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Apple releases free multimedia ebook authoring tool for iBooks

26 January 2012

Last month, I wrote about The Beatles' Yellow Submarine ebook, which is like a modern pop-up book, with animated illustrations, interactive pictures, embedded videos, and text that reads itself aloud. Since that was published, there have been some educational interactive books appearing in the iBooks store. It's clearly something that Apple is putting a lot of weight behind, and it represents a new class of content that is ideal for the iPad.

Now Apple has released the software for creating these books, iBooks Author, for free on the Mac app store. It's only for the Mac (obviously), but it enables authors and self-publishers to lay out their books and embed video, images with pop-up captions, custom HTML (web page code), photo galleries, Keynote presentations and 3D objects.

This will make it much easier for anyone (with a Mac) to publish their own interactive ebooks, which has an upside and a downside. The upside is that authors can express themselves in more interesting and creative ways, and readers can benefit from a richer catalogue of original content, unfiltered by major publishers. The downside is that not everyone is brilliant at video, layout, writing, design and all the other skills that are required, so there's bound to be some rubbish content that undermines faith in the format as a whole. We've seen the same phenomenon in website publishing and print-on-demand publishing. I'd much rather that people have the opportunity to use these tools, but the best way to exploit them might be for writers to team with other creatives who can help to bring their ideas to life. For now, before the masses adopt the tool, there's clearly an advantage for authors who can move quickly to publish compelling interactive content.

You can find a short guide to iBooks in my book iPad for the Older and Wiser, and my articles for writers and publishers here.

Labels: iPad, iPad 2, journalism, webdesign, writing

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Five short pieces of book news

15 January 2012

I just wanted to write a short blog post to round up a few snippets of news about my books:

Lulu is running two special offers applicable to my novel University of Death. You can pay no shipping using the code WHOASHIPPINGUK305 or you can save 25% of the book price using the code LULUBOOKUK305. I believe these offer codes work on all books in Lulu's store. My novel takes a comical look at the music industry and has had rave reviews from magazines including Record Collector, Music Tech and Metal Hammer. Find out more and download the free sample here, but don't delay! Both offers expire 31 January 2012 and only apply to books bought through Lulu's website. The novel is also available as an ebook on iBooks, but I can't create a link for that so you'll need to search in the store (sorry!).
Web Design in Easy Steps is following in the footsteps of iPad for the Older and Wiser, and is an Amazon bestseller. It's currently #1 in the categories for website design; web graphics and animation; and books published by In Easy Steps.
Tata McGraw-Hill has published an edition of Web Design in Easy Steps for sale in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. It's wonderful to know the book is helping people in all these countries to create their websites!
Saga Magazine has published a review of iPad for the Older and Wiser. It says the book "will have you set up on your new device in no time". See a scan of the review here.
If you got iPad for the Older and Wiser recently (thank you!), you might have missed that there is a free supplement available for it here, to explain the latest software updates available for the iPad.

Labels: books, iOS5, iPad, university of death, webdesign, writing

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Tim Berners-Lee’s vision for the future of web-based applications

20 October 2011

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, delivered the closing keynote at RSA Conference last week, outlining some of his ideas for a more secure web.

Photo of Tim Berners-Lee

Photo of Tim Berners-Lee speaking at RSA Conference 2011.
Photo ©Sean McManus

For the future of the web, it’s critical for applications to be able to access information from other applications, he said. He gave the example of those web-based event planning apps where each person in a group of friends enters the time and date they could meet up, and the app finds a consensus. The computer already has each person’s calendar, though, so it’s got a good hunch about when people are doing important things already. You end up with people typing in information that the software already has.

Berners-Lee spoke about software having what I would describe as “a conflict of interest”, for example an auction application which might represent his bids but also has access to everyone else’s and could easily cheat. The issue of trust is key, and Berners-Lee suggested we might use different parts of the screen or different colours to help identify the different sources of data and how trustworthy we should consider them to be. He also gave the example of software he uses to manage his tax return, and said he was “shocked and disturbed” when the software asked if it could sell him insurance. If he pays for software, he says, he wants to know it’s working on his behalf, and he was so annoyed by this that he gave up using the application and wrote his own instead. This is a problem that’s less of an issue with a website like a travel agent’s site, because Berners-Lee assumes the application is working on the travel agent’s behalf there, he said. As we move to the cloud, it strikes me that new types of advertising become technically possible but Berners-Lee insisted the cloud needs to be under the user’s control, with no backdoor for serving ads based on the data stored in it.

