Skin of Stars

**UPDATE** Blog has now been imported to this site – now found here, on the front page!

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New site as the old one bothered me for being so bad. The (currently inactive) blog can still be found at /blog but will be integrated in time. Updates will probably be coming thick and fast, as is my want with new projects.

Found a very interesting video called Semantic Web For Noobs

I posted this on oonagi, but thought it interesting enough to post here:

I do think that flash has a purpose, especially in sites that where it’s more important to have strong visual features, like band sites. For example, neverestsongs.co.uk is undeniably beautiful. But when we look at that instance, you cannot say that it is crawlable by seach engines. Yes, there are methods to ensure that search engines can index the pages, for example giving a site an HTML base and using flash for progressive enhancement (check to see if user can play flash), or alternatively using meta data to include keywords and content.

Perhaps we should take neverestsongs as an example. When we check the source code (ctrl+u) afters going directly to the site we see that:
a) the only meta data there is is the keywords: ‘music, luke, twyman, kent, england, english, uk’
b) it is displayed within a frame, with the actual site being stored on whitevinyldesign.com/newnnev, a page without any further content for search engines to crawl

So far as search engine optimisation goes, both these (very good looking) sites are not being indexed properly by search engines… or so the common belief goes. Still, with a little digging you will find that Google does index flash pages! Apparently they use a search engine indexer provided by Adobe (the owners of flash) which they can use (though one would guess they have to front up some hard cash). You still have to be careful how you build your page and should check it against Adobe’s swf2html output but you can now rest a little easier that you will show up in search results, well, google’s search results. A quick search on flash and seo will yield a wealth of information.

Now, is flash the industry standard? I am certain that it is for creative industries but I did feel the need to check the top 10 global websites to see how much they used flash. For this I used Alexa.com, and checked their global rankings. Of the top five sites (Yahoo, YouTube, Windows Live, Google and MySpace) at least some use flash, but they only use it as embedded players with XHTML sites. Funnily enough, this drops of dramatically as you go through the rankings of the top twenty. So the big players do use flash, but its sporadic and only as a small part of their site. If you look through their code though they seem to be doing all their fancy eye-candy with javascript (facebook make extensive use of javascript, as do google).

So here is my conclusion. So far as problems caused for search engines, this isn’t the issue it always used to be. You still need to take a little care but it’s certainly not something for a client to be concerned about. My other question, is it the industry standard? That depends on what kind of site you want. For the large sprawling behemoths it clearly isn’t appropriate, else they would be making far more extensive us of it. If you’re in creative industries (like a band, or an artist) and you want a good site that captures your audience, then flash is the way to go.

It’s taken me some time and a little soul searching if ones being honest, but I have finally decided to leave blogger behind me. Blogspot has served me well enough but struggled with the resrictions I always feel when someone else is hosting my webbyness, so I felt it was time we parted ways. Now I get the freedom to improve or make a mess of my own site. Though I’m sure I’ll lose a bit of traffic like this, I don’t think it really matters much these days.

Thankfully, and to make life extra easy, it is stupidly simple to transfer all your posts and comments over.

Very interesting and well made video about (cue buzzword) web 2.0

Today Eastcliff Richard and I became ‘friends’. I think this is a familiar expression in the world of social networking. In this instance it was on probably the most highly publicised site of recent months, Facebook. This has got me thinking a little more about a site which I once thought was pretty neat but I now avoid like Margate!

I like to think of myself as an early adopter. I certainly try to be, signing up to many new social webservices before anyone else has signed up and as such unlikely there being any point in being there. With Facebook I’d tried to sign up a couple of years ago but you needed a uni email so I couldn’t. When I came to Oxford though it was just at the start of the Facebook wave so naturally I signed my name on the dotted line.

I’d spent some time in the garish environment of MySpace for a few years (the de facto social site of Thanet rock) and so enjoyed the simplicity of Facebook. It had plain white pages, minimally organised small photos, a wall, some groups and the occasional poke. It was simple and I thanked it for that.

Then at the same time as the wave of new uni kids they opened up registration to the site to anyone with an email address. Now we get all the guys who are using it at uni telling their friends back home to come join and things started to snowball. As of today Facebook is now in the top ten global Alexa ranked sites. Its still not caught Myspace but its not got much further to go and if the rate that my new friend requests come in I doubt it will be much longer.

