Apr 2007

nikfletcher :: blog | May 2007 | Mar 2007

Learn Norwegian

Saturday 28 April 2007 Filed in: Random

Lars Ivar, Flickr-r and RapidWeaver-r and HDR protegé of Mike Franklin, has posted some handy flashcards for all of you wanting to learn the fine Norwegian language. I'm just disappointed there's not one that tells you how to ask for 'One large beer and some prawn-cocktail crisps, please'. But then, I guess not many pre-school norwegians are likely to be learning that at all, never mind on flashcards :)

Check them out!

Tags: Travel

RapidWeaver Rant: Internet Explorer

Friday 27 April 2007 Filed in: Rapidweaver Tips

Microsoft is a massive company - seventy-six thousand employees in 102 countries - and I have no doubt the folks there are exceptionally smart, genuinely nice people. But people are suggesting the Redmond beast is dead, or rather irrelevant, today. To be totally honest, whilst Microsoft is by no means dead, it's a company that's becoming more and more irrelevant. Even Yahoo, whilst making losses, is relevant - Pipes and Flickr are slick innovative homegrown and purchased produce. Google too is pushing technologies - Spreadsheets and Documents (also a mixture of purchased and home-grown technologies). Microsoft are playing catchup in numerous arenas - web standards, digital audio and games consoles - and whilst that's not disastrous (Office is still dominating, as is Windows, and Microsoft are hardly losing money overall), the three are perhaps the most pertinent topics at the moment: Firefox is gaining market-share at the expense of the lacklustre Microsoft Internet Explorer; Apple's iPod+iTunes is killing Zune and many other players through sheer market penetration, marketing and ease of use; and despite pouring bucket-loads of the Microsoft war-chest into Xbox and others in the Home and Entertainment division's product portfolio, it's been a year where Nintendo has dominated with a genuinely innovative console. But before I regurgitate my reasons for generally thinking that Microsoft is a headless chicken, onto Internet Explorer - a piece of software that, contrary to the fact that its use is widespread, is loathed by web developers building standards-based web pages.

Internet Explorer is loathed is because it epitomises Microsoft's attempts to dominate the internet in the late nineties, by completely obliterating open web standards and ensure competing browsers went the way of the dodo. As web designers, we hate IE because it pushes a monopolistic corporations agenda that's no where near as relevant as it once was. People may counter this rant on Internet Explorer with the 'But Firefox and Safari etc are not absolutely completely 100% standards compliant' chant. And yes, it's worth noting this before people think I'm living the illusion that all non-IE browsers are fully compliant (comparison here), I'm well aware of that - my point is that comparatively, IE is not standards compliant. Many of you will be familiar with the Acid2 browser test - if not, then try it here and read up on it over at webstandards.org. Safari is, if memory serves me correctly, the first browser to fully support the test - and whilst it's certainly not the be-all and end-all standards test, it certainly gives us a clear idea of what each browser supports in relation to what developers are using to design and style their pages. Internet Explorer has issues.

The history of Trident (the rendering engine behind Internet Explorer) is an amusing read. Worthy of mention are the facts that Tasman (the IE for Mac engine) was actually more standards compliant than the windows-only Trident (presumably at the time of its release) and that the latest Office 2007 HTML edit & rendering engine is unsurprisingly worse at standards support. It also talks about Microsoft's Expression Web product - which claims to have 'the most accurate rendering engine available today'. That's great, Microsoft, it really is. But it really ought to be shipped and forcibly installed on Windows systems for Internet Explorer's rendering around the world before it actually means jack-sh@t - although I must admit I'm intrigued by this claim and part of me wants to see for myself what it's like. Too bad it's Windows only, and I lack (for the time being) Parallels!

