Steve Workman » Off-topic

4 years on

Steve Workman — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:13:13 +0000

*Breathe deeply. Think.*

Has it really been that long?

Four years have passed since I started writing this blog. Since then I have written 88 posts (including this one) with 89 tags in 23 categories. There have been 94 comments, 31 of which were on the CSS3 Bookshelf. The site has been through four designs under three different names on two different hosts.

For many years, the site went unnoticed, getting less than 10 page views a day. With the latest iteration, a conscious effort to drive more traffic by writing good articles every week, and a bit of help from Twitter, this improved to 30 visits a day. A few good tweets from Bruce Lawson increased this to 50, with the odd spike around the 250 mark. Then I write about a technique to make a bookshelf with new CSS technology. A lot of pushing gets a spike of 300 visits. Then, whilst on a day off, Smashing Magazine posts it twice as part of a “what you can do with CSS3” compilation, which sends me 1000 visitors a day for the weekend. That’s more visitors than I’ve had in the last 3 years put together.

So, what’s next? Well, I’m going to keep writing. There’s so much more that interface design can help us accomplish and good design becomes more and more important every day. I’m going to blog more about design itself, and things that inspire me. At the moment, a lot of those thoughts are limited to my twitter stream, so I want to expand that. I’ll talk more about my after-hours tech activities, the interesting stuff that I don’t always get to do during the nine to five.

I’m also going to get more involved in the community, discussing more issues and attending more group events. London Web Standards is fantastic and I’m going to try and make it to every one from now on.

So, there’ll be more of the good stuff, some more tutorials and more discussion. If there’s anything else you’d like to see, please leave a comment.

Thanks for reading,

Steve

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Post drought = busy

Steve Workman — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:00:51 +0000

You know those days, the ones that turn into weeks, and when the weeks can quickly turn into months you start thinking I really should have stopped the rot when it was weeks (and before that, days). That feeling, is what I have now. Over the past few weeks (actually, nearly a month), I’ve been rushing around trying to get projects sorted, doing extra projects and starting new ones. Therefore, I haven’t had a chance to post. My bad.

Good news is, I’ve found 10 minutes to write, so, here’s my last month:
1. I’ve been asked to write articles for UX Magazine from an industry perspective. I’ll be posting once every few months, with my first one due in a week or two. I’m really pleased to be able to write for these guys who are just trying to spread the word of UX
2. I’m at a new client, doing standards-based SharePoint work. I know, those two words don’t go well together, but just go with me on this one.
3. I’m finishing an iPhone demo too. This could be really big so fingers crossed
4. I’m going to buy an iPad. I had previously said that I won’t buy one til the 2nd generation, and, like with my 1G iPod Touch, I’ll probably regret it in the end, but I want one dammit!
5. Finally, if you didn’t know already, I’m now engaged to my girlfriend/now fiancee Emily. We had a very good party last weekend and even 8 days later are still not fully recovered

Here’s a promise that I’ll have an on-topic post for next week.

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I could really do with an iPad right now

Steve Workman — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:46:02 +0000

I’ve found my use case for an iPad: working without wi-fi.

I’m sat on my sofa watching the superbowl and my Internet connection is down. I’m left trying to write blog posts on my iPhone, which, by the speed of my typing, is not going to be fun. At this point, I’d like an iPad. I’d like a laptop which isn’t quite a laptop, it just does what I need it to do. Thanks to lots of apps, the only thing I couldn’t do on an iPad would be code, and I’m sure that won’t be far away. All I want to do is write a blog post from the comfort of my sofa, without getting cramp in my hands or the battery running out.

The wi-fi only version is an interesting prospect, though wouldn’t solve my current internetless problem unless I could tether the iPhone to it. I wouldn’t be against the 3g version, though the data would have to be allowed to be shared with my current plan, or I simply couldn’t justify the expense.

I’d also love it if it was intelligent enough to use the home sharing feature that iTunes 9 introduced. Music over wi-fi seems like a no brainer to me.

Well, will I get one in April? Maybe. If the price isn’t as silly a conversion as Macs are, it may be worth a look. Otherwise, it looks like i’ll make do with my old laptop

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Apple product roadmap 2010-2011 (prediction)

Steve Workman — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:35:46 +0000

If you’re like me, with an eye on Google Reader even over the holidays, you won’t have failed to notice the upcoming Apple event at which the Apple touch-screen tablet, likely to be called iSlate or the Slate, will be announced. Such is the predictability of this event, given the number of rumours that have appeared, it is now completely without interest. Even the stock market takes more notice of Apple’s rumours, rather than their product announcements.

