, a bit random I guess, but it really wound me up. Maybe it’s all the Christmas shopping addling my brain.
If - Rudyard Kipling
December 4th, 2006
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man my son!
More on this soon. It’s quite appropriate at the moment.
Where Am I?
November 21st, 2006
Well, Sunday night I was poohing my pants waiting to speak at 20×2. Besides my random drivel about the history of my name, there were some pretty interesting answers to the question of the evening: Where Am I?
Some that stuck out for me were… Diego and his trumpet playing fairy; David Frew’s 2 minute speed read of no less than two sides of A4 of his prose. Not only a cleaver chap but a thoroughly nice bloke; Steve Marshall’s answer which saw the entire audience standing up and sitting down on cue thanks to a cleverly written presentation.
So, cheers to Kevin and the rest of the guys who put on a superb event which was enjoyed by every single last person in the room - and probably warmed the lives of those around just by it’s pure existence.
Oh, and you can find the original image used in this post here… Thanks to agsystems, cos some di*k didn’t take his camera. Oh, and the flickr pool here.
Disability Discrimination Act
November 3rd, 2006
The DDA is the UK governments legislation that governs all sorts of businesses and services to ensure that people with disabilities can access the same services as everyone else.
(un)Fortunately for web designers this legislation covers web services too! At Trinity we’ve developed certain working practices that ensure all our client sites are DDA compliant as possible. So what are these requirements, and what can be done to ensure that your next project isn’t going to get your clients sued?
We’ll it’s not actually that difficult, thanks to our friends at the W3C who’ve drawn up a Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. In general It’s acceptable to ensure all your pages meet at least the Priority 1 checkpoints (or provide an alternative page that does) and as far as possible follow the Priority 2 checkpoints - especially so if your site is intended for the wider EU user-base.
So, getting back to basics, what do you really need to do to ensure your website is compliant? (remember, these are the bare minimum, always refer back to the W3C guidelines).
- Use (x)HTML and CSS to separate content and design. That way users can turn-off the styling and control the size and colour of the text as they wish
- Use alt tags on images to describe their content and title tags on links and abbr items to give an extended explanation of what these elements are.
- The use of accesskeys to offer an alternative way of navigation on all main navigation, and any sub-navigation possible
- Use Javascript to replace any Flash elements, so you’re providing an html alternative
These four things will not only cover many of the guidelines, but also increase you’re chances of getting listed in the search engines too. It’s worth investing a little more time investigation exactly what the DDA requires of web sites, an good staring place may be to Google “DDA” and read up on some of the official (and not so official) documents you find. Don’t underestimate the good that following the guidelines will do your website, it’s well worth investing the time to find out more.
Super Soup
October 27th, 2006
I dunno why I found this so funny, well, interesting I guess.. Paul in the office brought a Loyd Grossman soup that supposedly you can fit in the microwave. When he discovered that it actaully wouldn’t fit in our stinky office micro he decided to exercise his consumer rights by writing a review of the soup on a certain review site…
Paul said:
Hey Loyd! Next time you design the packaging for a soup suitable for microwave heating why not make sure it stands up in the microwave?
Which I thought was a pretty resonable thing to say, the people at the review site however had other ideas…
Dear poppa999,
Thank you for submitting your review of Lloyd Grossman Maris Piper Potato & Leek soup to Review Centre (www.reviewcentre.com). Unfortunately it has not been approved for one or more of the following reasons.
1. Your review was too short and hence may not have contained enough valuable information.
2. Your review may have been on a religious or political topic or contained sexual content.
3. We feel that you may be reviewing your own or a competitor’s product for the good of your own business.
4. Your review criticised other people or a business in such a way that to publish it might make Review Centre liable to legal action.Please do not let this discourage you from re-writing your review or writing further reviews on the website.
Kind Regards,
The webmaster
So it seems that even when you have a valid point, you can’t get it aired. Hmm.. maybe I’m just running out of ideas of what to write. More soon.
Review - Little Chef Breakfast
October 23rd, 2006
The place? Little Chef, Oxford Peartree Services, A34, England. The breakfast? A sausage, a rasher of bacon, a hash brown, baked beans and scrambled “eggs”.
In an attempt to bring you wholy interesting and original content.. Here is a review of a breakfast I ate while visiting the very fine and historical town of Oxford. Traditionally the Little Chef was something that filled my heart with dread, the childhood memories of long car journeys and sweaty pancakes are still all to clear in my mind. It was then with a sense of trepidation that I boldly ordered a “early starter” (it was 12 noon) breakfast.
To be fair it was mainly yum, and the hash brown (an old Roobottom family favorite) went down a treat. It was only when I came to consume what I could only presume to be scrambled eggs that things started to look down. As you may be able to see from the photograph, the eggs were very skillfully avoided while the rest of the breakfast was polished off with aplomb.
So, there you have it, another exciting incite to the wonderful world of Roobottom. Comments on the subject of breakfasts in general are welcome, although specific comments about the Little Chef would be applauded.
Celebrity Obsession
October 17th, 2006
Is it just me or has the world gone just that little bit madder? The past two morning’s I’ve woken up to the usual radio wake-up call only to be greeted by stories of Madona adopting a baby. Fair enough, I guess this may be news worthy, but the “top story” for two days in a row? It just all seems a little excessive, when, as Neil in our office put it…
There’s some ******* in North Korea building Nuclar weapons
I guess it’s the westerns worlds obsession with celebrity, but where does this come from? People traditionally are famous for being good at something (or very bad), but where does the obsession with random people “off the telly” come from? Appreciation of a person is, it seems, no longer related to their net-worth to society.
What I am asking is this: Are we, as a society, dumbing down with our seemingly unending obsession with celebrity? Or is this just a phase we’re going through, a bit like flop-wallpaper or clogs?
North Korea Goes Nuclear
October 11th, 2006
I’m at a bit of a loss of opinion on the whole Nuclear testing “thing” that’s been hitting the headlines the last few days. There’s an uproar, and rightly so I think, but Korea’s purpose in all this still remains a mystery to me.
Apparently now Kim Yong-nam says there will be more testing unless the US change it’s “hostile” policy towards them.
To me all this political wrangling smacks of desperation on the part of North Korea (were these tests even real?) who maybe feel (and possibly rightly so) somewhat bullied by certain other countries. Agreed the US (or the UK for that matter) shouldn’t be the worlds police force, but I for one would sleep a little easier with less nuclear weapons in the world, rather than more.
Where Will I Be?
October 9th, 2006
Next month sees a popular sxsw event get it’s UK premier in London. 20×2 is 20 people given two minutes each to answer the same question, and I’ve taken the plunge and agreed to speak.
So “where am I?”… To be honest I haven’t got the first idea of what to say (or even if they’ll understand the Brummy dribble that will fall from my mouth). I’m excited, but know it could be brown trousers time on the night. Maybe that’s where i’ll be… on the loo.
If you’re free on Sunday, 19th November and in the London area, come along to Madame JoJo’s at 7pm, should be a good night (at least the other guy’s will be entertaining).