People have asked me whether I believe Microsoft should just simply stop IE development and aid Mozilla and WebKit development, and whilst the 'mac-based web developer cliché' makes me pray for that, my ultimate reaction is 'no'. Competition is healthy - it keeps companies hopefully wanting to make better, ever more innovative products - just as the Zune is some sort of competition for the iPod, and Xbox 360 is for the Wii. All I want is for IE6 to die a short, and highly painful death. If you are a Windows user who has chosen not to install IE7 - please, please, please do so. Whilst IE7 may not be Firefox, it's a huge improvement over IE6 - standards support is better, some transparent image support, and, finally, tabs - although the UI is somewhat confused and certainly a departure from IE6. Whilst you may not think it matters, your choice of browser does. It makes peoples lives less stress free and allows designers and developers to spend time doing what they want with a project, not trying to fix the inadequacies of a comparatively out-dated browser.

Tags: RapidWeaver, Internet Explorer, Rant

RapidWeaver Tip #12: Upload Speedup

Wednesday 25 April 2007 Filed in: Rapidweaver Tips

I'm afraid I can't really take credit for this one, but it's definitely worth sharing! Susan has posted a tip for speeding up uploads (and perhaps also exports) - and could well reduce RAM usage. It's rather simple: Turn off the 'Category Post Count':

Blog Setup for RapidWeaver 3.5

Why? Well on every blog sub-page this count is shown to be a precise number. If you remove the numbers, the old pages don't need to be updated with a more recent number! If you find this tip useful, I'd recommend you go by Susan's two sites: AnyDanger.net and her new T-Shirt store (selling out of print Threadless tees - of which I've picked up these two) - the imaginatively named WoiWoiWoi.net.

Tags: FTP

They're Back!

Wednesday 25 April 2007 Filed in: Website

One continual usabilty issue I've had to cope with recently is my archive. To date, and including this post, I've blogged 411 times. As a result, the archives are somewhat large - back to October 2005 - and this has had a few things to think about. I hate clutter - and I especially hate the fact that the archives got so long and ruined the look of pages with short entries. So, I hid the archives entirely. I've been looking for some cool Javascript effect to hide and show the archives. I settled on scriptaculous and I have to say, I've been blown away at how relatively straight forward it has been to integrate this accordion like effect. It even works in IE 7 (thanks Larry!).

I'm thrilled at having the archives return, and hope you like their re-integration into the site - just don't spend too long toggling them continually in awe of the powers of Javascript (I did).

Tags: Archives

iTunes Contracts Up for Negotiation. Let Battle Commence

Monday 23 April 2007 Filed in: Music

MacWorld UK posted this article about the forthcoming round of negotiations with the labels for iTunes distribution rights. Whilst I'd like to think that we'll be seeing DRM-free tracks soon, this statement by 'an industry insider' makes me wonder how far back in the stone-age the labels are...

"EMI struck a deal that puts all of us at a disadvantage," one industry executive told Reuters.

I'm not quite sure how 'following consumer demand' puts them at a disadvantage. DRM hasn't stopped piracy - 1 billion tracks a month are still shared illegally on P2P networks - and as the MacWorld article mentions, adding complete freedom and better quality means that EMI has removed two hurdles to legitimate digital music sales' growth.

Via MacWorld UK - Also worth a read: Conjectural Transcript of Upcoming Negotiations between Universal Music and Apple (DaringFireball)

Vote for RapidWeaver!

Friday 20 April 2007 Filed in: Rapidweaver Tips

If you're a RapidWeaver user, you may well know that RapidWeaver is nominated for a MacWorld award this year! Wooo! Well now is your chance to cast a vote for RapidWeaver as not the best Creative Web Software (that we all know it is ;) ) but as 'Best Software'. To vote, head over to MacWorld UK's page for the voting here. You could also win an AppleTV, Samsung LCD panel TV and a JBL speaker system for voting!

Disclosure: I am an employee of RealMac Software :)

Microsoft Windows Live Search Mini Widget

Thursday 19 April 2007 Filed in: Software

Behold the new search widget from Microsoft. It's certainly interesting, however after having downloaded the widget, here's a few thoughts.

