I LOVE the new IE8 adverts. They feature that guy from The New Adventures of Superman (Dean Cain). It’s a shame I’m a FF3.5 user and IE8 is fourth in my list (behind Safari & Opera) of browsers to use. They are brilliant though.
I have gritting rage!. Download Firefox then you plonk. :D
Additionally I have omitted the “Puke” advert as it wasn’t that funny (and kinda horrible to watch). But you can still watch it anyway.
Well, the 1st June saw me start my new job as Innovations Web Developer at Result Group in Elland. I decided that to mark the occasion I’d start by going crazy with my on-line development.
It has seen me redesign the Arctic Monkeys Fansite, build a brand new website for Cliffe Kennels, build a Twitter/Twitpic/img.ly/yfrog mashup called TwiPho and then finally redesigning Zero One Hundred (the site your on now). It’s been a hard slog of a month but one of great productivity. Next will be redeveloping Result Groups website to bring it up to modern standards. It’s something I’m really relishing and something which isn’t going to be easy. It involves a full redesign of structure, the actual look of the site and additionally it’s functionality. The aim is to bang out a perfect, intuitive design which will hopefully feature on some of the great web design galleries. That’s the aim, recognition.
Don’t get me wrong, the new updates for the iPhone are a much needed modification for the device. Cut/Copy & Paste, Tethering and MMS are all things which should (in my opinion) have been on the phone from the very first incarnation. These things were standard on even the most basic of modern phones.
Apple have played it clever. They brought out an amazing phone and missed out a lot of the basics. The annoying thing though is the fact that Apple is shouting about simple things such as “Read and write texts, emails and picture messaging holding your iPhone sideways.“. Wow! “Cut Copy Paste, Move text, numbers, email addresses between apps“. Honest to god these are not major selling points for the new iPhone software so why flaunt them? To say these are only 2 of the most flaunted updates how good can the other 98 be? Thank god Apple have updated the website today to show the other top features such as the search function, stereo bluetooth and the new language support.
Overall I’m happy with the new update and look forward to installing it next Wednesday (June 17th) but I can’t help but feel Apple have been deliberately holding this off for 2 years just to drum up a bit of cash/publicity. Classic Apple/Jobs, and to be honest, it’s worked on me, as ashamed as I am to say it, I’ll probably be on the phone to o2 next week about upgrading to the 3G S (which is a crap name by the way). :-D
I’ve just launched the brand new Cliffe Kennels & Rescue site for the world to view. Dennise needed a brand new image for their boarding kennels to attract more customers to the business. I built them a full PHP/MySQL site with a fully integrated admin section so they could add and remove the animals on their own website. It adds the animals to the database, generates image thumbnails for them and basically makes life easier. I also did all the photography for the site too.
Check out the brand new design over at http://cliffekennels.co.uk/ and maybe even think about rescuing a dog too!
(If your really interested you can see the old website over here. Blargh!)
Well, it seems I have more time on my hands than I need. Wednesday my on-line chum Matt decided he wanted to “build something”. Anything he said. He was open to suggestions. One of those was a Twitter photo search. To cut a long story short I stole by own suggestion and built it myself.
TwiPho was born out of two days coding (Thursday, 7th May and Friday 8th May) which accumulated to about 8 hours coding. Not bad to say I visited Alton Towers on Friday too.
Anyway, TwiPho is a Twitter Photo Search engine. It uses Twitters brilliant API (which I wrote about Wednesday) including TwitPic’s API, img.ly’s API and yfrog’s API. All Twitter image hosts. It searches though Twitter to find images related to a search keyword and shows you the images. 100% JavaScript, 100% AJAX. It uses the powerful jQuery framework too, which is a massive boost for my programming ego.
Anyway please have a look at it over at http://twipho.net/ and even let you friends know about it on Twitter!
It’s even been featured on jQuery Style, so thanks again to them!
UPDATED: I have now added in a few lines to cache the file. This saves on bandwidth and can sometimes speed things up when the twitpic service is running slow, it’s a simple extension to an already simple script.
Most people have become addicted to Twitter, and I’m no exception.
I got an iPhone the other week and have been posting regularly, but there is one thing that is very nice, and that’s the API built into Twitter. It’s quite a nice feature, and one that I have been getting to grips with recently.
I decided I wanted to show my Twitter updates on the new website I have been building and because Twitter supports JSON feeds, I thought I’d have a crack at using jQuery to show these posts.
It’s something that’s actually quite easy. Using jQuery’s AJAX function $.getJSON it meant I could grab the feed and format it how I wished. First off make sure you have included the latest version of jQuery into your website.
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>This needs to go where scripts usually reside. In your HTML <head> tag. You will also need to wrap all the below code in the jQuery documen.ready() function.
