Recently, the smart folks responsible for A List Apart and An Event Apart released the first project under their newest venture A Book Apart called HTML5 for Web Designers.
The book has quite a lot going for it. Primarily, it’s backed by some bright people who are at the forefront of web development and design. Authored by Jeremy Keith with support from Jeffrey Zeldman, Mandy Brown and Jason Santa Maria, it’s hard to believe this will be anything but a must-have publication.
The issue I have is that it’s only available in print so far. This seems ironic considering the subject matter: the power of HTML5 to present information across a digital medium. I’d like to see a little more leadership by example rather than killing more trees and putting those of us outside the US through the trials of international shipping. From what I see on their twitter feed, an ebook is a pretty common request and their responses indicate one will be available in August.
I’m hoping their next production sees a simultaneous release on paper and the web. The waiting is killing me.
I have had a blog at Alistair.com for around 12 years now. At the beginning it was a simple ftp down > edit html > ftp up. Now it’s WordPress and though I am nowhere near as prolific as my friend Derek, I use this site extensively for many other projects that are not public.
As a faculty member at BCIT (in Web Development, no less), you’d think I would have a nicer web site, or at least on that is current. Alas, I have constantly struggled with my writing and end up abandoning many posts because I get frustrated with the process.
None of that should prevent me from working on template and the interactions on the site, though. I thoroughly enjoy assisting my students achieve their potential when crafting their own creations, but somehow I slow down when working on my own.
So, I have reverted the site back to the default design that comes with WordPress until I can put the time and effort in to build something I am proud of.
Let’s see how long that takes.
This started as a simple request from a colleague: “Do you know any sites with good applications for the Blackberry?”
I did find one meta-post about sites that have Blackberry Applications, but many contained apps I would never use. So, I’ve created a list of the Blackberry apps I use the most (aside from the built-in apps):
- Twitterberry: I use this all the time. The new version supports alerts and scheduled updates as well.
- GMail: Another frequent-use application, excellent integration and presentation
- Google Mobile: Like GMail, this is an excellent port of Google tools such as Reader, News, Images, etc.
- BBNotePad: I have started using this more and more as a note-taking application.
- GridMagic: Great application for creating and viewing spreadsheets and sending them in XLS format via e-mail to your desk computer for further refinement.
- Viigo: Originally I didn’t use this very much, but after a while I found myself using it more and more. Even though it is ad-supported, I quite like it.
- Facebook: I wish this client was better for the Blackberry. Frankly, I don’t find it very useful as my Blackberry has no camera and the messaging is not as powerful as it could be.
- ReQall: An all-in-one application that does a decent job. I’m seeing potential in this.
- WPhone: This isn’t really an application for the Blackberry, it’s a plug-in for WordPress. It allows you to log into your admin panel and create posts, pages and manage your site from your Blackberry.
Hope that helps.