The key is that there needs to be a way for the user to control the resources every application gets, Berners-Lee said, including CPU, memory (local and in the cloud) and the disk and camera. He said he wants to be able to give particular apps, people and groups access to different pieces of data on all his devices, without any defaults that might result in data leaking and without having to set it up from scratch for each new app. And there needs to be a clear, colour-coded user interface, that makes it easy to see at a glance who has access to different types of data (such as family, work colleagues, everyone, and the user only). For example, he might use an exercise app which tells everyone he did 40 minutes of exercise, show friends and family the GPS trail of the path he took, and reserve details of his weight for his eyes only.

If it’s possible for apps and people to share data in a secure way, under the user’s control, there will be an explosion in apps that can talk to each other, which could lead to all kinds of new ways to share and process our data.

What do you think the future of web-based apps looks like?

Labels: internet, technology, webdesign

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How to customise your blog for the iPad

08 September 2011

Although I use Blogger myself for managing this blog, I typically recommend Wordpress as being more fully featured. I use it for some other blogs I write, and it’s a bit more flexible and more powerful than Blogger, especially for newcomers. I wrote a section outlining the basics of getting started with Wordpress in my book Web Design in Easy Steps.

When I was looking around one of my Wordpress-hosted blogs recently, I discovered a new section in the Appearance section of the settings. If you log into your Wordpress dashboard, and scroll down, you should see ‘iPad’ in the Appearance section, on the left. These settings give you the option to upload an image that will be shown when someone launches your blog from an icon on the iPad’s home screen, and to upload a cover logo. These help to give a visit to your blog a more native app-like feel on the iPad. By default, the option to display a special theme for iPad users is ticked, and you can confidently leave it ticked.

Although I’ve been using the iPad a lot, especially while writing my book iPad for the Older and Wiser, I hadn’t visited any Wordpress blogs with it, so I was intrigued to see what this was all about. Basically, with the theme selected, Wordpress presents your blog in a format that is optimised for the touch screen and that will be familiar to iPad users when they view it. On the iPad, you see boxes containing headlines and a short summary of your story. When you tap one, a window opens to show the story in full which can be dragged up and down. To move between the pages of summaries, you swipe sideways to turn the pages. The whole experience is similar to the superb Flipboard app, which turns updates from social networks and your favourite websites into a magazine-like experience.

This is a great innovation from Wordpress: it feels like a native app on the iPad, and doesn’t require any additional work from the content creator, nor does it interfere with the experience for those using desktop computers. If you want to see an example of it, try visiting Finepixtrix, a photography blog I picked from Wordpress’s homepage, with your iPad. It features some great photography by Grahame Hall, who lives in South Africa. On a desktop computer, his blog looks much like this blog: the blog posts are stacked on top of each other and you scroll down the screen to read them. On the iPad, it’s more like a magazine, with headlines and images laid out neatly on the screen, so you can quickly find what you want to read. This screenshot shows the blog’s iPad theme:

If you have a Wordpress blog and want to offer iPad visitors a similar experience, the good news is that Wordpress is already doing it for you. However, you can make the experience even slicker by uploading a splash image and logo in your Wordpress settings. If you customise your blog for the iPad, leave me a comment and I'll check it out.

Labels: blogging, blogs, books, iPad, iPad 2, webdesign

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Five questions journalists should ask themselves following the Internet Explorer IQ hoax

04 August 2011

Yesterday, the BBC was among many news outlets that was fooled by a press announcement made by an organisation calling itself "Aptiquant", which claimed that people using the Internet Explorer web browser had lower IQs than those using other browsers. The announcement claimed the result was based on administering IQ tests online and then looking at the browser the test participant used. It was all utter cobblers.

As the developer behind it confessed, it was just a prank he set up to raise awareness of the problems Internet Explorer causes web developers. In that sense, it's not really a particularly well set-up prank, because the story attacks the users instead of the browser designers. And it doesn't make much logical sense either: I'd actually expect the average IQ of IE users to be lower than that of other browser users because IE is installed by default on most computers, and other browsers must be installed by a reasonably clued-up user. There's not necessarily a link between IQ and computer literacy, but a mass market browser that's installed by default is bound to represent the average web population, which would have an average IQ. I wouldn't be surprised if people using Safari, Chrome and so on had a higher average IQ between them, because they aren't representative of the general population, and are skewed towards those with more intellectually demanding jobs (IT, web design and so on).

