web site as a graph >>

I know that many of you out there have been aware of website as a graph for ages and many of the blogs I read were talking about this last year showing what their sites look like. I have never tried dgthekneelo so I thought I would today & here is the result.

there is something beautiful about this little application.

What do the colors mean?

blue: for links (the A tag)red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)

green: for the DIV tagviolet: for images (the IMG tag)

yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)

orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)

black: the HTML tag, the root node

grey: all other tags

good books >> a paper full sunday

I normally (and today was no different) fill my home and my head with newspapers most days but especially on sunday. newspapers are full of so much to see, or look at. I think there is a big difference, we have a choice as to what we look at.

two publications caught my eye today, whilst the howies summer catalogue is not a sunday publication I had put it aside to look at today, well worth it simply because as usual the design and production is in my opinion very good. the website is a joy to navigate as far as I am concerned.













the observer book of the weather (free with the observer today) is not just a good well designed informative book but it even quotes from far from the madding crowd (the joys of spring) thomas hardy, so it will bound to find a place on this blog.

corny >> predictable

yes I know this picture is corny and even predictable.
so to set the scene I was rushing home to get in take the dog out, change and rush out again to go and collect ben from the child minders. I was late, as I had spent time at work sorting out .pdf files that were part of re-structuring a web site using a more naturally creative way of doing things. the basis of the idea was to save time for the user by making the front end intuitive and useable so that everything they need is on one page, only what they choose is downloaded so making the website very readable and text light.
any-way in my rush, cross with the rain and the sun at the same time I just glanced at the grasses and noticed the tiny droplets of water. I had to take a photo without my proper camera handy I only had my blackberry. the camera on it is ok so I took some pictures, this is just one.
I thought a while the colours and the water made me relax a little, I stopped rushing still got to the child minders in plenty of time to get ben, happier for the tiny break to look at something corny and predictable, oh well that's me then.

surfing >> moby picture >> Go2

I don't want to turn this blog an extension of my surf web site surf98, but I have to include this picture as I like its composition so much.
it is not a picture I took myself rather a picture I would have liked to have taken. my man on the north coast 'moby' took it this morning it was amongst a few pictures he set to be included in the forecast page of the site. the fence is the border of the golf course at fistral beach, newquay, cornwall. so the picture is taken from a good distance away.

what looks like a black dot is a surfer waiting for a set wave to take, gives the waves a scale.
whilst on the surfing subject I have to say I have been surprised at the positive comment already for the first article in the new magazine I mentioned in yesterdays post Go2. I am sure that a few will have bad things to say but that goes with the territory when you write you views down in ink!

sorry for another short blog today but I seem to be extraordinarily busy at the moment (this is a good thing).

another skateboard video >> but with a difference

yes I know it is only two days ago that I was saying how lazy I had been posting two videos in a row but I had to put this one up.
it must have taken ages to make and not only that but finger skate boards I have found are harder to master than the full size ones, as anyone who has read this blog for a while or who knows me I have skated as well as surfed for more than 30 years!
my friend micky from france, probably saw this ages ago as it was made by alexis milant another cool french guy and has been doing the rounds I think on french blogs. any way give it a chance if you like it let me know.

film by alexis milant email: alexismilant ( at) gmail (dot) com

as I have been thinking about france and I have to say I really like the stubbornness of the french, especially in design not to pander to the english/americian mould of web use-ability instead as with so much they create their own.
two more french more sites to check
exalead-blog.com french language based search engine/fact finder
webtux.info a free web creation site but a bit better?

thinking >> it's just words

I spend hours and hours keeping up to date with both (ICT/enterprise) educational thinking as well as current business practice.
I worked in the real world as a designer, and a retailer before hiding away in the comfortable world of education! (well perhaps not that comfortable but for different reasons).
but I find myself spending more and more time reading only half the book, the first couple of pages of an academic paper or a .pdf document only to get bored at the point when I realise that so much of the stuff I am reading is probably just common sense wrapped up in a well designed cover, perhaps by some-one who hasn't even read the book, or 'just words' telling me the same thing.

whether it is web usability or information architecture, even planning for business success through a multi layer intranet. I have say that some stuff I have seen and read lately simply is just not very good, that said I am still a great fan of jakob neilsen and the useit web site.

