Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog, page 90
October 13, 2010
Paul Ford on The Big Web Show
Paul Ford is our guest on The Big Web Show, taped live before an internet audience at 1:00 PM ET tomorrow, 13 October 2010, on the 5by5 network at live.5by5.tv.
Paul is a freelance writer and computer programmer. He was an editor at Harper's Magazine from 2005–2010, and brought Harper's 159-year, 250,000-page archive to the web in 2007; the system now supports tens of thousands of registered subscribers. More recently he helped the media strategy firm Activate with the launch of Gourmet Live, a re-imagining of Gourmet Magazine for iPad, and co-founded Popsicle Weasel, a small company totally focused on microsites.
He has written for NPR, TheMorningNews.org, XML.com, and the National Information Standards Organization's Information Standards Quarterly, and is the author of the novel Gary Benchley, Rock Star (Penguin/Plume). Paul programs in PHP, Java, and XSLT2.0, but lately is all about Python and Django. His writing has been anthologized in Best Software Writing I (2005) and Best Music Writing 2009. He enjoys both software and music.
He will teach Content Strategy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City starting in 2011. His personal website, started in 1997, is Ftrain.com. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife Mo and the obligatory cats.
The Big Web Show ("Everything Web That Matters") is recorded live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET on live.5by5.tv. Join us!
Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of recording, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web. Subscribe and enjoy!
October 12, 2010
An Event Apart 2011
Registration is now open for all six An Event Apart conferences in 2011. Join us for three days of the latest web standards, best practices, and creative inspiration in…
Seattle – March 28-30
Boston – May 2-4
Atlanta – June 13-15
Minneapolis – August 8-10
Washington, DC – October 24–26
San Francisco – December 12-14
Each two-day An Event Apart conference will be followed by A Day Apart, a one-day workshop dedicated to a special topic. We are pleased to announce our topics and speakers for 2011:
Mobile Web Design with Luke Wroblewski (Seattle – March 30)
HTML5 and CSS3 with Jeremy Keith and Ethan Marcotte (Boston – May 4)
Content Strategy with Kristina Halvorson (Atlanta – June15)
HTML5 and CSS3 with Jeremy Keith and Ethan Marcotte (Minneapolis – August 10)
Accessible Web Design with Derek Featherstone (Washington, DC – October 26)
Mobile Web Design with Luke Wroblewski (San Francisco – December14)
You can register for just A Day Apart, or just An Event Apart, or save over $100 when you attend all three days.
To register, or for more information, visit aneventapart.com.
4th Annual Blue Beanie Day
Join us 30 November 2010 for the Fourth Annual Blue Beanie Day to support web standards. All it takes is a toque and a dream.
Cognition: Behind the Music
Happy Cog president Greg Storey describes the thinking behind our latest little experiment in online publishing and community:
Last week we launched Cognition, a studio blog, that replaced the traditional open-mic text area commenting system with two options: Either post a response via your own Twitter account or link to a post on your own blog.
As the primary instigator, Mr. Storey explains his and the agency's rationale for doing away with traditional comments:
The problem with most comment threads is that they can reach that useless tipping point very quickly. Without having an active moderator to keep up with all of the various threads it's practically impossible to provide any sort of conversational value.
Meanwhile we have also informally noticed a decline in blog usage since the wider adoption of Twitter within our community. … Happy Cog loves blogs. … What if we could help bring some life back into the old network by encouraging people to write blog posts when they have more to say than what can fit into one-hundred-and-forty characters?
Read more and comment if you wish: Airbag: Babylon.
October 8, 2010
Cog blog offloads comments.
The agency launched by a blog finally has a proper one of its own. Happy Cog gently introduces Cognition.
Speaking of experiments, there's our comments section. [W]e've collocated our comments on Twitter. Share a tweet-length response here, and, with your permission, it will go there. If you are moved to respond with more than 140 characters, post the response on your website, and it will show up here.
October 7, 2010
'Tis a gift to be SimpleBits
Dan Cederholm is our guest on The Big Web Show, taped live before an internet audience at 1:00 PM ET today, 7 October 2010, on the 5by5 network at live.5by5.tv.
An world-renowned web designer, author, and speaker and a giant in the field of CSS-based design, Dan is co-founder and designer of Dribbble, a vibrant design community for sharing screenshots of your work. He also co-founded Cork'd, the first social network for wine aficionados, with my Big Web Show co-host Dan Benjamin. (Cork'd was later acquired by Gary Vaynerchuk.)
Dan is the founding principal of SimpleBits, a tiny creative studio ("We make websites and products") based in Salem, Massachusetts, where he has worked with Google, MTV, EA.com, AIGA, ESPN, Blogger, Fast Company, Inc.com, and others, and has been a consulting associate of Happy Cog.
He is the author of three popular books: Handcrafted CSS (New Riders), Bulletproof Web Design (New Riders) and Web Standards Solutions (Friends of ED). Currently Dan is finishing CSS3 For Web Designers, the second book from A Book Apart, coming soon to books.alistapart.com.
The Big Web Show ("Everything Web That Matters") is recorded live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET on live.5by5.tv. Join us!
Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of recording, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web. Subscribe and enjoy!
October 5, 2010
A List Apart: Findings from the Web Design Survey, 2009
The world knows that the web has changed everything. It is disrupting assumptions and turning art, politics, business, and publishing on their heads every second of every day, in ways we cannot yet see, and at speeds that defy our ability to understand and Google's power to index it all.
But the world has not yet paid attention to the web designers, developers, project managers, information architects, writers, editors, marketers, educators, and other professionals who make the web what it is. That's where you and we come in, and it's what each year's survey results are all about.
September 30, 2010
Episode 21: Just The Two Of Us
We're mixing it up for today's episode of The Big Web Show. Instead of interviewing one or more amazing web innovators per our standard practice, Dan Benjamin and I will interview each other.
I've known Dan since Netscape 1.0 was the best browser money could buy. He is a fascinating, complex, profoundly multi-talented gentleman. If you know him as the Jedi CEO and chief on-air talent of the web's most awesome podcasting network, then you have tasted but a slice of his talent pie.
Dan is a broadcaster, screencaster, writer, software developer, designer, and entrepreneur. Also a pioneering blogger, co-founder of Cork'd, Theravada Buddhist, and much more. We could probably do a whole season of Big Web Show episodes just on Dan (but we won't). And, too, he'll be asking me stuff.
Adding piquancy, Dan is recovering from a cold and I'm in the middle of one, so I'll be "taping" from behind a box of Kleenex in my apartment.
That's nothing. I once taped an entire episode of The Big Web Show wearing wet trousers. Yes, really. There was no time to change and the show must go on. How my trousers got wet is a whole thing. I don't want to talk about that. The point is, that's how much Dan and I care about the show. I was miserably uncomfortable but it was showtime, and if you re-watch the old episodes you won't even be able to tell which is the one where I'm Mr Wetpants—I'm that smooth.
So please join us today, Sep 30, 2010, at 1:00 PM Eastern, for Episode 21: "Just the Two of Us." (And after a story like that, how can you refuse?)
The Big Web Show ("Everything Web That Matters") is taped live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET on live.5by5.tv.
Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of taping, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web.