Anyway, the BBC published a story announcing it was all a hoax. When putting together its story, the BBC consulted Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University's Statistical Laboratory, who said: "I believe these figures are implausibly low - and an insult to IE users." The implication in the BBC's follow-up story is that they did their job because they included his alternative view in the write-up.

But is that good enough? They had two sources: an unknown company that issued a press release claiming IE users are dim; and a respected statistical scientist who said he thought the data was "implausible". Instead of believing the scientist and spiking the story, the BBC believed the press release from a company it had never heard of. The company didn't even really exist, it turns out.

So here are some questions journalists and bloggers should be asking themselves following this hoax:

Does everyone have an equal right to coverage in my publication, or does the credibility of the source matter?
Is it more important to publish the truth, or to publish a balanced report?
What do I take responsibility for when I attach my byline to a story?
Does my publication have to cover everything, or can I spike stories I don't believe are substantiated?
Is this really news?

Feel free to leave your thoughts on this below. For tips on handling (legitimate) press releases, see my article Don't Believe the Hype. For tips on designing websites for a whole range of browsers, including the love-it-hate-it Internet Explorer, see my book Web Design in Easy Steps.

Labels: journalism, webdesign, writing

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News on three book projects

14 April 2011

It's been a while since I updated the blog, so I've got three bits of news about books I've written to share with you.

Firstly, Web Design in Easy Steps has now been published. It's a full colour 240-page book in the popular In Easy Steps series. It starts by looking at the web design challenge, and then discusses what makes an effective website (with chapters dedicated to content, navigation and layout), before going into more depth on how websites are built. There are chapters dedicated to HTML, CSS and Javascript, and there are tips on using tools such as Flash, Dreamweaver and Wordpress. There is also advice on plugging in to social networking sites and adding a shopping cart. The book concludes with a look at how you can promote your website and measure what your visitors do on the site.

I have written extensively about website design in the past, for magazines including Internet Magazine, Business 2.0 and Internet Works, as well writing and editing a monthly newsletter about usability for a couple of years. I've also managed a few commercial website design projects in the past and am now working on updating my own website to reflect more of the good ideas in the book. Find out more about Web Design in Easy Steps, including how to order your copy, here.

The second bit of news is that Microsoft Office for the Older and Wiser is now available for the Amazon Kindle. You can get a free sample sent to your Kindle device from that link. For more information on the book, see the website for Microsoft Office for the Older and Wiser. I was really pleased with the structure and content of this book. It takes readers from no knowledge of the Office suite up to being quite sophisticated users through a series of projects. The book covers Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. There's also a bonus chapter on email using Windows Live.

The third piece of book news is that iPad for the Older and Wiser is now available for pre-order. I've written over half of it now and it will include coverage of both the original iPad and the features that are exclusive to the new iPad 2. The book will be published in September 2011. Wish me luck with drafting the last chunk of it and let me know if you have any favourite apps to recommend for the book!

Labels: books, iPad, iPad 2, Microsoft Office, webdesign

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New Javascript tutorial

16 July 2009

Just a quick post to announce a new article on this website that explains how you can show things and hide them using Javascript. People often use Javascript libraries for this purpose, but that often means using a large file full of code you don't need. The code that achieves this effect only needs to be a few lines long, as this article shows.

To see the reveal effect in action, you can try my virtual book signing tool.

Labels: javascript, webdesign

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New look website launches

29 April 2009

I've just relaunched this website, with a new look and feel. I recently got a larger monitor and the old design wasn't easy to use on that, so I've made this design fluid within certain parameters. I've taken the opportunity to update the layout, fonts and colour scheme, and to add a few fun/random interactive features. I've tried to integrate the different types of content better, so that it's possible to more easily move between the different experiences the site offers.

I've still got some stuff to tidy up and check (but do let me know if you spot anything that's broken), and I've got a few pieces of new content in progress at the moment.

The site should work acceptably on most screen sizes and I've tested it on the PC using IE7, IE6 (shudder!), Chrome, Firefox and Safari. It doesn't look the same in them all (it's best in IE, because I've used font embedding extensively), but it works fine. Let me know what your experience is like (particularly if you're using a Mac).

Labels: site news, webdesign

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Prince's new website: Clicks hard in a funky place?

