From A (Not So) Great Height

So I dropped my iPhone today, first time ever by the way, and smashed its screen into shards. It was a moment of unbelieveable horror, like the death of a pet. I dropped it from about three feet high onto a cobbled street; not recommended. That glass isn't as tough as you might think it is folks.

The moral of the story? Buy a f**cking protective case for your iPhone or feel the end of January wrath of £139 for a replacement handset from the Apple Store! Don't be a fool like me! But don't pay O2's scandalous 'you can only get these from us' insurance cover either.

A Perfect Day?

A stout man walks into a coffee shop early in the morning. It's raining outside and his brown coat is patchy with wet spots as a result. It's awash with that patented Belfast drizzle outside that seeps quickly into your bones unless you're used to it. He's heavily stubbled and worn out. This is how he usually is at nine in the morning though so no eyebrows are raised.

There's some chat about a wonderful You Tube addition that David has produced, a truly wonderful and inspiring idea. Theories and contacts are thrown around, phone calls are made and some advice is imparted. Matt is ringing lines deep into the heart of the institutions and answers are being passed on.

The most talked about fund in the history of funding is discussed and it's decided that everyone could do with a bit of help in regard to its intricacies. A venue is proposed and secured within the hour. An hour after this the word is out. It's a good idea judging by the response. Tens grow to twenties and beyond. Forms are made and blogs are populated.

Within days like minded people will be sharing views and experiences. Forms will be completed in unison. Some of the projects proposed will go on to change peoples' lives. The stout man heads back out into the now heavier sap and within ten minutes is admiring a fifteen foot tall Gibson Les Paul. His friends go off in the opposite but same directions.

This is the perfect example of democracy without bureaucracy. Come one, come all...

Title: Creative Industries Innovation Fund Hands On Workshop
Location: OhYeah, 15-21 Gordon Street, Belfast
Description: Join us for a hands-on workshop on filling in your Creative Industries Innovation Fund application. Please register using the link below and help us gauge numbers!!!
Date: 29th Jan 2009

http://www.digitalcircle.org/2009/01/27/ciif-hands-on-workshop-thursday-29th-jan/

*Session One*
Start Time: 11:00
End Time: 13:00

*Session Two*
Start Time: 16:30
End Time: 18:00

This event is organised by the Digital Circle and supported by Oh Yeah, nomoreart.com and The Arts Council. More information will be forthcoming!

Enomina Thingime

We've been nominated for an Irish Blog Award in the 'Best Blog of a Business' category! Thanks a bunch to you kind nominator, we're not being arrogant or dismissive but we haven't been trying that hard in truth. That's the spur we need. No more predictions though on when we'll finish the new site, we've a ton of new content to get up there, it'll take a while and that's okay...

Also we've entered the top 20 Twitterers in Belfast which again is a shock to us as we're not exactly prolific there either! For those who don't know what Twitter is check it out. You can chat to Stephen Fry in a way, which is nice. His handle is @stephenfry. He travels a lot and isn't exactly chuffed about the Jonathon Ross affair. Oh and you can chat to Jonathon too, he's called @wossy. He's an addict. And if you're on iPhone like me get Tweetie from the App Store, Twinkle's okay but it's worth spending the couple of quid for the far superior Tweetie client. Follow us on Twitter, we're @nomoreart unsurprisingly.

So now that we've finished patting ourselves on the back I suppose the point of this post is that social media and networking works for businesses in spades. We've only really been blogging for five months or so and Twittering for less and have already seen huge benefits. In the financially challenging year ahead it's worth looking into these types of marketing / networking / communicating no matter what type of business you operate. And you might make some friends too, which is the best added bonus that anyone could ask for surely?

On another note it's Factory Records Day over at Drowned in Sound (DiS). Well worth a lunchtime visit for some new angles on one of the most important things ever to happen in the history of the world ever (if you believed Tony Wilson anyway.) Enjoy.

Compression Arti(facts)

So we had a bit of an ongoing issue with a client site that had been perplexing us significantly. On their website they were seeing what they described as a 'blurry' navigation when they viewed their website on their computer.

"Can you help?" they asked and, thinking that they were using an archaic version of Internet Explorer or similar we said absolutely. Bound to be a PNG problem or images that are being resized by the browser we thought. No problem to us experienced folk.

