Download the show here! Well, people, the crack cocaine of podcasting is back, ready to glorify your eardrums with another delightful aural installment! In Epsidoe 56, the tireless #2 Show hosts discuss an array of tantalizing subjects, such as ghost marriages in China, Sex Day in Russia (oh, those kinky Russians!), Winnipeg’s horrendous street construction-stalled transit system and Sam’s attempt to break into the previously estrogen-filled world of aerobics. We also talk about our upcoming wedding day ensembles - including our recently selected marital jewelry - and send out an invite to our Winnipeg-based listeners to attend our social festivities. Finally, Cara talks about her newly minted book, Supernatural Winnipeg: A Guide to a Ghostly Vacation, tells you how you can get your very own copy, and sends out a big, warm, snuggly thumbs up to her fabulously fantastic book designer, Jessica-from-Winnipeg-now-B.C. (see link below). A show worth waiting for (making you scream with antici … pation), the #2 Show is everything you’ve always wanted and more. The best graphic designer in the world! Our Facebook group Subscribe with iTunes! The RSS 2.0 Feed Contact Us
Source: number2show.com

Best of August 2007
Every month we take a look around and select some of the most interesting web-development-related web-sites. We read articles, check out tools, analyze the advantages of new resources. Below you ll find useful references, tutorials, services, tools, techniques and articles we ve found over the last 30 days - an overview of web-sites you shouldn t have missed in August 2007. All images can be clicked and lead to the sites from which the screenshots have been taken. We’ve missed something? Let us know in the comments! Tools, Web-Services RegexPal: JavaScript Regex Tester RegexPal helps you to test regular expressions; you can insert any text you like and check which parts of the text will be matched by the expression you’ve built. Matched parts of the texts are highlighted. You might want to check the Regular Expressions Library and Wikipedia: Regular Expression as well: everything you’d like to know about regular expressions. With numerous examples and tutorials. BuiltWith.com - Web Technology Profiler BuiltWith is a web site profiler tool. Upon looking up a page, BuiltWith returns all the technologies it can find on the page. BuiltWith s goal is to help developers, researchers and designers find out what technologies pages are using which may help them to decide what technologies to implement themselves. Profiles includes widgets (snap preview), analytics (Google, Nielsen), frameworks (.NET, Java), publishing (WordPress, Blogger), advertising (DoubleClick, AdSense), CDNs (Amazon S3, Limelight), standards (XHTML,RSS), hosting software (Apache, IIS, CentOS, Debian). Google Gears (beta) From now on web-applications can also be used offline. On this year’s Developer’s Convention Google released a browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality. Among other things users of such applications can download the data from the Web (e.g. files stored in Gmail), access and change them locally via asynchronous JavaScript-queries and sync them once you’re online. Users can not only modify their data, but also perform “usual” activities such as sharing and tagging. The extension (700 Kb) is now available for Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6.0+. Google Web Toolkit 1.4 Google released the first Release-Version of its open source Java software development framework GWT. It is supposed to make writing AJAX applications like Google Maps and Gmail easy for developers without keeping an eye on subtle browser incompatibilities between web browsers and platforms. YAML Builder An elegant tool by Dirk Jesse for visual layout development of YAML-based CSS-layouts. You can choose a Doctype, choose the basic layout elements (#header, #footer, …), choose the number of content columns as well as preferred column order, set the layout and column widths, drag & drop and nest both sub-templates and dummy content, display and output the complete code (XTHML markup and CSS) and switch between draft mode and preview of the finished layout. YAML (”Yet Another Multicolumn Layout”) is an (X)HTML/CSS framework for creating modern and flexible floated layouts. Deliverables That Work: Design Description Documents (DDD) You know those things you re supposed to deliver to a client during a big project use cases, wireframes, etc.? Robert Hoekman Jr. does and he shares the tool he uses to package them all the DDD. Wireframes, the schematic presentation of interaction, can be used to display the model behind the sketch in a more effective way. As a sidebar or infobox, they can give your clients a precise idea of the site functionality and its