Updated Phase Status Report

Don't know if anyone has noticed this before, but there's a small bug in the Phase Status Report in Netoffice 2.6.

Each project is displayed slightly narrower than the previous, and if you have a few by the time you get to the last one it can be virtually unreadable. I finally got around to tracking it down (just missing a couple of closing DIVs) and fixing it.

But wait - there's more! (And it's not a free set of steak knives!)

I also adjusted the report so that it shows open projects that don't necessarily have phases defined in them, so you can still get an overall picture of everything on your plate.

Also also, I have added a closing line with each project that lists the Client (Organisation) name.

Download Zip file, 9191 bytes
Unzip into your Netoffice installation and it should be right to go. Two files are changed, so check the contents of the Zip file for their name and location and back them up before you overwrite them in case you want to go back.

Technorati tags: netoffice, phpcollab, project management

New Car! Vroooom

I splurged yesterday afternoon and bought a new toy.

Well, it's a big toy, but that's what separates the men from the boys, yes?

Anyway - it's a brand new Ford Falcon XR6. In black too. With a leather interior. Nice...

www.flickr.com

Okay - I think I've finished gloating for the time being... :D

Technorati: ford, falcon, xr6, cars

The Mind Game

A friend was telling me about a comment apparently made by Brisbane Broncos coach Wayne Bennett. (For the record - I am not a fan of the Broncos!)

Anyway, the story went something like this:

Wayne Bennett would take the team on a training run of however long it was (let's say 10km for the sake of the story). Some of the players would stop running 2 or 3 paces before the finish line and walk over it. Coach was not impressed.

Physically, they had received the benefits of the run. 2 or 3 strides at the end makes no difference from a physical point of view. But mentally - that's a diferent story. Mentally they had quit before the finish line.

And thus cometh the lesson: do you have a tendancy to pull up just before the finish line? What limitations do you place upon yourself? The finish line is right in front of you. You've done the hard work - don't quit until you've crossed it!

Often, the only limits in life are the ones we place on ourselves.

Technorati tags: positive mental attitude, positive thinking

New Stats Tracking Tool: Measure Map

I first heard about Measure Map back at Web Essentials 05 - Jeffrey Veen showed us a few screenshots as part of one of his presentations. So of course as soon as I got home I added my email to their waiting list.

Well... my invitation just arrived!

I have just added their code to this blog - the setup process is actually quite well done. As part of the signup process you're asked what sort of blog you have, and on the next screen you're actually shown screenshots with specific instructions for your brand of blog (Wordpress in this case).

The whole process took about 60 seconds.

I also installed the tracking code for Google Analytics about a week ago but I've got to say I'm somewhat underwhelmed. I think Google have been overwhemed though, as data only seems to be updated every few days at best. Great potential, poor execution. We'll see if they can sort that one out.

I'll give Measure Map a few days to a week and see how useful the reporting is. So far I can say that the setup was a breeze. Stay tuned!

Technorati tags: Measure Map, statistics, blogs

Finding Your Files

If you've ever had someone upload a file to a project in NetOffice, finding it can be a bit frustrating.

Did they upload it to the task? To the phase? Or just to the project?

I've changed the View Project page a little so that it shows all linked content, and also lists the task or phase they have been linked to.

Download ZIP File (10187 bytes)

New Category: Quick Links

Just set up a new category for what I'll call Quick Links. It will just contain stuff of interest that's I'm too lazy to write something about! :)

So here we go with our first bunch:

• Don't annoy me with your crappy form field focus
  Cameron Adams improves on the code used to set the focus to the first form field on the page - it won't do it if the user starts entering data first!


• CSS Hacks and IE7
  Oh no... just when you thought you had it all mastered, along comes a new IE.


• Calendar Candy
  Zimbra is a promising web-based email calendar app (nothing new there) but if you've ever gone through the pain of trying to share Outlook calendars without Exchange then this AXAJ-laced project might do the trick!

Great applications don't do much

Venture Voice has published a podcast interview with Jason Fried of 37 Signals fame. Well worth a listen.

He uses the example of a builder who uses numerous tools to get his job done - he doesn't use one multi-purpose tool. This translates well, not just into software development, but web development as well.

Instead of trying to be all things to all people, concentrate on being really good at something specific.

When you look at 37 Signals' products (Basecamp, Backpack, TaDa List) you'll see that they are very simple applications with limited feature sets. And that's what makes them so popular.

I've seen it written elsewhere (can't remember where, sorry) that Jason also said that each feature request was initially rejected by default, and had to make a really strong case for itself before it was considered for inclusion.

Food for thought...

A Tasty Site

Something important I learned at WE05 recently:

I heard these guys talking about something called delicious. Some social bookmarks thingy.

After some thought, I realised what they were talking about. I had always just read it literally: del dot icio dot you ess. Ahhh, delicious!

(Yep... I'm a bit slower than most)

iTunes? Not for me!

iPod nano
Originally uploaded by RockyShark.

Shouted myself an iPod Nano a few days ago - nice little device. Amazingly small considering it holds 4 gigabytes!

Been chasing Enigma's Voyageur for a while and so I thought I'd give the iTunes Music store a go. Found the album easily enough, and at USD9.99 (or about $13 Aussie) it was pretty good value, to.

So I go through all the login yada yada to purchase it, and get to the point where I'm confirming my addess info. (It already appeared, as I'd entered it all when I registered the iPod.)

But alas, I could go no further. I was being told my State and Postcode were invalid. Which was kind of odd, as they weren't. After all, I'm here!

Apparently, you have to live in the US to download music from iTunes. Why? What difference does it make where I am?

And if that's the case, when the iPod is registered, why display the Music Store link in iTunes if I can't use it? They make me go through the whole signing in process before giving me a cryptic error message, and then I have to waste another 5 minutes figuring out I'm not worthy to download their music because I live in another country!

Thanks Apple! :/

Edit: Apparently iTunes Music Store was release for Australia a few days after I posted this... Apple must have been reading this! (Well, I'll take the credit anyway!)

Working on Multiple Projects

We've been struggling a bit of late with the sheer number of projects we have on at the moment - seems like I'm spending more time reviewing each project than doing anything else.

The other problem is that projects seem to be taking forever to get finished, as we're trying to do a bit here, a bit there - spreading ourselves way too thin.

