Big news from EllisLab today at SXSW, where they are demonstrating the upcoming ExpressionEngine 2.0. Derek Allard announced that EE will be powered by CodeIgniter, their open-source PHP framework. This is a big deal, immediately expanding the community base of both systems and ‘promoting’ CI developers to instant ExpressionEngine experts, as well as giving CodeIgniter a bunch of very powerful libraries that were only previously available in EE.
Mar
12
It seems appropriate to start today’s stormy SXSW Day Three by stealing Matthew’s thunder (har har) at being the only DW staffer actively blogging the conference. I only caught the tail end of Lost in Translation? Top Website Internationalization Lessons. But like most other internationalization-themed panels, articles and conversations, it’s a difficult topic. We can continue to lecture to ourselves about the benefits and strategy of internationalization (and agree with each other across the board), but without business momentum it will remain a rarified field in web design/development.
Mar
12
I got to a slow start for the last day of SXSW due in no small part to the Great British Booze-up and SXNW I missed the early morning panels, but caught some of Peas in a Pod: Advertising, Monetization and Social Media. After lunch we caught the keynote with game designer Jane McGonigal, speaking on the future and unique engagement benefits of ARGs. It was a really good keynote that caused me to rethink my attitude toward gaming. (I’m glad a female attendee asked Ms. McGonigal on her thoughts about ARG participation versus stereotypes about gamers and general gender differences in gaming habits and styles.)
Mar
12
Although there were a couple of introductory panels yesterday afternoon, Saturday is the start of SXSW proper. And the schedule this year is quite simply insane – there are anything up to fifteen(!) simultaneous presentations, panels, and readings at any one time, so choosing what to see can be a near-impossible decision.
For anyone who is here in Austin wondering what to see, my strategy for getting the most out of the week is that whenever faced with a clash between two or more sessions, I’ll try to go for the presentations by individuals over multi-person panels every time — because if you’re here to learn, you want to have someone talk to you, not to their friends. Panels can be great, but too often the complaint I hear from attendees is that: “…they weren’t saying anything that me and my buddies couldn’t have talked about with just as much authority and passion.”
Mar
12
Monday saw a couple of great sessions here at South By South West. At 10am — and in front of a large crowd, despite the previous evening’s bowling — Lea Alcantara discussed The Art of Self-Branding. Her five key points that your personal brand should encompass: Relevance, Design/Presentation, Message/Communication, Understanding of the customer, and Consistency, could equally well be applied to agencies or corporate entities as well as to yourself. She demonstrated the difference a coherent brand can make with a comparison of the two personal finance sites, Wesabe and Mint – go check out her presentation when the slides are online for more details.
Mar
11
In the grand scheme of human history, February 19th may not go down as a momentous occasion, but it’s recently come to light that at least in the world of digital imaging, today signifies a more important date than most anybody realized. And that folks, is the delicious irony.
Mar
11
Source: CNET
Written by Martin LaMonica
Adobe Systems on Monday is set to finally release Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) software, which is on the leading edge of a movement to make Web applications act more like traditional desktop applications.
At the company’s Engage event in San Francisco on rich Internet application design, executives will announce the availability of AIR 1.0, a free download for Windows and Macintosh.
Mar
11
Today I’ll be learning you how to make a mobile phone advertisement. Inspired by the big and fancy designs you see on billboards and stuff. This is what I came up with, an advertisement for the Sony Ericsson K610i:
Mar
11
Brushes have become an almost-daily use for any designer.
Finding brushes might not be a problem, but finding decent ones is actually a true challenge.
Often you’ll be stumbling upon useless and overrated stocks. That’s why we collected the best resource-websites with photoshop-brushes to be found on the net. You’ll be amazed by the great amount of quality-brushes…
Mar
11
Mexican photographer, Javier S. Sanudo (Frodo 47 on Flickr), balances a trained eye in the classic beauty of portraiture, with the his own dark imaginings through the creative use of photo-manipulation.