David John Mead

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

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.

Brad Colbow on how “not making the logo bigger”…

Lean Dog opened the doors to their office (which is really a boat) to the CWSA tonight, letting us hear Brad Colbow’s presentation titled “Don’t make the logo bigger! Happiness for you and your clients”.

Giving us a whirlwind tour through his early steps in web design, which included some of his first concepts, Brad then stepped us through some of the pointers he’s picked up along the way.

“Design should never say ‘Look at me’. It should always say ‘Look at this’”.
David Craib

Sharing stories that we’ve all had to stumble through from time to time, like the ever changing background color and lack of content or client direction, Brad then laid out some tips that he’s gained by confronting the problems head-on.  These have now helped his freelance career, securing work for Starbucks, NationBuilder, and working with Jeremy Keith on an upcoming project.

It was a great presentation, and gave me a chance to meet up with some familiar faces in a cool space, exactly the kind of thing that the CWSA excels at. Brad also writes and draws an online comic strip called ‘The Brads‘.

Technorati tags: bradcolbow, presentation, cwsa, web, design, freelance, cleveland, ohio, july

A seemingly British week in Cleveland…

For some reason this week has been, for us at least, very British.
I got a photo from my wife during this week of an old British bakers van (Hovis to be specific). Not too interesting I suppose, except it was driving through Mentor!

Two guys, from very close to where we lived in the UK, were recreating a race across America in Ford Model-T’s.  You can follow their exploits on their website.

Then, returning from Amazone (great fun, but I’m not all that at Lasertag), we stopped off at Gaelic Imports. If you live around Cleveland you have to stop in and grab some of their fantastic baked good. I stocked up with some sausage rolls, pasties and bakewell tarts amongst other things. I also grabbed one of their breakfast pies. They are just so tasty!

We also picked up some canned goods from “back home” too.  Now these are hard times I know, but when someone if baking this stuff fresh, and its so cheap, you’ve gotta support them.  They also sell through Reilly’s at the Westside Market.

Technorati tags: british, food, baked, race, cleveland, ohio

Labels & Proximity: A real-world user fail

Being good citizens we try and recycle as much as we can. Every Saturday, and sometimes Sunday, we make the trip down to the Recycling area to drop off our collected plastic, cardboard, and paper.

Recently some of the bins have been replaced (were they recycled?) with newer ones. So 5 shiny new metal bins arrived - four red and one grey. Red ones replacing the ones for plastics and the grey was an additional one for cardboard etc. The reason for the long set-up is this Sunday we dutifully went and I saw the grey bin overflowing with plastic.

Now on Saturday it was virtually empty and only myself and one other put a few bits of cardboard in there (We both did a double-check).  So what made others fill it with plastic?  One idea I had is the lack of good signs.  The most dominant is the supplier of the bin.  Can you see which one tells you what to place here?  You can click through and see it larger on Flickr.  All the other new red bins have the same stickers, placed almost identically too.

Also the proximity to the other new bins.  All of them were placed together at the same time.  So people must have made the assupmtion that if all the new bins are for plastics, then this must be for plastic too, regardless of it being a vastly different color – and no one read the signs as they all look the same.

What went wrong?

Could you blame the users? Aren’t they just being lazy? Well I don’t think so.  In the 8 months or so that we’ve been recyclying here I’ve never seen bins filled with anything that shouldn’t have been there.  And as I mentioned, I had to double check too.

Could you blame the company? Could they have better signage? Sure, but they want their customers to know who supplied the bins, so they will contract them in the future.  That’s their objective.

Why am I rambling on about this and tagged the post web? Well these are the sorts of things that I think about when doing wireframes or page designs for web sites.

• Are visitors going to find the new thing on the old page?
• Have you made it different enough?
• Is the visitor going to get frustrated?
• Does the page serve all audiences?

So it’s important to not only look to see if you are labelling items on the page clearly, but that you are cognisant of what is around them on the page, especially if this is an existing page that you are adding new content to.