We tested the site out in all those long forgotten versions of Internet Explorer like 5.5 in the excellent IE Renderer only to find that the images appeared perfectly every time. No dice, it wasn't an IE problem.

Next we trawled through the source code of the website (which we didn't build) and the design was a fairly clean CSS/XHTML build and the images in question were actually JPEGs so transparency couldn't be the issue. Also they were being displayed at 100% of their size so no resizing in the browser was happening either. And that left us stumped.

We then supposed that it was an issue with monitor setup, maybe a field of dead pixels or something similar on the monitor in question, only to be informed that it happened on their laptop too, in Firefox! Bamboozlement!

So we asked the client to send us screenshots of the offending pages, which showed an image of crystal clear image elements surrounding a horrendously blurry navigation. Could the JPEG be compressed so much that it was blocky and pixelated? No, remember that we'd tested the site on a variety of browsers and OS setups prior to this, and it was fine.

It was only upon our intrepid nethead Kieran seeing the screenshots that the problem became clear. This sort of thing happened to him when he used his mobile phone as a modem to browse the net. A quick check around the screenshots showed a tab for 02 mobile, suggesting that the client was using mobile broadband. And eureka! Problem solved.

As web developers we face all manner of compatibility issues with browsers, operating systems, devices, mobiles and all manner of stuff, it's only a matter of time before Microsoft breaks the Internet again with its next version of Internet Explorer. We have enough on our plates in this regard.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on your netbook welcome to 'compression artifacts.' In short mobile broadband suppliers are using little black boxes on their network to store images, compress them and then serve the compressed, and frankly messed up, versions to clients. This is an effort to make the images smaller and therefore save them money on the amount of data they have to serve.

Thank you mobile broadband suppliers. Maybe we'll start designing sites with massive byte sizes just to redress the balance and watch as your horrible masts strain and crumble under our wrath?

In a word, byte me...

More info for the fellow afflicted on Wikipedia and on Mobile Broadband Rocks

Blue Monday

So according to the media, who should know better by the way, today is the most depressing day of the year given that a number of factors are cumulating such as Christmas debts (and subsequent skintness), work related stress ramping up and darkness at four o clock. In Belfast at least you can lump in freezing cold and sleet like rain for good measure.

In our case all of the above has been exacerbated by two emails in particular from collegues and clients saying:

a) Hello from Goa where it's warm, peaceful and there aren't many tourists this year (thank you Pagan Kev) and

b) I'm in Cannes (basically)... (thank you Andrew Ferris).

Only the Merseyside derby can save me now. Please Liverpool, let's make it a Red Monday instead...

Creationism and the art of website maintainence

It would be too cruel an irony to think that the person who first invented the book then went on to have some printed atrocity inflicted on them by their own creation, but it might well have happened. Or the first carver may well have got a hiding with their painstakingly indented beech wood that they had for months lovingly finessed. It's a cruel world sometimes and you have to be prepared for that.

I like books. They have spines.

Unconvention Belfast

Hullo. Remember all those great events and conferences that were in the boiling pot a while back in our Xmas message? What do you mean no?

To quote the late great Anthony Wilson you should read more. And then when you're done reading get along to the wonderful freeness that will be Unconvention Belfast. We always sound like tubes when we try to describe the Un type events so we'll just nick some blurb instead:

Unconvention is an unconference aimed at the grass roots of the music industry - bringing together musicians and industry professionals for conversation, inspiration and collaboration.

With Huw Stephens from Radio One, an acoustic room, bands playing and an industry-type attachment this should be fun. But like all of these types of events there are bound to be a few welcome surprises that no-one anticiapted or expected which is what makes them so good.

See you there?

All the details are at the Unconventi0n Belfast Website

Web Design

I really, really wish that we were this company.
Having a shop-front would be simply glorious, and their pricing system....mmm-mmm!

El Cathedralo

One curious side-effect of being in the Cathedral Quarter is the proximity to events. Another one is that you get to know the people who organise these events. And eventually yet another side-effect is that you get free tickets to many of these happenings.
And so we're off to a near-by venue for some free culture.
Excellent.

SNAFU

"They should make trousercoats," said the perpetually cold Kieran.

Genius. Welcome back...