Loose talk

If you own anything made by Apple, you possibly already know about Hard Graft. I’ve been a huge fan of them, their cases and sleeves since a friend introduced me to them a year or so ago. So when Apple announced the iPad, I knew I wanted a Hard Graft case for it. Hell, I wanted a Hard Graft iPad case even before there was an iPad. And now I have one.

If you are one of those people who love to complain about old browsers, it’s important to remember just how far browsers have come.

Do you occasionally have to explain to a client why the site you made for them using CSS looks different for people who use very old browsing software? You should thank your lucky stars.

A simple game time waster (and an old school blog meme). Go to the address bar in your browser and type a letter. Start with “a”, end with “z”. Here is what I found.

Some things are best expressed without words.

Ambling around a five storey bookstore in the Jinbocho area of Tokyo today, in the computer section I stumbled across a Japanese translation of my Transcending CSS and CSS Best Practice by Miki Ofuji.

First a disclaimer. I smoke cigarettes. I know that they are bad for me will probably kill me early or make me ill, but I for now at least I choose to smoke because I like something they give me physiologically.

Ooops! The Stuff and Nonsense Theatre Company have printed 20,000 flyers with my URL on them by mistake.

As true now as it was in 1986.

Yesterday I took a call (and received an email) from a long-standing client. I designed for them in 2001/2. Over the last year, the staff responsible for updating their site had changed, they had mislaid their passwords and they needed help. So help was what they got.

A little over a week ago, but what seems like much, much, longer, my wife and I made the long trip from home to Australia to host three Visual Web Design Masterclasses in partnership with our good friends at Web Directions. It proved to be quite a week.

I’m currently spending my time writing and preparing content for a new DVD title, Designing Accessibility (For A Beautiful Web), part of a series of DVDs that I am making for New Riders, that will be published sometime in 2009.

Running a small business means that I divide my time between the things that I love doing (project planning, designing and dealing with people) and the things that I don’t enjoy so much (business planning, accounting and dealing with (some) people).

Nothing drives me crazy like TV ads for insurance comparison web sites (if I hear once more that you don’t have to be a computer wizard to use confused.com, I might just drive over the edge).

I promise. In the run up to the opening of the Watchmen movie next year, I will resist the urge to write about or link to every piece of Watchmen trivia.

In what I hope will not be a series about the stupid things that clients complain about.