facesærch blog

REALLY CHECK OUT HTTP://UPPERCASELETTERSDAY.WORDPRESS.COM/ IT’S AWESOME. UPPERCASE IS THE BETTER LOWERCASE IN ALL CASES. IT’S BASIC, IT’S PURE, IT’S UPPERCASE.

hey ho a new project i helped as a consultant is finally online - the great new coupon site dealhamster.com - basically it collects and aggregates coupons from all over the web and publishes them online. so every time when you are online shopping for a new computer and seconds before you click the “pay” button just visit dealhamster.com and get you special bonus code.

currently it’s german only - but they will expand to en, es, fr, nl, dk, sl, po, cz, ru,…. soon.

I normally don’t blog about web-trending topics (or do i?) but well, amazon.com, a beloved and very powerful bookseller, just went full time homophobic. i respect successful companies, but it seems there is really a point when a big company becomes

• evil
• stupid

Some links: You can read more about the topic here and here, and a great open letter to amazon and you can follow a livestream of amazonfail at all140.com real time news.

Oh yeah, and Amazon Rank!

everybody knows HTML, the stuff websites are made of. HTML - as intended by sir tim berners lee - was a simple construction to makes text a little bit more useful (he called it “hypertext”). It was simple, cool and a disruptive innovation. And for a time, it was good.

Then came the modern - graphical user interface - browsers. And suddenly simple was not good enough and design as added. And simple HTML was misused to create something like tagsoup. An ugly mishmash of tags that fought a never ending war against each other. It was ugly and a crime against technology.

The thing with “never ending war” is, that the war is still ongoing. Startups with HTML sites as ugly as if your grandfather would suddenly have a second puberty. Sites that have HTML so misused that tim berners lee rotates in his grave (actually, he is still alive and i hope he stays so for a long long time, but he would rotate anyway). Believe me, it’s an ugly HTML world out there.

But - where there is darkness there must be light - there is a small PSD2HTML company called psdslicing.com which produces the most beautiful HTML i have ever seen in my whole career. Pure semantic XHTML, CSS, WAI conform code that just makes me (and probably tim) more than happy.

They cost 159$ per PSD (PSD = photoshop image you want to get sliced into beautiful HTML), you get 5 revisions free, and they usually deliver in just 2 working days.

CC Maco Gomes via flickr

I have worked with webdesign companies which charged for a similar work 1000% more, and delivered a much, much, much, much lower quality work after 20 times the time. (I’m in the business for more than 10 years, i have seen everything….).

So if you need you PSD sliced, just send them your design - pay - and make me, the internet and your users happy.

Their HTML is a thing of beauty!

time to spread the word about some personal blogs I’m currently reading

dr. lukas zinnagl (yeah, he is a real doctor - the one who helps people) blogger and networking (so people to people and the business behind them) genius

and vanileah - social media PR professional - who starts a worldwide travel adventure in a few days - and blogs about it. the perfect blog for all people stuck in the office.

the perfect song for jobinterviews and problem solving meetings. problems in project managment don’t exit a prioir, people create them. most of the time a change in perspective helps.

and i know it’s cliche, but it works: call them “challenges”, “ventures” or just “things we fix now” but not the big bad P word.

one of the best blog posts ever written http://www.tomski.com/archive/new_archive/000063.html

1. Build web products that meet audience needs: anticipate needs not yet fully articulated by audiences, then meet them with products that set new standards. (nicked from Google)
2. The very best websites do one thing really, really well: do less, but execute perfectly. (again, nicked from Google, with a tip of the hat to Jason Fried)
3. Do not attempt to do everything yourselves: link to other high-quality sites instead. Your users will thank you. Use other people’s content and tools to enhance your site, and vice versa.
4. Fall forward, fast: make many small bets, iterate wildly, back successes, kill failures, fast.
5. Treat the entire web as a creative canvas: don’t restrict your creativity to your own site.
6. The web is a conversation. Join in: Adopt a relaxed, conversational tone. Admit your mistakes.
7. Any website is only as good as its worst page: Ensure best practice editorial processes are adopted and adhered to.
8. Make sure all your content can be linked to, forever.
9. Remember your granny won’t ever use “Second Life”: She may come online soon, with very different needs from early-adopters.
10. Maximise routes to content: Develop as many aggregations of content about people, places, topics, channels, networks & time as possible. Optimise your site to rank high in Google.
11. Consistent design and navigation needn’t mean one-size-fits-all: Users should always know they’re on one of your websites, even if they all look very different. Most importantly of all, they know they won’t ever get lost.
12. Accessibility is not an optional extra: Sites designed that way from the ground up work better for all users
13. Let people paste your content on the walls of their virtual homes: Encourage users to take nuggets of content away with them, with links back to your site
14. Link to discussions on the web, don’t host them: Only host web-based discussions where there is a clear rationale
15. Personalisation should be unobtrusive, elegant and transparent: After all, it’s your users’ data. Best respect it.

finally found a great use for my first generation netbook

used

• eeepc 700
• gOS (based on ubuntu)
• http://eee.ricey.co.uk/
• twitter with my twitter account

oh yeah, and enjoy the twitter blog feedflow

google is just great.

twitter is great, after the login… i think their homepage is underselling their service.

a complex product, a great start page - flickr