In this example I only wanted to grab one result so I started off with… Read More
This is a new one, and a funny one too!
I got three messages from three friends all advertising weight loss products. Initially I though what is a 25 year old male doing watching Oprah (and we are from the UK). Then I read it up a bit more…
Hillarious. A funny spam. But, can people really be falling for this? I mean, come on, how desperate can you actually be to click the link? :D
As funny as it is for me it probably isn’t for those of you sturggling with the bug. Anyway there is a great post over at http://daparky.com/how-to-remove-the-msn-messenger-virus/ which I suggest you check out to remove it.
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Inspirational? Or damn good fun?
I’ll let you choose :D
It all started with a new server. After setting up and installation everything was working fine, until I read the error_log files in the servers logs.
There were loads and loads of error messages reporting that there were “undefined variables” throughout every script on the server. Strange!
It ended up being very easy to fix… Read More
Fancy riding 1,200 Miles across the UK starting from Lands End and finishing at John O Groats? No? Me neither!
These two guys are though (Adam Fisher and Oliver Frearson) and I felt obligated to build them a website promoting their journey. It’s in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support and they are trying to raise £3000 (that’s only £2.50 per mile!).
Check out the website, visit their blog (which will be updated en route) and give them a bit of support.
If your feeling generous you can also donate by clicking the big donate button on the top left corner. Anything will do, even 1 pence, it all adds up.
Hate the stuff. Recently I have been doing a bit of server shuffling and clearing out loads of crap the server has built up over the years, one of which (unknown to me) is a shed load of spam. Let’s first have some figures of just how much spam hits this server every hour and every day (bearing in mind theres only 5 websites on the server): Read More
Bathtub II from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.
Browsing the online world I came across Matt Mullenweg‘s post about Timelapse videos. They look awesome and almost toy like. Can you believe the boats in Sydney harbour are real?
It’s something I must try for myself!
The portfolio page looked a little drab. Afterall I am working SOLID completing work left right and center. Not all of this can go into my portfolio page as it’s more University work and stuff built on a personal basis. This then spawned the “Showcase” page. Have a play with the few flash and javascript games on there as well as reading about some of the smaller projects I have been completing to get me through University.
In the next few weeks it’s going to be developed a little more to display more images and information on each project. But for now it’s a start ;-)
The other day I realised I had loads of spare web stuff lying around on my hard drive which included canned designs, unused web pages, old university assignments and old website designs (PSD’s and XHTML/CSS).
Well, today I decided I’d start releasing this spare stuff online. If I’m not using it maybe someone else can get something out of it. That was the idea behind the WordPress Olivia template, it was an old design which morphed into a pretty popular free template.
Anyway, we start this new routine of free downloads with a free XHTML template complete with instructions on how to use and modify it.
You can view a demo of the free XHTML theme or even download it for yourself to dissect, prod and poke.
There is also a tutorial on how to edit the pages, adding paragraphs and headers and also how to edit the CSS. It’s a basic tutorial but it explains the beginner methods.
Unfortunately there won’t be much support for it. You’ll have to work it out for yourself. If you are really really stuck you can drop comments for this post below and I’ll try my damn hardest to answer. Honest.
Please note: This tutorial is for beginners. It’s a short vague guide to push you in the right direction. I believe “learn by seeing and doing” is the best approach.
Many developers struggle to use the basic tools in Adobe’s award winning software Photoshop when designing websites. It can help a lot to know some simple techniques and tools when building XHTML pages. You don’t have to use the very awful splicing function at all.
Let’s start with the idea of building a very simple design using a set colour palette and a set width. After these simple tips I will also supply a number of useful links to visit to help you further. Read More
I am pleased to announce that you can now download the brand new WordPress theme named “Olivia” direct from our website and soon from the official WordPress themes gallery.
It has been in development for a long time but good things come to those who wait!
Key features of the theme:
To coincide with the release of the theme I have written a quick tutorial explaining how to use the features explained… Read More
It’s not far off release date! (well within a week hopefully!)
Features of the theme:
Check out the image of the design above and leave us some feedback and request for features!
We will post the download right here next week and will also submit it to the WordPress Gallery.
Check back soon!
With the release of Google’s new web browser named “Chrome”, will this mean a shift in browser usage?
Probably not. It’s the same situation as Firefox found itself in nearly four years ago, and it’s only just catching Microsofts browser.
So, is Chrome any good? We downloaded the BETA yesterday and have been playing ever since.
We are pleased to say it’s extremely fast. It features a new open source Javascript Engine named “V8″ as well as multiple tab processing. This means the browser can handle processes from each individual tab rather than processing the lot at the same time, which competitors such as Firefox 3 and IE7 do (IE8 BETA has a similar system to Chrome).