A new house, anyone?

My brother and sister-in-law are having a new house built at the moment, and it was something my brother-in-law said to me last week that got me thinking. He was commenting on how quickly the house is being built - the slab was only laid about 5 weeks ago and it's not far from finished. What he didn't mention was the 6 months they waited for the builder to actually start!

If you've ever built a house, you'll know that there's a lot of stuff you have to worry about before the builder can start. Tap fittings, door handles, carpet colour... there's quite a list. And only after all these things have been arranged does the builder actually start. And once they do, they get stuck in and the house actually goes up very quickly.

So here's my lesson:

I'm only going to work on a couple of websites at a time. That way we can devote more attention to each project, and actually get the job done much faster.

When new clients come on board, we can give the client a start date and a to-do list, and make sure they understand that everything must be checked off that list before we can start.

So the client might have to join a queue before their website gets started, but once we do actually start it should come together quite quickly, as we'll have everything we need in front of us.

Anyone care to share their thoughts/experience?

Brekky with Tantek

IMG_0931.JPG

Originally uploaded by Cam Pegg.

Breakfast with Tantek was quite interesting - I aways wondered how anyone would have found the box model hack, but when he explaned how and why he discovered it it sort of made sense. Sort of.

Anyway - here am at the far right in my Cowboys jersey (dark blue, yellow and white) and Tantek towards the left sitting by himself!

Web Essentials Day One Highlights

Web Essentials 05 day 1 is over. Plenty of info floating around in my head tonight, somewhat hindered by the few beers I enjoyed at the close of the conference! So you'll have to forgive any typos or grammatical errors in this post for the time being!

Three speakers really stood out today - Jeffrey Veen, Kelly Goto and Douglas Bowman.

Jeffrey Veen

If you ever get the chance to hear this gentleman speak - then don't miss it. He's engaging, entertaining and passionate about his stuff. Particularly mountain biking. But that's another story.

Could have listened to him all day, as he spoke about getting your stuff together in such a way that it fits your users' goals. And that's really the crux of it - your users have goals, and you have stuff (content, products, whatever). Sometimes what you have to put on the website doesn't always fit neatly with what your users want or need. But what do they want or need? And what words do they use when referring to your stuff? And do they think in terms that make sense to you?

Too many questions? Yeah, there are.

Kelly Goto

I've just bought Kelly's book, so I'll go over that at a later date, but today a couple of point stood out from her presentation.

We've all had trouble getting content from clients. Kelly's suggestion is to make 2 appointments - one at the start of the week and one at the end. Meeting 1: Sit down with all the stakeholders and decision makers and don't quit until you get your wireframe done. If it takes half a day, then so be it. Then leave it a few days allowing your client to think it over, and meet again toward the end of the week to finalise it. Sounds simple! (Will have to give it a try!)

Secondly, Kelly suggested iterating your website after it's launch. Huh? Well, it's a good suggestion to stop scope creep, for a start. Let me explain.

Say you're redeveloping an old website. The old one is version 1.0 - and you're working toward your redesign - version 2.0. Along the way you'll prototype and iterate from 1.1 through till your redesign is ready to go live at version 2.0. But then the client says, "How about we include this feature?"

"That's fine," you can say, "Well schedule that for release 2.5, due next Winter." Your initial redesign stays on track, and you know you have that work coming up later and can plan accordingly.

Douglas Bowman

Not the usual CSS type presentation this time. Quite a thought-provoking part for last thing in the day, actually!

Doug briefly walked through where the web was 10 years ago, and how much it's changed to get where we are now - in order to challenge us: Where would it be in 10 years? What role would we be playing? If we knew what the industry would be like in 10 years, would we design or program differently now? What will be the next big thing that revolutionises the way we do things? If anything was possible, what would you do?

A refreshing and unexpected look at things - "zooming out" and taking a look at the horizon. Fantastic.

That's it for now - got an early start tomorrow - a brekky date with Tantek Çelik.

Oh yeah - here's the Technorati tag: WE05

A big few days... WE05 plus a Grand Final!

Well, jumping on the plane tomorrow morning to head down to Sydney for Web Essentials 05. Can't believe how quickly it's come around!

In my infinite wisdom I'm flying home on Saturday... and the North Queensland Cowboys are playing in their maiden grand final on Sunday! Didn't organise that very well, did I?

At least I have my Cowboys jersey to wear to the conference on Friday! ;)

Oh yeah, you can also read some other blogs about WE05.

Don't Click Here!

Ever had to try and convince a client not to use "click here" on their links?

Well, I have found a resource you can point them to. Want to read it? Click here!

Finally - A Tall Screenshot Grabber

The problem: capturing a whole web page - even the stuff below the fold.

I gave up looking for something that did this and have been manually taking screenshots as I scolled down the page, and stitching them back together in Fireworks.

But here it is! And it's a plugin for Firefox! How cool is that!

Edit 2007-12-06: It's actually now got it's own domain: www.screengrab.org.

IE Developer's Toolbar

How long has the Firefox Developer's Toolbar been available? Well, Microsoft have finally introduced their own for IE.

If you still use it.

Do any developers still use IE for anything other than checking if their sites display okay in it?

Making the most of your images

If any of you are interested in marketing and you're not getting the Sherpa Weekly, go kick youself in the head, and then come back to your computer and sign yourself up.

This week Anne makes a couple of interesting observations about using images on your website.

1. If you have a photo or image on your page, people will usually notice it. Many will also try and click on it. If your image is not clickable, what opportunities are you missing?


2. People will usually read text directly under an image. The lesson? Use captions! We're very well trained to look for these in print media - and this is one convention that makes sense in the online world as well.

One example I read somewhere (might have been another Marketing Sherpa article) was that you should use a link on product photos to take you to a page with not just a larger photo but also an "Add to Basket" button as well. The visitor has expressed interest in the product - why make extra work for them if they want to buy?

As for the captions, we've seen research that shows how little of the page content actually gets noticed - putting critical info in captions might be a good idea. Certainly can't hurt!

Yarrrrrrrr

Yep - it's that time of year again!

September 19 is International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

So make sure you be brushin up on ye pirate talk...

Goldmine? Try Landmine.

Goldmine must be the most complicated piece of software ever written. Sure, it might be powerful - but for a small to medium business, it's about as difficult as it gets.

