// hicksdesign :: stuff for designers + anyone else who cares

Grok Headline matches for // hicksdesign :: stuff for designers + anyone else who cares

Made by Designers for Designers
HowToMambo.com Mambo Template
Dreamweaver Extension and Video Tutorial
kit for the Mambo Open Source CMS.

Made by Designers for Designers
HowToMambo.com Mambo Template
Dreamweaver Extension and Video Tutorial
kit for the Mambo Open Source CMS. 04/10/2005 04:04 AM
HowToMambo.com Mambo Template Dreamweaver Extension and Video Tutorial kit for the Mambo Open Source CMS. Our Product is great for new comers or Mambo template professionals. [PRWEB Apr 10, 2005]

"// hicksdesign :: Thunderbird"

"// hicksdesign :: Thunderbird" 04/23/2004 02:43 AM

// hicksdesign :: 3D CSS Box Model

// hicksdesign :: 3D CSS Box Model 05/21/2004 02:16 AM
// hicksdesign :: 3D CSS Box Model

hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/2004/05/3d_css_box_model
track this site | 5 links

// hicksdesign :: Thunderbird

// hicksdesign :: Thunderbird 04/22/2004 05:17 AM
a fascinating look behind the redesign of the Thunderbird logo .. Mozilla Thunderbird mailiclient on saamassa kasvojenkohotuksen .. Read the blog entry about the Mozilla Thunderbird design .. // hicksdesign :: Thunderbird

hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/2004/04/thunderbird
track this site | 5 links

// hicksdesign :: branding firefox

// hicksdesign :: branding firefox 02/10/2004 02:50 AM
another nice bit of info on Firefox's identity .. made a great post about the design process .. Mozilla Firefox Branding .. rebranding notes .. journal entry .. Jon Hicks

hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/archives/000377.php
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Bare Bones means Comic Sans : journal :
// hicksdesign

Bare Bones means Comic Sans : journal :
// hicksdesign 09/01/2004 01:25 PM
an alternative BBEdit icon .. korvaavan ikonin

hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/564
track this site | 3 links

ROI? Who cares?

ROI? Who cares? 03/23/2005 08:19 PM
ZDNet Mar 24 2005 12:49AM GMT

Who Cares That It's VoIP?

Who Cares That It's VoIP? 06/05/2005 11:57 PM
Vonage and Skype are two very different things. However, since both are considered "VoIP," it's confusi ng plenty of people and making them shy away from anything having to do with VoIP. It is a problem for the industry that the idea of "telephone replacement" services are being lumped in with PC-to-PC software apps. There are some areas in which they overlap -- and that should only grow over time, but there's clearly a lot of consumer confusion in the market. People are increasingly aware that VoIP exists, and that it might be useful, but they're worried that it could mean giving up their phone or having to make calls via their computer, when that isn't necessarily true. To be honest, it's still not entirely clear why the VoIP industry has focused so much on selling "VoIP." The average consumer doesn't care: sell the real benefits of the service, whether it's cheaper phone service or simpler communications. Selling "VoIP" by itself is just adding to the confusion. A few companies seem to get this (plenty of cable companies refer to their offering as "digital telephone service" rather than VoIP), but it hasn't gone far enough. Also, in forcing VoIP companies to focus on selling the benefits, maybe they'll finally realize that they can offer a lot more in terms of features than traditional telephony, rather than just trying to replace it.

Yahoo! Cares

Yahoo! Cares 07/06/2004 09:53 AM
The Internet titan gets ready to sneeze out its second-quarter results.

Who Cares about Semantics Anyway?

Who Cares about Semantics Anyway? 06/05/2005 10:46 PM
On semantic markup, conveying its usage to those who generally don't need to care, and a reusable markup guide for your enjoyment.

Who Cares about Innovation?

Who Cares about Innovation? 08/21/2004 08:54 PM
Technologists are divided in some ways, but united by a common faith. Stated simply, we worship innovation. Openist, deregulationist, libertarian, or cyber-anarchist all take innovation as the goal. Our battles are mostly internecine warfare, fights about how best to achieve that common goal. But how often do we ask ourselves:...

Who Cares About Tablet PCs?

Who Cares About Tablet PCs? 03/20/2003 01:05 PM
Many tablet PCs look a lot like laptops, some are as heavy as a lightweight notebook, and they often lack top-of-the-line features. Given these truths, one might wonder why anyone would buy a tablet PC. Will tablet PCs find their market, or should users wait for the next generation of devices?