structure. This article presents some of such Wireframes for free download (for Apple iWork). A PowerPoint-template is also included. Stripemania - Striped background generator A simple and free tool to create seamless diagonal stripes for your designs. You are able to choose the size of the stripes and the spacing between those. You can also add color gradient effect for all of your stripes. CSS-Techniques, (X)HTML, PHP CSS: The right sprite There are many ways of using a image sprite. Most ways use a background-image-property that can be moved using CSS. The problem is that this method results in many CSS definitions that are hard to manage. Other approach: bypassing the background-image in CSS and using margin-left or positioning to achieve the same results. The benefit is huge for manageability. Foreground Sprites: the same idea, more detailed explanation. purple-include A client-side JavaScript library that allows you to do client-side transclusions (transcluding content not hosted on your web server) which means that you can include and display fragments of one HTML page in another without copying and pasting any content. XPath, JavaScript and PHP in use. How to create VISTA style toolbar with CSS Reproducing Vista toolbar, with buttons and hover effect in cross-browser compatible CSS and (X)HTML. Creating a table with dynamically highlighted columns CrazyEgg Price Section deconstructed. “When you click on “Sign Up” for an option, that plan’s column highlights, the other plans vanish, and a signup form takes their place. There is a number of impressive things happening within this small area. I wanted to try and recreate the behavior step by step, and share the power of combining CSS, JavaScript, and images in clever ways.” Example (select one of the option to see the effect). A Stripe of List Style Inspiration A different type of list and navbar styling. As stripes. A CSS styled table version 2 Veerle Pieters explains how to create an accessible and user-friendly table with CSS-styling. Follow-up of the first part. The result. Fade Out Bottom This is a demonstration of the effect where the bottom of the page seems to fade out. The technique makes use of an fixed position div (bottom: 0%) with a transparent PNG image and a high z-index value. Javascript Progress / Percentage Bar with CSS Sometimes, when we are building websites and web applications, we need a percentage bar / progress bar to show the progress of a specific task. However, it is very difficult to find a working and easy solution without using Flash. A simple Javascript+CSS based Percentage Bar / Progress Bar. Professional horizontal menus A new set of CSS-based navigation menus by Stu Nicholls. CSS Tools and Services XRAY XRAY is a bookmarklet for Internet Explorer 6+, and Webkit and Mozilla based browsers (including Safari, Firefox, Camino or Mozilla). Use it to see the box model, selector hierarchy in DOM and properties for any element on any web page. The new version support also Internet Explorer 7. pzImageCombine Combining multiple images in a single image and navigate in the image matrix with the background-position-property isn’t a new CSS-technique. This Desktop-Tool, however, automates the generation of the images; just select a folder and all images included in this folder will be combined “on the fly” in a new image. An alternative tool generates the master-image online additionally it also delivers the background-position of images-”parts”. Designing Your CSS with A Grid Overlay This tutorial explains how you can create grid overlay with Adobe Fireworks and/or Adobe Photoshop. CSS Sculptor Eric Meyer releases his Dreamweaver-extension which can be used to generate CSS-based layouts with clean markup. Price: 149$. Tripoli - a CSS standard for HTML rendering “Tripoli is a generic CSS standard for HTML rendering. By resetting and rebuilding browser standards, Tripoli forms a stable, cross-browser rendering foundation for your web projects.” A set of Default-CSS-files is supposed to give you a profound foundation for cross-browser compatible CSS-based designs. All default-values - including dozens of elements - tables, lists, typography, but also headers (h1 - h6), abbreviations, citations, quotes and forms are selected to enable an optimal legibility and well-structured text presentation. Blueprint Grid CSS Generator This tool will help you generate more flexible versions of Blueprint’s grid.css and compressed.css and grid.png files. Whether you prefer 8, 10,16 or 24 columns in your design, this generator now enables you that flexibility with Blueprint CSS Framework - a new “to-become-standard” in grid-based design approach. References, Tutorials, Tips Firefox 2 Spelling Dictionary Hacks Good to know: one of the most useful additions to Firefox 2 is the inline spell check feature that hints you of possible spelling mistakes as you type inside web forms. To use the integrated spellchecker you need to download and install language packages you’d like your browser to support. This article explains what exactly you need and where you get the language libraries from Language Libraries. You can use free online spellchecker (English) and Wbuch Spellchecker (German) as well. Useful to check your blog posts and comments before you post them. Photoshop Secret Shortcuts 30 undocumented key shortcuts for Adobe Photoshop which you won’t find in the manuals; you might find how these shortcuts can speed up your productivity. 