Picture this scenario: I want to do a mail merge.

That's all - just a mail merge. Should be simple - right? Wrong.

I had a client call for some help with this yesterday, and after 2 hours of frustration, I finally got it figured. What a drama!

So if you need to do a mail merge in Goldmine, here's what you need to do:

1. First of all, you need to install a plugin to insert Goldmine fields in Microsoft Word. It is a free download from the Goldmine website, but I challenge you to find it. Took me 15 minutes just to find the download, after I'd spent however long discovering that I actually needed this plugin in the first place! You would think that something as fundamental as this would be easy to find.


2. Once you've got that far and inserted your fields, save the doc as a Goldmine Template from the Goldmine menu.


3. In Goldmine, do your lookup and select the contacts you'd like to include in your merge.


4. Click Schedule, then Literature Request.


5. Now, Goldmine will present you with a list of documents here that you can use for your merge. Don't choose any of them! What you have to do is select your document from the "Cover Letter" drop down list. Obvious, hey?


6. Click the Group Schedule tab and tick the selected contacts.


7. Then click the Schedule button.


8. Click View from the Menu, then Literature Fulfillment.


9. In the Literature Requests list, under Today, highlight all the contacts listed there.


10. Click the Fulfill button.

This might be great if you have a different department on a different floor that does the actual mail merge - but how many small/medium businesses have that?

If you're a corporate user, fine. Small to medium businesses: stay away! Aaaaaaaargh!

Web Essentials 05 - Less Than A Month To Go

Well, there's less than a month to go before Web Essetials 05 kicks off in Sydney. Last year's event was fantastic - I learned quite a lot - and I could have listened to Dave Shea and Doug Bowman all day.

Looks like a great program ready for this year too. I'm really looking forward to hearing Kelly Goto's part on Workflow. Always looking for better ways to get things done. Might even have to get a book signed while I'm there ;)

While there's a billion online tutorials on CSS, HTML and the like, I have found very little useful info on project management. I always had the goal (and still do) of putting something useful on here. Perhaps after this event I'll be more inspired to write.

(I've got to spend all day Saturday sitting at Sydney Airport waiting for my flight home - not much else to do during that time!)

I Finally Made My Own. Sort Of.

After however long it's been since I upgraded from Wordpress 1.2 to 1.5, I have finally created my own theme!

Well, sort of. There's still lots of the standard theme here, but I reckon I've done enough for now. I'll finish it off next month. Or year. Or something.

Or more likely ditch the whole thing and start from scratch!

Hanging on to user preferences and data

Jakob Nielsen's latest alertbox makes a few interesting points discussing The Slow Tail: Time Lag Between Visiting and Buying.
Important issues from a developmental point of view:

• Set longer expiry dates on cookies used to track visitors


• Hang on to preferences, shopping basket contents, wish-lists etc


• Don't delete landing pages designed for specific campaigns

The number of people who don't buy on that initial visit, but still convert later is really surprising. It might be a good idea to give people who choose not to purchase other options - bookmark this page, sign up for a mailing list, or some other way to help them remember to come back to you.

Keeping an Eye on Your Milestones

The milestones feature was a nice introduction to NetOffice - but it was missing an easy way to get an overview of your upcoming milestones, and which ones you've missed!

I've added a hack for the NetOffice home page that lists your upcoming milestones underneath your projects and above your tasks. It lists them in date order (I'm too lazy to make it sortable).

Once a milestone has been reached and completed, edit the task and untick the 'Milestone' option. Then mark the task as complete. (Or you could just delete it I suppose - it's not really much use any more in this environment anyway.)

You can see I have a few milstones here to chase up and mark off...

To install, make a backup of your /general/home.php page and unzip this one in it's place.

You'll also need to open your /languages/lang_en.php file and add the following to the bottom of the list:
$strings['my_milestones'] = 'My Upcoming Milestones';

Download ZIP file, 6719 bytes.

Enjoy!

Upcoming tasks with weekly times

Another minor adjustment to NetOffice 2.6 reporting.

This one replaces the standard report (where you select project/user/stats/dates etc).

• The "Published" column is replaced with "Estmated Hours"


• Each time a new week starts, the estimated hours for that week are totalled and displayed.

The Resource Usage custom report is quite good for reviewing hous spent, but this one is to prevent you from allocating someone 356 hours worth of tasks in a week! (I'm not quite that bad, but I have a habit of just piling work up on people!)

Anyway, just unzip this and drop it on top of your old reports/resultsreport.php file.

Download ZIP file, 3941 bytes.

As usual, make sure you back up your old file first so you can go back to it if you like.

Enjoy!

Reinstalling Outlook 2003 - Missing Email Addresses

Had to reformat my computer over the weekend and reinstall everything, as does happen from time to time. This morning, went to send an email and Outlook didn't recognise the name I entered in the "To" field, much less complete the email address.

I checked my Contacts folder - everyone was in there. What's the go???

After a bit of exploring I found the solution. (For Outlook 2003, anyway.)

1. Click Go and then Folder List


2. Right-click your Contacts folder, then left-click Properties


3. Select the tab "Outlook Address Book"


4. Add a tick to "Show this folder as an email address book"


5. Click "Okay"

It's an easy fix once you figure out where they hid it!

Our Latest Project: an Email Newsletter Manager

We have had a number of clients asking us about sending email newsletters of late. We checked out a number of alternatives, but they were all either too expensive, too complicated, or both.

So we decided to write our own solution!

Currently being beta-tested, I'd like to introduce Email Marketing.

We've aimed to keep this a simple as possible while providing some useful reporting features as well. If you're interested in hearing more when we release to the public, let me know!

Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow

Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow.

If you have seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you'll know why I'm linking to this. I have nothing more to add.

A good news story - with a lesson

Got a good news story that I'd like to share:

A few weeks ago I received a call from a competitor asking for usernames and passwords for a website that we were working on. (Been working on it for over 12 months, mind you!) So anyway, I contacted the client to confirm the request and find out where we went wrong.

"It's nothing you guys have done," she told me. "My daughter is friends with [competitor] and she convinced me to go with them instead. I know I haven't given you everything you need to finish the site, that's my fault, not yours." So I told her I understood completely, I don't have a problem with people changing because of those sorts of reasons.

