David John Mead

#HappyInCLE, but for how long?

The denizens of Cleveland seem to have rallied around a particular hashtag recently. #HappyInCLE.  And there seems to be a fair amount of stuff to be happy about.

Cleveland held its first TEDxCLE which was a great success I’m told. Local boy done good-Michael Symon, is looking to expand his brand and in response to a recent negative Forbes Magazine article, one local businessman decide to create and sell t-shirts, benefiting the local food bank, while a celebrity is looking how to save Cleveland (and other cities) with a documentary series.

So far 2010 seems to have a lot more small businesses, groups, and events coming together for their hometown.  This kind of groundswell doesn’t come along that often, or last that long, so I’m hoping this continues to grow online and within the city itself letting a lot more people find reasons to be #HappyInCLE.

Technorati tags: #HappyInCLE, cleveland

I expect my natural disaster in HD…

On Saturday @jules23 & I were sitting down after digging out the drive when she said about a lot people on Twitter talking about the expected tsunami hitting Hawaii.  This was a result from the recent quake in Chile. We turned on CNN and what did we get? Some guys video (which looked sent from a mobile phone), from a balcony being Skyped through a web site that was not affiliated with CNN. Cut that with voice over from a local Hawaiian TV station and some random shots of a guy surfing.

Paparazzi can get HD video of Jennifer Aniston picking her nose from 300 yards away but world-wide news agencies can’t do better than Skype? C’mon.

After cycling through this same stuff for about 10 minutes we switched to MSNBC.

They were no better. They had similar file footage spliced into a 3 minute reel of camera crews on a cliff watching a helicopter, that was telling some surfers to get out of the water.  The anchor had to keep telling us that this was file footage from a least two hours ago.

Both channels kept saying the Hilo Bay would be first hit but no one seemed to have a camera there.  We were told New Zealand experienced some tsunami effects, but again no video or coverage from their local channels. Same for the Pacific coast beaches on the mainland. Nothing from the helicopters, other islands, people at the scene.

Checking in an hour later we still saw the same, now 4 hour old, file footage! And here’s a news flash. If its 3 hours after it was supposed to happen its not breaking news!  Overall I find this embarrassing for news channels in the 21st Century.

The trend now seems to be:

1. Grab 40 seconds of amateur/file footage
2. Loop continuously
3. Repeat the two facts you have both as on-screen graphics and voice-over
4. Ignore all other news and scheduled programming
5. Bring in an “expert” or “eye-witness” and get them to repeat the same two facts
6. Go to #1 and repeat

I wasn’t expecting a Poseidon Adventure type wave to roll in, but I did expect some research, commentary, and on-camera interviews. Is that too much to ask?

Technorati tags: fail, tsunami, cnn, msnbc, news

The iPad…It’s not about the hardware

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you I’m no MAC fan boy.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPod (I won it as a door prize) and even contemplated getting an iPhone once ’cause I think they’re cool.  But the announcement of the iPad left me nonplussed.

As Chris wrote I cannot deny that it’s pretty. It’s very pretty. Shiny, too. but there was enough missing (no built-in camera for starters!) that I’m sure we’ll see the next version by Xmas, especially with the JooJoo launching soon.  More than that though, I think there’s more to Apple going down this path than just producing a big iTouch.

It’s got to be all about content.  With the iPad you can run virtually all the apps currently available through the App Store as well as any on your iPhone/iTouch, a lot of which are glorified ways of consuming content from 3rd parties.  They have a new book store for downloading books.  And of course you have the iTunes Store with all that music, TV shows, and movies.  Soon you’ll be able to subscribe to magazines and newspapers (which featured heavily in the video) through the store too. And as with the iPhone its all locked down.

There was also talk of it being the best web surfing experience from Rob Schiller. I assume that’s the best without Flash, seeing as that is missing from the iPad.  And why include it?  Apple has conditioned all of its iPhone & iTouch users to do without for the past few years and Safari is the first browser to support the new HTML5 audio & video tags, so why bother with it now.

