Texture design

Microsoft Releasing Standards-Based Web Design Tool

While it seems the feedback and criticism of IE7 has been predominantly on the negative side, Microsoft is getting set to launch Microsoft Office 2007 at the end of this week, and with it will come several other new web tools.

Apparently, Web Expression will be a tool that will actually be useful for designers, and not just for your average Joe, designed to be a professional-level product. It will eventually replace Frontpage, but will of course be going up against the big guns of Dreamweaver and GoLive.

Robert Scoble of Podtech recently shot a demo with product manager Wayne Smith - check it out.

Raincity Seeking Flash Animator

Raincity Studios is currently looking for a kickin' flash animator. Perhaps you? Know of such a person? Please, pass the word along.

Ideally, this candidate loves animating in flash, hence the whole flash animator slant. And we're not talking about a bouncing ball across a screen - an honest to goodness animator. Actionscript 2 guru would be the ideal as well, but not as essential.

Please get in touch with us if you are interested, with "Flash Animation Position" in the subject line, or pass this along to anyone who you think may be.

Check out our site and get a sense of who we are and what we're all about.

Technology Branding 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games

I'm here at Presentation Centre at the Great Northern Way Campus, the new home for New Media BC and the future home for the Centre of Digital Media. Today is all about bringing together different sectors of technology, government representatives and members of the VANOC team.

With the Vancouver/Whistler Olympic Games kicking off in a mere 1163 days, now is the time to initiate the vision and branding for how we are going to best represent ourselves to the world. With billions of people from around the globe watching in 2010, it will be a precious time to define BC and Canada for perhaps the 25 years following, so who do we want to be? Is this a time when we can take advantage of this opportunity to change the way the world views Canada?

Using the latest in digital technology is an integral aspect in branding us as a world leader in new media. Just some of the ideas that were generated and expressed today with respect to new media and technology influencing our image in the 2010 Games:

• Let us shape new technology of the future, and not just be a part of it.
• Make the roof of BC Place a virtual world, a projector screen - enhancing the experience of the live audience, so that in turn, the television audience is experiencing the same positive, exhilarating feeling.
• Utilize real-time rendering: the ability use the computer to create characters, scenes, locations, and have each interact with one another - live imagery and computer generated imagery
• Collaboration between local companies here in Vancouver is an essential aspect of contributing to best-representing ourselves as a city, a province and a country.
• Bring the intense desire for community that has been found through the avenue of Second Life to connections and the possibility of virtual communities to the Olympics. One idea was to run the Torch through absolutely every location and community from coast to coast!

Scales and kk are here, of course, and are speaking to the group about how the media and therefore the coverage of the games has changed, due in no small part to new technologies and companies, and to showcase how Raincity and Bryght can be of great help and service to growing online communities leading up to 2010.

I am very much addicted to the Read/Write Web, that is to say: it's where I like to surf for all the latest and greatest. And this upcoming week is no exception.

You want reviews of 2006 and all that shook down and what it all means as we launch into 2007? Richard MacManus and his 2.0 crack team of writers always seem to hit all the issues, news, conferences, and sum them up well, with honesty and realism in their writing, reporting and critiquing.

SO - I'll be watching and reading and hopefully reporting back and linking on The Standard, as per the usual, but let's be honest, it's 11 days, yes, ELEVEN days, until the stores close and the 12 Days of Christmas (technically are supposed to, in theory) begin. So while I shop, or rather, make my homemade gifts (oh my family love me for it, really they do) and we all feast over and over again, you can always take a spin through the read/write to catch what you've missed.

That is, if Grandma's house has that wifi hook-up so you can escape away to feed your addiction between eggnog and Santa chocolates.

One of the basic consideration in web 2.0 concept is 'tagging' where any contents in the web can be associated with one or more tags, which can be shared among social community network. It lets others to find any content according to their chosen tag. Tag is nothing, but a way to categorize any web content. In real world, any visitor can quickly reach to a content thru it's associated tags, can thus get a basic idea about whether s/he will consider it to read/download etc. "Search" is older concept to help users to find any desired content, but "Tags" provides users to have an open track to find his own choice which has not been discovered yet!

I am really a tag lover. All of the Web 2.0 sites I am using, I am associating web contents with tags, which helps me to properly organize and structure those. Well, the real world is not bed of roses, so I started to get confused, as soon as my contents get larger. For example, http://del.icio.us is one of my very favorite site, which is a award winning web 2.0 site, dedicated for bookmarking urls. Using browser buttons of http://del.icio.us, I can quickly bookmark any web page that I was just visiting into my http://del.icio.us account, with the URL, title, comment, as well as associate appropriate tags, which I have been defined previously in my account settings. From the beginning it really helped me to keep track of my web studies. So life got easier, it's matter of few seconds for me to find any site of a specific category, that I have been visited and found useful.