Who Cares About the Fastest Internet
Ever?

Who Cares About the Fastest Internet
Ever? 03/20/2003 01:05 PM
Those who caught the announcement last week that researchers had broken an Internet land-speed record might be forgiven for expressing a collective shrug. A billion bits per second? New Macintosh PowerBooks already ship with Gigabit Ethernet connections. Why should people care about this seemingly ho-hum achievement?

Axis of Eve cares what you put between
between you and your jeans

Axis of Eve cares what you put between
between you and your jeans 09/11/2004 12:29 PM
Panties with a purpose The problem is of course there are just way too many to choose from....

A new PC makes no sense--but who cares?

A new PC makes no sense--but who cares? 07/11/2004 08:40 PM
ZDNet Jul 12 2004 0:32AM GMT

Bush cares for the Saudis--not us.

Bush cares for the Saudis--not us. 09/06/2004 11:18 PM
Factfilter: Sen. Bob Graham's new book shows coverup.on Saudi's behalf Bush had concluded that ''a nation-state that had aided the terrorists should not be held publicly to account,'' Graham wrote. "It was as if the president's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety.'' And there's stuff about Iraq, too. After wearing 9/11 like a tiara during the convention, will the facts finally be aired?

Who Cares About the Housing Bubble?

Who Cares About the Housing Bubble? 04/13/2004 10:07 AM
A swig of Pepto and a small perspective shift is overdue.

Who Cares About Sound Quality?

Who Cares About Sound Quality? 01/26/2004 03:29 AM
It seems that the focus on in-home entertainment devices has moved from the stereo system to the home theater system. However, this change of focus from the audio to the visual means that many buyers are skipping out on the fancier speaker systems - much to the dismay of those who sell such speakers. Even though home theater systems require a complex setup of speakers to produce optimal sound, some are worried that many buyers are too focused on the picture they get from the screen, and thus only buy the cheapest speakers to handle the sound. Of course, they're working to change this perception. Though, there are some odd ideas - including "tactile audio" where the speakers end up embedded in the furniture of the room itself. This way, the viewer can actually "feel" the sound relate to whatever they're watching in the home theater.

Worlds on Fire and Sarah Cares

Worlds on Fire and Sarah Cares 09/27/2004 08:56 AM
This video costs $150,000
What’s wrong with this video?
Well, it only cost $15
$150,000 could make a difference to over 1,000,000 people

In this age of media companies and the RIAA suing everyone and their computer illiterate grandmothers, it’s nice to see an musician take a critical look at what it is that they do, if it’s really necessary, and ask if there was a better way to spend their money. And, quite frankly, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that it was Sarah McLachlan. (QT video)

Blogging & Social Networking: Who Cares?

Blogging & Social Networking: Who Cares? 05/22/2004 05:16 PM
I'm speaking at the Churchill Club on blogging and social networking, June 3rd in Palo Alto. Should be lively event, moderated by Dan Gillmor and Tony Perkins. Other panelists include Jason Calacanis, Charlene Li, Mark Pincus and Ben Smith. These...

Good stuff and bad stuff

Good stuff and bad stuff 02/12/2004 07:25 PM
The bad stuff first: The wireless connection here sucks. It sucks less today than previously, but it is still bad. The other thing is that there are far too few power strips available, and I've on several occasions had my laptop die on me.

But the cool stuff just continues: Programmable matter and quantum dots by Wil McCarthy just blew me (and probably everyone else) away with the visions of windows that move according to sunlight, wires that grow inside the walls as needed, walls that can produce any sort of light at command, quantum wells and artifical atoms, but especially the palm-sized, paper-thin über-PDA, which does *everything*, including cooling your drinks. And it all works on "ambient energy" - harvesting stray photons, sound and movement. When any physical object can have any functionality you desire, you get into some pretty interesting scenarios...

High sci-fi, mindblowing stuff - but the theory says it should work.

Churchill Club Event: Blogging & Social
Networking: Who Cares?

Churchill Club Event: Blogging & Social
Networking: Who Cares? 06/20/2004 05:17 AM

Churchill Club Event: Blogging & Social Networking: Who Cares?

