RIP WE, Hello WD

Web Essentials have held conferences in Sydney for the last 2 years - but sadly 2005 was the last.

Fear not! Web Directions is on in late September - and is the child of 2 of those responsible for Web Essentials - Maxine Sherrin and John Allsopp. No particular details released as yet, but hopefully it will live up to it's predecessor - and I have every reason to believe it will.

They also have a few workshops planned for around the same time, so I'm hoping we'll have enough notice this time. Last year I had already booked and arranged everything before the Veen workshop was announced. That would have been pretty good, I expect.

A New NetOffice?

There has been no activity on Netoffice for some time now. I contacted the current admins about taking it over some time ago but received no reply. So I'm thinking it might be about time to fork and start doing my own thing with it. I have a couple of thoughts:

1. I'd like to redo the header/footer and remove all presentational HTML so the look can be customised easier with CSS


2. Delete the 'Client Site' facility. None of my clients actually use it - it just gets in the way


3. Delete the 'Support Requests' for the same reason


4. Streamline the workflow - make it simpler to update a task and log time in the one step


5. Add project & task templates - make creating a new project simpler


6. Improve Milestone handling


7. Improve some of the reports


8. Add RSS feeds for project/task updates

Yep... that's a bit of work. I know these posts are being read... Are there any other thoughts out there?

It's April Fool's Day...

A classic piece appeared on Sitepoint today.

Jason Gried? 37 Singles? Beautiful!

Fuji Digital Camera - No Fault Found?

Purchased this FujiFilm FinePix S3000 probably 18 months ago now (maybe a bit more). Initially, it was great. The second Fuji digital camera we have purchased.

But then after about 9 months it started chewing through batteries. I'd put a fresh set in on Friday for the weekend, take maybe a dozen photos over the weekend, and then go to use it again early the following week and they'd be dead!

We have about 4 sets of NiMH batteries that we cycle through 2 cameras and a few other things, and the batteries last fine in everything else so it's safe to say it's not the batteries.

Took the thing back to Harvey Norman (where I purchased it) and they sent it back to Fuji under warranty.

About 3 weeks later, it came back with the message "no fault found".

Apparently you're not supposed to leave your batteries in this thing over the weekend? Which means that when you do want to take a photo, you have to put the batteries in, reset the date and time, and adjust all your settings again as it defaults to 1 megapixel when you take the batteries out!

Is this normal? I don't think so!

So what can I say about this camera? When you first put the batteries in it's great. Good lens, nice quality photos, easy to use.

What can I say about Fuji's after sales service? Well, pretty lame. If they think that this camera's behaviour is "normal" - that there's nothing wrong with it - well...

It's pretty safe to say I won't every buy a Fuji digital camera again, that's for sure!

7 Essential Title Tag Strategies

The latest Market Position newsletter has a nice summery about good use of the Title tag. Main points covered:

1. The length of your title


2. Word proximity


3. Keyword location


4. Word order


5. Repitition of words


6. Titles for human consumption


7. What words to use

The author contradicts himself a little - in point 3 he suggests better results from placing your keywords at the beginning of the title and then in point 6 reminds us that the Title tag is important for human consumption too. Ever looked though your browser's History and tried to find a site you were at yesterday and they have used keywords (or something else just as unpredictable) at the start of the title tag?

Like everything else, a balance is required.

Simple Problem Solving

Found this little gem in a post at Signal V Noise - a simple, step-by-step guide to problem solving:

1. write down the problem


2. write down why it’s hard to solve


3. write down what would make it easier


4. write down possible ways to implement things that would make it easier


5. write down why those ways suck


6. then make it not suck

Beautiful!

Crazy Egg - Another Web 2.0 Stats Pack

These things seem to be coming out of the woodwork - Crazy Egg is another invitation-only Web 2.0 stats pack.

Although it does look like it's got an extra nice feature missing from others - a heat map showing where visitors are clicking. Nice touch.

Well, I've signed up for an invite. Will take it for a test drive when I can get an account set up!

(Via TechCrunch)

Tags: crazy egg | web 2.0 | statistics | Stats