Pixelated Opinions

The Current State Of HTML5 Video

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:25:33 +0100

Again, inspired by HTML5 For Web Designers, I set about testing the element and seeing how simple it was, I thought it would be a quick process.

If it only was as simple as writing out the code. Needing to use different formats isn’t the problem. Getting the correct format working, especially when it comes to Theora, was a bit more problematic.

For those unaware of the requirements: some browsers require a certain format whilst others require a different one and here’s a quick rundown of what I tested. I’ll clear up browser versions first so you know what I tested on. All of the following are running on Windows too. I used Firefox 4.0b1, Opera 10.60 (3445), Chrome 6.0.458.1 and Safari 5.0 (7533.16).

And now for the video formats tried:

OGM

OGM worked completely in Opera with no problems. It worked in Chrome with some minor glitches in the video controls - the volume control wasn’t working. Safari and Firefox wouldn’t play the format at all.

OGV

Webkit won here with both Chrome and Safari having full compatibility. Opera and Firefox showed no support at all.

OGG

OGG was the most widely adopted, being fully support by Firefox, Chrome and Opera. Safari wouldn’t play it though - there’s always one! Even though OGG had the most support, it was the most difficult file to create. I was converting an MOV and several programs crashed mid-way whilst others forgot the audio. The only successful conversion I did was in VLC and using the Vorbis codec for audio.

MP4

MP4 was fully supported by Chrome and Safari but had no support in Firefox and Opera. This would be my format of choice and one I hope the others pick up. It may not be ‘open’ as Theora is but it’s much simpler to create and work with!

That about wraps it up. I ended up settling on OGG with MP4 fallback for Safari. It’s not a perfect solution yet but it sure beats having Flash crash the browser! Here’s the code if you’re interested and yes, I know I didn’t have to close the source attributes but I like keeping the code neat:

To clear that up if you wondered, “controls” calls for controls to be displayed and the “preload” attribute has the video buffering in the background without automatically playing it.

I’m not sure if these results are the same on other platforms so you may want to check that.

Want Some Head?

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:36:22 +0100

Please don’t take that title literally. Please.

I’ve been catching up on some HTML5, thanks to Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 For Web Designers and instantly started playing around with new elements and testing things. I decided to create a new basic template to re-use on each project where it was feasible and then I decided to share it.

It’s nothing advanced, but for those new to HTML5 or new to HTML completely, it may be useful to start creating some pages of your own.

You can download the HTML page here: http://db.tt/dDrJwp - It is currently configured to use Andy Clarke’s Universal IE6 Stylesheet, Modernizr and a HTML5 Reset Stylesheet.

Only the HTML file is included as you can either link to the files mentioned above or visit the respective sites and make sure you have the latest versions. There’s also a pretty decent chance I messed something up or have made mistakes I haven’t spotted so please feel free to comment on those and I’ll update.

You can also just copy/paste from below if you prefer. Apologies for the lack of styling here, I’ve not tested code in this theme before:

            HTML5 Template





            http://j.mp/9K4o1V For Release Updates —>


            http://j.mp/aB5TSl For Release Updates —>








            http://j.mp/aP5V5F For Release Updates —>

Hope this helps somebody as it’ll sure make my projects that bit quicker!

Selling 36400 Unique Pixels

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:03:35 +0100

With the launch of Tileabl.es, I eventually made the choice to try out some advertising on the site but wanted something slightly different.

I didn’t want a load of 125px squares plastered all over the place and the aim of the site was, and still is, not to make money - it would just be a bonus to make a little something back for the continued efforts of creating new packs.

So, I signed up with BuySellAds and created a unique ad spot with them. The advert is a custom image of 260px x 140px and only one space is available so chosen ads won’t be rotated throughout the purchased time period. As for purchasing, the price is only $20 too! That has to be a bargain even if I say so myself!

To make things a little more unique, I’ve turned off auto-approvals as I don’t want to advertise anything and would like to give the space to some nice folk in the creative industry. If I already use a certain product, or it seems like one I would like, then I’d be happy to advertise it.