I keep thinking about what my photography lecturer (in the late 70's) said to me when I was trying to measure to perfection where I was going to put my lovely art school 'black and white photo', using a really clean stainless steel ruler and my finest mechanical pencil spending ages and then finding that it still looked a bit wonky. I also remember feeling a certain amount of horror as he took the photo away from me and picked up a new clean piece of mounting board and with out measuring it at all put it in exactly the right place, saying "if it looks right it is right", but then it's just words, or is it common sense?

lazy day >> but still posted this

I have been so lazy today all I did was played a bit of very light rugby outside in the sunshine for a while with the my boys. then searched to see if there was any beach to go for a surf. we didn't go any where looked a bit crowded and small.

I know it maybe strange for someone who runs and updates a surf website every day (me) surf98. I live on one side of cornwall and rely on not just computers and forecasts but real people to check that my reports are correct for the other side if I am not going. no-one was around today don't blame them lovely day and beaches to sit on, etc.

I found this link that's really cool not only can you look at the surf on a north coast beach but you can control the web cam as well just when its busy you have to wait your turn is good fun click this

I know Mr Nielsen doesn't like a link to use the 'click this' but still.

sky >> I like big sky >> art?

I have always been interested in the weather especilly the effect it has on the sky and the sea. tonight we had a really excellent sky I watched too long and actually forgot to take pictures, well until it was a bit late but still you get the idea from the images posted. the one on the right is taken standing on my front door step.
it is such a shame I am often so disappointed when I search for good landscape/skyscape pictures across world of digital land to use in project with my students. so many the web sites you come across tend to be too text happy and if not just want to sell you an art print!

art print I am really unhappy with that term it is almost suggesting that the photo prints they art selling are art just because they are pretty. tell you what a simple look through any number of flickr accounts (of supposed amateurs) will show you more 'art' and a some (most) of them you can download and use for free, obviously following creative commons rules.
I like creative commons I know on this blog I withold the use of my work for others to make money from I think that is fair enough, however on my flickr I will happily allow (use as long as it is credited) to make as much money as they can.

I had to post this last image (sunday afternoon on the A30 near bodmin) just because I love the neat arrangement of safety cones, but it is an image it isn't art is it?

special note: I do realise that art is a definition I am not really feel qualified to make. having never considered my self an artist I do feel qualified to make judgment on what I see, and think about what I am looking at.

still not feeling good >> too much time to think >> NCDS >>

it's only a title so don't worry I haven't reverted to the self indulgence of another blog I ran few years ago, if anything I have too much to write today.

haven't been to proper work just not well enough but have spent some time on the long over due surf98 re-design see picture "big shock work not being done on a Mac!?!"(work on both PC and Mac), the finished website is way off yet I'm still at the illustrator stage.

I/we at home are learning sign language to help ben our eight year old son who is deaf (well hearing impaired if you want to use the trendy term). each Wednesday for the last five a very patient/caring man (mark) has been coming to our house and spending sometimes a couple of hours teaching/helping us to communicate using signing, during this time I have been humbled by the phenomenal visual language used by people who are dismissed by so many. at eight ben's visual recall is amazing but it is only now that we can get close to tapping in to it. ben's drawing and computer use is already surprisingly advanced but he will always be held back in the hearing world as he wears hearing aids and sometimes misses things that are spoken.
anyway just a thought have a look at NDCS and BSL. remember next time you have the chance to tap into a "hearing impaired" persons visual memory give it a go you may well be amazed.

oh yes I took this picture in the kitchen, the daffodil was broken in the strong wind today. I just had to bring it in and include it, as it's so yellow.

hours in front of computer screens ends in pictures of fins

strange isn't it I have spent so many hours in front of different screens today. testing software, running and evaluating new applications. looking at endless websites, blogs and virtual spaces and in the end I have to find something real to touch and look at and hold it happens to be a surfboard I mentioned a few posts ago when I was talking about the twin fin, this is a quad fish and it's is mine I love the look of it and setting the fins in a formation such as this really does make the board very fast as there is no central drag. it was made in byron bay, australia by ex-world champion david parkes a master when it comes to making surfboards that work.
so rather than write about stuff I have spent the last 12 or so hours looking at I will list some of the good stuff I have seen today + open office 2.1 + russell davies + lindsay.at + chocolate and vodka + my flickr + ma.gnolia.com + firefox2.com + 1-2know +
I won't go in to the 'educational' stuff that I have been trawling through for work as I want to stay awake a little bit longer. don't worry I will save that for another day.

not designing / thinking / looking enough

just a short one today I have been a bit busy with other stuff but still I seem to be getting drawn in to looking at surf sites and surfers and photographers blogs only to then trace back who is designing the stuff I am drawn to and like, I always think if I like a lot then I am not designing / looking / thinking enough. do you know that is probably true. all the same I do have to mention these people clark-studios as I just like what they do and it is very different to the minimalist stuff I am usually so drawn to.