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Blog | Web Directions

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Shiny CSS buttons

• In: Blog
• By: John
• December 23rd, 2008

Drew McLellan and Brian Suda, curators of the now traditional “24 Ways” web developers advent calendar kindly asked me to write something for the 2008 edition.

So, having been playing around a lot with CSS3 and experimental CSS currently supported in various browsers, I put together a proof of concept using CSS gradients (currently in webkit browsers), text-shadow (webkit, Opera and Firefox 3.1) box-shadow (webkit and reportedly Firefox 3.1), an border-radius (webkit and Firefox 3+), to create buttons which look like this

(with not an image in sight!)

So head on over to 24 ways and get shining up the web.

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State of the web survey closes today

• In: Blog
• By: John
• December 20th, 2008

Today’s your last chance to do the first “State of the web” survey for web designers and developers. If you can find a few minutes to take the anonymous survey about web design and development practices, it will definitely help gain a better understanding about current best practice in the industry.

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Adrian Holovaty featured in the Chicago Tribune

• In: Blog
• By: John
• December 17th, 2008

While these days Chicago might have an even bigger “local boy makes good” story than Adrian Holovaty, I’m happy to say that I consider Adrian one of the most incentive, and nicest people doing stuff on the web. We’ve had the great privilege to have him speak at both Web Directions North and South, and hope to do so again in the future.

Adrian’s list of accomplishments and achievements are long, and almost defy belief. And as mentioned, of all the wonderful, generous folks from the web industry I’ve had the privilege to meet these last 10 years or so, Adrian has to be one of the very nicest and most generous with his time and expertise.

Via Slate, where he gets a name check in a story on the crisis in journalism, I found a reference to a detailed profile of Adrian in the Chicago Tribune earlier this year.

If you’ve got a few moments, I do recommend it.

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Cartoon characters and pornography

• In: Blog
• By: John
• December 17th, 2008

Last week, I drafted an article on a NSW Supreme Court decision, finding a man guilty of possessing child pornography, in the form of a cartoon depicting various members of the Simpsons family in sexual acts. But I didn’t publish it. I censored myself, because frankly in the current climate, where a man in Queensland is being investigated by what is in effect the child sex offences for what appears to be nothing more than uploading a video that depicts what may be considered child abuse (a child being swirled around rather roughly) to a video sharing site, who knows what will or won’t get you in hot water, or worse. The fact that the video had appeared on Television in the US, and viewed by millions around the world. Even viewing it in Australia may be an offence.

So, rather than putting my thoughts here, I’ll link to an article by the esteemed US journalist William Saletan, at Slate, and his thoughts on the specific situation here. I hope linking to it is not some kind if offence.

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Job - Online Director at GetUp

• In: Blog
• By: John
• December 17th, 2008

A job that will appeal to quite a few of our readers, Online Director at GetUp, just popped up at our jobs board.

We are looking for a dynamic, self-motivated individual to direct the overall growth and strategic direction of GetUp’s online presence.

As the leader of our online team you will manage our cutting edge and comprehensive online strategy, including internal and external promotion, content creation, design development and implementation, and on-line partnership building.

GetUp are currently very active in opposition to the Federal Government’s silly planned ‘net censorship regime, among many other progressive issues.

If you are interested, check out the job posting for more.

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Dan Saffer on touchscreen desktops

• In: Blog
• By: John
• December 17th, 2008

Via the ever excellent core77, a great place to keep up with design trends and events beyond the web, Dan Saffer who’ll be doing both a presentation and workshop at Web Directions North talks about whether “pure” touchscreen systems really are a great interface for desktop type interfaces.

More at Dan’s blog. Right now this might all seem a bit like science fiction, but I’ve little doubt that in not too long, as web designers and developers we’ll all be considering these issues on a day to day basis.

Really worth a read.

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State of the Web Survey - a few days to go

• In: Blog
• By: John
• December 16th, 2008

There’s still a few days to go to complete our State of the Web Survey - along with the well over 1,000 people who’ve done so so far.

If you’ve not done so, please think about finding the time - it should only take a few minutes.

And remember, we’ll be releasing all the data (anonymized of course) early in 2009.

For all those who’ve already completed the survey, thanks so much, and stay tuned for some very interesting results early in the new year.

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Google Chrome exits beta

• In: Blog
• By: John
• December 12th, 2008

In what might be some sort of record for Google, Chrome, their webkit based browser, has gone 1.0 today.

In our survey of web developers and designers, we asked what browsers people use, and what they test for, and we’ll be interested to see whether early adopter web types are using and or testing for Chrome.

Does the world need a new browser? Can’t ever be too any? What do you folks think?

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Donate to the W3C’s Validator project

• In: Blog
• By: John
• December 12th, 2008

OK folks,

you’ve used them many many times, so now’s your chance to contribute to the W3C’s validator project to help keep these vitally important tools for us web people going strong.

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Print and Web Designer/Develop Job at IMMEDIA!

• In: Blog
• By: John
• December 11th, 2008

With our Jobs site up and running, we don’t post too many job ads here on the blog, but from time to time we want to draw attention to ones that turn up.

IMMEDIA!, legendary in the Australian music scene, is looking for someone to replace their long standing, and almost as legendary tech guru, print and web designer.

IMMEDIA! publishes the AustralAsian Music Industry Directory, the biannual music trade contacts sourcebook available in print and online. They represent the South by Southwest (SxSW) Music, Film and Interactive Festivals and Conferences - for Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. And, they run the three-day AustralAsian Music Business Conference (AMBC), a biennial powwow for music industry aspirants and professionals alike.

IMMEDIA! also provide an extensive array of music industry resources including a music biz bookstore and a highly-trafficked news site, TheMusic.com.au.

So, if that sounds like your environment, and the idea of working in a great converted terrace building in Newtown sounds appealing, check out the job description.

Oh, and they make a killer coffee too.

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