published over 2 years ago (18.07.2006 11:00)
how shall this ever be solved?
israeli girls writing messages on bombs.
israeli girls writing messages on bombs.
published over 2 years ago (08.06.2006 13:45)
getting themes to work with typo trunk
the old web server is dying, so it was time to get a new one and move everything over. typo didn’t run in the new ruby/rails environment, so i decided to try updating to the latest svn trunk revision. it took some fiddling to get it to work, especially since i wanted to use a new theme – [Lucid Theme](http://typogarden.com/articles/2005/11/30/the-lucid-theme) by [Jamie Hill](http://www.thelucid.com/). the theme hasn’t been updated for some time, so (due to some changes in the handling of sidebars) it didn’t work with typo trunk. fak3r [researched](http://fak3r.com/articles/2006/06/05/howto-get-typo-themes-to-work-with-trunk) how to fix that – thanks!
note: there’s still some trouble with internet explorer on windows. i’ll look into that – and the flickr sidebar – later.
published over 2 years ago (05.06.2006 20:22)
test your web-development knowledge
published over 2 years ago (28.05.2006 19:11)
kingfisher - india's no.1 lager
the label reads: INDIA’S No1 LAGER - DESPITE THIS ADVERTISING
these and many more great, funny and smart advertisements can be found at ads of the world - a projects that archives ads that are worth it.
they might as well include the latest adicolor series of short films - bizarre, beautiful, and exceptional in every aspect. my favorites are pink and green.
published over 2 years ago (25.05.2006 12:45)
writing, and the hierarchy of website needs
i just visited the tazo site, originally to find out if i could buy their tasty (if somewhat americanized) chai directly and loose, instead of from outrageously expensive starbucks, by the bag.
when there however, i had to think of an article i read on a list apart recently – Calling All Designers: Learn to Write. i agree with the article (and a friend that came to the same conclusions on his own), and will pay more attention on future projects.
i’ll collect a couple of examples of well written sites. i already have tazo, skype and photojojo (the site mentioned in the ala article). of course flickr qualifies as well. i’d add apple, too.
i have some concerns though:
the copy has to be really well written to stand out, and consistent. otherwise most people just won’t notice the difference.
it requires closer collaboration of the client, copywriter, designer, site producer, etc. something that in todays loosely coupled, freelancer-based way of creating websites rarely is a reality, at least in most larger projects i have been on so far.
just as in design and user interface, the purists would argue that the best copy is the one that doesn’t draw attention to itself but “just” lets people use the site perfectly. so how to write depends a lot on the kind of site being built.
good writing will probably only happen on sites with a somewhat larger budget. hiring a copywriter (or putting more effort into the copy oneself) adds extra costs. for multilingual sites, you’ll need one writer (or a native language translator) for each language.
so taking care of good writing is on one of the higher layers in the “hierarchy of website needs” (see here ;-). from bottom to top you’d have (not limited to the following):
that the site actually is “there” and can be navigated
that the information it provides is useful
good usability
a beautiful design somewhere at the middle …
… and good copywriting would be just next to design, one layer below or above it
the building layers would be different depending on the kind of site created, as well as the layers’ order. i think the pyramid is a good way to visualize the blocks that go into building a great site. although in some places there won’t be a strict order, but a cloud. to some extent great writing can make up for a plain design. in the article mentioned above, Derek merges these two traditionally separate layers into one.
i think the fact that we’re paying (more) attention to copy now shows the web development discipline maturing. a couple of years ago, we were still concerned with the lower layers, today we got more routine with that, and the worst browsers have finally left the building anyways. so we can concentrate on the higher layers.
on a side note, i think that’s one of the benefits of the ruby on rails framework. it allows us to concentrate on higher layers. using it, the lower layers don’t require as much brain power, time and dedication, so we can pay more attention to the higher ones. that’s something you notice with many rails sites – they don’t just work, they are nice to use and look at as well.
published over 2 years ago (21.05.2006 10:49)
going to RailsConf Europe!
rails_conf << phillip
i’ll be in london for a good week in september, mainly to attend the first european conference held on ruby on rails.
i’m excited about meeting the people behind ruby/rails in person, and to experience the rails community! from what i’ve learnt by reading blogs, books, documentation, emailing, viewing videos and listening to podcasts, and visiting sites created in rails i believe they are the most “human” and broad-minded of all programming communities i know. so i believe it will be a pleasant and fun experience, too. beside the obvious – getting a much deeper insight into the tech side of things and learning about rails’ future.
another reason i’m going is to commit myself more to the technology. having been a php guy all my developer life, today my brain says “use rails, it’s superior”, but habit and some lazy parts of my brain sometimes still respond “hey why bother – you already know one very powerful web development environment really well, and have invested a lot in it”. i believe the experience of attending a rails conference will provide a breakthrough and convince all of me, and only a warm and fuzzy feeling will be left.
since i’ve been to london only once, i’ll stay there more than a week. the conference is on the 14th/15th, but i’ll be in town from the weekend before the conference to the weekend after it (9th-17th). i’m looking forward to being in london again, too. i’m really curious – the last time i went was in the early 90s.
published over 3 years ago (03.04.2006 23:23)
luis buñuel
just found a nice blog post talking about luis buñuel, the surrealist of film. one of the most, erm …, impressive ones is Un Chien Andalou (1929), which he did together with Salvador Dalí. check out the article for more info and a couple of stills …
Warning: you will see something quite hefty there. if after seeing the first still image you don’t want to see what followed, do not scroll down. they – and she – do show it.
published over 3 years ago (02.04.2006 19:56)
getting irb brackets to work on german windows
for those on windows, there’s the great ruby one-click installer which will set up a nice ruby environment on your box. asking it to take care of all possible localization issues would be asking for too much though, so if you’re on a non-english windows, chances are that irb will be severely broken – no brackets, no ruby joy. and no script/console in ruby on rails.
the reliable way
here’s how i was able to fix the issue:
- download the file linked to in why’s poignant guide to ruby in the “windows hickups” sidebar. place the files from the zip file in ruby directories as described at why’s.
- get the text snippet “for europeans” as well. save it to the file c:\ruby\etc\.inputrc_german. (you will have to create the etc directory first). when saving the file you might have to go through the windows shell, as the windows explorer doesn’t let you create filenames starting with a dot.
- tell readline where to find this file. the safest bet is to directly point at the file by setting the INPUTRC environment variable. so edit c:\ruby\bin\irb.bat and insert the following after the @echo off command (line 2):
set INPUTRC=c:\ruby\etc\.inputrc_german
the pretty way
if you don’t want to “hack around” your ruby directory and modify irb.bat, of course you can specify the environment variable somewhere else and also put the .inputrc file in another directory. these are your options (start reading from the paragraph “Readline-4.0 will look for an …”).
i fiddled with this a lot, so i came up with the first option. if you want to put the file somewhere else, be aware of the following:
- the HOME env variable is most likely not set on windows, so readline will not search there.
- if the path to .inputrc contains spaces (as it will when pointing to a german windows home dir - “C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen...”) readline might choke. at least it didn’t work on my box.
- if you happen to have cygwin installed (as i do …) there’s some extra confusion, as the HOME env variable is set, but it points to some place that (at least on my system) does not exist.