The Real World

Unfortunately, I am really a nerd reader So with in few months, number of my bookmarks crossed couple of hundreds. It turns to a bit problem to me, to find any URL through tag/category, as some of tags already have over hundreds of urls. More over, there are few tags, with similar or nearer meaning (for example: software-development, .NET, C#), and while searching, I didn't get sure that, in which tag, I have been associated the content, that I am just searching for!

So I started to feel that, I need to organize my tags in more intelligent way, so that for a long term period, all of my contents can be grouped together and found in much quicker time.

In the coming days, tags are getting more important place over the web, so we need to have some good concept and convention while tagging! Well, the popularity of tags lies due to its simplicity, so it will be used by the web users in very quick but un-structured way in the maximum time. That's great tho, you are free to choose your tags, but for important contents, "Intelligent" tags will really save lots of our time and effort!

Intelligent? Huh! Tags will be intelligent?

Well, tags can't be intelligent, it's true, but the fact is it can be designed and considered in intelligent way!

Object Oriented Tagging

Object Oriented concept has achieved a great deal of popularity among software developers in previous 2 decades. According to this concept, all real world entities, regarding a given context (or software requirements) are classified into separate areas and utilize each other as needed. One of the basic principal of Object Oriented technology is "Inheritance", where new classes can be inherited from super or base classes, that includes properties of it's parent class. This design idea facilitates the management of software architecture and codes very effectively, specially for large scale software.

When we have large number of contents (for example: URL, image etc), the associated tags can utilized in according to the concept of "Inheritance" to manage all contents properly. Here tags should be structured like the "Tree" data structure (root node, parent node, child node, siblings node etc)! For example, we have a base tag "Software Development", clicking on which will result all the contents related to software development. Now consider another tag, named ".NET", which is a sub tag or sub category of "Software Development" tag. Clicking on the tag ".NET" should list the result related to ".NET", which will include a sub portion of "Software Development" tag. Clicking on the tag "Software Development" will considers the contents all the sub tags of "Software Development", including ".NET" tag contents.

It would be great, if users can define the tree structure of the "Tag Inheritance" tree structure through the web application and thus create the life easy while putting the tags for a content, as well as searching contents through tags will work in much meaningful and faster way. If we have a built-in support for defining tag tree structure, it would take only one "Tag" defining a content in .NET, along with relating the content with "Software Development" tag category. Otherwise both tags "Software Development" and ".NET" needs to be considered with independent (and meaningless) relation among these two tags.

A Sample Structure

To understand the problem in deeper sense, lets go with more complicated example. Consider the following tag structure.

In a given example, all ASP.NET and C# contents are in sub tag of .NET. But an ASP.NET content might not related to C#, can be VB.NET or other stuffs and vice versa. So they lies in the same layer. In this context, considering ".NET" tag, it includes all tags related to "ASP.NET" and "C#" tag, but "ASP.NET" tag contents don't include "C#" tag contents.

Also, .NET can be a sub category of "Software Development", as this is a software development framework. But "Software Development" tag might have other issues, which are not related to .NET. As well as, .NET can be a sub category of "Microsoft", as this is a development framework by Microsoft. But "Microsoft" tag might have other issues, which are not related to .NET. So considering the tag "Software Development" or "Microsoft" guarantees to get the content of ALL of their sub category contents (.NET, ASP.NET, C#) but not vice versa.

Solution

Besides the built-in support in web application, we can solve this issues by maintaining our own policy while define and implement our tags. After some brain storming, I found two ways, where this object oriented approach can be fitted!

1. Root level

While bookmarking, consider the lowest level, and DON'T consider the corresponding upper parents. For example, "ASP.NET". We will define the tree structure by creating a special bookmark for each parent node. In this case, in the web application, we need to have a support to merge the contents of tags, which can be used by any other users in later time though a labeled name for that merged list. For example: For the merged list of "Microsoft", we can define it as follows:

Microsoft = ".NET" + "ASP.NET" + "C#" + {unclassifield "Microsoft" list}

2. Node level

While bookmarking any contents, starting from the lowest level, all parents corresponding to that level should be marked.