Although it may take up a little more memory and power it ultimately makes for a faster browsing experience and more stability. If one of the processes fail you only lose one tab rather than the whole browser.
Firefox has a similar stability system included where it re-initiates your tabs after a crash. Google Chrome never has to close when a piece of dodgy Javascript breaks the tab. It just closes it.
Things we like in Chrome:
The truely awesome Chrome Inspector
Incognito Browsing (and the awesome logo)
The iGoogle like welcome page
Organised tabs
This is a personal preference. The more browser space is available, the better. This means you can see more of the page at any one time. Even if it is 10px worth of space, every little bit helps.To be honest we could write about the new Chrome all day, but we know that it’s already been well documented. Maybe we got a little carried away.
To download Google Chrome simply head over to their website.
This week sees Microsoft leave behind the IE7 which had lasted for two years, and announces the second beta of IE8, but does more effort need to be placed on getting users to actually upgrade, rather than adding another version number to the mix?
According to W3.org there are more or less the same amount of users toddling along with IE6 as there are IE7. IE6 is seven years old yesterday (27th) and still holds a market share of around 25% while IE7 holds 26%.
Firefox is steadily climbing up the browser tree holding 42%, and nearly all of those users are on the latest version (or there about). Why is this? Do Internet Explorer users not bother? Is it too complicated? Or is it even due to piracy? After all, if you have an illegal key, you won’t be able to upgrade. Let’s make a few points and ask some questions… Read More
My name's Mark. I'm a web designer & developer, based in the Yorkshire area working in Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham and Leeds. But that's not the full extent of what I do. I work with many different technologies and people and love things outside the web including photography, print, stationery and graphics. Get in touch and let's speak.
University is over! (for a year anyway)
So University is done and dusted for 2009. I won’t be returning until September 2010 which makes for a nice break. In the end I got my grades (A,A,B,B,B,C) which I was very happy with. To top all this off I thought I’d showcase some of the work I did to receive these grades.
Visual Design (B Grade)
I’ll start with a Module I didn’t thoroughly enjoy this year due to boring briefs, however, I did a little bit of illustration for it which included some postage stamps, posters and even included some Video in After Effects. You can see the video, the illustrations and the posters over at http://turnitoff.info/ (the posters reside in the footer of the page)
The site was built using the latest in Javascript and jQuery technology so check it out, hover over the elements, play with the buttons. Your probably better off using FireFox too, as IE couldn’t really handle it’s superior web modernness. Make sure you check out the video at the bottom of the website too (yes that is me speaking sounding common as muck).
For Visual design I also illustrated the stamps shown in the header image. It’s based on Music Technology over the years and I think I captured the best four from the past century or so. You can see them in all their vector glory too.
This was a complex one, which also means I can’t demonstrate it online. The idea was simple, Unique Bidding auctions.
The site featured a worlds first in online bidding. Live real time bidding in auctions. You could actually watch LIVE bidders placing their respective amounts on the page as it went along. This meant users could bid against each other based on other users’ bids. Clever eh! It was all jQuery and PHP grabbing the data from a database. It was awfully complex and also included a 10,000 word document explaing the process and research behind it. There was also a very fancy presentation which explains the fundementals if anyone wants to watch it. Its the branding, the functionality and the UI all rolled into a short few slides.
It also had it’s own iPhone web application which tied into the whole site shwoing live bids from anywhere in the world at any time.
Web Programming (A grade)
Another interesting one. And one which I actually really enjoyed.
Assignment two was a dog database website. Very similar to Battersea dogs homes website. It needed full admin controls and the ability to save dogs as favourites and have the ability to search the dogs too. The brief was very extensive, and I covered everything. Check it out online right now. I ended up building a commercial site based on this for Cliffe Kennels.
Authoring (B Grade)
It was basically Actionscript 3.0 work. For assignment 1 I had to develop an interface which included an animation, using the drawing API and the components within Flash 8. I ended up building a Spirograph kind of application which allowed you to colour it yourself and watch the application build it for you. Very nice! Have a look at it. I also built a flash gallery using XML and class files. But it’s not something I have online at the moment.
Multimedia Design & Production (A Grade)
This is a group project, and something which is a real challenge working with four different creative minds. My University chum Chris Kovalenko was part of our A grade group which created a chairty website and CDROM called the West Yorkshire Autistic Society (completely fake). Check out the site.
Intro to Video (B Grade)
My mate Adam Fisher helped me out with this one as I couldn’t star, edit and film the whole video. He rode the bike, I edited it, The Chemists supplied the music. It actually works quite well for my first every video. So I’m quite happy with it as a 2nd year project.
That’s it! I hope this gives someone some kind of inspiration either for university or for their next project. If it did help you in any way shape or form, drop me a comment!