Don't supply it in French by default, on an english-language page, merci. We also have the perfectly suitable NSSlider that y'know would actually make the widget preferences look completely OS X in look and feel - what's with the plus and minus buttons too?
What's with the Live.com logo floating some way from the widget itself? That, to my eyes, is clutter - and on a manic dashboard like my own, it's unnecessary. The amount of space it takes up is enourmous - why is the close button so far away? When you install the wretched thing, the view when to choose whether to keep it or not has a freakin' huge area set aside for it. Only for the miniscule widget to appear at the top of it.
The standard italicised i is not used for options. It may be a little thing, but it's something that pretty much every dashboard widget has. UI consistency means people can instinctively pick it up. Not the case here.
The options button appears only after having searched - as mentioned above, that sort of thing is dealt with by the italicised i that is missing.

I dislike Live Search, but thought I'd do a vanity search in the name of testing and giving a product a fair view - and, in fairness, I'm glad to see you can see results in the the widget, instead of it firing up Camino for results. Here's the expanded widget doing the vanity test:

Windows Live Search Widget results

In all, I'm not enthralled with this widget. Seb said in IM, 'at least Microsoft are trying'. But who's really paying attention? I personally don't use a search widget - it seems like an extra step to launch dashboard and search, only to be taken to the browser which already has a Google box raring to go. I don't use Live.com - and to be honest, I don't think the widget will see any uptake. I mean, how many browsers for the Mac ship with Google as the default, and how many Mac users will happily start using WindowsLive?

From MacWorld UK

Swanning Around

Tuesday 17 April 2007 Filed in: Photography

Some Photos to share

Monday 16 April 2007 Filed in: Photography

I think I've an unhealthy obsession with my D80. This weekend saw me shoot nearly 1,000 shots. Yes, 1 THOUSAND shots. Here's some that I'm particularly proud of.

'Replacements' - I lost the sunglasses I got around the same time as the old Sony - and just when the sun hit last week. They have yet to be found. So replacements were obtained. Seems a trend of sunglasses and camera together!

'On The Tree' - I'm not a pink or flower loving person, to be honest, but the tree in my parents front garden was looking in need of some D80 attention.

'Two short' - ....of a straight flush. I shot this not realising there was a sequence until I fired up Aperture. 3 Petersfield players watch from the sidelines of their Hampshire Leagure Cup FInal. Their team failed to grab a last minute opportunity that would have handed them the Cup title.

Basking in the Sunshine

Saturday 14 April 2007 Filed in: Photography

But I can't help but feel I'd have enjoyed it even more in Manchester! Today saw the last match of the Petersfield Rugby Club season, so I headed on down to the playing fields. Of course, having only the 18-70mm lens restricted my ability to shoot everything, but here's a shot from the day. Quite pleased with them, to be honest. But tomorrow sees another match, in which my brother's playing, so I can refine my shots then!

You say Goodbye......

Friday 13 April 2007 Filed in: Photography

But I say Hello.

Nothing beats music quotes as post titles.

Reminiscing [Updated]

Thursday 12 April 2007 Filed in: Life

Life is full of twists and turns. The last two years have been full of them, and today I'm going to talk about one. It's almost funny that it concerns my Mac, however it's deeply ironic that it above all concerns RapidWeaver. (Disclosure: I've been working for the developers of RapidWeaver for a month now).

Two and a half years ago, I bought myself a Mac - my first self-bought computer. It revolutionised the way I worked. It made using a computer stress free, fun, and above all more creative. For example since the advent of iPhoto in my life, I've simply never stopped shooting, or had as much fun with images. Since I started fooling around in GarageBand I've started podcasting, and since I've started fooling around in iMovie I've made some movies (of a sort) too. Since I started using RapidWeaver, it re-energised a love of web design that I've harboured since the age of about 11 - and I've been writing HTML for the best part of a decade (next year sees that 'anniversary').