Marc Canter, The Devil's (or Angel's?) Advocate

Last night, the Churchill Club sponsored an event entitled, "Blogging & Social Networking: Who Cares?" As it turned out, at least 250 people who attended the event care. In fact, by the time we arrived, the Crowne Plaza Cabana Hotel parking lot in Palo Alto was already filled with Mercedes, BMWs and Porsches. (Somebody must have made money during the dot com boom.)

The whole evening had a "1994" feeling to it. There was a sense of optimism and enthusiasm that we hadn't seen since we attended the first Internet World Conference held in San Francisco in September 1994 at the beginning of the Internet boom.

The meeting was a moderated discussion with the following participants.

Panelists:

* Antony Brydon, CEO, Visible Path Corporation
* Jason Calacanis, Chairman, The Weblogs, Inc. Network
* Marc Canter, CEO, Broadband Mechanics
* Charlene Li, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, Inc.
* Ross Mayfield, CEO, Socialtext
* Ajit Nazre, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
* David Pell, Electablog.com
* Mark Pincus, CEO, Tribe Networks

Moderators:

* Dan Gillmor, San Jose Mercury News
* Tony Perkins, Creator & Editor-in-Chief, AlwaysOn

The stage when thus set to talk about what many of the panelists described as Internet 2.0, with Internet 1.0 spanning the 1994-2002 timeframe. Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News said that blogging and social networking have now enabled the Tim Berners Lee's initial vision for the web as a "read-write" environment as opposed to the "read-only" content consumption focus of Internet 1.0.

Ross Mayfield of Socialtext put further meat on the bone by asking the question: What changes might we expect when:

1) Weblog software platforms drive the cost of publishing to zero?
2) Social networking platforms drive the cost of creating and organizing group activities to zero?

A number of the panelists pointed to the significant impact of weblogs and social networking on politics with Howard Dean's presidential campaign held up as a prime example of the savvy use of these platforms. As a San Jose Mercury News article dated 2/10/2004 said, "The forces the [Dean] campaign unleashed -- and the people who discovered they had a chance to change things -- aren't going to be rebottled anytime soon."

Dan Gillmor asked the most interesting question of the night saying, "How long will it be before a President of the United States is elected that had a weblog as a teenager?" What makes this an interesting question is that anything that we contribute to the Web is effectively "unerasable."

Staying in the political realm, David Pell of Electablog.com imagined that, "Sometime soon, maybe even now, oppressed women in Arab countries will begin using anonymous weblogs to draw attention to their plight in a way that 60 Minutes never could."

Politics aside, the real question on many people's minds was: "Can you make money doing this stuff?"

There was a significant amount of disagreement on this topic with the CEOs of the social networking companies predictably saying that "There's gold in them "thar" hills," and Marc Canter, also predictably, playing the devil's advocate, telling the VCs to "Stay away and not screw things up."

My own personal feeling is that the impact of both the social networking and weblog platforms will be significant but, speaking from a biased perspective as an entrepreneur in this space, the financial benefits will accrue to the "little guys." I believe this because, I share the viewpoint made last night that, both weblog and social networking software platforms will become open-source commodities. The value-add will come as entrepreneurs apply these platforms to under-served niche markets. These markets, by definition, will be small in scale creating many small profitable private companies but very few, if any, large public companies.

Perhaps Internet 2.0 will allow thousands of entrepreneurial flowers to bloom creating an era of "Cottage Commerce," a term coined in the early 90's by my long-lost friend, Michael Grant, formerly of Apple Computer and Macromind.

Then again, I could be dead wrong. What do you think?

Use the power of Internet 2.0 to share your comments.

-Tim Fredel, Co-Publisher, RuggedElegantLiving.com

MIA in the SOU - Bush stops pretending
that he cares about the environment. By
Timothy Noah

MIA in the SOU - Bush stops pretending
that he cares about the environment. By
Timothy Noah 01/22/2004 07:16 AM
Slate: MIA in the SOU - Bush stops pretending that he cares about the environment .. Timothy Noah .. SOURCE .. slate

slate.msn.com/id/2094182
track this site | 6 links

I love Ferrari stuff. Got all stuff from
cap/jackets/T-shirts etc. Would love to
go for Ferrari Laptop. What's

I love Ferrari stuff. Got all stuff from
cap/jackets/T-shirts etc. Would love to
go for Ferrari Laptop. What's 07/14/2004 08:09 AM
TechTree Jul 14 2004 12:21PM GMT

Calling All Designers!