30 March 2009

Prince has just launched his new website, Lotusflow3r.com [link no longer available]. He's had a few websites over the years - one was a club website, where subscribers were posted some exclusive CDs throughout the year; another was a virtual shop, but the music was all DRM-crippled, so there are lots of reports of people who aren't able to play the music they've bought any more.

The new site has a somewhat vague proposition: $77 buys you downloads of the new triple album (which is retailing for $12 in the US, price in the UK to be determined), plus a t-shirt and early news of forthcoming gigs. There are said to be videos too, but it's unlikely you can download them, and there's no indication of how often they'll be updated. I'm not convinced, to be honest. And I'm a massive Prince fan.

The biggest mistake, though, is that Prince has overestimated how important his website is to other people. He expects people to spend a lot of time playing with a tricksy interface just to hand over their money. If you want to register, you have to mouse over and click things until you hit a 60x30 pixel image which opens this:

Prince virtual website ticket

Aha! That looks like my ticket in. But what do I type into the boxes? There are no clues - you have to keep typing in things until you get it right. The answer is to close the ticket again, go and watch the video on the telly on the homepage, and then type in '1986' and 'Los Angeles'.

Why make people do that? Was it a fun experience? Not particularly. Did it make it easier to get to the real site content? Absolutely not.

If you're selling something, whether it's music or shoes, you've got to make it as easy as possible for people to buy. Just get them to bash in their contact details, their credit card details, and then let them get on with their lives. The content is supposed to be the entertainment. Not the interface.

(For more tips on creating successful websites, see my book Small Business Websites That Work).

Labels: business, customer service, music, music promotion, webdesign

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Virtual book signing tool in this month's Writers' Forum

05 September 2008

Gosh! It's a good week for book PR. Writers' Forum has published a great story about the tool I've created to enable books to be signed over the internet. It uses a virtually unknown feature of Internet Explorer to send a font of the author's handwriting over the web. The technique enables dedications to be customised with the recipient's name (and potentially, other details too). You can try the tool out by getting your copy of 'University of Death' signed now.

It's great story in the magazine, half a page including my photo and a cover shot. It's nice to be mentioned in the same story as Stephen King and Margaret Atwood, too.

I've offered to help other authors to set up the same facility on their websites. Drop me a line, if you're interested. You'll need to have FTP access to your server, but if you're happy with that, then I can talk you through the steps to get the rest of it working.

Writers' Forum issue 85 is available now from WH Smiths (and probably some other shops too). Nice joke on the front cover about writing for Australian markets, too, with the strapline printed upside down.*

*(It would have been funnier if the article had been laid out upside down, particularly if the unrelated right hand column had been left the right way up. But I guess there has to be a line somewhere.)

Labels: books, marketing, site news, software, university of death, webdesign, writing

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Writing Wisdom Quotes - Facebook App

04 September 2008

I've created a simplified widget and Facebook application based on my Writing Wisdom Widget. The simplified version can also be added to iGoogle, blogs and websites easily, although in all cases it lacks the advanced customisation of the version here.

It was created using Widgetbox. Widgetbox makes it easy to create widgets if you know a bit of Javascript or have an RSS feed you want to distribute. It might be a nice way to get RSS feeds of this blog on to the homepage without having to do any coding too - I'll need to look into that. The Facebook application had a few steps to create and install, but the guidance was clear. I'm a bit disappointed that the quotes don't show on my profile page - instead there's a thumbnail you click to go to the quotes engine. But it's nice all the same.

If you're on Facebook, please consider adding the application and feel free to use the new or old version of the quotes widget on your website or blog.

Labels: webdesign, writing

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Javascript string compression tutorial, including search and replace

12 August 2008

When I created my Writing Wisdom widget, which is available to embed in any blog or website, I spent some time working on string compression. Using a simple search and replace script that substitutes short symbols for frequently used character sequences, I was able to cut about 15% off my filesize. I've written a tutorial to explain Javascript string handling, including take-away scripts for search and replace and text compression in Javascript.

Labels: webdesign, writing

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Free advent calendar for your website

11 November 2007

The shops have been full of crackers and Christmas puddings since August, but now normal people are starting to make plans for Christmas too. You can add my free Javascript advent calendar to your website, and provide a different surprise each day. If you're in a band, you could put a different song behind each door. If you're a photographer, a different photo. Businesses could put an 'offer of the day' behind the door. Anything you can link to on the web (or code in HTML) can go behind one of the doors. The advent calendar has full installation instructions and includes rudimentary controls to help prevent people cheating and opening doors early.