There you have it. If you have anything awesome you would like to advertise or know somebody who might, please pass it along and check out the listing!

Add Twitter Profiles To Your iPhone Contacts

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:36:21 +0100

I posted a note about this on Twitter and it seems I wasn’t the only one who had not seen it before. My instructions weren’t too clear either as I only had 140 characters at a time. Basically, I noticed an option to add Twitter profile information to your iPhone contacts and it can be done a couple of ways.

The first of those is through the Twitter iPhone app. Look up the profile you wish to add to a contact and you should have a screen similar to this:

Tapping the contact card icon in the top right will take you to the following info screen:

You can then tap ‘Create New Contact’ or ‘Add to Existing Contact’ which will bring up your iPhone contacts. You would then choose the corresponding contact if one already exists and there you go. Their Twitter username along with their avatar will now be visible on the contact screen for that person:

The benefit of this technique is that tapping the Twitter username on a contact like that would open up their Twitter profile within the Twitter app. A possible downside of this though, is that it will also pull in their Twitter ‘short bio’ information too and add that as a note.

The other method of adding the information just involves adding a label to the URL field when editing a contact. You want to choose to edit a contact, then tap the label on the URL field. This will take you to the following page:

You can then tap ‘twitter’ at the bottom if it exists or choose ‘Add Custom Label’ and enter it there. After that, you want to add the Twitter username into the URL field. You should use the following convention so that it links the profile with the Twitter app and will open it when tapped:

“twitter:@yourtwitterusernamehere”

Enter that into the URL field and save your contact. The info will now link to the Twitter app but note that doing it manually, you won’t have their avatar or bio pulled in.

That’s about it. A nice, simple feature that it seems not everybody knows about!

Introducing Tileables

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:50:00 +0100

I recently launched Tileables and thought I would post a couple of thoughts behind it here.

The main reason for me making the site was actually just out of boredom. I had a gap in client work and rather than spending all of my time playing games, I decided to make something interesting and hopefully something that people will find useful.

There are plenty of places offering swatch and shape downloads for Photoshop but not so much on the pattern front so when the idea came to me, I just threw it together!

Design wise, I wanted something quick and simple to begin with as I launched with only one pack. I stuck to a static, single page that made use of repeating patterns to fit in with the theme. I’ll be adapting the design into a CMS and making changes as needed.

I plan to keep making more pattern packs which will be significantly bigger than the first so go take a look, download the pack and have some fun!

Don’t forget to follow Tileables on Twitter for updates of new packs.

And so it begins. I pretty much always start out each project...

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:31:00 +0100

And so it begins. I pretty much always start out each project with ~~thumbail~~ thumbnail (damn iPhone keyboard) sketches.

Everything remains very rough at this point!

My Take On Privacy - AKA The Facebook Post

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:24:28 +0100

Recently, it seems to be pretty popular to quit Facebook. Their privacy settings were too complicated for some people and subsequently, they never bothered changing them. The problem there is that Facebook naturally wants your data to be public. The more public you are, the more money they can make from you.

This is a bigger problem than just Facebook though. Quitting there won’t help you elsewhere. I think it’s something that a lot of people overlook when posting photos, videos and bits of text online - myself included. More and more location based apps and services are being used and others are already pointing out the dangers of being too specific when sharing your details with strangers.

Let’s not forget, if your information is online and not explicitly private, random strangers can and probably will come across it. Whether or not their intentions are malicious is beside the point - the fact that they found it should be something you’re thinking about when posting content online.

I’m fairly open with my online activities but have recently tightened up some of my settings such as having certain content private that just doesn’t need to be shared. When posting something publicly, you may not be handing out a link actively but that publish button is doing it for you.

Fontdeck - The Missing Part Of The Web

Wed, 26 May 2010 20:02:00 +0100

I’ve played about with several different services for custom fonts online and I’ve found problems with each of them. That is, until I tried out Fontdeck.

This is only a beta that I’ve used too which can only be a sign that the service will improve more before its launch. I ran a quick test which you can view here. I haven’t made alterations for individual browsers so there may well be bugs but the performance is outstanding.