10 Free, Innovative Web Analytics Tools There are many free, innovative statistic tools available on the web. These tools measure everything from user behavior, to search engine traffic, to real-time visitor tracking, and more. The following ten products may provide valuable data when analyzing your website traffic. Among them Enquisite.com, 103bees and Clicky. Keryx (X)HTML Elements Best Practice Sheet This table documents the semantic meaning, notable browser issues, best practice, SEO notes, usability, unstyled appearance as well as accessibility aspects of all (X)HTML elements which are sorted within their groups in prioritized order. Recommended (X)HTML versions are mint-colored. You may like the PDF-version or the Open Office version better, especially for printing. 30+ Firefox Add-ons for Web Developers & Designers Over 30 useful Firefox-extensions which web-developers and designers can use on a regular basis. Among them Aardvark, X-Ray, Web Developer’s Extension and, of course, Firebug. Gadgets for ExpressionEngine A small collection of powerful extensions, modules and plugins for ExpressionEngine. Ajax, Javascript Best Practices in Javascript Library Design A Talk by John Resig, the developer of jQuery JavaScript-Library, about the best practices and techniques for development of robust, reusable and cross-browser JavaScript-Libraries. Accessible News Slider Accessible News Slider as JavaScript-Plugin for jQuery. JavaScript Tips for Novices, Acolytes, and Gurus With roll-overs, pop-ups, and menus either solved or relegated to CSS behaviors, XMLHttpRequests have made JavaScript once again a language of innovation. This article is meant to offer a tidbit of idiomatic advice for people who know JavaScript or want to know JavaScript coming from Java, C, Python, Perl, or PHP. JavaScript for beginners: an overview of basic rules and syntax. AjaxView The goal of the Ajax View project is to improve developer’s visibility into and control over their web applications’ behaviors on end-user’s desktops. The Ajax View approach is to insert a server-side proxy (or web server plugin) in-between the web server machines and the end-user’s browser. This proxy captures the web application’s JavaScript code as it is being sent to a browser and rewrites the code to insert extra instrumentation code. The injected instrumentation code runs with the rest of the web application inside the end-user’s browser and can capture user interaction in a more precise and effective way. DatePicker using Prototype and Scriptaculous An unobtrusive and flexible date picker widget which uses Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries. 52 More Calendars and Date Picker Designs. ModalBox ModalBox is a JavaScript technique for creating modern modal dialogs or even wizards (sequences of dialogs) without using conventional pop-ups and page reloads. LiveValidation - Validation as you type A small open source javascript library built for giving users real-time validation information as they fill out forms. It also can serve as a sophisticated validation library for any validations you need to make elsewhere in your javascript. Web-Typography Web typography: bottom margins of paragraphs and lists A perfect vertical alignment of site elements is the key to the quality of web-typography. Creating the perfect vertical space on the screen is easy. With a few lines of CSS, you ll have a great typography foundation for your web site. Marko Drugonic shows how it can be done. Articles and Publications 6 Keys to Understanding Modern CSS-based Layouts Jonathan Snook about 6 important aspects of CSS-designs, among them - Box Model, Floats, Sizing Using EMs, Image Replacement and CSS Sprites. How to use Photoshop to create Product Box A simple Step-by-step-Tutorial shows how to create 3D-product boxes in Adobe Photoshop. New Minimalism in web interface design “We chose 24 moments of minimalism web interface design in the last decade, selected several quotes to easily define the minimalism and represent some of the best new minimalism websites.” An extensive article about simplicity and minimalism in modern Web- and Interface Design