Before I switched to Mac, my web-designing was limited, mostly by time, but almost as much by ability. I loved firing up Notepad.exe, and seeing what I could create. When I started hearing about CSS, I simply lacked the time to look at what I could do (I was, after all, in the middle of GCSEs and then A-Levels). Then I switched to Mac, and quite by chance - within a matter of days of getting my Mac - I stumbled across RapidWeaver. RapidWeaver encouraged me to think more about content that style, and the more I got my head around it, I more thought 'Hey, this is neat - compact, yet really rather powerful'.

When I bought it, RapidWeaver was at version 3.1.Today I thought 'Let's fire up the old horse, and see what happens'. Upon re-downloading RW 3.1.3, I decided I didn't want to have to put a two year old programme into Rosetta. It didn't seem fair, so I simply extracted the icons for this post. However, on a more sensible note, I started to think about the ways RW has changed since then. Optimised publishing, file consolidation, permalinks, flash slideshows, no more Brushed Metal, not to mention a documented (and well used) developer API, and an abundance of 3rd Party Theme Developers.

Back in 2004 when I started using RapidWeaver, I had no clue that, two and a half years down the line, things would have turned out as they are.The community around RapidWeaver is simply phenomenal - possibly the best on the net - and I hope that a project that's in the works will energise and re-energise RapidWeaver users new and old in the ways the 'old-timers' re-energised me about web design.

So, what better way to celebrate than with a discount?!

RealMac Software: Use coupon NIKLOVESRW0407 for 50% off your order in the RealMac store, valid until the end of April! (Muchas gracias, Dan)
Elixir Graphics: Use coupon NIKFLETCHER for 50% off the 'Light' and 'Dark' themes (Thanks Adam)
SeyDesign: Use coupon OeipZaEGXvLEI225cxsveFyM4 for a discount off 'Creamy' (Thanks Adam) - Must be used via this page!

Thanks are very much due to Dan Counsell, Ben Counsell, Tom Beardmore, Jay Runquist, Larry 'Sundog' Pollock, Adam Merrifield, Adam Shiver, Simon Taylor, Phil Warrender and everyone else. You guys rock. Period. And Phil - thanks for the cake!

Status of My Status

Thursday 12 April 2007 Filed in: Amusing Forwards

Some times, I can't help but laugh. Today I decided to enable Twitterific's neat little feature of updating my iChat status with whatever I tweet. It seemed like such a good idea, but in hindsight it wasn't. This tweet just happened to cut at the crucial point, and read in iChat:

Officially annoyed being unable to reproduce

Whoops. What was worse was the fact that I then laughed, and inadvertently said

It's been cut off by the looks of things

Now there's a slip to be proud of.... right?! Check the full copy out here.

Ranting and Raving [Contains Rude Words]

Wednesday 11 April 2007 Filed in: Music

John 'Daring Fireball' Gruber today linked to the Yahoo! Music Unlimited service's new SanDisk Sansa Connect model, and in particular, a blog post by Ian C Rogers, of Yahoo! Music. Now, before I go any farther, the Sansa does offer over-the-air downloads via the $12/month subscription, and indeed works in some form with arguably the hottest Y! asset, Flickr. It's a tempting prospect in some regards, However, this post is not about talking why I wouldn't buy the Y! service or player (Windows only, US-only yadda yadda). It's about the talk that Gruber rightly points out will piss people off. Like, perhaps, me. Here's what Ian Rogers (rightly nominated as Jackass of the Week) has to say:

For those of you about to complain about the $12/month to get unlimited tracks (like, um, Steve Jobs), check yourself before you riggity wreck yourself. Labels and artists get paid for every radio play and every Yahoo! Music download to the Sansa Connect, whereas we all know iPods are mostly full of not-paid-for MP3s.

OK, well mine's not mostly full of not-paid-for MP3s. It's full of entirely legitimately purchased and ripped CDs. In MP4 format thank you.