I won't be configuring an advent calendar for my site this year, so let me know if you do!

Labels: webdesign

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Nintendo Browser to support Flash?

22 May 2007

Speculation has been mounting for some time that the US release of the Nintendo DS Opera Browser will support Flash. Now the promo guff on the Nintendo website [link no longer available] advertises Flash support, which has been taken by many as official confirmation.

Those who have tried the European or Japanese releases of the browser find it hard to believe. The frame rate grinds to a crawl if you have a couple of animated GIFs on the page. It's certainly a far cry from the 'lightning fast' performance the Nintendo site claims Opera delivers. Perhaps the US release comes with an enhanced memory pack to help the browser render more quickly. Even so, that would be unlikely to have an impact on download times, which would be limited by the hardware's bandwidth. Pages that feature Flash tend to have a large total file size.

How much use would Flash be in the Nintendo DS browser? Not much, I suspect. The small screen rendering mode (which is the easier of the two modes to use) will not be able to strip anything meaningful from most Flash files. The overview mode involves a lot of scrolling around, which is likely to make it impossible to play most existing Flash games. I can live without all the Flash adverts and splash pages. And Youtube wouldn't be much fun without the sound.

Opera did a smart job of designing the original browser, though, so it might have some new tricks to solve these problems. Being able to magnify/shrink and centre Flash movies might be all it takes to make them usable, although obviously detail would be lost on the small screen. Sound would be a welcome addition, and would seem to be a prerequisite for meaningful Flash interaction.

I don't miss Flash on the current browser, but there is reason to be excited. If the US browser does support Flash, it will for the first time make it easy for people to develop games for the Nintendo DS. There is a thriving homebrew community, but getting unofficial software working involves quite a bit of hacking and some extra hardware. If people can just visit a website to play, that will make it much easier. Flash is a well understood development tool, with many game-writing tutorials available. The incorporation of Flash into a DS browser could be the catalyst the platform needs for homebrew to go mainstream.

Related links:

My Nintendo DS Microsite (link no longer available) - optimised for the SSR mode
Guidelines for designing websites for Nintendo DS browser

Labels: games, nintendo, webdesign

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Blogging Against Disablism Day: making websites accessible

01 May 2007

This October, the UK's Disability Rights Commission will be subsumed into the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights. One body will bring together the work that has previously been carried out in the DRC, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC).

For me, there's a fundamental difference about the work the DRC does. While it's true that people with disabilities face prejudice (as do many people by virtue of their race, gender or sexuality), there are also many people with disabilities who are disadvantaged through technology.

The web is a good example of this. It's not difficult to eliminate the most common problems that people experience when using assistive devices. For example, you should provide alternative text for pictures so that screen readers can read a description out loud for blind people. You should make sure your site can be navigated using the keyboard, so that people who can't control a mouse can still get in. You should make sure that your fonts are legible and can be enlarged with the browser settings. You shouldn't use colour to convey meaning. There are extensive checklists published by the Web Accessibility Initiative. They can look daunting, but most are common sense and just fixing the top priorities would help a lot of people access your content.

The DRC has done some valuable work over the last few years investigating web accessibility. Although it has been supportive of the WAI guidelines, its own usability lab tests found that many of the problems encountered in usability tests weren't addressed by the WAI checkpoints. That helped to change the industry perception from one of 'ticking the boxes' to one of 'making sites useable for every audience'. The DRC also developed an accessible flash game and co-published a guide to commissioning accessible websites [link no longer available].

I very much hope that the integrated CEHR is able to dedicate the same resource and expertise to tackling the technical barriers that prevent people with disabilities from having equal opportunities.

There is still a long way to go in web accessibility. When using Blogger's image upload function for the first time today, I was shocked that it didn't prompt me for an ALT tag. The blogspot templates are mostly reasonably accessible, but the blogs stop being accessible as soon as anyone posts any images. Mad.

I also visited a website for work today which used two different colours to distinguish between content that did and did not require registration. This was a business that had probably paid handsomely for a website that some would argue contravenes disability discrimination law.

Most web 2.0 services present accessibility problems too. Shouldn't we be more worried that significant members of our society are being shut out of the conversation?