So, I’ve gazed into my crystal ball, looked at the last few years of product announcements, and have come up with the major headlines for the next two years of Apple products.

Apple product roadmap 2010-2011

The major events, spread throughout the year, all have very specific themes. January is iLife/iWork and major product announcements, March is a developers preview of new software, WWDC in June is a major product launch, September is a big iPod event and November is pre-Christmas product refresh time. For those reasons, the above list shouldn’t be too surprising to most people in the know.

I’m predicting next year will be the Slate’s year, rather than the iPhone. It’s too soon for a form factor change and it’s got all the features it could have at this time, so 2011 will be the next iPhone update. The Slate will fit into the iPhone’s product release schedule, now being Apple’s flagship product, with yearly updates for the first few years depending on its success. The Macbook Pro line will be somewhat ignored until the end of 2010 when it gains Intel quad cores like its iMac brother. At this time, I believe the first details on OS X 10.7 will come out, probably with a new UI paradigm, potentially merging with the Slate’s modified iPhone OS.

2011 will see “Westmere” Mac Pros, though it’s possible that this will be quite a quiet event, given i7 iMacs are more cost-effective than Mac Pros. An updated iPhone/Slate OS will follow in March, and a second generation Slate in June (which will be the one I’ll get). Some controversy to follow then with a new iPod on the horizon; my thinking goes that the whole product line there needs a kick to keep people buying them, and by this time, technology will be good enough for something amazing. Finally, after that will come Intel i9 iMacs, with those processors being available for Macbook Pros by the end of 2012.

Honestly, you could probably try and predict further ahead than that with some accuracy, but forecasts become quite hazy more than two years down the line. Still, if there’s any betting shops out there willing to give me good accumulator odds on this, drop me a line!

Update 1 (March 2010): I got the Slate/iPad right, though not the release date. Still, by the time it reaches the rest of the world it probably will be July. Not so sure about a March “Town Hall” event, though I’d still expect iPhone OS 4.0 with the iPhone update this year. Also, people keep going on about potential Core i3/i5 updates for the Macbook Pro line. This hasn’t happened yet and I still think I’m in with a shout of November. The problem will be power consumption and heat, which may need a bit more work to keep the 8 hour battery life promise that Apple have made.

Update 2 (April 2010): it seems I got the iPhone 4.0 OS announcement right at the town hall event, just seems that it was in April rather than March. Unfortunately, the i5/i7 Macbook Pro announcement was in April, not November as I said. Better luck next time for that one

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Recent work – entirely non-UI focused

Steve Workman — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:01:42 +0000

When I created this blog, I wanted it to be about user interfaces, CSS, and maybe a bit of client script and design. That’s what I do and what I love doing, truly it’s what I got into this business to do. My last few months, however, have been spent dealing with all sorts of other technologies that exist nowhere near the front end.

The technology I’ve been using has actually been quite fun. I’ve been dealing with the .NET Entity Framework, which is an auto-generating data access layer similar to LLBLGen or Hibernate for Java. It’s free, works very well and has saved me a heap of time on this project. There are quite a few problems with it though, namely handling of scalar stored procedures, mediocre data model updating and the usual Attach/Detach context problems that it shares with Hibernate. It could do with some “scaffold” functionality too, but I think that’s included in .NET MVC Framework.

I’vealso been playing with .NET AJAX which works ok, though it’s not as lightweight as doing the posts to another page (or in another language, damned viewstate), it has built-in fallbacks for non-javascript users, which is exactly what you want to do when making a AAA accessible site! I’ve had exposure to iTextSharp, a .NET PDF assistant. I found it very easy to use and getting .NET to populate some PDF form fields was very easy. Having to use Adobe Acrobat Pro to make the PDFs was not as fun

I’ve also been playing with SQL database mail, SQL’s bcp function, and fighting with Visual SourceSafe and IIS. Yes, I’m working for a client who likes Microsoft

In reality, I’ve been sidelined from what I like doing because I can also do the server-side gubbins. Some days I’d rather not know how to do it, but I’ve now been a programmer for nearly 6 years (!!!) and I’ve realised that I know quite a lot about the entire process of building a system architecture that works (I know the following languages, Java, C#, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, SQL, Objective-C, Haskell, Prolog, and lots of specific libraries like DirectX, OpenGL, jQuery).

My next project looks like it will be iPhone based, so whilst I need to brush up on my Cocoa, I may get back to doing what I love: creating beautiful, usable interfaces that improve the way we work with technology.

