steerpike

No I have no wish whatsoever to 'rent' urls. Anything that makes urls more impermanent than they already are is, in my opinion, a very bad thing.

I'm fairly partial to http://www.abc.net.au/news

Also worth checking out are:

http://grogsgamut.blogspot.com/

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/

http://newmatilda.com/

http://www.thepunch.com.au/

(Full disclosure: I work for the ABC)

Seriously. How do you write an article referencing one of the most iconic, symbolic and emotive engineering creations of the 20th century and slap an image so glaringly incorrect onto it?

Oh wow, those are some fantastic resources. What an awesome start, thank you.

This is awesome.

It had a bit of trouble deciphering '14/4 carnation crescent'. Didn't seem to be able to split the apartment/street number properly.

It might be a little unfair of me but I personally really, really disappointed at the way a web giant with serious engineering chops like Google has dealt with the issue of accessibility.

I take an admittedly purist view and say that we as developers should be striving to maintain the initial principles of the web in allowing everyone equal access to content. As more and more sites act as 'applications' and the web moves further and further away from static html I think the principle still holds - it just becomes more difficult. I really would have loved to see large web companies like Facebook and Google drive the focus on maintaining accessibility for all users.

Instead we've seen exactly the opposite and for me the most disappointing part of it has been the way Google handles it - probably because I really have a soft spot for Google in all other situations.

None of their web applications are accessible to any usable degree and they don't seem to be showing the slightest interest in improving their standard of offering. A few of their products attempt a half-arsed implementation of WAI-ARIA but they never seem to actually follow through on anything. It's as if they launch a new product and then all instantly wander off and start something new. Accessibility requires a pretty hefty chunk of maintenance and user feedback but the tools are there if companies invested in it.

I don't think you could ever describe facebook as having low adoption rates and it doesn't seem to be hugely affecting the uptake of sites like quora.

I have pretty strong negative reaction to this push for more and more sites to demand a real name for signup and I'm not sure if it's a product of my internet usage history or if I actually have a valid gripe.

I think it's fundamentally important that as a general principle the internet allows a person to play many parts and to play those parts under discreet, consistent personae if required. The most basic example being that my 'work' persona needs to be distinctly separate so that people can't mistake my personal opinions for official statements from the national broadcasting corporation I happen to work for.

Sites like quora and facebook are a distubing and distressing trend to me, but I haven't really seen a great deal of 'push back' against the practice. Especially from younger web users, and I wonder if it's just a 'generational' thing?

Hey, I understand the guardian comment system uses Pluck and we're looking to integrate pluck ourselves at the ABC in Australia. I don't suppose I could pick your brains for any kind of implementation tricks and information you can provide can I?

Becuase its the software developers' turn.

Strangely enough, it happened in hospitality just before I left that industry, the term 'Rock star chef' was being used a lot to describe the new wave of chefs who were more interested in getting their profile up so they could get on television rather than actually try and cultivate a decent restaurant. The focus of the business drive shifted massively.

I have a vague theory that it just cycles through industry after industry and it's interesting to try and spot the wave before it occurs.

I wish someone smarter than myself could explain to me why I find articles written in this style (or tone of voice or rythmn or whatever the correct term is) so nauseating and irritating?

Here's a bit of a roundup of tech meetups around Sydney that I found a while ago. http://www.bhatt.id.au/blog/sydney-meetups-and-events-inform...

I just moved back to Sydney at the beginning of the year from Bristol in the UK and I have to say the Sydney community doesn't seem to have hit the same level of activity that the UK had which is a bit of a bugger.

If you live in Sydney you pretty much are obligated to have something to do with the harbour: sailing, surfing, living near it, watching the sunset over it from the Opera Bar. I live in Mosman so I get to travel to work in the city by ferry every day - I can certainly recommend it as a lovely way of starting and ending your day!

Release that delicious, delicious looking courier tablet.

He's 17 years old ffs. This is not appropriate content.

Wow, thanks for bringing highscalability.com to my attention. Awesome breakdown of sites.

This is pretty awesome for front-end developers. Nice work.

Probably because the first button you had to press in order to shut down your computer was 'Start'.

Ok, can anyone smarter than myself tell me if I'm justified in getting a little bit excited about the 'freeze' function on objects that makes properties read only? My first thought is that it sounds like a perfect first line of defence in terms of being able to get trustworthy data back from the client bundled up in a frozen object.

I posted the following comment on the techcruch blog but it got deleted. Not sure why exactly, I think it's a fairly valid question to ask.

"So you apparently found out that your business partner was pretty shady last summer but you chose to not reveal that obviously newsworthy information to readers, why exactly?

Just wondering why readers should be considering techcruch a newsworthy source if such an obvious conflict of interests results in you coming down on the side that benefits you the most?"

You're asking about UI designers and most people have provided links to Designers - two different beasts in my view.

I think stackoverflow if one of the best examples of brilliant UI I've seen recently - certainly one of the best I've seen on the web - but it probably wouldn't make my top list for beautiful design.

You could promote some discussion on it at the social design patterns wiki: http://designingsocialinterfaces.com/patterns.wiki/index.php...

The 'threaded comments' page is here: http://designingsocialinterfaces.com/patterns.wiki/index.php...

It's a shorthand for 'I totally agree and what was said bears repeating'. I think it originated on fark, but I'm not totally sure.

Firebug

Web developer toolbar

Selenium

Colourzilla

Measureit

Delicious bookmarks

Diigo bookmarks

Accessibility Extension

HTML validator

Pencil

Fangs

Adblocker

Inline Code Finder

Chatzilla

Screengrab

I think it depends on how you ask the question. If you give every indication that you've made an effort to try and figure it out on your own, even if it's a newb issue, I doubt anyone who knows what they're doing would see it as anything other than a good indication of character.

Well, if it's google I think the answer will likely be 'inaccessible'.

You are awesome, thank you.

Yeah, so true, especially considering it's the tab immediately left of this one in my browser.

It's interesting, because as well made as gmail is, I simply can't bring myself to think of it as a good UI. I just don't find the interface particularly usable.

I spend ages looking through the buttons trying to remember where the one is for creating a new message. It seems arbitrary what's a button and what's a link. Grouping of 'concepts' seem utterly arbitrary (notably the list of choices presented in the dropdown next to 'reply' in a message chain).

I just don't think I've ever been hugely impressed with googles UI credentials - everyone always seems to put them up as some kinds of genius in terms of usability but I just don't see it.

Ok, google maps is a notable exception.

Well, I for one can't wait for someone to come and show us whiny and despairing web developers how it's done.

Moronic article that seems to think that comparing apples to battleships somehow makes sense.

(Speaking as a game developer for 14 years and a web developer for 8).

Maybe a possible solution would be to start with certain well known people (if I could convince them to share) and have them describe 'these things that formed who I am' which might give me a decent start on possible spheres of interest that are more likely to be useful rather than noise?