Don’t get me wrong. If Messrs Jobs & co. sent me a free one to try I’m sure I’d love it. But for $500 it’s got to do a lot more than be a easy way to consume content from the iTunes Store.

Technorati tags: apple, ipad, mac

So Ricky Gervais gave up on Twitter…

…and more power to him.  You could tell from his first tweet that this wasn’t his idea, and his last one put paid to the idea that he’d be using twitter anytime soon. Floated as a way to promote his hosting of the upcoming Golden Globes he just didn’t seem to see the point and said so on his blog (you may have to scroll to week 100 as I can’t link to individual posts).

If I want to tell a friend, famous or otherwise what I had to eat this morning, I’ll text them.

And that’s why I say more power to him. He gets online media. He’s been podcasting, blogging, and vlogging for sometime.  All with a specific project or purpose in mind. He’s found the methods that work for him and work very well too. Why distill the message for the sake of using the “fad-du-jour”?

Technorati tags: goldenglobes, tweet, rickygervais, twitter

Looking back…

Its the end of the year and I’ve been thinking a bit about the things that shaped me to get where I am today.  By no means is this an exhaustive list of people, books, or events that have influenced or helped me, but more the 5 main points that spring to mind time and time again.

Web sites!

David Siegel’s Creating Killer Web Sites was the first real book I got about building web sites. Thoroughly outdated now, but back in ‘96 this was a true eye-opener for me and just made me hungry to learn more.

Floats? What the heck are those for?

I’d been trying to figure out CSS for a while with little to no success.  That was until I plowed through Eric Meyer’s Eric Meyer on CSS.  It give me a real glimpse of the web we have now. Added bonus: I ended up moving to Cleveland and meeting a very cool guy at a web design meet-up, turned out to be Eric.

Staying in touch

Keeping up with the ever changing landscape of the web is a daunting task but  Nick Fink and Digital Web Magazine made it easier. I devoured every article published in it’s 10 year run. It was my “go-to” site and I used to print off many articles to read on the bus ride home. I got to see Nick speak at SXSW as well as share a beer with him. When I think “web professional”, I think Nick Fink.

STANDARDS!

After reading Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards (now in its 3rd edition) I  made the next big leap in how I saw the web as a whole.  It was that orange book that shaped my coding and approach to building sites.

South by…

Attending SXSW for the first time kicked me up to 11!  I came back from there completely energized and re-engaged.  Its more than spotting & rubbing shoulders with the “stars” of the web. Its actually talking with them as colleagues and finding out you all share similar problems and goals. Returning the next year with Paul and representing the agency we worked for as a finalist in the Web Awards was a fantastic feeling.  If you ever get to choose a web conference to attend I recommend SXSW.

Here’s to 2010 and all that it will bring.

Technorati tags: digitalwebmagazine, web, ericmeyer, orangebook, sxsw, davidsiegel, zeldman, fink

One navigation list to rule them all?

I’ve been using unordered lists for navigation for some time now, and I remember my excitement when the I first read about the suckerfish method. But one thing that keeps popping into my head recently is using one list for the main and secondary navigation on a page. I can’t recall if I’ve ever seen anyone talk about this or try it for that matter.

The lists

Say we have a site with four main sections and within each section is four pages.  Normally I would code up the following:

Somewhere further down the page, within a section, I’d have:

Another approach

Which normally would be displayed like image 1. Now what was tickling my mind was writing the code out like this:

</li>
<li><a href="#" title="">section 3</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="">section 4</a></li>
</ul>

Usual position for secondary navigation

Where the correct sections navigation is inserted as the page is called. It could then be positioned absolutely on the page using CSS.  If you’re using skip links for screen readers, then “skip navigation” would only have to skip the one list, and if read out, then it’ll be read in context.

I know I’m not taking into consideration:

• drop down navigation (not a big fan now)
• footer navigation
• problems with certain layout designs and absolute positioning

but I think these could be overcome fairly easily.

I’m not suggesting that this is a be-all-end-all thing to use, more that I haven’t seen it implemented like this and wondered if anyone had any thoughts on the subject. I would love to hear any feedback.