That was all okay - losing a client due to a family/friend connection isn't the end of the world. As long as it wasn't something we did.

So today just after lunchtime, the client (or maybe ex-client) pops into the office. She looks at me rather sheepishly and asks, "Will you take me back?"

Surprised, I asked why.

Apparently they hadn't done anything that was asked of them. They did a redesign and didn't follow the client's brief. Information had been put in the wrong place and badly formatted. The staff member ("kid") that was actually doing the work made the client feel inferior for not being fluent with computers instead of explaining things in English.

Of course, we took her back!

So this afternoon I feel somewhat proud of the level of service we offer. Generally speaking, if someone knows your competitor on a family/friend level you have no chance of winning their business, it's not even worth worrying about.

But obviously that's not necessarily the case.

So:

1. Don't burn your bridges


2. LISTEN to what your clients want


3. Remember that while you probably know more about your industry, they know a lot more about their industry than you do. it's not their job to be experts in your chosen field, that's why they come to you in the first place!

I've Never Heard of Myself...

This is another one of those little questionaires that tell you what personalty type (or in this case, what kind of web guru) you are.

Only trouble is, I've never heard of 'myself'. (Is that saying something?) Can anyone fill me in on who Dunstan is?



At least Ron was a Zeldman... :(

Daily NetOffice Activity

This little report for NetOffice will email you a list of completed tasks for the day, as well as a list of any tasks that had any time logged against them (completed ot not). I'm lazy, and if I can get out of looking that info up I will!

Download the ZIP File, 3.7 kilobytes

Simply unzip this file into your /reports/ directory, and then you'll need to set up a cron job or a scheduled task (depending your Linux-ness or Windows-ness) to trigger this file every evening.

You will need to edit the to and from email details - check around line 20, right near the top of the file.

It doesn't require a login to activate, but it doesn't actually display the details of the report, nor will it allow you to follow any links from the page, so it's not really too much of a security issue.

Tested on my 2.6.0b2 install. Enjoy!

My Latest Addiction: Google Earth

You just gotta try this... Google Earth.

A free program you can download and view a blend of satellite and aerial photography of anywhere on the globe. It's absolutely amazing and very addictive.

Start with this:


And zoom in as far as you like...

NetOffice 2.6.0b2 - Project Site improvements

I've called this post "Project Site Improvements"... But I suppose that depends on your point of view!

What I have done here is make the team task arrangement in the project site a little clearer. In the main application, tasks are neatly divided into Open, Closed and Milestones. But in the Project Site (that clients log in to) they are all bundled together.

With this mod, that same logical grouping is applied to Team Tasks for your clients to see as well.

I've also shifted the Gantt chart to the bottom of the page, and wrapped it in a div so that (at 1024x768 anyway) your clients won't have to scroll horizontally because of a wide Gantt Chart.

Unzip the contents of the zip file into your projects_site folder. As usual, back that folder up first in case you don't like what I've done!

Download ZIP file, 3005 bytes.

Works with NetOffice 2.0.6b2, untested on other versions. Enjoy!

Overly Styled Scrollbars

Designers sometimes have a habit of styling something just because they can. And sometimes this comes at the expece of usability.

Jacob Neilsen has written another reminder about scrollbars. He recommends:

• Use an actual bar in the shape of a rectangular trough, preferably in a color that contrasts with the background.


• Show arrows at the top and bottom.


• Include a slider (sometimes called a "thumb" or an "elevator"), preferably in a color that contrasts with the trough. The slider's position should show the visible area's position relative to the total area, so people can see how much more content they have to scroll through.


• Allow users to scroll by
  • clicking in the trough,
  
  
  • clicking on the arrows,
  
  
  • dragging the slider, and by
  
  
  • using a scrollwheel on their mouse.

Sensible advice to keep in mind, whilst at the same time considering who your audience is and how far you can safely push these limits.

NetOffice 2.6.0b2 - and a few report mods

NetOffice recently released the Beta 2 version of 2.6.0 - with some nice additions. Milestones are the most useful new feature, and could be the basis of some useful (although not yet written) reports.

Whilst on the subject of reports, my only real gripe with NetOffice (and similar products) is resource management. So I've modified a couple of their reports to make that job a little easier.

Completed Tasks with Times

The first report changes the existing Completed Tasks report to also include both Estimated Time and Actual Time for each task. Useful for checking how good your estimating is! Also good for keeping a bit of an eye on how each employee or sub contractor is going.

Download Zip File (2160 bytes)
Simply unzip this file and save over the top of the old one in the reports folder in your NetOffice installation.

Tasks with Estimated Times

With NetOffice's inbuilt reporting, it's not hard to see all the tasks you have allocated to someone. (Just choose their username, and then 'open' and 'not started' from the status.) This report displays the estimated time for each task instead of whether the task is published or not, which from my point of view is far more useful.

Download Zip File (3564 bytes)
Simply unzip this file and save over the top of the old one in the reports folder in your NetOffice installation.

A word of warning...

Both these reports overwrite existing NetOffice reports, so back them both up first just in case you don't like what I've done. Both are tested with 2.6.0b2, I don't know how they'll work on other versions.

Cheers!

Form Validation With Class

Juicy Studios have written an intelligent way to validate forms: by using the DOM and simply applying a class to a form element based upon the validation rules you want to run on it.

So basically, using the script provided, you can validate an email address field by applying class="email" for the input field.

Read the full story...

Some Google Secrets Exposed

From the Virtual Handshake:

Intellectual property law is really screwy sometimes. In order to legally protect your IP, you have to make it public (eventually)

The good to come from this is that some of Google's ranking algorithm secrets have been revealed.

A few interesting points, including:

• Length of domain registration (longer is better)


• Speed with which links are acquired (slower is better)


• Frequency and amount of updates (again, neither extreme is good)

Much is common sense (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) but it's interesting that Google measures the speed at which you aquire inbound links. So any strategies involving aggressive link building may be best avoided. A longer-term plan might be best adopted, and this goes hand in hand with the frequency of updates. Looks like some things just can't be rushed.

Food for thought, anyway.

Modifying Styles with the DOM

Tony Aslett presented a tutorial at Brisbane's Web Standards Group meeting in April that very simply shows how to use the DOM (Document Object Model) to change classes and styles on the fly.

