English

  • Shift in discourse: the net is not geeky anymore (9 January 2008)

    I heard two girls in the street, one of which was saying “I sent you a ‘happy new year’ message on MSN.”
    I couldn’t keep from thinking that ten years ago she’d have said “on IRC”.
    As the internet went from geeky to mainstream, people went from saying IRC, newgroups, web, to saying MSN, Google Talk, Google.
    It’s fascinating (in a way) how the protocol-oriented discourse shifted to a brand-oriented one.

  • Why Being Creative Is Good (7 January 2008)

    To create is to potentially embarrass oneself in front of others. It is about the courage to be oneself and to be seen as oneself.
    Here’s to being creative in 2008.

  • Pearls Before Breakfast - washingtonpost.com (17 December 2007)

    Art without a frame: can people still know what they’re presented with? A very thorough and interesting study of the behaviour of people. Long but worthwhile reading. (Via Stopdesign, last April. Time flies.)

  • John Resig - Easy PDF Sharing (5 December 2007)

    I’m not sure I’m too fond of Slideshare either, so thesolution by John Resig is nice to have. Shell script in Windows, though... mmmmh... I’ll have to think this through... (via Julien)

  • Wired: We Are the Web (19 October 2007)

    [T]he ways of participating unleashed by hyperlinks are creating a new type of thinking - part human and part machine - found nowhere else on the planet or in history.
    I was watching The Machine is Us/ing Us for the Nth time and decided to find the Wired article we briefly see in the video. Reading it is enlightening.

  • Web Accessibility Issues in the Dojo Toolkit (15 October 2007)

    Excerpt from the Dojo Book:
    Now that user interface components are being created via scripted HTML elements such as div and span
    Why should they be relying on such poor elements such as div and span is what I’d like to know.
    Most of the time we happen to be able to achieve a reasonable level of accessibility through sensible use of a elements. I’m not saying it solves every problem, splits the sea and saves the chosen people, mind you, but (repeat) most of the time, and until a time (…)

  • Web Typography Under the Bonnet (5 October 2007)

    The job of web typography is not to simply mimic that of print.
    Excellent analysis of ALA in view of their typographic choice.

  • Matryoshkus (3 October 2007)

    Classy! (Via Ecrans.fr)

  • Fray: Busted! (26 September 2007)

    The Fray is back. It feels good to read about the new plan. Good luck Derek!

  • Preconceived ideas on web contents (18 September 2007)

    A Web page is a "page" only when it is printed.
    We are also very constrained by (preconceived) ideas on printed materials and printing industry. There is a tension between things from the printing industry (books, newspapers and magazines in their today format) and things from the Web. All the concepts are not necessary the same in the two worlds, even if Web page have inherited a lot from the printing world. There is a form factor for example and specific features.
    A book has page (…)

  • How People with Disabilities Use the Web (13 September 2007)

    How long ago should I have added this link here? Years! How People with Disabilities Use the Web

  • 8 ways to drive a graphic designer mad (21 August 2007)

    Ah, all too true. Nervously laughing at my screen. Twitching, too, now. And I’m not even a designer, but I did my share of webmastering. I can relate. (Via Mezzoblue)

  • See Who’s Editing Wikipedia (21 August 2007)

    I had heard of people hacking Wikipedia articles for their own good, but now the traces are indisputable. The sad thing is that it’s not even shocking to read that. Somehow we must have become cynics along the way.

  • A good idea regarding search forms (20 August 2007)

    We’re used to doing search forms with links in them to restrict the search to images or videos or whatever.
    Yes, but screen reader users in forms mode are deprived of this choice.
    Yes, but radio buttons would do the trick.
    And CSS (plus a bit of Javascript) would do the presentation-and-whizzz required by sighted people (marketers, for instance).
    Steve Marshall had such an idea. And implemented it. Clever bloke.

  • Faking the "Lomo Effect" (10 August 2007)

    That’s good that people fake the Lomo effect. I’m fed up with feeding 6x6 film into a crappy plastic camera. (oh, and the ActionSampler just stopped working the other day after 3 rolls of film - never again, lomo, never again)

  • 81% addicted to blogging! (10 July 2007)

    Wow, I’m geekier than I thought.
    (Via Olivier)

  • On versioning and compatibility (6 July 2007)

    I’m catching up on the HTML 5 WG. I’ve just read Chris Wilson’s input on HTML compatibility. You could just say that Microsoft is the devil and blah blah (come on), but his story is fascinating. I find myself defending Microsoft when people tell me IE sucks. (yeah, I’m that kind of open-minded guy). Sometimes not knowing your history is bad. Read this, people.

  • Vote for me if you like my pictures (2 July 2007)

    I’ve just submitted photos to JPG Mag, and would like to see you vote for them, if you like them. If not, enjoy the other photos. The quality is often awesome.

  • You Are Not a Robot (18 June 2007)

    We’ve got technical jobs, and the computer industry would be one of the ideal fields for replacing humans by machines. Yet we still have work. Here’s to the value of brain!

  • Natural Selections: Colors Found in Nature and Interface Design (13 June 2007)

    The title says it all: Natural Selections: Colors Found in Nature and Interface Design
    Note to self: never ever forget this URL again.