For example: a content related to "ASP.NET" should be bookmarked as follows:

ASP.NET content = "ASP.NET" + ".NET" + "Microsoft" + "Software Development"

Technically this is the most easiest way, as we don't need any type of support in the web application. All we need, is just to have a flat set of tags, which relations will be maintained while tagging. The problem is, the user always needs to remind the hierarchy of tags. As this is relatively tough for the users to remind the hierarchy, this idea can be used only in special or important content, where we don't have any tree or merge support in the web application.

Cisco Gets Jealous Over Apple's Dream Toy

Based on the fact that it's Apple, and Steve Jobs, and a tagline that reads: "Apple reinvents the phone", I think that Cisco doesn't have a hope in hell, and Apple Inc. knows it.

As of late Wednesday, Cisco Systems is suing Apple Inc. in US Federal Court for their trademark on their own handheld device, IPhone. That's with a capital "I". Apparently, Apple has been repeatedly asking Cisco for its' permission to make use of the brand, a name the company has held for 7 years.

I think the legal team over at Mr. Jobs' Mecca has likely been over this one, and this was just part of the grand master business plan in launching what is the most lovely phone ever to grace this land. Not to totally write off Cisco, I mean, it's Cisco and all, but, well, come on, it's Apple.

I'm sold on the iPhone. Who wouldn't be after that keynote? And once those inevitable bugs are worked out and the price drops a wee bit, oh yes, it will be mine.

Attention:

Raincity Studios is seeking an experienced Web Designer to perform work on a contractual basis. Applicant should have a sizable portfolio of their professional design work available for immediate review.

Details:

Two Positions available:

* Web Designer

* Web Designer/Developer

Web Designer Qualifications include:

* a flawless understanding of branding and design for dynamic, interaction-driven websites and web applications

* Familiarity with current and upcoming web design trends

* Creativity and problem-solving abilities a must

Web Designer/Developer Qualifications include:

* All of the above qualifications plus...

* Web Standards development techniques including CSS and XHTML

Additionally, PHP fluency will give the applicant a large leg up. Familiarity with the Drupal CMS a large plus.

If you are interested in working with Raincity, please forward your cv, portfolio URL and any other additional files or information to: inquire@raincitystudios.com

Raincity Launches Social Networking Website For Kids

Kidzworld: a fully moderated, safe and secure social networking site for kids. In this world, internet savvy grade-schoolers can play games, enter contests, win prizes, test their knowledge in trivia quizzes, keep up to date on the latest sports and entertainment news, and meet other Kidzworld members from all over the world!

Even though it's designed and created for kids online, the kid in you will dig this site. My favourite section is the photo and videosharing KW Zone. Once you set up your profile, you can upload pictures, videos, find friends, add friends, comment on others' photos, and the coolest feature: edit the entire design of your KWZone to pretty much anything as many times as you want!

You can check out all the latest in the sports world, listen to your favourite tunes on KW Radio and get up to date on all the latest gossip in entertainment - wow, I think I just described my perfect news source!

Jeremy Hubert, Raincity's Director of Web Development and Lead Ruby on Rails developer, built the site from the ground up. It was an enormous challenge and took months of the nose to the grindstone, meeting with the team at Kidzworld on a regular basis to get the perfect product developed to their satisfaction and off the ground.

The site was built entirely in Ruby on Rails, and is, without a doubt, one of the largest deployments of a Rails site EVER!

Congrats Jeremy - what a feat! Now, let the kid in all of you take a spin through a Kidzworld - enjoy!

The blogosphere flew into its usual uproar a few days ago when the inventor of the World Wide Web himself, the venerated Tim Berners-Lee, was recently recorded in a podcast calling Web 2.0 nothing more than a piece of jargon.  There is little love and plenty of misunderstanding for this term in many quarters of the industry, despite the fact it has been painstakingly described by those that identified it to the world.  For all the folks tired of hearing about Web 2.0 and very often not knowing what it means, there nevertheless remains the underlying reason for coining it: clearly apparent, widespread new trends in the way the Web is being used.

Of all the analysis I've read of the Berners-Lee podcast (and there's a bunch, read Dana Gardner, John Furrier, even Dead 2.0), it's Jeremy Geelan who has captured the real insight here with his post, "The Perfect Storm of Web 2.0 Disruption", where he brilliantly explains what is probably the key to the real significance of the Web 2.0 phenomenon as a portentous crossroads between the old and the new:

Web 2.0 is an example of what the historian Daniel Boorstin would have called "the Fertile Verge" - "a place of encounter between something and something else." Boorstin (and here I am wholly indebted to Virginia Postrel) pinpointed such "verges" as being nothing short of the secret to American creativity.