Calling All Designers! 10/29/2003 01:14 AM
Okay, well, perhaps real designers already know, but there’s some fantastic free stock photography available at sxc.hu and I’m completely set aback by it. It’s basically a submission site for amateur/semipros to get noticed, but in the mean time some...

Should Web Designers Be Regulated?

Should Web Designers Be Regulated? 09/08/2004 06:16 PM
One of the reasons that the web caught on was that HTML was so easy that, with barely any training at all, anyone could create a website. Obviously, that has its downsides as well, as many websites are dreadfully designed. As accessibility issues become more important for websites, it has some wondering if web designers should be regulated, where official web designers would need specific certification, and couldn't use the title "Web Designer" without it. While the HTML purists might like such a thing, it seems like a fairly silly way of going around and improving HTML. A better case could be made for just showing people how bad design harms their business or visitors.

CSS is for geeks not designers

CSS is for geeks not designers 02/01/2005 10:00 PM
Tables may suck, but CSS is no improvement. Yet web designers who have never used page layout tools for offline...

When Web Designers Reproduce

When Web Designers Reproduce 11/11/2003 10:33 AM
When Web Designers Reproduce We've all seen web pages announcing new arrivals, and I have thrown up my own minimalist attempts using bare bones html. But I found this link a fascinating example of what happens when one applies a particular web aesthetic to an important life event. A new genre is born!
Is your infant w3c compliant? (no Flash required)

MS web designers -- "What Security
Initiative?"

MS web designers -- "What Security
Initiative?" 06/12/2004 12:45 PM
Nick FitzGerald (Jun 12 2004)

Designers and developers sought

Designers and developers sought 01/06/2005 08:01 PM
Dr Frankensite wants you.

9 designers, 9 cities, 9 chairs

9 designers, 9 cities, 9 chairs 06/18/2004 06:33 AM
Un-Fold. (quicktime clip) City Magazine asked 9 designers, from 9 cities across the world to design a chair in 90 days. Oh, and it had to fit in a FedEx box. Pics and more about the designers and the project.

postel's law is for implementors, not
designers

postel's law is for implementors, not
designers 01/11/2004 10:13 AM

Another discussion that recently flared up (again) is regarding the applicability of constraints within specifications, more specifically (heh) of constraints that should or should not be placed in the Atom API. The first I heard about this was through this post on Mark's weblog, where among other things he says:

Another entire class of unhelpful suggestions that seems to pop up on a regular basis is unproductive mandates about how producers can produce Atom feeds, or how clients can consume them. Things like “let’s mandate that feeds can’t use CDATA blocks” (runs contrary to the XML specification), or “let’s mandate that feeds can’t contain processing instructions” (technically possible, but to what purpose?), or “let’s mandate that clients can only consume feeds with conforming XML parsers”.

This last one is interesting, in that it tries to wish away Postel’s Law (originally stated in RFC 793 as “be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others”). Various people have tried to mandate this principle out of existence, some going so far as to claim that Postel’s Law should not apply to XML, because (apparently) the three letters “X”, “M”, and “L” are a magical combination that signal a glorious revolution that somehow overturns the fundamental principles of interoperability.

There are no exceptions to Postel’s Law. Anyone who tries to tell you differently is probably a client-side developer who wants the entire world to change so that their life might be 0.00001% easier. The world doesn’t work that way.

Mark then goes on to describe the ability of his ultra-liberal feed parser to handle different types of RSS, RDF and Atom. (Note: I do agree with Mark that CDATA statements should be permitted, as per the XML spec). In fact I do agree with Mark's statement, but I don't agree with the context in which he applies it.

Today, Dave points to a message on the Atom-syntax mailing list where Bob Wyman gives his view on the barriers created by the "ultra-liberal" approach to specifications, using HTML as an example.

I italicized the word "specifications" because I think there's a disconnect in the discussion here, and the context in which Postel's Law is being applied is at the center of it.

As I understand it, Mark is saying that writing down constraints in the Atom spec (or any other for that matter) is something to be avoided when possible, because people will do whatever they want anyway, and it's not a big deal (and he gives his parser as an example). But whether his parser or any other can deal with anything you throw at it is beside the point I think, or rather it proves that Postel's law is properly applied to implementation, but it doesn't prove that it applies to design.