I noticed a very slight ‘flicker’ on page load while the custom stylesheet was being loaded but that was it. There’s no flash required on the page. There’s also no JavaScript on the page. These two points alone put Fontdeck right up at the top of my custom-font-services list.

From what I can tell at a glance, they’re using a new, secure approach to font-face embedding. They serve you a stylesheet with the font-face rules in and they’re hosting the font files. Licenses are then agreed with foundries and you pay for a font or package license straight from Fontdeck. This means that we are more likely to get custom font licenses as the security issue is removed from the decisions of foundries as they make up their minds on embedding licenses.

I’ll give this much more testing over the coming weeks and will have a proper write up afterwards, this is very much just a first impression note and nothing extensive.

If you’re having problems viewing Fontin Sans on my demo page, it’s because there’s limitations on the free, beta package and one of which is 20 unique visitors will be served the custom font - this list is refreshed so trying again later should help.

So it basically boils down to these key points:

No Flash needed.
No JavaScript needed.
Improved security for foundries.
Wider choice of premium font-face ready fonts for developers.

Can’t argue with that right?

My Follow Yearly Decision

Fri, 14 May 2010 19:34:27 +0100

Earlier on, I recommended a group of people to follow on Twitter. This is typical and happens mostly on each Friday of the week.

The difference with my recommendation is that it was for the year, not the week.

At first glance, this may seem like a long time to limit my recommendations to, especially based on the immediacy of Twitter but my choices were not based on a weeks worth of content. Publishing a list of names for other people to follow isn’t something I take too lightly and so picking people weekly seems pretty pointless. Somebody could post a couple of decent links one week and a load of useless rants the next - Not something I want to endorse to my followers.

Basically, it takes a while to build up a relationship with people and it’s only those people I would recommend to others. I have plenty of acquaintances online but only a few that I would refer to as ‘friends’.

That list is a selection of the few.

Working For The Man

Fri, 07 May 2010 03:49:29 +0100

I’ve not been freelancing all that long. I always assumed I’d have plenty of work coming in and I would be turning people away. This hasn’t been the case at all. To be fair, up until now, I’ve not done much marketing wise either and I’ve relied on word of mouth promotion which hasn’t been powerful enough.

I have now reached a point where I either need to seriously ramp up my project intake and find a healthy supply of clients or look for full time employment with a design firm. I’m not even sure which I would prefer, given the poor state of my current forecast.

With that said, now comes the part where I need your help! Yes, I’m talking to you. If you’re a freelancer that has too much work on (somehow, that seems to be a lot of you), then please consider forwarding some requests this way! If you’re employed locally or for nice folks that like working remotely, please let me know of any positions available.

Thanks and wish me luck!

We got keys today to our new house! We’re moving from a...

Tue, 04 May 2010 16:33:34 +0100

Finally, a driveway!

The living room

Through to the kitchen

The kitchen

The garden

A shed! Now I need tools...

The future Enliven Labs Office!

En Suite Shower!

Cam's bedroom

We got keys today to our new house! We’re moving from a two bedroom terrace with a yard to a three bed detached with front and back gardens. It has three bathrooms too, including an en suite! It’s the small things right? ;)

Moving Forward In Design

Tue, 04 May 2010 12:02:18 +0100

There are plenty of people who love to be on the “bleeding edge” of web development and most of us enjoy having a new technology to make use of. It keeps us current and enables us to innovate.

What happens when you take developing out of the equation though and just look at the pixels? There are only so many ways you can draw a box. The chances are, if you design a certain element a certain way, somebody has done it already and there’s nothing we can do about that.

The only chance we have to innovate design wise is to either stray so far from the norm that most people won’t understand our design choices or to rehash something so old, people won’t remember it. Think of it like fashion; decades have their own styles which come back every now and then. Obviously, that doesn’t mean we should go back to using animated gifs - nobody wants to see them return but looking to the past may help us shape the future. Apply the basic design fundamentals to your next project but then stop there and try something different. That applies to me as much as anybody else, if not more!

Design has to keep moving forward, we can’t rely solely on the development side of the web.