Postrel sums up what Boorstin was saying as follows:

"A verge is not a sharp border but a frontier region: where the forest meets the prairie or the mountains meet the flatlands, where ecosystems or ideas mingle. Verges between land and sea, between civilization and wilderness, between black and white, between immigrants and natives...between state and national governments, between city and countryside - all mark the American experience."

-- Jeremy Geelan

Web 2.0 Is Much More About A Change In People and Society Than Technology

• There are over a billion Internet users now. Network effects can quickly climb in even small corners of the Internet, since small can now mean just a hundred thousand users.
• Many of these users have become profoundly Web-fluent.  Robert Scoble observed recently that many users are still casual and non-expert, but almost all can search, they can post, they can edit a Wiki, and a lot of of them are now comfortable cutting and pasting Javascript snippets, and frequently much more.  They are in control of the vehicle now.
• Powerful practices in Web site design are becoming widely known.  The best and often most successful sites are finding out that carefully designing what Tim O'Reilly calls harnessing collective intelligence deep into the design of their sites can provide truly amazing results.  And this aspect of how we use the Web is actually far behind the first two trends.  It's still surprising to me that many people cite Ajax as the exemplar of Web 2.0 and not building networked applications that leverage user contributions and trigger network effects.  There's quite a bit of headroom here in fact, and I expect to continue to see compelling advances in Web 2.0 software design.

• Thus, power and control is shifting to the new creators.  As the users of the Web produce the vast majority of content (and soon, even software), they are therefore in control of it.  This shift of control has enormous long-term consequences since the Internet tends to route right around whatever central controls try to be applied.  The implications for traditional organizations are fascinating and will only increase as the MySpace generation heads into the workplace in large numbers.

There are more secondary trends related to Web 2.0 but the first three are the key, without all three, I would assert we would not be seeing some of the truly amazing things out on the Web that we see today.  Is all of this "frothy", as Robert Scoble recently claimed.  Not in the slightest.  Are people excited about it?  Yes, and they should be.  And while I don't find the term itself to be particularly important -- it's the ideas behind it that are so interesting -- the fact that so many people feel so strongy about the term Web 2.0 tells us that it's something we should understand better.

BTW, in that last link Scoble was talking about The New New Internet, a Washington DC-based Web 2.0 conference I'm involved in.  I can assure you it'll be as far from content free as you can get and I do hope to see you there.

Posted by randfish

Hello. Mystery Guest here. Rand isn't feeling quite well right now, so he asked that I blog┬? on his behalf. As most of you probably know, his father has been in the hospital for over a week now, and is currently fighting a fever that won't seem to go away. We're all hoping for the best. Rand just returned from a trip out east and headed straight from the airport to see his dad, so he's feeling a bit tired.

So that leaves you poor saps in my hands. I asked┬?Rand what I should write about, and begged for a topic that my little non-Design brain could handle. He suggested I write about elements of online shopping that piss me off. Fine.┬?That┬?I can do. But realizing that┬?between this and my┬?other posts, I might be painting┬?a picture of myself that isn't quite accurate, a few disclaimers: First off, please don't think that all I do is shop, watch television, and film videos of myself doing stupid things. I'm a fairly substantial person, at least on occasion.┬?Seriously. My favorite book is Catch-22. I'm a writer - and not even recreationally. I'm actually paid for it. I promise. I'm smart. I'm worthy of Rand. Really.

And, most importantly, I don't sit and think about shopping┬?while my boyfriend's father is sick in the hospital. But I've learned that when people need you, it might not always be in the capacity you expect. Some people need a hug. Some need someone to sit and listen. In this instance, Rand needs me to blog. So, baby, this is for you. I hope I don't screw up.

That being said, on to what pisses me off about online shopping.

