The browser war is about to get ugly
Go see:
_ d.Construct 2007: User Experience Design Conference
d.Construct is an affordable, one-day conference aimed at those designing and building the latest generation of web-based applications.
Previous years have seen speakers from organizations including Amazon, Google and the BBC, discuss the challenges and opportunities created by the web. This year will see 600 web professionals gather in Brighton to consider the topic of ‘user experience design’. Leading speakers from companies including Yahoo! and Adaptive Path will share their expert knowledge on how to create the best online experiences possible.
Seeya there 
I thought it’d be a good time to send an update on developments regards the conference so here goes:
Firstly, we’ve passed the “is there enough interest test?“. We’ve received more than 150 initial signups since posting the questionnaire and are still getting signups every day. Our goal now is to start fleshing out the details of the conference so that we can start increasing the numbers and creating more buzz.
Secondly, we’ve got some great speakers already committed to what we’re trying to do, and they are in no particular order:
Andy Budd (http://andybudd.com/), Andy Clarke (http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/), Demian Turner (http://seagull.phpkitchen.com/), Malcolm Hall (http://www.openboxsoftware.com/), Ryan Shelton (http://www.mutado.com).
All of the above profiles save Ryan’s are listed already, so here it is:
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Originally from Zimbabwe, Ryan Shelton moved to London in the late 1990′s to pursue his passion for design. Having worked within the design industry for over a decade, he has ridden the waves of the .com era and seen it morph into the more grown up industry that it is today. During the .com crash Ryan co-founded BD4D, a design collective that sought to encourage and unite the global design community at a time when most of the world had lost faith in the internet. BD4D holds live events around the world where designers and techies, primarily in the interactive and online media fields, get together to share ideas and to push the boundaries of the medium.
Ryan is a partner at Mutado, a design studio based in London and Milan, where he gets to work with some of the most talented people he knows.
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We’ve already had some great suggestions for speakers, so if you have suggestions too, then please feel free to send them on.
Thirdly, we’re about to start confirming dates with keynote speakers, so should have some more information for you as soon as possible.
Additionally, we’re working on expanding the website further so that we take it beyond the initial questionnaire – more on that soon too. In the meantime, you can check out some of the feedback trends from the questionnairre at: http://technologyforafrica.org//feedback.php
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Our only request of you is that you help us to spread the word as much as possible in the coming weeks and months, so that we really can make this a reality. Please tell as many people as you can, blog it, add the site to http://del.icio.us, http://digg.com (and others like Reddit and Newsvine), and tag it for http://technorati.com/. We’ll also be sending news of buttons and such that you can put on your site shortly.
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Stay tuned, we’re looking forward to seeing you later in 2007!
_ Software Wars
A graphic map depicting the epic struggle of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) against the Empire of Microsoft…
My housemate Dunners just took delivery of his new phone tonight, so we all sat around my PC checking out the specs online. Typical web geek that I am, I was more interested in the UI how the site had changed since I was last there, more than anything else… And although I really like it, and it looks nice and fresh on the surface, underneath it’s nice and bloated
It’s got gradients, simplicity and white space, but it’s lacking clean URL’s, semantic markup free of tables (where appropriate of course), uses Flash on the front page, and has loads and loads of inline styling and js bloat… Shoot forward to a language landing page, and things get no better… Opening up the product detail page and again it gets no better… Suprisingly enough, however, the product detail page passes W3C validation and so does the language landing page…
Now, don’t get me wrong here – it works and it looks really good, but when I look at the source I start getting quesy and feel a little like I’m being led astray by someone who really should know better – how can something so beautiful look so ugly underneath? My private hunch is that the project manager at Big Corp (Sony Ericsson?) was given a validation report saying that things are hunky dory and passing validation, so unwittingly it was signed it off and here we are. My position is that I’d rather stand in front of a firing squad or be hung by my rather large big toe, than release code like that on a large public website…
What do you think?
Just a friendly reminder for this Friday:
The next BBQ is this Friday on the 23rd June, same time and place as the last one:
http://www.oneafrikan.com/archives/2006/05/23/geekbbq-tomfoolery-in-london/
Upcoming.org -> http://upcoming.org/event/80247/
Address is: (now withheld to protect privacy
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=sw19&om=1 (also to protect privacy)
Open invite – everyone welcome. Please forward to anyone you know interested in Web 2.0, geekery, blogging, being a suit, being normal, or just plain good old fashioned steak!
If you want me to organise you meat, then please let me know too.
Look forward to seeing you there
I haven’t yet had the time to look through the evidence and posts yet, but since I’ve been to France, two things have happened that make me think that MSFT is about to start a very long battle to keep it’s dominance of the desktop office software market…
Google release Google mail for domains, and then they release Google Spreadsheets… They already have Word like functionality working in GMail so that has to be coming soon, they have Notebook (not seen that either yet), they’re offering an RSS reader, their Calendar is compelling… what else is already offered?
Anyways, much more on this soon, but you have to wonder in the meantime – does MSFT have this one covered? With their long desktop app release cycles, they’re really, really behind and can they play catch up / compete / differentiate enough?