with numerous examples, typical design schemes and further references. Better Writing Through Design It s one thing to write copy that fits on a website. It s quite another to write copy that fits in with a website. You wouldn t try to force an incongruous visual element into a carefully considered design. Same goes for written content. Tips, suggestions and ideas for better writing through design. Designing the “Future Of” Sites An insigth in the workflow of experts is always usefuls and offers professional Know-How. In this article Ryan Nichols documents his decisions in design process of the “Future Of”-sites (conferences “The Future of Web Apps“, “The Future of Web Design” and “The Future of Online Advertising“). Design by Metaphor If a client says he wants his new auction site to be like eBay, what does that mean? An artist hears It has a tacky color scheme. A developer hears It s scalable to 20 million users. A user hears It has feedback ratings on all sellers. An article about the way to come behind the ideas your clients have, the power of metaphors and its effective using in practice. Put Your Content in My Pocket Mobile Web is here, particularly since iPhone is here. Many of the ideas in this article can be useful and effective with other mobile devices. The processing power of these devices will continue to increase, bringing an end to a dumbed down mobile web. The iPhone may be just the beginning of an exciting new chapter in the storied life of HTML. The second part. Ten: The Next Big Thing CSS is ten years old this year. Such an anniversary is an opportunity to revisit the past and chart the future. H kon Wium Lie, the CSS-Evangelist who has proposed the idea of Cascading Stylesheets to W3C, motivates online-community for further changes. His proposal: instead of making pictures of fonts, the actual font files can be linked to and retrieved from the web. This way, designers can use TrueType fonts without having to freeze the text as background images. This can be done via media queries. The Ultimate Design Brief Your design can only be as good as the brief you worked from. The best projects are borne from briefs that are open enough to inspire ideas, while being specific enough to feel workable. Shaun Crowley shows how you can elicit these kinds of briefs by providing clients with briefing templates. This Way to the Web, Print Designers! The transition from print design to web design isn’t a simple task and has many challenges. Khoi Vahn provides print designers with some useful starting points and references. In Web absolute precision of positioning is replaced with the absolute flexibility of content presentation. “The fact that I m repeating that the Web is not like the printed page, that online information consumption is fundamentally different from print, is certainly adding nothing new to the conversation. The point I want to emphasize is not just that print designers need to be aware of this, but rather that they should approach it with genuine alacrity.” Fixing the Web “The Web is about 17 years old. For its first 10 years, Web technology evolved at breakneck speed. But for the last 7 years, Web technology hasn’t changed much at all. Is this a problem? There are clear benefits to having a stable development environment, but is Web technology stable or stale? Without innovation, will the Web suffer the same fate as any technology that becomes outdated because it fails to keep pace with users’ needs?” CSS Layouts: The Fixed. The Fluid. The Elastic. Mike Cherim explains the difference between the three layout types as well as their advantages and disadvantages. A fixed width site is one where the main wrapper is set to a specific immovable width independent of the user agent s display resolution. A fluid or liquid layout is created by not specifying a wrapper width at all or doing so using the percentage unit of measure. An elastic site s main wrapper and other elements are measured using ems as the unit of measure. Ems are relative proportionally to the text or font size. Home Sweet Home There s no place like home page. Paul Boag gives us 4 ways he works with clients to understand the value and kill off the misconceptions of this century s homepages. From the mythical fold to the killer app, this article proves you can go home again. Primary & Secondary Actions in Web Forms Luke Wroblewski discusses an optimal approach to designing usable online-forms. Result: different visual weight of primary (Submit) and secondary (Cancel) actions (e.g. font size) helps the visitor to avoid mistakes and get things done faster. Besides: the alignment of actions with a form s input elements provides a clear path to completion that helps people complete forms faster. iconeye manifestos Iconeye asked 50 of the most influential architects, designers and thinkers to share what they believe in in a Manifesto issue. The result: 50 manifestations of the prominent designers all around the globe. Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings (Jakob Nielsen) A new research by Jakob Nielsen proves: users rarely look at display advertisements on websites. Of the four design elements that do attract a few ad fixations, one is unethical and reduces the value of advertising networks. 15 Design Decisions That Annoy Readers An overview of 15 annoying practices in modern Web Design which should be avoided if possible. Give Me Some Zzzzz’s An extensive article about the z-index-property in CSS for stacking div-layers upon each other. Important: only absolutely or relatively positioned elements can have z-index. Semantics in HTML Many Web-Evangelists see the future of the Web in the concept of Semantic Web. But what exactly is it? And what is the current state of developments? John Allsopp about the Semantics in HTML. The Elements of Design Applied to the Web In a similar vein as the The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web, the various principles of general design have their place in web based design. An overview of principles which are typical in modern site architecture: Balance, Proportion, Rhythm, Emphasis, Unity. The 10 Biggest Mistakes Freelancers Make, and How to Avoid Them Let s take a look at some of the most essential mistakes that freelancers, new and old, often make, and how to avoid them. Typical mistakes: missing deadlines, charging too little, lack of preliminary research, getting to personal, not proposing a follow-up idea. Getting A Form’s Structure Right A comprehensive article about the effective design of web-forms - with many examples and explanations. Design-Showcases, Inspiration muse | a collection of inspiration A “fresh” Design-showcase by Drew Wilson. Muse will not only showcase great art, but it will also attempt to showcase the inspiration behind the art. And ultimately the inspiration of great artists/creators. Showcase: WordPress CSS Gallery Theme A WordPress-Theme of design-showcase-sites, such as CSS-Design-Showcases. There are probably too many of them; however, it’s nice to have the template ready to hand once you need it. Contact Forms Showcase A gallery of contact forms includes 30 entries. Christian Watson presents 62 more forms and a showcase of registration forms. Yuxt - artist: typography_in_music_videos A showcase of music-videos in which typography plays an important role. MagWerk Over 100 pages of beautiful design, illustration, photos and interviews with designers and graphic artists. The September-issues of “encore”. CMS Showcase CMS Showcase presents categorizes designs not by their content, structure or outer appearance, but by the weblog-engine they are built upon. Logo Trends 2007 The Trends in Logo Design 2007 in a brief overview. typography - a photoset on Flickr A showcase of beautiful typefaces in a regularly updated Flickr pool. Letra Latinas 2006 - more beauties of modern typography. Portfolio - a photoset on Flickr Polaroid-Photos - partly from advertisements and print materials. Excellent for looking up some “working” color palettes. Idea Mapping Set - a photoset on Flickr How to document your ideas on a blank sheet of paper? Elegant examples for Mindmaps in a Flickr pool. The Last Click Content Aware Image Resizing (YouTube, Quicktime, hi-res video)) Over the last decade visitors had to put up with the static presentation of images, while web-writers had to get used to the limited possibilities for optimizing and preparing images for Web. Now might be the right time to rethink the concept finally. With this new technology, developed by Ariel Shamir and Shai Avidan, images can be scaled and formed dynamically: apart from dimensions also the content of the images itself changes. Since Shai Avidan was hired by Adobe, the technique might be used already in the next versions of Adobe Photoshop. Absolutely fascinating technique. A Brief Message The project gives designers a podium to deliver their messages, criticism and standpoints to the design community. The only requirement: designers have to be brief and have max. 200 words for their messages. It applies to comments too. HistoryShots Information Graphics - Prints 12 impressive data visualization approaches. Further approaches. Stop Motion Commercial 1 million Post-it’s, 96 314 digital photographs using 2.5 terabytes of storage, 4.9 kilometers of 35mm film, 3 weeks of editing, and 83 hours in Flame to produce this 60 second commercial for MTN. Blog Action Day What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day? One issue. One day. Thousands of voices. On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future. Everybody can participate.