Mark quotes the original expression of Postel's Law in RFC 793, but his quote is incomplete. Here is the full quote:

2.10. Robustness Principle

TCP implementations will follow a general principle of robustness: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.

(my emphasis). The comment in the RFC clearly states that implementations will be flexible, not the spec itself. I agree with Mark's statement: there are no exceptions to Postel law. But I disagree in how he applies it, because it doesn't affect design, but rather implementation.

Getting a little bit into the semantic of things, I think it's interesting to note that placing a comment like that on the RFC is actually defining accepted practice (dealing with reality rather than the abstractions of the spec) and so it is a constraint (a constraint that requests you accept anything, rather than reject it, is nevertheless a constraint). So the fact that this "Robustness principle" is within that particular RFC as an example shows that placing constraints is a good idea.

Implementations can and often do differ from specs, unintentionally (ie., because of a bug) or otherwise. But the less constraints there are in a spec, the easier it is to get away with extensions that kill interoperability. So I don't think it's bad to say what's "within spec" and what is not within spec. Saying flat-out that "constraints are bad" is not a good idea IMO.

One example of a reasonable constraint that I think would be useful for Atom would be to say that if an entry's content is not text or HTML/XHTML (e.g., it's a Word document, something that as far as I can see could be done on an Atom feed according to the current spec) then the feed must provide the equivalent text in plain text or HTML. Sure, it might happen that someone starts serving word documents, but they'd be clearly disregaring the spec, and so taking a big chance. Maybe they can pull it off. Just as Netscape introduced new tags that they liked when they had 80 or 90% market share. But when that happened, no one had any doubts that using that tag was "non-standard". And that's a plus I think.

So, my opinion in a nutshell: constraints are good. The more things can be defined with the agreement of those involved, the better, since once something is "out in the wild" accepted practices emerge and the ability to place new constraints (e.g., to fix problems) becomes more limited, as we all know.

What I would say, then, is: Postel's law has no exceptions, but it applies to implementation, not design.

xScope a new set of OS X tools for
designers

xScope a new set of OS X tools for
designers 11/14/2003 04:00 PM
Artis Software and the Iconfactory have released xScope 1.0, a US$14.95 set of Mac OS X designer tools for measuring, aligning and inspecting on-screen graphics and layouts.

Young Web designers hit a home run

Young Web designers hit a home run 05/30/2004 09:00 AM
Chicago Tribune May 30 2004 12:29PM GMT

Re: MS web designers -- "What Security
Initiative?"

Re: MS web designers -- "What Security
Initiative?" 06/14/2004 09:13 PM
Greg Kujawa (Jun 14 2004)

Some people where meant to be web
designers and some weren't

Some people where meant to be web
designers and some weren't 07/05/2004 07:35 AM

Oh man I want to beat my head against the wall. I figured hey I have some great web designers do some cool work here and on some other sites I own. I have paid for those designers to do what they do and I am very happy thus far with the results. So I have been on this quest to learn CSS and I have the mechanics square in my brain. But I found a cool Photoshop template today that I wanted to cut up. I threw in the towel after 5 hours of trying to deal with Photoshop Imagemaker ver. 7

If there is anyone here in Hawaii that does this stuff for a living drop me a e-mail.

User-Interface Designers Take Note

User-Interface Designers Take Note 06/05/2005 10:47 PM

Spencer Critchley is going to travel with a hammer from now on. Watch Out!

Free Web Hosting Awarded To Designers

Free Web Hosting Awarded To Designers 05/19/2004 11:48 PM
theWHIR May 20 2004 4:10AM GMT

Dear one-browser Web designers: Don't
say I didn't warn you

Dear one-browser Web designers: Don't
say I didn't warn you 09/27/2004 05:32 AM
In my 2002 book, The Online Rules of Successful Companies, I said it was stupid to design Web sites that would work correctly only with the most popular Web browser. Yes, I told readers, over 90% of all Internet users today may use Microsoft's Internet Explorer (MSIE), but not long ago 90% of all Internet users ran Netscape. Web designers and site owners who made Netscape-only sites had to scramble madly to redo their work when MSIE started getting popular. "Learn from this!" I said.
Grok Description matches for // hicksdesign :: stuff for designers + anyone else who cares
GrokA matches for // hicksdesign :: stuff for designers + anyone else who cares

// hicksdesign :: stuff for designers + anyone else who cares

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