I’m looking to complete work on an article on “Designing for Touch” soon. Looking good so far…

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Destroy Twitter – my new favourite Twitter client

Steve Workman — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:17:43 +0000

Just a quick note about a new Twitter client – Destroy Twitter, that has quickly replaced Twhirl as my client of choice. It’s lightweight, very simple and very fast whilst being incredibly slick at the same time. Now, all they have to do is get rid of the rubbish Windows chrome at the top and they’re on to a winner!

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Music of the Year

Steve Workman — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 11:48:10 +0000

I’ve been using the brilliant Last.fm service for nearly two years now, during which time it’s introduced me to loads of new artists. The best thing about it is its iPod scrobbling, so it keeps track of what I listen to and I can do all sorts of stats on it. As it is that time of year, here’s my Last.fm music of the year!

Artist of the Year

Winner: Guillemots
I absolutely loved the Guillemots new album Red, a solid follow up to their debut and an album that keeps me listening all the way through. I’ve now been to see them live 9 times! I also saw Feeder live for the first time this year which is why they’ve shot up the charts, the same goes for Athlete. Bloc Party hardly featured in my list of the year until they released Intimacy, though I’ll come to that later. Kings of Leon, Portishead and Metallica also make appearances in the top 20 for the first time after some great albums this year. Sex on Fire is an amazing song that never fails to get me going. BBC Radio 5 is down there because of my religious listening to Mark Kermode’s Film Reviews and Fighting Talk podcasts.

Album of the Year

Winner: Athlete – Beyond the Neighborhood
Athlete’s third album is their true masterpiece. After a stunning debut and a mediocre follow up, the difficult third album didn’t set the charts alight. To be honest, first listen I didn’t like it either, then I heard it again and I couldn’t stop listening to it, hence 400 listens to tracks from the album. It’s an absolute triumph and an album that gets better as the album goes on! Very close behind is Guillemots’ Red and amazingly, Bloc Party’s Intimacy. I don’t really understand Intimacy, it’s a mish-mash mess of an album that manages to be brilliant every other track. Still, I listen to the crap between the good bits as the tracks I like are amazing. Jimmy Eat World’s Chase This Light is just pure fun so I’ve listened to it a lot. Other notable albums are The Dears’s Missiles (Pink Floyd meets Blur) and We Are Scientists With Love and Squalor which has a few great tracks but not enough to carry it up the charts.

Song of the Year

Winner: Guillemots – Cockateels
Best song on my favorite album of the year. Unfortunately they’ve never played it live as their shows have been scaled back and they just don’t have room for orchestras! Second on the list is Oceansize’s Unfamiliar which is a great song from an underrated album and artist. It should be at the top of the list by miles, but it’s an 8 minute song so I can’t get that many listens in! Note Bloc Party’s Talons at the bottom of the list, by the 31st it’ll have climbed a few places.

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Unique IDs in AJAX Web Applications

Steve Workman — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:07:22 +0000

This week, Roger Johansson of 456 Berea Street posted about unique IDs in web applications. I read this and thought, “you’re right, they should be unique, but what if you’ve got an AJAX repeater?” By this I mean when I’m loading functional parts of my application that I’ll be referencing with JavaScript again, do I have to maintain a unique ID? Surely it knows what I added last or how to make them into an array?

This problem is common with certain kinds of forms where you want to let the user add another item but don’t want to have a large form on a page. For this I then append a bit of my form to the page. However, if I want to manipulate that field again, I have to assign it a unique ID, but what should that be?

Say the field had and ID of “cheese”, what would you add to the end to make it unique? Would you continually increment and hope they don’t hit the button 65 million times? (unlikely I know, but possible). Do you assign it a random number, then have to remember this random number and hope it doesn’t come up again?

What I would love to see is to be able to (naturally) access arrays of IDs, allowing IDs to be duplicated without the browser falling over. Is it too much to ask, or do I have to keep appending random numbers to my fields?

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Steve is now on Twitter

Steve Workman — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:14:28 +0000

Just a short post to say you can now follow me on twitter. Just go to http://twitter.com/steveworkman and see what I’m doing (and where!)
A twitter widget shall shortly be appearing in my sidebar no doubt

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Why I Use Opera – A case for the browser underdog

Steve Workman — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:40:14 +0000

I’ve been using Opera since it reached version 9.0 in 2006. I have used it every day since in one form or another. I use Opera on my PA laptop, on my Mac, on my TV, my games console and on my Phone, and since Opera’s rendering engine is now built into some Adobe products (Photoshop, Dreamweaver and GoLive) I’m using Opera even when I don’t realise it.