Source: feeds.feedburner.com

Silicon Valley Turns Out to Honor Top Technologists
Silicon Valley is not known for paying much attention to its own history but things are changing. The Computer History Museum’s 2007 Fellow Awards was sold out as much of Silicon Valley’s aristocracy turned out for a $250 fund raising dinner that paid tribute to four top technologists: Morris Chang, John Hennessy, David A. Patterson and Charles Thacker. Morris Chang helped create the fabless chip industry. And in doing so, he created a massive innovation platform by enabling small bands of chip designers to buy production time as they needed it. Chip companies no longer needed to own and maintain hugely expensive chip fabs. John Hennessy helped develop the RISC microprocessor, whose features are found in all modern microprocessors. As president of Stanford University, he has made huge contributions to education, and the creation of a student body that has gone on to found many of Silicon Valley’s largest companies. And his work has helped generate huge licensing revenue for the university. David Patterson made important contributions to microprocessor design and RAID data storage technologies. As head of Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley, he has helped educate generations of computer engineers. Charles Thacker helped create the personal computer. His work at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center led to the Alto, the machine that inspired Apple Computer and featured a windows graphical user interface. He co-developed Ethernet and also the laser printer. Tags: Morris Chang, John Hennessy, David A. Patterson, Charles Thacker, John Hennessy, David Patterson, Charles Thacker
Source: www.podtech.net

SpoolCast: An Interview with Cameron Moll
SpoolCast: An Interview with Cameron Moll Recorded: September 7th, 2007 from the d.Construct 2007 Conference, Brighton, England Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 30m | File size: 17 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] On my recent trip to the d.Construct 2007 conference in Brighton, England, I had the good fortune to sit down with acclaimed designer Cameron Moll. Cameron is the Interaction Design Manager for the LDS Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the work he oversees reaches a world-wide audience. His very popular design blog Authentic Boredom, regularly features engaging articles and unleashed the “wicked worn” look across the web, which earned him a mention on NPR. Cameron’s excellent talk at d.Construct was about the differences between good design and great design. (Fortunately, he’s covering this topic — and much more — in his almost sold out full-day UI12 tutorial session.) I found Cameron’s perspectives on graphic design theory, HCI principals, and his communication-centric approach both fascinating and stunningly effective. In our conversation, Cameron let me in on his background and his unusual journey to both design and the web. We discussed the importance of getting to know your customer before you make design decisions. We also discussed what to do after each project so you take its lessons forward. Like many of us, Cameron works in a large, complex organization. This means managing design decisions and wrestling (often inflexible) enterprise technology. He talked to me about how he has integrated his real-world experiences into his UI12 tutorial and how he is working on bringing elegance and great function to his complex work projects. Even though Cameron is recognized for his world-class design talent, I am surprised how friendly and humble he is. We had a fascinating conversation that I think you’ll enjoy. New: Survey and listener drawing! We would like to give you and your co-workers free admission to our next Virtual Seminar program, with full, lifetime access to the archived program as well! All you need to do to be eligible is give us your feedback on your podcast listening experience. Fill out the following survey and each week we’ll randomly send one survey participant a free admission to the next UIE Virtual Seminar and Archive, a $169.00 value! We appreciate your input! Participate in our survey to win!
Source: www.uie.com

Keywords: Printing,Publishing,Graphic Design,Printing,Color Copies,Publishing