Web Copy Crossing Over

Mon, 03 May 2010 11:16:09 +0100

Ever since the folks at Innocent Smoothies starting putting funny, personal copy on their drinks, I’ve noticed it popping up elsewhere. This is typically the type of copy you would find online. It would be used to sell products and services online and it pulled people in with its friendly nature.

This is no longer limited to the web though and this ‘web copy’ appears to be doing its job in the real world as well. I think people are naturally more inclined to buy a product when they think the people behind said product are friendly, modern people who just “get it”.

Take the following quote for example:

I love…a word of caution; you may find it hard to believe but some people find me so irresistible that they want to smother me all over their bodies. Firstly, and just for the record, I am not for washing your eyes out. With this in mind please avoid contact with the eyes. If you happen to get me into your eyes then rinse well with water immediately. Secondly, I know that I smell delicious enough to eat but please take my word for it; I won’t taste half as good as I smell! I am not a food; please do not swallow me.

This was found on a bottle of bubble bath sitting in my bathroom. It’s from I Love Cosmetics and upon taking a look at the site, you can see they are one of those companies that “gets it”. Their product copy continues in the same way online and they have a Facebook fan page link placed prominently on the homepage.

I’m sure there are plenty of other examples of companies doing this with real word products. If you come across any, feel free to leave a comment below!

Judging Client Expectations

Sun, 02 May 2010 17:11:27 +0100

This is mainly about money but there are plenty of other client expectations that may be judged incorrectly and I may write about these individually.

So you’re at the stage where you’ve exchanged a couple of emails with a prospective client and you’re discussing a price. Let’s assume though, unlike the greedy majority, you’re not insisting on the client giving out their budget so you can charge them as much as you think you can get away with.

You’re wanting to give a fair price so you gather project details and estimate how long the project will take. You then give the client an estimated price. You don’t hear back from them for a while, even though they were definitely interested prior to your quote being in the equation.

The interesting thing here is not only thinking “have I quoted much more than they expected?” but also “have I quoted too little and they now think I’m inexperienced?” and it’s difficult to judge if your situation even falls into one of these.

It may argue the case for requesting a client budget that bit more but since I’m still against this practice, I’ll assume it’s just something we have to work through and around when it arises. Have you ever come across this scenario? If so, which side of the fence do you think the client fell on and why? Do you have an alternate way of communicating price to avoid the situation completely?

See You In A Week, Interwebs!

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:30:17 +0100

It appears that the skies have significantly cleared enough for my flight to, well… fly.

Tomorrow morning, I’m heading to France for a week of carp fishing and won’t be around here, Twitter, email etc. I’m making the effort to completely cut them off.

If for any reason, you are interested in fishing or simply want to see that other side of my life, you can always follow along at Carphead.com which is a simple Tumblr site I set up to post photos and videos whilst at the lake. It’s pretty much the only interaction I’ll have with the online world whilst there and remember, you won’t find anything web related on there so if it doesn’t interest you, feel free to ignore it. It may end up being slightly NSFW too…

It’ll be the first time I’ve ever posted something online that shows another of my interests besides design. It’s something more personal and it’s absolutely not for everybody. We all have our strange little hobbies right? Right?

And with that, I’ll see you lot in a week!

Zootool Experiences So Far

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:11:42 +0100

I only started using Zootool a few days ago but was instantly sucked into it. The main reason for this was the slick visuals and interface. It’s pretty much what the result would be if Delicious merged with Evernote in my experience.

You can save images, clippings, videos and full site/bookmarks and as per usual, it can all be done by a handy Javascript bookmarklet which also looks really nice. If you use Chrome too, there’s an extension which offers more functionality.

My only negative point would be that I mostly save just bookmarks and so I’m not using much more than what I was already getting from Delicious so I need the same app integration that Delicious has - with the likes of Instapaper and Reeder on the iPhone. I can quickly send links to Delicious from these and frequently did so. The folks at Zootool are working on an iPhone app though so this may all change.

Even with this limited integration at the moment, I’m still using it so it says a lot about the service. I’m still using Delicious but my links are being sent there from Zootool. Tags and descriptions remain in tact too which is nice.