I wasn't at the meeting, but just the presentation on it's own is a useful resource.

Spyware in Acrobat Reader

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

A company called Remote Approach is using a feature in Adobe's PDF Reader to track how many times a PDF document has been accessed, according to a report in the Linux Weekly News.

For the feature to be used, a PDF had to be created, uploaded to the company's server to be tagged, and then distributed, the report said.

The tracking failed when the PDF was viewed by other readers such as Xpdf and Kpdf, and version 5 of Adobe Reader.

However, when the document was opened using Adobe Reader 7, Remote Approach began logging the number of times it was viewed from the IP address of the computer on which it was opened.

The information is submitted over port 80 using HTTP - the standard port for web servers - which no home or office firewall would normally block.

The tracking was being done using JavaScript, support for which had been added as a default setting to Adobe Reader 7 for Linux and since version 6 in versions for other platforms.

This one seems harmless enough, but opens the door for more dangerous things - time to disable JavaScript in newer versions of Adobe Reader?

Making IE behave a little better

Doxdesk.com has produced a JavaScript module so that min-height, max-height, min-width and max-width work on Internet Explorer for Windows..

I can hear Michael breathe a sigh of relief now...

From bits to a comp

Ever since I saw the concept of the Page Description Diagram I liked the idea. A simple way of sorting out what a page has to do without any other distractions.

Actually putting one together is a bit harder than I first thought. Where do you start?

Then Ryan Singer from 37 Signals penned An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design. Bingo - someone has joined the dots for me!

1. Make a list of your "bits"- everything on the page and anything that the visitor might have to do


2. Group them where they share some commonality


3. Prioritise them (Hey, the contents of a Page Description Diagram!)


4. Design each chunk, and then put those chunks together (Hey, a wireframe!)


5. Then design away (Hey, a comp!)

Following Ryan's steps would make it difficult to end up with a comp that didn't achieve what it was supposed to in terms of site goals.

Not impossible, mind you, but difficult.

Shells, Scooby, basketball and chickens

A bunch of new entries to the CSS Zen Garden. Some I like:

• Like The Sea


• Chien


• Hoop - Tournament Edition


• And if for nothing else than the warped sense of humour: Hengarden

That's not a typo - Hengarden; not Zengarden...

Sort lists by dragging and dropping

Now this is pretty cool.

Most examples of list sorting I've seen involve little up and down arrows, and you have to click away and only move the item one step at a time.

Forget about that - drag and drop items on the list instead!

The example here uses cookies to store user preferences too, so you could probably enable this on yor website's standard navigation and let users put the links they usethe most at the top, and the ones they don't use much at the bottom. There are really dozens on applications you could use this. Check it out!

Getting Flash to talk to PHP

Straight from their website:

PHPObject is an opensource alternative to Flash Remoting for PHP developers. With PHPObject, you can call a method of a PHP class/library on your web server as if the class/library was defined in Flash itself. It takes care of your client-server connections and makes passing of variables (properties) between Flash MX and PHP easy, and thereby providing a convenient way to connect rich media clients with data and business logic residing on your server.

Sounds pretty useful... Here's the link: PHPObject

Inline Mini Tabs

Ever had to use float to get a list to display horizontally? All sorts of problems result: you have to contain the float, it can be difficult to centre or right-align the list, and so on.

Web Graphics have a nice little tutorial on how to use display: inline to good effect.

Much simpler!

A simple technique to improve sales

Well, it doesn't come much simpler than this:

Ask for the sale.

If you don't ask, you don't get.

Brendan Sinclair puts it this way: Make an offer. Not everyone will say "yes". In fact, many will say "no". But unless you make an offer, you're effectively getting a "no" from everyone!

Download speed detection

Just came across a useful piece of javascript, designed to test the connection speed of your visitor. I'm thinking that if you have a page with a lot of flash on it (or even a lot of static images), you might be able to use this to send people on slower connections to a "lighter" version. Or better still, load the lighter version by default and send people on faster connections to the "prettier" version.

I haven't tested it yet... but it looks like it might come in handy!

Font Sizes and Browser Quirks

This website has been online for almost 6 months now, And Ben has just pointed out a font sizing quirk that has made the text here unreadable on IE for Windows if the Text Size (in the View menu) is set to Smaller or Smallest.

And he was right - I'd never checked it before.

Turns out, using this is a no-no:
body {
font: 0.8em/1.6em Verdana, sans-serif;
}

Owen Briggs has written a fairly in-depth study (and taken a gazillion screen shots) highlighting the different methods of text sizing and their various behaviours across different browsers.

It appears a more reliable way to achieve the goal is:
body {
font: 100% Verdana, sans-serif;
}

#wrapper {
font-size: 0.8em;
line-height: 1.6em;
}

And before anyone gets on their soapbox and says I shouldn't specify a font size anyway, go and read Owen's post. I particluarly like:

"One sizing wisdom is that a document's main text should be left alone so it can display at whatever the browser default is. This sounds good, but since most browsers default to a text size that I have to back up to the kitchen to read, I decided the zen approach to design wasn't for me. Besides, if I was really zen I wouldn't write a stylesheet." (Italics mine)

Go Hack Yourself!

This is good. Some newbie hacker, in an attempt to prove himself, attempts to delete someone else's hard drive. They supply him with their IP address: 127.0.0.1.

The problem is, 127.0.0.1 always refers back to your own computer.

Wonder what happens? Read the story here...

Image Replacment Techniques

There are about a thousand ways to use CSS to display an image in place of plain text it seems. Why do it? Well, it's a method of maintaining correct markup (for search engine spiders and screen readers) while giving you typographical freedom to use ny font you like.

CSS-Discuss has a page with links to some image replacment techniques that I'm sure will come in handy.

Custom Checkboxes

Slayeroffice.com has come up with a method to customise checkboxes on forms, and it appears to degrade nicely into regular checkboxes if the user has Javascript or images turned off, too.

Bye Bye phpCollab, Hello NetOffice

I have been a phpCollab user for several years, and last week made the switch over to NetOffice.

Why?