At Yahoo! we would like to help maintain a healthy music business, compensating labels and artists at a fair price to consumers. The labels and the consumers have been pretty far apart in this negotiation and we think we’re doing a damn fine job striking a balance between the two with the rich feature set Sansa Connect and reasonable monthly price of Yahoo! Music Unlimited. We hope you think so, too. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, right?

The problem is, Yahoo! is doing a Microsoft here. They're trashing the competitors and toeing to the RIAA's line by, frankly, kissing the industry body's ass til it hurts by pissing off potential customers. Yes, me again. As for helping to maintain a healthy business etc. Bullshit. It's as if he thinks he's Steve Jobs himself. Yes, the price may be fair, but ultimately Y! are still falling into the greatest trap of all by continuing to brand consumers (or other, non-Y! Music subscribers) as pirates - although at least they're not treating them like pirates like the DVD folks are...

Movie Poster Parody

The reason why I'm such a Apple stalwart is this. Steve Jobs knows what it's going to take to have a phenomenally successful product (iPod+iTunes) - and it just so happens that his interests, and those of the consumer (for the most part) are aligned. That's why Apple doesn't criminalise it's customers. That's why we have FairPlay's allowance of 5 authorised computers. That's why we have DRM-free music coming our way from at least one of the major labels. That's why the iTunes Store has been successful. Because it's the easiest way to obtain legitimate tracks online and most importantly, you're not being treated like a pirate. There may be DRM, but it's so unobtrusive in the most part, that people simply haven't cared.

It's not that I'm unwilling to part with my money for content - I always have been, and always will be. It's just I object to being treated like a criminal every time I look to buy music or video. Why should I sit through unskippable anti-piracy messages when I've bought the legitimate god-damn DVD?! If there's one thing that I hate about buying a DVD, it's knowing that some jackass lawyer on a piracy prevention sub-deputy-commitee decided the studio had to throw their message in. As has been said before

"The best way to combat illegal file sharing is to make legal [media] purchasing easier"

I vote we change it:

"The best way to combat illegal file sharing is to make legal [media] purchasing easier, and avoid criminalising and generally aggravating those who actually do buy content"

Amen to that.......

Enjoying the Weather

Tuesday 10 April 2007 Filed in: Personal

I've been out enjoying the sunshine, sacrificing good trees to hand write some articles, and taking some photos. Who'd have though I could have written so much about Internet Explorer?

Screencasts: Podcasting to a Computer Near You. NOW!

Monday 09 April 2007 Filed in: Rapidweaver Tips

I'm delighted to announce that my RW tips are podcasting! That means you simply need to subscribe in iTunes, and never worry about missing an episode again! Awesome - the link below requires iTunes.

Click here to get started!

Green and Pleasant Land

Saturday 07 April 2007 Filed in: Life

The last few days have been really rather summer-y, so my family and I headed out to the South Downs - rolling green hills near the south coast of England, such a change from Manchester (much as I love it). Whenever we walk past gates, we always try and pull the 'over-in-one' trick. I'd like to think I did it more elegantly. Thankfully I didn't carry the camera with me over the gate, and left photo duties to the parents. Yours truly throwing myself over the gate:

Here's a shot that's slightly less zaney, and I'm going to sign off for the weekend with it - the title is 'Green and Pleasant Land'.

Happy Easter to one and all - I'll be back blogging on Monday / Tuesday

Easter Tweets

Friday 06 April 2007 Filed in: Technology

If you're thinking 'Nik, you should stick something other than post titles', you're right - this one was a deliberately bad pun! As you may, or may not, have noticed, I've finally decided to un-comment my Twitter badge in the HTML for the site. Hardly the greatest thing, you may think. But it is significant. Why? Firstly Twitter has been known to have been highly unstabe in the past. This results in the javascript (which, being in the floating-right sidebar means browsers read it before the content) causing the page to take a while to load. I hate slow load times almost as much as I hate Internet Explorer (and statistically, a un-explained load time of more than 4 seconds will lose you visitors), so whilst Twitter has been unstable, it's been totally pointless putting the code into a live site, as it reduces the load time to anywhere between 5 and 20 seconds.