For most of us the internet is a luxury. We might depend on it, but we'd cope without. For some people with disabilities, the web has literally changed their lives. For the first time, some will have the opportunity to do their own shopping and banking. Deaf-blind people can receive the news the same time as the rest of us and join in the debate at the same time too. But only if sites are well designed.

There is a payback for the site owners too. Not only will they win the custom of people with disabilities, but they will also find their accessible sites index better in search engines and perform better on mobile devices. As I've been playing with the Nintendo DS browser lately, I've found accessible sites work like a dream.

So who is to blame for inaccessible sites? Many businesses will be unaware of their obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act to ensure services are accessible, and others will shirk that responsibility. Ultimately, the site owner is responsible for the experience it provides, and is the party who reaps the rewards of making the site useable.

But I blame lazy designers. I worked on a major website project some years back where the bidders all promised they could build us an accessible site. When I questioned something our chosen provider had built which was inaccessible, they replied 'how many of your readers are blind, though?'.

It's 2007. We've been talking about accessibility for years and yet we still see broken sites launching. Anyone who sells website designs should understand the importance of accessibility and should fit it as standard. It's part of the design challenge, not an optional extra. All those people who are clever enough to invent web 2.0 services should be smart enough to make them work for everyone. All those people selling corporate websites owe it to their clients to make sure everyone can access them, and to explain what they're doing and why.

Related resources:

Blogging Against Disablism Day, 1 May 2007. Visit the site for more posts about disability discrimination.
Jakob Nielsen on why accessibility matters
17 Steps to an accessible website
Access? That'll do nicely
Making Flash accessible
Accessibility Excellence - case studies of three accessible websites
Tesco launches visionary website

Labels: technology, webdesign

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Opera Browser for Nintendo DS: Webpage design guidelines

12 April 2007

You might remember I launched a site dedicated to the Nintendo DS browser (link no longer available) last month, including a couple of Javascript games.

I've now written some guidelines for how to design websites for the Nintendo DS. The use of the touchscreen, the small screens and the different browsing modes present several website design challenges. I hope that this guide will help to clarify them. When I was designing my site, I couldn't find this information in one place, so I've compiled the specifications and written some tips on making sites that are easy to use, based on my own NDS browsing experience.

Many of the design issues are the same as for other mobile devices, and there's a big crossover with accessibility. Sites that are accessible tend to work well when the design is stripped out, which makes them work better on more limited platforms. That's one more way that the investment in creating accessible sites pays off.

Labels: nintendo, webdesign

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Nintendo DS mini-site launched

04 March 2007

Yesterday I got the Nintendo Browser by Opera for my DS Lite (you need a different version if you've got non-lite DS). Using it, you can browse the web over a wi-fi connection.

It's not without its limitations - there's only so much you can do with a maximum screen width of about 230 pixels. But Opera provides a couple of different browsing modes to get around the limitations. One enables you to move a magnifier around the screen to view zoomed-in content on the top screen. The other linearises tables and other content for small screen rendering. You soon become adept at switching between the small screen rendering and overview modes, and at swapping the top and bottom screens over so you can use the touchscreen for zooming or clicking on links.

It's painfully slow to begin with - slower even than dial-up. But once you've adjusted your expectations and stop trying to go through gee-whizz graphics heavy sites, it's a great experience. The BBC News light site is particularly strong, and the accessible rail timetable works well too. Blogs are easy enough to surf, being mostly based on simple templates. Amazon.co.uk is a bit cluttered in SSR mode, but appears fully functional. You learn to filter out the navigation detritus and see through to the content.

Many sites fail, mostly sites using clever web 2.0 techniques to refresh within the page. You can't even log in at Blogger, and I was disappointed that tadalist and twitter didn't work. Those three would have been ideal mini-applications for a handheld.

That said, most straight Javascript does work. My simpler Javascript games worked just fine. Where sites have been designed to be accessible (which is, in any case, best practice and a legal requirement), they should work okay on the DS.

The Opera browser is an essential addition for anyone with a DS. It's worth sorting out a wi-fi connection for.

To learn more about designing for the platform, I've built a Nintendo DS microsite (site no longer available). It includes my top 10 games for the platform, and customised versions of my Hangman and Misfit games which I'm quite proud of getting working so smoothly. There's also a portal I've made providing quick access to Google, a dictionary, a cartoon and a handful of other sites. Let me know (in the comments) if there are any other sites that you'd like to see added to the portal, and that work well on the DS. And if you've got a DS and Opera, let me know your thoughts on the mini-site. When I get time, I'll write about what I've learned about designing for the platform.