Go over there and check it out. You can add me whilst you’re at it!

It Takes Two To Converse

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:54:30 +0100

The reasons for adding comments are pretty short and simple. Basically, I tend to ask a lot of questions in my posts and therefore it only makes sense to have the functionality for people to actually answer them.

Secondly, I believe the whole point of writing online is that there’s conversation involved, it’s a two-way street. That’s what separates the medium from the stricter, printed written word. Discussion is a key focus and without comments, people can’t discuss!

I know of lot of people say you should write just for yourself and that’s fine. A lot of my posts will be opinion pieces, requiring no comment and I may just be trying to get my point across but more often than not, I’d like to hear some contrasting views to my own.

Are Mobile Carriers Confused Or Just Greedy?

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:49:32 +0100

With me being hopeful about my trip to France on Friday, I called up Orange this morning to activate roaming on my account. For those wondering what that is, it’s basically a configuration allowing you to use your mobile abroad, which should connect to a carrier that is local to your destination.

Understandably, there are increased charges when using your mobile abroad and I’m fine with that. There is free WiFi at the place I’m heading to so the charges didn’t bother me much. I’ll have airplane mode switched on most of the time and I’ll just be connected to their router to upload my photos etc.

Apparently though, this isn’t a free “service”. Service?!? I cannot in any way understand how they call WiFi a service. It’s a function of the phone which is connected through a technology not provided by the carrier and it’s connected to an internet connection that’s also not provided by the carrier.

To be clear, we’re not talking about using WiFi and then connecting to a Hot Spot or other access point—I would expect charges using this method, we’re talking about using WiFi as a technology and connecting to a router.

To sum up, my iPhone will be used with Airplane (Aeroplane…) Mode turned on which should automatically rule out charges from a mobile carrier as I won’t even be picking up a signal from them! That should be how it works but according the operator at Orange, “…some mobile carriers still charge for that.”

He couldn’t actually give me a direct answer when I queried this point with him, he simply didn’t know or pretended not to. Are mobile carriers aware that they shouldn’t be able to charge for WiFi as a technology? They don’t own it. It may be the case that they simply aren’t aware of the difference between connecting to the likes of a home router and connecting to a public, paid hotspot. It may also be the case that they think we’re not aware of it and will pay for anything. I may not even receive charges anyway and the operator may just be reading some fail-safe terms to cover themselves.

Only time will tell…

Calling All Tumblr Users - Well, Not All Of You

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:41:49 +0100

I’ve not set up cross posting to Twitter and Facebook so this should be showing up in those places. That said, if I’m going to start using the platform more, I think I should follow some other users and see how each of you are using it.

So, send me your Tumblr links! It will be easiest if you just @ or DM me on Twitter but feel free to email them or send on Facebook too if you must.

Settled On A System

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:20:00 +0100

Well here we are. No more deciding on a platform. No more fiddling with a design. I’m finally set up with my blog and chose Tumblr for a number of reasons.

I like the simplicity of it and I feel less obligated to write as frequently as I did when using Wordpress. I don’t write too much - or didn’t write too much when using Wordpress but I have a feeling this may change now. I expect frequency to increase but post length to decrease. There’ll be photo posts, published on the go and quick notes that just don’t fit into 140 characters as well as slightly more thought out posts.

A custom design is something that always takes up too much of my time and I tend to obsess about one once I’ve started it. I wanted to get away from that and actually just concentrate on the content. There was part of me that thought I must make a custom design, being a designer and all but that would also conflict the laid back, quick and easy system that I wanted. So I’ve gone with a pre-made theme just to keep things simple but who knows, if I stick to the platform for long enough, I’ll inevitably start making my own.

I’m not sure where I stand on the comment front yet. I know there’s an option of using Disqus to add the functionality but in all honesty, it may be a waste of time. There were never many comments back on the old blog so I wouldn’t expect many to show up here either.

I’ll be filling in profile information and the optional extras shortly so bear with me and don’t forget to bookmark/follow/re-blog/tweet (you get the idea)!