Technorati tags: secondarynavigation, css, lists, html, coding

Strangers in my Twitter feed

Twitter has been going into overdrive recently, updating their online experience to (I assume) catch up with the plethora of apps that make use of the service.

Since the site has become my only way to interact with the service I’ve liked a lot of the subtle improvements. Having the site update with new tweets has been meant I don’t have to continually hit F5. Lists offer a way to organize and share, similar to Facebook’s feeds.

The latest is re-tweeting on the site, something apps like twirl and tweetdeck have offered for sometime.  Even on those apps I prefer to pass the tweet along with a little tinkering instead of just hitting the re-tweet button – that’s just me.  But the way Twitter is implementing it on the site doesn’t sit great with me (see screenshot). It feels like strangers are popping up in my feed. Names and faces that I don’t know and my initial reaction is “I’m getting SPAM” until I’ve looked a little closer.

I applaud the efforts that developers are doing, and maybe I’ll get used to it, but for now I’d like a way to turn it off.

Nokia, T-mobile, Google, and a password security problem

So I’ve been happily been using my Nokia XpressMusic 5310 for some time now.  Though I didn’t take a data plan with T-mobile I can still check my Gmail using the phone. That was until I changed my Google password.

I blogged that my Gmail account was comprised recently so I’ve been changing passwords a little and decided on one that I could remember easily.  When I updated it on my phone though it couldn’t sign-in.  I gave it a day but still nothing.  Now here was the confusing thing.  If I changed one or two characters of the password on the phone it gave the standard ‘wrong password’ message.  Type the right password in and it just said “sign-in failed, try again”.

Saturday morning I spent over 40 minutes on the phone with T-mobile support.  They had had a problem with some G1 customers (pure coincidence) so they thought it might have been fallout from that, but no.  As I was on hold for the third time I tried changing one character in my password in Google and then tried logging in on the phone – BINGO!

Seems that whatever Nokia/T-mobile uses to pass your password to Google it doesn’t like ampersands.  Chatting with the support tech he said he’d never come across that before and would log it in the Nokia database (they can’t access Google).  It was odd that somewhere, something was recognizing that it had the right password, but just wouldn’t let it through.

So if you want to bolster your secure password add non-alphanumeric characters, as long as you don’t want to access them from a Nokia phone using T-mobile.

Technorati tags: nokia, xpressmusic, 5310, gmail, password, problem, fail

So far I’m having a very American weekend…

My mum’s visit came to an end a week or so ago. There’s still little pieces of Britain floating around the house in the shape of Plain Chocolate Digestives, Prawn Cocktail crisps, and the glass of Vimto, but things have rapidly returned back to normal.

So far this weekend has dropped some more leaves of the front lawn and a nip in the morning air, signaling the rapid approach of Autumn. Friday I had the chance to venture slightly West of Downtown Cleveland. Spending a couple of hours at the Parkview Niteclub taking in the blues of Austin “Walkin’ Cane” before his trip to Nepal.  It was great seeing live music in the kind of original neighbourhood bar you’d only find in America – A lot of fun.

Today we popped around the malls and, after returning home, I found I really suck at playing basketball but it was great playing in the afternoon sun with Julie and Josh.

Sharing some Chinese takeout with my son rounded out the day nicely. Tomorrow, maybe a walk along the Lake.

My Gmail is sending spam…

So, I woke this morning to find my Gmail account had been sending out spam to everyone in my contacts list while I slept!

First, apologies to anyone that got hit. Second, how do I combat this?

Changing my Google password (which I did this morning) is really like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. I don’t think its anything on my laptop as I run anti-virus software and regular Spybot scans. Also nothing was sent from Thunderbird which I use locally.

How did “it” get access to my Gmail account? How does it run when its there? Is it Google’s fault?

We’ll have to start dealing with this kind of stuff more and more as we move into the cloud.  Can you trust the servers that your info is on? Do they run the latest anti-virus software, etc.?

Hopefully when I find out more about my current Gmail problem I’ll post here.