Thankfully Twitter's been far more reliable recently, and so I've given the Twitter badge a green light. If it gets too bad with regard to site loading times, I'll turn it off. If you're not on Twitter, then head over to twitter.com, and have a look. If you're wondering who's on, well there's luminaries such as Leo Laporte, RapidWeaver, myself, ElixirGraphics (sponsors of the RW Tips Screencasts), Larry 'Sundog' Pollock (RW Guru), Isaiah (The genius behind all the YourHead plugins) and Adam from SeyDesign and so many more.

What are you waiting for?! :)

One Final Push

Thursday 05 April 2007 Filed in: Photography

That's right, folks, I've submitted the IWMN black and white shot to JPGMag, under the term 'Breakthrough', for possible inclusion in the next edition of JPGMag. If you'd like to vote for it, please head over to JPG, register, and vote. Hell, if you post a link in the comments linking to your own photos, I'll take a look and go voting as well. I've only recently discovered the genius behind JPGmag, and would happily subscribe if it didn't cost so much to send to us Brits. C'est la vie!

A while back, I mentioned the whole JPG malarkey, but now submissions for the issue are closed, and there's a week left to register your votes! If you've not voted on the shot (left), please feel free to. It'd be awesome to see the shot featured in an issue.

No April Fool

Wednesday 04 April 2007 Filed in: Rapidweaver Tips

You'll recall a couple of days ago that I mentioned a forthcoming RapidWeaver theme. Well the wait is now over: Chris at Varsis Studio has released 'Creamy' - and purchasers are being entered into the draw until 30th April. So run, not walk, and go have a look at the theme which is being sold through SeyDesign!

Congratulations on the release, Chris! (More Details here)

Ciao!

Tuesday 03 April 2007 Filed in: Life

I'm off home for the Easter break finally. It's been a hell of a term - unlike pretty much everyone else at Uni, I didn't go home during the mid-year recess. I'll have been away exactly 3 months, the longest I've ever been away from home, and I cannot wait for some 'downtime'. Thankfully, I won't be too far from the laptop (and will also be on Twitter via SMS during the 4 hours I'm travelling). Until I reach the green and pleasant land that is Hampshire: Ciao!

RapidWeaver Tip #11: Site Path Settings (w/Video)

Monday 02 April 2007 Filed in: Rapidweaver Tips

Firstly, thanks are in order. After the last screencast so many people gave me feedback, and I'm so very grateful for all the feedback. Thanks to everyone! Site Path settings are a common problem in RapidWeaver, so I've put this little tutorial together with some common hosts' settings put in to show you what to do for Globat, MacDock and DreamHost.

This episode is sponsored by ElixirGraphics - thanks to Adam @ Elixir for his support!

Get your screencast here!

Manchester: A Black and White Portrait

Sunday 01 April 2007 Filed in: Photography

I've been playing with some of my older shots recently, and have this Black and White shot to show for my (brief) efforts. It's a part of my 'Manchester: A Black and White Portrait' project, in which I'm hoping to document events and locations in the city in Black and White. Whilst I've got a list of things I'd like to shoot, if anyone else has a recommendation of 'off the beaten track' places to shoot, drop me a line. It's a longer-term project, not just because I've chosen some tricky events I'd like to shoot, but also because it's going to require literally hundreds of shots to get a full set I"m happy with. Then I'll send a book off to Apple (via Aperture) and see what it's turned out like!

RapidWeaver Scoop: The Only Blogger Not to April Fool You

Sunday 01 April 2007 Filed in: Rapidweaver Tips

My sources tell me we can expect to see a new RW theme land 'soon', with the developer entering the first 250 buyers into a draw to win a RED iPod Nano (4Gb). I couldn't possibly tell you who, but this is no April fool (I confirmed with the developer before 1/04/07 :-) ). It's been a while since we saw this particular developer spinning us some CSS goodness, so I look forward to seeing it 'soon', and so should you!

nik fletcher

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