Mollom: What’s in a Name?

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Regular readers will know that I am a major fan of Belgian developer Dries Buytaert,  the man behind Drupal. Drupal is the most powerful open source content management system and IMHO deserves to replace Dreamweaver as the web designer’s tool of choice. In fact, as far I am concerned, the major factor holding it back from world domination, apart from its precipitous learning curve, is its name. Let’s face it “Drupal” (pronounced “droople”) sounds old, ugly, gloomy and deflating. It’s almost perversely uninspiring. “Dreamweaver” it ain’t.

Now I’ve come across a brand name that’s possibly even worse… (more…)

Google Picasa 3.5: First Look – Wow

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Hot on the heels of the latest Photoshop Elements 8 (click for full review) comes the new Picasa 3.5.

This adds a few  features across the board, such as a revamp of importing and various interface tweaks, but the clear focus of the new release is on in-depth tagging of images via a new side panel that offers three tabs for applying text-based tags, locational geodata and new face-based tags.

To be honest my heart sank when I heard this – what I’ve always liked about Picasa is that it keeps things simple and doesn’t treat managing your photos as a full-time job. Moreover I’d recently come away less than impressed with Photoshop Elements 8’s new face tagging not so much because the technology doesn’t work (it does though imperfectly), but rather because the gains aren’t worth the effort.

So how does the new Picasa 3.5 shape up? (more…)

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8: First Look

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Earlier today Adobe announced the latest version of its best-selling consumer-oriented photo-editing and organization package Photoshop Elements 8. This has become something of a yearly event and the previous version 7 release clearly suffered from the tight turnaround in a Creative Suite year. By comparison, version 8 is packed with new power and has a strong focus: building on Adobe’s state-of-the-art image analysis to bring the best out of images and to make life easier for the end user.

Editing highlights include the new Photo Merge mode that automatically picks out and combines the best exposed areas of bracketed shots to produce a best-lit composite image and the Image Recompose feature that automatically preserves foreground objects while removing unwanting backgrounds as you resize your image – in real time.

Elements’ editing power remains unchallenged in the consumer arena but, for most users, serious editing images is a relatively rare requirement compared to the regular chore of getting on top of your images through tagging. Here Adobe’s image analysis expertise promises even more, holding out the prospect of automatically tagging images based on quality and – through automatic face recognition – even subject.

It sounds great on paper and works brilliantly with the sample images included in the pre-release press pack, but how does it work in practice with real images?

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Can Your Browser Do This? Adaptive Layout

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Recently I wrote that what makes RIAs (Rich Internet Applications) different from browser-native web applications isn’t rich functionality or rich content but rich design. Moreover I argued that only a player-based approach (effectively Flash/Flex or Silverlight/WPF) can provide the platform necessary to take web design to the next level.

As I expected, the feedback to the piece centred on the best way of blocking Flash content as it always does whenever I mention the technology. It’s hardly surprising as the first thing that comes to most people’s mind when you mention Flash is irritating banner ads specifically intended to distract you from reading the real content of the page – the absolute definition of bad design.

However in the context of a RIA, Flash/Flex is capable of so much more – producing an end user experience that the browser alone can never hope to match… (more…)

Google and Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of Google’s browser-native approach to web application development. Strategically I can see the advantages (wide and open access) and politically I think it’s admirable (open standards) but, in design terms, this lowest common denominator approach proves disastrous.

For example in a comparison between the barebones HTML-based Google Docs and the slick Flash-based Acrobat.com, I’d reserve the term RIA (rich internet application) for the latter and dismiss the former as a mere “web application” (more importantly I know which one I’d prefer to use).

Recently though I have to admit that Google caused my jaw to drop… and made me question the distinction.

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Your Privacy Policy policy

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Does your website have a privacy policy?

It’s very easy for a small site to decide that this is something that only applies to the big boys who are dealing with credit card details and have an in-house legal team ready to draft the required policy.

However this is a mistake on a number of fronts…

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CMS and CSS: Problem Solved

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

A while back I wrote about my belief that the future for web authoring lies beyond static web pages with Web 2.0 and with the big three content management systems (CMS): Joomla, Wordpress and Drupal. I also wrote that one of the major stumbling blocks to this happening was the appalling state of CMS-based design.

I’m glad to say that I think I’ve come across a near-perfect solution…

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Recommended software at recommended prices

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Two money-saving opportunities have come to my attention today for software that I have recently reviewed and recommended. As they just might save you £1,500, I thought I should pass them on…

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Keyword tagging – the key to SEO

Friday, July 17th, 2009

Recently I’ve been looking at the changing nature of search engine optimisation (SEO 2.0). This change is perhaps most apparent when it comes to the seriously under-appreciated importance of tagging.

The essence of SEO is an understanding of how search engines operate…

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The Guiding Principles of SEO 2.0

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

I recently posted an item highlighting how the nature of search engine optimization (SEO) has changed out of all recognition over recent years. Once SEO was a questionable practice largely conducted in secret and actively discouraged by Google who would ban your site if it thought you were trying to game the system. Nowadays SEO, or rather an amended version of it (SEO 2.0), has come out into the open and is even actively encouraged by Google.

This change from SEO 1.0 to SEO 2.0 is perhaps most apparent when it comes to the use of meta tags…

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