I’ve had a few new sites launch in the last couple of weeks…
christchurchnz.net - a major undertaking redesigning the main site for Christchurch and Canterbury’s official regional tourism office. Its the first step of redesign a whole suite of sites.
weddingsnz.co.nz - part one of two sites being redesigned for a lodge and wedding chapel down in Queenstown.
wildernessguides.co.nz - a seakayaking and hiking site for a company up in the Malrborough Sounds
I’ve been slowly using twitter more and more in the past couple of weeks. Still trying to get a feel for where it fits in between actual blog posts, and things like your facebook status. It’s also kinda crippled by the fact that at the moment I am pretty much writing for myself (with only 2 people following me) but that can be a good thing.
I had the posts being piped into the blog for a while, first of all coming in as separate posts, and then later as a compilation of the days tweets. But both of these were stopping me from using twitter as I was afraid the would clog up the blog. So i have just removed them, and should be using twitter a little more regularly.
Flickr has struck a deal with Getty Images to allow some Flickr user to sell their images as Stock Photos. Very low on details at the moment, but it seems Getty will approach users directly if they are interested in selling an image. Could be interesting.
Some new sites have gone live, worth checking out…
Ohau Ski Fields and Lodge - site design and build
Porters Skifield - Site Design
Heritage Expeditions - Site design and build
Last Friday we had a re-arrangement of desks and rooms at work. I’ve shifted downstairs to a room with the other two designers. Its going to hopefully allow us to be a little more collaborative in the way we work, but we will see how we go.
What has been a bigger change, however, is just sitting in a different spot, facing a different way. There is a lot more going on in my peripheral vision, with two other people in the office as well as an external and internal window. I guess I have to get used to ignoring movement out of the corner of my eye. But overall it is seeming like a nice change.
Well its only the first round, and already the press are calling for the head of Nathan Brown. The Dragons were all too familiar in their loss to the Tigers. Sloppy hands with the ball, silly penalties, and even the old St George classic, failing to reach touch from a penalty. The Tigers weren’t particularly impressive, but they vastly outplayed a lacklustre Dragons outift.
It’s no secret that Brown’s contract ends this year, and he is in need of a vast improvement in the teams performance. In his defense, even Gasnier said that they team played contrary to Brown’s instructions, and for some reason (none of them knew why) ignored his game plan. The Dragons need to toughen up, get the basics right, and learn how to play a full game of football, or else it could be a panfully long season.
As I’ve taken more and more photos, and read more on the subject, it has become very clear how important a role the available light plays in the quality of a photo. But this was put into very practical perspective for me this morning.
Chan had to be in at work at 7am this morning, so i joined her and walked through to the bus terminal with my camera. The sun was just starting to rise as we left the house, so i was left with some gorgeous dawnlight reflecting off the buildings and lighting the alleys as i wandered around. It seems to start of with a lovely blue tint to the darkness gradually getting brighter, and then changes totally as the sunlight first hits.
The direct sunlight lends this tremendous warmth, compounded by the existing blue of the morning. But it also has a certain softness that you don’t get as the sunlight becomes more direct throughout the day.
My opportunities to take photos usually come in the middle of the day, when the light is directly above and causes harsh shadows. But this morning makes me realise it will sometimes be worth getting up early to take advantage of the morning light.
This morning I headed off for work, having decided it was warm enough to wear my Wallabies jersey for the day. I got a few strange looks at the bus stop, but nothing untoward. I was happily walking to work after hopping off the bus, when this truck starts slowing down and pulls over next to me. The driver leans across the passenger seat, through the open window.
“Mate, I just wanted to let you know… Thats a really ugly shirt you’re wearing. Cheers”
He leans back into his seat, and drives away…
I guess at least he was polite.
There’s a lot of noise being attacking, and in defense of, the announcement that Internet Explorer 8 will target different rendering engines using a <meta> tag in the header. Apparently this move is in order to avoid “breaking” the web when they release new browsers (a-la the introduction of IE7 last year).The proposal is that from Internet Explorer 8 onwards, pages will render as they should appear in IE7, unless you include the line of code
<meta HTTP-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />
in the head of your document, in which case it will render using the new IE8 engine with better CSS support. This way sites won’t break when a new version of IE is released, but developers will still be able to use the new features should they wish. Essentially designers/developers will have to “opt-in” for the new rendering engine, but it won’t be used by default. Read More
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So many wonderful things about this clip. The Beta Band, Music Snobs, a Charlie Brown tshirt. I wish i could work in a place like this.
