The recent course I went on was full of software engineers and back end developers, and there I was representing for the front-end geeks, and I felt like a fish out of water!  Granted I did take a computer science degree, and have always been a bit of a geek, but I’ve always primarily dealt with the build of design rather than the functionality. This sudden surge of logical thinking is somewhat overwhelming now that I’m adding behavourial aspects to a page!

I now sit at my desk with books, and tutorials, and web references and notes and structural thought, all in front of me, and its making me sleepy.  Its always something that I knew I’d end up getting into but am I suddenly become a cliche “jack of all trades” in the web industry.  If so, can I take a break…I’m pooped!

Will be heading down to Islington Thursday morning to the web media extravaganza that is @media.

SEE YOU THERE!!!

Tags: atmedia, atmedia2007, @media, @media2007

Belated Happy New Year to all…I assume all resolutions have gone out of the window already, as mine had after two days!

But to start off my first post for the new year, the vivabit guys are back with @media2007.  This time its global, hitting up the US, Hong Kong and London town!

I’m not sure if I’m definitely going just yet, but hopefully will be…it looks like it could be a gooden!!!

Tags: atmedia, atmedia2007

It is difficult for some to get into a job and suddenly be bombarded with things they never thought they’d have to take on board.

Spookily it kinda goes hand in hand with Molly Holzschlag’s post on specialization in the web as well as my very own post.

Specialisation in these fields is a tiresome and often long process which can take its toll, especially when the industry is constantly moving into new areas faster than we can manage!

If you’re gonna delve into other areas, do it properly…that’s what I say!

Russ’ (thegooglecache) genius confirms many people’s thoughts that flash sites these days are not accessible.

From my intial encounter with flash 5 years ago, it would appear that every common site would have a splash page, some funky motion tweening, some swanky actionscripting that would make you want to learn more. You saw the likes of 2advanced, yugop, and many more making their stand in the web world. It looked like everybody was jumping on the flash/actionscripting bandwagon!

Now that accessibility has made such an impact in the web industry, how things change. Now we surf the web with the hopes of quick loading, search friendly, and cross browser/cross platform friendly sites, that do not deny access to ANYBODY.

For those that attended Robin Christopherson’s talk at @media this year, you will recall his macromedia flash example in which he couldn’t get passed the first slide with his screen reader, despite the presentation being on “Designing Accessible Flash”.

I’ve always been a fan of flash, but only when it is used in the right way. For many entertainment sites, it coincides with the content. You want something cool, something funky, yet you cannot sacrifice that for obtainable content. There has to be a balance.

I believe that flash should be used for subtle effects, what I like to call the niceities of a site. As well as animations such as A Break in the Road, and games such as those created by ferry halim. These sites are created for entertainment value to a particular type of target audience.

For those companies/organisations that wish to reach out to all users, use flash sparingly.

Tags: flash, accessibility, atmedia2006, atmedia

Tags: atmedia, atmedia2007

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006/8/21/5065

Well its good to see that Microsoft are taking an interest in the work on Firefox. About bleedin’ time!

Forever the synic, I have to wonder whether this is all just a ploy to make those anti-IE people see Microsoft in a better light. Rather than help the developers work on making Firefox run smoother, maybe they should concentrate on making their own browser more standards compliant!

Tags: IE, Firefox, Microsoft, Mozilla, Browsers, Windows+Vista

http://www.vivabit.com/atmedia2006/blog/

Excellent stuff

Tags: atmedia, atmedia2006, podcasts

How times have changed. No longer are you able to fall in one of these two camps, because all these titles have emerged on recruitment sites:

• Web developer
• Back-end developer
• Front-end developer
• Ruby on rails developer
• Web designer/developer
• New media designer/graphic designer/developer
• Web master
• etc etc etc

It would seem that you need to be an uber geek these days to pass off as either a developer or designer.

I used to be one of those individuals that would try and dabble in a bit of this, a bit of that, and get caught up in the current version of a language, to only then realise that it was no longer applicable, and you had to learn the most recent version. (Yes I am referring to my attempts of mastering actionscripting in Flash 5!!!) Then I gave up, and decided to focus on what I knew, and master it well.

However, it seems that nowadays, being a jack of all trades is slowly becoming the norm…although I don’t know how people can manage to absorb that much! You must have all seen job postings where to be a designer, you should also be capable of writing in ASP.NET, XML, Javascript and XSL.

When people ask me what I do as a profession, I say that I’m a front-end developer. My business card may display the title “Web Developer”, but I find that it is somewhat misleading.

In my eyes, a front-end developer means that you are the middle person between the back-end techies and the designers. You are the one that cares about how a page looks as well as how it behaves/functions. The one that takes into account accessibility, usability, the use of css and xhtml in the correct way.

The title “Web Developer” can encompass the work of a front-end developer, but it can also mean a lot more. I recall introducing myself to a family friend last year, and they asked me what I do…I said that I was a web developer, and then they started asking me about java, asp, etc etc, at which point I looked blankly at them!

So what is the point I am trying to make? Well…the point is that working in an industry where new releases of languages and software are the norm, trying to bombard yourself with everything you think you need to know can be overwhelming and tiring.

Improve on the skills you have and find areas which are related, so that you can slowly make that transition successfully. Otherwise it won’t work well enough, if you just pick things up willy nilly for the sake of keeping up with the latest web trend.

Now I must dash, and read up on my CSS Mastery book

ps. Can anybody recommend a good javascript book to read?

For those of you that may update their css files on a site that you frequently visit, you need to consider the fact that even though the html may change, the css file will remain the same on the client side (due to the caching).

Stefan Hayden has found a fix for this, which he wrote around April (I guess I was a bit slow on this issue), so HURRAH, looks like there is a solution to accessing different versions of css files without the need of renaming the files!

Tags: css, cache, hack