Posts from December, 2005
A community and resource site for musicians and production coordinators in the Great Commission Association.
This is a little pet project of mine in order to foster communication and share ideas with others who are doing the same thing I am doing with music in Ames, IA.
The coolest part about this is the custom WordPress theme. A collaborative design between myself and Travis Swan of Fort Collins.
Nathan Smith also helped out a bit (okay, a lot) by helping with some of the CSS templating. Saved me a bunch of time.
I also did a custom integration of PunBB into the system using the same templates. I am using its “extern.php” functionality to show the latest active topics on the front page.
Overall I’m very pleased with the site.
Under the hood:
CMS: Wordpress 1.5.2
Forum: PunBB 1.2.10
Under the hood: XHTML 1.0 Trans, CSS2
This last session was fairly amazing, though there isn’t much to sum up here. This is what I came to the conference for, to watch Jason Santa Maria and Eric Meyer walk through their design and development process. There weren’t a whole lot of notes to take. It’s something you have to see in person, which is why these conferences cost so much.
(By the way, I found an outlet. They hooked power strips up all over the room. The biggest problem has been the extremely flakey WiFi here. I imagine they don’t have 100 uber Web geeks in one room here every day.)
web design, an event apart, css, usability, web standards, conference
9:00 – Zeldman – Intro, overview, formalities.
We are in the middle of a revolution in information transfer; the first since the advent of movable type (Gutenburg’s, not Six Apart’s); the first revolution in the way information is transmitted in 500 years. We are here today to rethink what we do and understand its importance.
9:24 – Eric Meyer
IE 7 is coming up. Essentially it will probably not break your Web sites ☺
9:54 – Zeldman Textism Web. Wise. Words.
Your site has words on it. They probably aren’t working as hard as they can. Typography and layout affect the usability if your information. Words are the primary user interface of your Web site. Language is what conveys your information, not the technology.
When people use your Web site, they are in interactive “find mode”. They do not read your site, they scan it. Proper chunking, labeling, headings, margins, white space, leading, measure, and even the design of your URLs can greatly affect whether your information or product or brand is communicated.
an event apart, usability, accessibility, web design, web standards, css, typography
7:51am – After a rather pleasant train ride through the suburbs into the city, I am sitting in a Starbuck’s in the downtown Marriot drinking a $4 hot milk drink (with a little caramel and espresso flavoring. (a.k.a., the Caramel “Macchiato” which isn’t actually a Macchiato and is barely caramel…).
It was amazing to see the very evident urban decay that seemed to evolve before my eyes staring out the window of the comfortable commuter train. I will walk past two dozen or so more homeless people on my way to the conference, toting a few thousand dollars of technology on my back and a warm milk drink in hand.
Really makes one think about what’s important in life.
8:20am – now sitting in the conference room of the Franklin Institute, sitting just feet away from several high profile Web gurus and celebrities. It’s a strange feeling. Kinda like when you first tell your girlfriend that you “do Web design” for a living, only, stranger. (Translation, I’m a huge geek. So are these guys.).
I got some good shots of very historical buildings on the way here. Hopefully I didn’t look like too much of a tourist, even though that is exactly what I am. Hopefully I’ll be able to post them later on.
Eagerly awaiting the first session. I have almost completely forgotten the dozen or so homeless people I walked past and ignored (out of fear for safety, rather than some inherent selfishness… I think…) on the way here.
Soon I will be too engrossed in the sessions to remember to blog. That and I don’t have 1) an outlet and 2) a spare battery.
an event apart, css, web design, conference
Today I am in Philadelphia at An Event Apart with Zeldman and Eric Meyer (and Jason Santa Maria). Should definitely be a good time. I’ll try and live blog the highlights.
an event apart, web design, css, conferences