1. "Complete the Outfit" features that don't work I'd like to think I'm fairly fashionable. I only wore Ugg boots with shorts once, but I promise it was over 2 years and 10 pounds ago. Even so, I need an occasional hand figuring out what to pair with what. And to be honest, some of the stuff they sell at Anthropologie is pretty damn confusing. Really? I should pair the vintage-inspired silk kimono print top with cargo capris? I didn't see that coming. And while it might not necessarily be a feature I utilize, it's still pretty handy. But if a site has it, I say at least do it right. Last time I was shopping on Anthropologie.com, it suggested I "complete the outfit" by pairing the cute brown boots I was looking at with, quite inexplicably, two other pairs of brown boots. I tried to figure out the logistics of this, and could not. Unless I somehow laced the remaining boots into a type of corset. But then I'd still need pants.
2. Search┬?features that suck. Okay, so maybe the reason I'm┬?always broke is that I'm always shopping on┬?Anthropologie┬?("Eighty bucks for a sweatshirt? What the hell's up with that place?" - Rebecca). But I'm convinced I'd spend less time there if the search capabilities weren't so terrible. If you want to look at blouses, you can't simply select "see all". Instead, you have to browse by blouse categories, which are often given confusing titles like "feminine", "flirty", and "on the go". As opposed to those stay at home blouses.
3. Sites that don't list out of stock items as "out of stock". This is just foul. Really. It's kind of evil. It's like telling a child you are taking them to Disneyland, then driving them to an empty lot and saying, "Oh, looks like Disneyland burned down." It's simple - if an item is out of stock in the color and/or size that I want, then please, please don't allow me to select the item. Telling me it is "unavailable" after I've already decided to buy it is too late. Now what the hell am I going to wear with my leather boots corset?
4. Review your purchase pages that don't let you review your purchases. In the world of women's online shopping, clothing is given stupid names. I nearly bought a pair of ugly shoes because they were named after me (shut up, Matt). Often times, these names┬?suggest nothing┬?of the product itself, which can be alarming if you see the "Brenda Walsh sundress" and the "Rohypnol tank top" in your cart┬?without a link or image to remind you of what it was you selected. Is it really so hard to add a link on the review page?
5. 5.┬?Any commerce site designed┬?in Flash. I recently visited Camper.com and tried┬?sending a link to┬?a pair of shoes I liked to a friend of mine.┬?I thought I sent her cute┬?grey wedges, but she saw a pair of yellow sandals that had┬?cleary been designed by a 4-year-old. A 4-year-old with a┬?nasty LSD habit. The problem?┬?The product pages┬?seemed like they each had unique URLs, but┬?apparently they didn't. It was some weird┬?flash application.┬?And yes, I bought the wedges.┬?But not from Camper.
6. 6. Site that don't tell you they charge for shipping. This one actually comes from Rand himself. I don't know that I've ever been caught off guard (I usually anticipate $7 - 10 shipping, so I'm delighted if it's less, or - gasp - free). But I can imagine how┬?annoying it is to see a $10 surcharge┬?on the "Liberace chinos". Note: I am soooo tired. I don't know how Rand does this every single night. ┬?
7. You buy an┬?item online, but can't return┬?it to a┬?physical store. This makes no sense.┬?How can Urban Outfitters and urbanoutfitters.com┬?not be affiliated? ┬?It seems like a pretty logical and convenient step to make the two linked. (Note: I think UO might have gotten their act together by now, but I think this was true up until a few years ago).┬?I mean, hell, Nordstrom's takes back clothing from Target - I've seen it. Stores should at least take back the clothing they sell, regardles of place of purchase.
8. Discrepancies between online and physical store prices.┬?Long ago, there was an assumption that if it's online, it's cheaper. Recently, I saw this blouse at an┬?Antropologie store┬?in downtown Seattle┬?for less than half of the online "sale" price. This was over two weeks ago, and the online price still hasn't dropped. I understand that it has to do with stock available, etc., but there┬?really should be some sort of price-matching policy. (Also, per #4,┬?notice that the top is called the "Dwelling Shell". Which is a phrase that I figured was┬?used solely when┬?describing hermit crabs).
9. Photo previews that don't let you enlarge the image, zoom-in, etc. This really should be common-knowledge. Bigger is better. No one wants to try and figure out what a shirt would look like on them when all they have to go on is a photo that, if printed and cut out, would be appropriately-sized for someone's locket. But that would be a weird thing to put in a locket. Most people would put in┬?photos of say, their loved ones. Weirdo. Putting a picture of a pair of pants in your locket. What's wrong with you?
10. Sites that don't sell online. Fly London makes painfully cute boots. I am the sort of person who is willing to spend money on painfully cute boots. But their site, in addition to being impossible to navigate, and featuring weird scrolling images of all their shoes (which cannot be enlarged), doesn't actually sell any of the shoes they make. And no, Zappos doesn't carry all their shoes, either. So I'd either have to fly to London (holy crap! That's how the company got its name!) or beg Danny to bring me back a pair. So what do you say, Sullivan? Puh-lease? I want the green knee-high boots with the straps. Size 37. I'll totally pay you back.

Sigh. Okay, that's all. I mean, I'm sure there's more, but I need to go to sleep. I hope you enjoyed it. After all, I was writing for a niche audience: that bearded man who shares my bed and tells me I'm pretty. Oh, and Rand, too.

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