One of the main reasons is that phpCollab is still stuck on version 2.4, and has been for along time. Sure, they have a 2.5 in beta, but that's been in beta for a long time, too. NetOffice have a stable 2.5, a 2.6 beta, and a starting to get some direction for a 3.0 release. Bug fixes seem to be attended to in a reasonable amount of time for an open source project, so we've migrated over to the 2.6 release. It features:

• An improved interface


• Time tracking


• Built-in customised reports


• Meetings

I feel that time tracking is the most important addition. With some minor customisations, we will be able to run a billing report so we can send an itemised invoice for each project. We can see how many billable hours have been done each week (and hence measure productivity). We can check each person's workload based upon estimated hours allocated with each task. Useful stuff.

We'll get some of these mods together and post them here soon...

Embedding Flash Best Practices

Embedding Flash and maintining standards-compliant code can be a bit of a nightmare.

Here is an article on "best practices" for embedding Flash.

About Us Pages - Is There A Point?

For a long time, I automatically included an "About Us" page on every website I did. Why? It just seemed to be "the done thing".

But the more I think about it, it's pointless most of the time. (Note: I'm talking about commercial websites here.)

Sure, there will be cases where it is relevant, but most of the time, who cares? People are generally visiting your website for selfish reasons. They want something. They're not really that interested in you, only what you can do for them.

And About Us pages always seem to be the most difficult to do; the hardest to write. So I'm not going to do them anymore unless there's a convincing reason to include one!

What do you think?

The Move is Taking Shape...

Our move into a larger office is getting closer...

We've painted a couple of the walls, carpet is down, phone lines have been switched on (now we just need to wait for the actual phones to be installed!)

When we signed the lease there was about 5 or 6 weeks until we officially took over. At the time we thought, "That'll take forever!" In reality, it has really only just been long enough!

Only a week to go!

Eye Tracking Research on Dead Zones

I have to admit - I'm becoming a bit hooked by this eye-tracking thing.

Greg's latest post highlights that content in visual "dead zones" may as well not be there - and he tested this by putting complete gibberish in an identified dead zone to see if anyone noticed.

And only 1 in 25 did!

The other thing that struck me is that in his example, the visual dead zone was smack bang in the middle of the page! Comments brought out that this was due to the visually prominent elements directly above the area identified as a dead zone. People tend to focus on them, and ignore what's directly below.

Just goes to show: You learn something new every day!

CSS Rounded Corners

Alessandro Fulciniti has come up with a great example of using CSS and Javascript to produce rounded corners - without images. And the best part of his example is that he demonstrates a number of different applications, from tabbed navigation to photo frames to news boxes. So there's no need to try and figure anything out (like how to use more than one instance on each page). All the hard work has been done!

A Quest For Ancient Geekiness

The year was 1984. Or 1985. No, pretty sure it was 1984.

The computer? A Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer 2. Or CoCo for short. 16 kilobytes of RAM. 320x240 8 colour display. External tape drive. No internal hard drive.

I wrote a game on this computer - I was about 14 or 15. It was published in a computer magazine. Back then there was no "cover cd" - each program was listed inside the mag and you had to type each line in yourself if you wanted it! (I'm glad you don't have to do that any more!)

This game was called "Supply Ship". It was a clone of the Commodore 64 game "Jupiter Lander".

Do you think I have a copy of the magazine my game was published in? A game I wrote when I was 14 or 15? Of course not!

So if you happen to have an old "Rainbow CoCo" magazine, or any Tandy TRS-80 magazine from that era, please check and see if you have my issue... Please!! I'm having a mid-life crisis trying to find an old copy!

Maybe Fixed Width is Better?

Greg Edwards has posted an interesting piece of research, tracking where people actually look on a couple of different CSS Zen Garden designs.

It's a good comparison, because the content is exactly the same - it's just has different visual treatment.

And the first thing I noticed is that the wider column on the original design was read less than the narrower column on design 145. Is this a convincing argument for fixed width designs? I think it's hard to ignore - it will be interesting to see the results of future comparisons!

Website Project Management Part 2 : Principles

(If you haven't already - see Part One - An Introduction to Project Management)

When dealing with project management for website development, there are really on two things to juggle.

1. Tasks


2. Resources

Sounds simple, right?

Tasks

Tasks are fairly obvious. They are the things you have to do. I have found it useful to group your tasks into phases - it helps to get a better overview of where you are (instead of looking at a great long list of unrelated tasks) and it's also easier to set up a template of standard tasks that you then simply customise for each job. We generally use the following phases:

1. Planning


2. Content gathering and editing


3. Design


4. Programming


5. Construction/Assembly


6. Testing


7. Post Launch

Tasks near the beginning and end of a website project tend to be repeated, so make a template out of these at least. And look for the things that you generally do in the middle phases, and write these down as well. You can easily customise your list if the individual project warrants it.

Once we have our list of tasks together, we now need to make them happen!

Resources

In project management, resources can be anything from people to equipment to buildings or meeting rooms - anything you need to get the tasks done. Relating back to web design, we're really only talking about people, or manhours more specifically. Time. If you have 80 hours of tasks to be done, and George has 20 available hours this week and Mildred has 15, it ain't going to get finished this week!

Another point to consider - people aren't productive 100% of the time. We're not robots. So if you employ someone for 38 hours per week, you're wasting your time allocating them 38 hours worth of tasks. Never going to happen. I work on allocating 4 hours out of every 5. If they happen to get finished earlier than expects, then good! Get a head start on tomorrow's work. But you need to allow time to get coffee, visit the loo, chat about the movie you saw on the weekend or whatever.

Okay, that's enough theory. Next installment we'll start getting our hands dirty!

A New Office

We've been struggling with this for some time now, but the time has finally come - we're moving to a new, real, office!

After 8 years of home-based business, we've just outgrown it. So we're moving from 30sqm to 150sqm. Take over the lease on April Fool's Day, of all things!

It's funny looking at the empty room, then imagining where all the desks will go, the printer, the vinyl cutter, the server. And the more we look at it, the smaller the room gets!

Here we've got Janelle, Yolinda and Michael figuring out where everything will go. The reception area is behind them, and the lunchroom is behing the camera. New carpets are being laid, the paint is fairly new, so it's all good.

We didn't really want to have to move into a daggy office, and this is somewhere we will feel quite comfortable inviting clients to come and see us.

So we have some data cables to sort out, a new phone system to install, ADSL to connect, and about 4 weeks to get everything ready. Then there's insurances of course.