Labels: games, nintendo, technology, webdesign

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10th birthday update: accessibility, affiliate marketing and more

11 February 2007

This site celebrates its tenth birthday round about now and to mark the occasion I've given it a spring clean. Some content has been removed, but nothing you're likely to miss (do tell me if I'm wrong - perhaps I'll bring it back again). I've improved the design, particularly the navigation. It should be easier to explore and find what you're looking for now.

I've also added lots of new/old stuff from my archives.

I wrote, I think, the first big story in a UK web design magazine about accessibility, published in Internet Magazine in 2000. Today any decent website designer is aware of accessibility, but back then few people were interested. The editor at another magazine turned down a pitch on the subject, saying it was a minority issue of no interest to businesses.

Over the years, awareness of accessibility has increased. But I know many people still struggle to understand why they should and how they can create a more inclusive website. And I know a lot of designers can't be arsed, and their clients, who are ultimately responsible for the accessibility of the sites they buy, let them get away with it.

I've now added some of my later articles explaining accessibility to my webmaster tutorials. I hope that they will inspire more people to consider users with disabilities in their website designs, and will provide some helpful guidance on eliminating the biggest barriers.

The accessibility stories (new and old) are:

Internet Works magazine commissioned some monster stories from me in 2004 about affiliate marketing and web analytics. Some of the interviewees might have moved jobs, and some of the minor sites have disappeared, but the advice is still valid. For that reason I've uploaded those stories too.

In the journalism resources section, there's a new article about writing for the web.

The quality of the scans of rock and pop photos has been dramatically improved, and this is now reflected where they are used in the music articles too. My list of places where you can promote your music has also been refreshed.

Finally, there's a new gallery of photos of Sydney, Australia. One of my pictures of the Opera House was part of an architecture exhibition in Paris last year. There's a much cleaner scan of that too.

Here's to the next ten years. Cheers!

Labels: photography, site news, webdesign, writing

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Free javascript advent calendar for your website

02 November 2006

I've created an advent calendar script which you can post on your website. It uses Javascript, which is easy for anyone to edit who knows a bit about HTML. You don't need anything special on the server, either. It should work anywhere webpages work.

The code includes instructions on how to customise it. As well as putting your own image in the background, you can change the positioning of the doors. Each door opens a new window, so you can use it to share anything you can put online, including music, video and games. There's a rudimentary date check to prevent people peeking early.

This script is being posted nice and early so others have time to install it on their websites for this Christmas. Nearer December, I will be launching this site's own Christmas 2006 calendar, packed with 24 digital surprises.

Labels: webdesign

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Domain name scam

22 June 2006

I just got a letter from the 'Domain Registry of America', which is headed 'Domain Name Expiration Notice' and looks much like an invoice. It's just a company trying to get me to transfer the hosting of one of my domains to them. I think they've toned down their letters a bit, but they've been sending out letters for some years now that look a lot like official domain name renewal invoices and probably get paid by default by small businesses. Most of the domain name scams I wrote about in 2003 seem to have dried up, but it's worth keeping an eye out for this one still.

Labels: business, customer service, webdesign

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Credits

Visit www.sean.co.uk for free chapters from Sean's coding books (including Mission Python, Scratch Programming in Easy Steps and Coder Academy) and more!

Discover my latest books

100 Top Tips: Microsoft Excel

Power up your Microsoft Excel skills with this powerful pocket-sized book of tips that will save you time and help you learn more from your spreadsheets.

Scratch Programming IES

This book, now fully updated for Scratch 3, will take you from the basics of the Scratch language into the depths of its more advanced features. A great way to start programming.

Mission Python

Code a space adventure game in this Python programming book published by No Starch Press.

Cool Scratch Projects in Easy Steps

Discover how to make 3D games, create mazes, build a drum machine, make a game with cartoon animals and more!

Raspberry Pi For Dummies

Set up your Raspberry Pi, then learn how to use the Linux command line, Scratch, Python, Sonic Pi, Minecraft and electronics projects with it.

Earworm

In this entertaining techno-thriller, Sean McManus takes a slice through the music industry: from the boardroom to the stage; from the studio to the record fair.