I use Opera for its productivity features. Opera Desktop contains keyboard shortcuts for almost every action, but I’ll start with the most important features:

Speed Dial – Opera lets you pick 9 web sites that you visit the most and assigns them to the number keys. Now, if I want to go to my e-mail, I simply press Ctrl+3 and the browser goes to the page I want. I could also type 3 into the address bar and press enter or use the voice commands.

Searching with letters – With the multitude of services on the internet, I find myself having to go through many pages and lots of tedious loading in order to get to a search page. Opera does have a dedicated search box for many services, but you can do it another way. In the address bar, I can type “g PA Consulting” and it’ll perform a Google search for PA Consulting. It works for any search too and can be set up by the user, so I often type “a Web Design”, which will search Amazon.co.uk for “Web Design”.

“The Wand” – Password manager – A very simple and effective solution. On any form you can save the input to “the wand”. If you return to that page and want to put the same information in again, hit Ctrl+Enter. If you have saved more than one set of data to the form, it’ll ask you to select one. Managing your passwords couldn’t be simpler.

Built-in RSS reader – Most browsers have some form of RSS syndication functionality, but few come close to Opera’s easy-to-manage feed reader. It’s not as fully featured as a stand-alone feed reader or Google Reader, but it loads stories very quickly and does its job. Other features that I’ll mention here are an in-built download manager, BitTorrent client and POP3/IMAP e-mail program. Opera is a Swiss-army knife that doesn’t need extensions to make it powerful.

Presto Rendering Engine – The Opera team has produced their own rendering engine that renders web pages faster than any other browser (even Safari, depending on the test). Opera supports the full range of CSS2 and most of the CSS3 feature set. Put simply, if a web site renders incorrectly in Opera, the web site isn’t correct (according to W3C standards). Whilst this used to cause a lot of problems, this really isn’t the case today. In your day-to-day usage, you shouldn’t find many popular web sites that render incorrectly in Opera.

Opera is also the fastest web browser for JavaScript. Run the SlickSpeed test on all the modern browsers and Opera will come out on top every time (the 9.5 release excels at this test).

Voice Commands and Screen Reader – From a testing perspective, screen readers can be right at the bottom of the list for resource requests. With Opera, the UE expert need not worry about accessibility because Opera has a voice module built in. You can issue commands to read the page, go to a certain page (or a speed dial choice) and do all the commands that are available throughout the program.

The next few features are in the upcoming v9.5 release:

Bookmark synchronisation – A very popular extension for Firefox is a built-in feature for Opera. This allows you to synchronise bookmarks, speed dials and search engine preferences between instances of the browser on multiple computers. Perfect for using Opera on your desktop and your laptop.

Opera Dragonfly – Developer tools – Opera now has a suite of developer tools, including a full DOM and CSS inspection tool, JavaScript debugger and multiple error consoles. It will also be able to debug Opera Mobile and Opera TV devices. Whilst Dragonfly is not as developed as Firebug, it can be considered as a genuine alternative.

Opera includes even more features including mouse gestures, fraud protection, individual site preferences, thumbnail preview of tabs, widgets, notes, custom themes and a very useful kiosk mode. It’s also the least memory-hungry of all the browsers and the fastest to load.

So why isn’t it used more?

It’s used a lot on mobile devices (40 million phones have shipped with it pre-installed), though its take-up on the desktop is around 1.5% of the market. It’s partly to do with Opera’s rendering “problems” and the reputation that has gained it. Firefox tends to be kinder to web pages that are less standards-compliant, and so has gained a greater following. Opera has only recently (i.e. 6^th May 2008) received developer tools, something Firefox and Internet Explorer have enjoyed for years. This has discouraged developers for developing to Opera, which starts a vicious cycle of errors, a bad reputation and fewer developers fixing problems on it. It also doesn’t help that many large companies simply ban Opera from some of their services (RBS Banking doesn’t support Opera, though it supports Firefox).

It may also be that before version 8.5. Opera was supported by advertisements. This image has been a hard one to shake off, especially as Firefox was coming to fruition at this time and was completely free. Opera has recently gained some popularity in other channels like on the Nintendo Wii and mobile phones, emerging markets that will increase the profile of the company and hopefully the use of the full browser, though that remains to be seen.

Why should I change my browser now?

Most people simply “make do” with the browser they are given. Now people are realising there is a choice (Firefox), but they are simply making do with that. Changing to Opera will boost your productivity and supports the features that other browsers only seem to copy. If you’re even remotely interested in where the internet is headed (i.e. mobile devices/integrated computing), Opera will be at the forefront of that movement.

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