Have I forgotten anything? Probably! ;)

Sorting HTML Tables

En excellent little piece of javascript courtesy of Stuart Langridge that enables users to sort the data in an HTML table by clicking on the headers. No reloading of pages or anything - it all happens straight away.

Easy to implement, unobtrusive... Very nice.

PageRank Plugin for Firefox

Quirk have released an extention for Firefox that shows you the Google PageRank of every page you visit.

"Big deal," you might say, "I've already got one!"

So did I, but this new one offers a few extra features:

1. It also shows you the Alexa rank (not that that means much, but it's there anyway)


2. You can also display backlinks and indexed pages for Google, Yahoo and MSN. That's handy.


3. It is also customisable - you can shoose it's location as well as what it shows you.

Handy tool - get it here.

Don't Be All Things To All People

John Allsopp's latest article, Tipping Firefox Across the Chasm covers some very good ground that hopefully will be read by those at Mozilla.

He comments that:

If I had any advice for the Mozilla Foundation when it came to marketing Firefox it would be that they really separate out the two very distinct groups of user they currently focus on - visionary early adopters, and the mainstream - rather than lumping them together when promoting the application.

Visionaries largely want complicated, complicating (and wonderful) stuff like plugins, toolbars and the like. The appeal to mainstream users of Firefox is almost the opposite - simplicity, security, ease of use, and maybe even a little fun. A bowser that "just works". Taking back the web. There you go Mozilla, you can have that one.

Many of us have already switched to Firefox, and if you're like me, you'll never go back. But what about the average Joe?

I think increased Firefox takeup among the mainstream really needs a positive, specific message. Hopefully Mozilla will take John's advice on board!

Misconceptions About Teenage Visitors

The stereotypical teenager is a myth, according to Jakob Neilsen's latest Alertbox.

According to his research, teenagers in general are not all the wizz-kids they are portrayed as. So rather than teenagers being able to use any website thrown at them, many found websites more difficult to use than adults, due to poorer reading skills and less patience.

Assessing your website's usability on "the average user" is a dangerous game (as there is no such thing), but if you're going to generalise it's handy to know some researched facts about your potential audience rather than basing your decisions on misconsceptions.

The internet wasn't invented when I was a teenager, and my kids aren't that old yet - so I have nothink to test these findings on... So any teenagers reading this: What do you think?

Simple Browser-Based Editing

If you've ever had to allow your client to edit their website, you'll know what problems that can cause.

Clients can get sucked in by the power of most editors, and new fonts will appear, new colours, new styles. Pretty soon it looks like your masterpiece was created in Publisher! (Don't laugh - I've seen it happen.)

You have a few choices:

1. You can allow them control using something like Macomedia Contribute - but it has it's limitations and if it's only simple things that need editing it can be expensive and/or overcomplicated. It also gives the client a lot of control, which can be dangerous!


2. You can use something like XStandard, which generates excellent code, but it's a plugin and gives the client a lot of control. Danger again.


3. Or you can use something like Camron Adams' new widgEditor. It doesn't do much, and that's the best thing about it. Clients can't go "formatting crazy" - they can add headings, bold things, italicise things, and make lists.

The beauty of this thing is it's simplicity. No need to spend hours teaching your clients how to use it, nor trying to give them lessons in semantics. The button that generates a <strong> element is labelled B. It can't get more basic.

If he'd inlcude an "Insert Image" button that's all the extra functionality I'd add.

Simply brilliant!

Smoking is good for you?

Brendon Sinclair has done it again.

Taken a brief encounter with another business and given us his thoughts on how to make it better.

This one will take a few minutes to read - but there are bound to be some ideas in here for everyone. He covers:

1. Finding your target market


2. Identifying what you're actually selling


3. Developing a marketing plan


4. Media releases, direct mail, loyalty incentives


5. Educating clients


6. Encouraging word of mouth

Got all that? Good!

Now... just to apply some of this advice...!

On knowing the 'Why'

Dave Shea has posted some thoughts on overcoming the dreaded designers' block.

I'm most interested in this coment:

What's more important than a planned process, however, is the due diligence (DD) that must happen before a design begins. Gathering materials like existing branding, project objectives, content, and anything else available is essential for the design process.

I couldn't agree more.

Too many designs (and I've been guilty of this in the past too) are just slapped together without thinking about the website's objectives. Logo here, nav there, photo here...

I had a meeting with a client a few days ago and we were discussing improving the conversion rate for their website. Their home page looked nice in a generic sort of way, used their logo and colours, but it had no real purpose. We identified a couple of concrete activities that a visitor could do, but the design in no way encouraged anything.

So here's what I'm thinking. Whether you have designers' block or not, here's what you should have before you even think about starting:

1. Existing branding


2. Project objectives


3. Content (or at the very least an outline of what the content will be)


4. "Anything else available is essential for the design process" - which should include:
   
   
   
   • client preferences (if any)
   
   
   • potential audience or target market
   
   
   • Specific actions you'd like the reader to take
   
   
   
   

If you don't have this information, you'll really battle to make your design work. It might look nice, but the commercial reality is it needs to do more than that.

CSS Zen Garden Entry

I am not the author is this page - but you have to admire their skill and dedication. One would have to assume that this design was rejected by Dave Shea, which is a real shame, as it certainly "explores the limits of CSS"!

Here's the link - if you dare!

Man fired over weblog accusation

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a man in Britian has been fired for badmouthing his employer in his Blog. Apparently he complains that his dismissal "raises some disturbing issues of freedom of speech". Well - what did he expect to happen? What would you do if you were his employer? I know what I would have done!

Sure, he has a right to free speech. But you can't go badmouthing someone in the public domain and think nothing will come of it. Why post something in a blog thinking that nobody will read it, or make the connection?

Sorry - but I just can't feel sorry for this guy. "You reap what you sow"...

Here's the story:

An employee of British bookseller chain Waterstone's has been fired for bringing the company into disrepute after he made entries on his weblog site identifying it in code as "Bastardstone's" and accusing it of slavery.

Joe Gordon said he was dismissed from the company's Edinburgh store on the grounds of "gross misconduct" and "bringing the company into disrepute," although he had never identified the company by its proper name.

"I did not set out to attack the company in some systematic manner," he said.

But Waterstone's had refused to accept his defence that the blog entry had just been a satirical spoof, written at home in his own free time.

In the blog, called Woolamaloo Gazette, Gordon gave his company the code-name Bastardstone's, called his line manager Evil Boss, and complained about his working hours and what he said was "slavery".

A company spokesperson confirmed the dismissal, saying: "There's an ongoing disciplinary procedure, and Mr Gordon has the right to appeal twice. We can make no further comments until then".

The dismissal "raises some disturbing issues of freedom of speech," Gordon said.

AFP

Where'd Adam Get That Colour Scheme?

Adam Polselli has explained one way he finds inspiration for colour schemes. This is probably an old page - but I only just found it. It's brilliance lies in it's simplicity.

Stuck for colour? Look around!

Web Essentails 04 Resources

Just a short post - if you're looking for some light reading, here are the transcripts and presentations from Web Essentials 04 in Sydney.

Well worth going over again. (And again!)

Firefox Screen-Reader Emulator

Fangs is a plugin for Firefox that produces a text-based output of what a screen reader might see. Clever name, considering the most popular screen reader for Windows is called Jaws...

Couple Fangs with FoxyVoice, which does actually read the contents of your Firefox window, and I guess you've got the next best thing to a real screen reader!

A mini for me, please!

I've been hunting around for a second-hand Mac to do some testing on. I was hoping to spend about $500 and then another $230 for OSX. The the local Mac shop told me about the new Mac Mini.

Perfect!

A tiny box (about 16cm square by 5cm high) that I can plug my existing monitor, keyboard and mouse into. $800 for a brand new Mac! So when they arrive in town in early February you can bet what I'll be doing...

In their own words:

Perfect for Programmers

Set a space-saving Mac mini atop your workstation PC and add a KVM switch to share keyboard, monitor and mouse. Mac OS X includes free developer tools for Mac, UNIX and Java. Test out a Mac version of your latest creation, instantly. Pretty soon you’ll be using the Mac full-time, with that PC relegated to the testbed.

I was thinking about getting the base model, but I'm pretty sure that if I have one of these on my desk I'll start using it for more than just testing. Maybe I should go for the 1.42G model...

Good news for Gamers

Roy Evans has written an interesting article about job skills of the gamer generation. Perhaps all that time spent building and destroying virtual civilisations in Age of Empires wasn't such a waste after all?

It's All a Game

Just when you felt it was safe to think you understood how to be a leader – think again.

If you are employing people in the 18- 30 year age bracket on your Graduate Development Program, pick up a copy of “Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Re-shaping Business Forever” by John Beck and Mitchell Wade.

Our workshop programs “The Human Factor” point out that we don’t see the world (or anything in it) as it actually is, we see it as we are”. Managers and leaders in their 40’s and 50’s have a generational filter regarding how we see and deal with people, based on (amongst other things) the fact that we grew up without the computer. We note that strange affliction which compels our off-spring to play games on computers and consoles with who-knows-who on the internet, instead of wanting to play Dolls and Dress-ups or Cowboys and Indians in the back-yard, as we did. So how do we manage the development of this new batch of employees to enhance their organisational abilities?

According to Beck and Wade, there is a whole lot to gain – if we clean out our own filter. The authors suggest:

The “Gamer Generation” are:

• Team-workers


• Creative entrepreneurs


• Problem solvers


• Believe nothing is impossible


• Evaluate risk, rather than being risk-averse


• Skilled Resource Managers

They have been attending a professional development program since they were old enough to handle a mouse, which most trainers above the age of 40 would only dream about. They have attended hours of simulation exercises to create and tell stories, explore social conventions, interpret rules, assemble resources, use a wide range of social skills, apply caring attitudes, and also consider the ethics of destroying civilizations if necessary to reach a goal. And all before even setting foot in your company door.

The authors suggest these range of competencies probably contribute to their view of organisational life as a game, with colleagues as “players”. They are potentially more competitive, keen on winning, optimistic about finding a solution to every problem, suspicious about rules (which they probably see as obstacles to winning) and the people who quote them (i.e. the typical manager), confident of their own abilities, entrepreneurial and resilient.

A big point here – gamers are good team players – unlike Pac-man of my generation, games can be played in teams of people from anywhere in the global internet community, or with friends from school or the local community in the local internet café. Tactics are discussed, teams are managed and focused communication takes place, all in preparation for the next challenge. There are also large face-to-face meetings (akin to a National Conference) arranged in controlled surroundings where gamers gather to share their learning (a new dimension to experiential team games).

The authors go on to suggest that rather than complain about the work-ethic of the under-30 Roy Evansgroup, it is probably more a matter of the savvy manager understanding how to harness the skills, energy and creativity of this group in order to focus their energies on the organisational vision, replacing the games “mission” with the organisation’s business plan and letting them go… just watch their dedication and productivity in action.

Search Engine FAQ

This post by Stymiee was made on the Sitepoint forums some time ago, but it's always worth revisiting. The basics of Search Engines in FAQ style.

Sure, it doesn't cover everything, but there is quite a deal of knowledge here - including dispelling a few common myths.

Although the author makes a bit of a disclaimer:

Since SEO is not a science this is a gutsy post to make so cut me some slack!

I'll cut you some slack Stymiee - it's a great post!

Search Engines Like Blogs

Why is this the case? It's nicely summed up here. The author states:

So, here's my take on why blogs rank high in search engines.

* Keywords, key phrases
* Straight to the point
* Each post's page structure
* Coding
* One subject per post
* The blog site's information structure
* Links then...?

I've seen referrals from Google within a day or two of posting - I'm wondering of Google recognises a blog and visits it more regularly as a result? Or is that just a case of good timing?

WAMP - the easy (lazy) way

Following up on my recent post about installing WAMP (Apache, MySQL and PHP on Windows), I discovered a recent post on Gadgetopia about some apps that install the AMP part on Windows for you.

No doubt easier, but when you get wizards to do something you always seem to lose some control that you have if you do it manually. Although, I should mention that I'm making that comment without having tried any of these, so maybe I should keep my mouth shut!

2005 Colour Predictions

Adam Polselli has come up with his colour predictions for 2005. And I like what I see, especially his "browns and naturals" palette.

As with these sorts of things - they tend to come true (to some extent), as other designers read this, and then adopt the predictions in an effort to remain "current". Is this what 2005 will bring in the colour department?

Probably!