So here is where I think the problem lies. Facebook was successful because it differed from Myspace. It did offer a more peaceful approach to social networking but now they have opened up the site to third party applications, the likes of Zombie Biters, Booze Mailers, Super Pokers and any other stupid thing you can think of. Here is where the problem of being open to anyone with an email comes in. These applications are further propagated by people who are wasting away their work day. Now when I go to a users page I struggle to find their wall for all the other trash that’s littered over it. Infact, I can’t even use my own inbox without having to spend half an hour clearing it of stupid invites.

Facebook may not yet have reached user saturation, but it is certainly reaching the end of its usability. It makes me wonder what site will be the next big thing, its certainly time to start looking out for it. Hopefuly people will come back to blogs and forums, at least they have some substance and in many cases proved sustainabilty.

Its taken long enough but I am finally back on the net. I thought that with all this high-speed world we were living in the internet wouldn’t have take the better part of a month to sort out. First its problems with how long since you’ve had your phone line, then its that the previous people living here were with another company (hold on, I’m sure I set up a new line!?), then you have to wait for engineers, then you have to wait longer because of floods! All very painful.

A few weeks ago we had our interband football tournament in Dane Park. We’ve been doing it for the past seven years (here is a link to last years football post). I managed to get to the final this year but alas we were beaten by younger, fitter, chavs. Ah well. Just like to say a public thanks to all the lads who helped me organise the event. I’d also like to say a public shame on all those who left litter at the end, not cool.

I was intending to do a rebuke to Tony’s comments on my last blog post, but the moment is somewhat lost. He is right, Linux isn’t the most prevalent desktop system. It is worth noting though that it is by no means a backwater system, for example, Blogger runs on Linux. So its interesting that he was using said system to say that no-one uses it.

Well, its a nice day so I’ll leave you all to it.

Ok, I’ll break my silence, if for nothing more than the fear that I may soon end on ECRs ‘Where are they now?’ list!

I’ve not ignored Thanet in any way, I take the Thanet Times back to Oxford with me (or get them brought to me!) when I can and keep up with blogging through the wonder of the internet. You know, I found I can be anywhere to read these blogs, not just in Thanet, amazing things these Internets.

I often find that when I see something interesting I think about how I would put it in a blog post, but it would seem I’m now into the habit of not posting. Lets take this example: The other day I was in Margate and was almost knocked over by Sandy Beach who was rounding a corner at high pace away from the town, only to find that when I got to Margate centre the whole town was without power… link perhaps?!

The topic of the moment though does seem to be TBLs birthday. I can hardly believe it to be a year already. That curious, spiraling turning of events that began with turmoil on the blogger circuit to the rise of the blog list. Though for my sins I may have started it, to my better judgment I handed it to Adem who has made it into a truly useful and enjoyable resource… though I must be honest, I cannot stand this Snap preview thing (cue tech tip). If you want to turn it off this is what you have to do: hover over a link to the snappy thing appears, got to options in that pop-up, check the boxes to disable, when it saves reload.

Ok, I’m here for the next month so I’ll probably post again, mainly because I see this as a Thanet blog. After that I’ll probably pull it into my new personal site that I’m planning (see if you can guess the web address ).

For all you Thanet bloggers: Keep up the good work!

Made a nice change today, waking up in the morning. Went down for breakfast, life is that much easier when other people are cooking for you, it is also a good motivator to crawl out my pit in the morning. I thought it was important to make the effort and get up for food today seeing as I have rugby training at 2pm. We have our first match in four weeks and to be honest my laziness over Christmas has raised my own concerns over match fitness. What is the chances of a full time smoker and general layabout being able to run for 80mins. I can see me being sick on the touchline.

I’ve been playing with the new Bloglist and frankly I’m loving what he’s done with it. The Recent Feeds section is awesome and is a great to use in conjunction with netvibes. For example, though I have about 17 Thanet blog feeds on a netvibes page I would never have known that Old Ramsgate and Thanet Underground has been adding new material if it hadn’t been for the Bloglist. I’m not going to add every feed to my netvibes just in case, but the Bloglist does that for us.

In view of this I’ve decided to add the new button that is made available in the promote section. I’ll admit that I wasn’t altogether happy with the code, but frankly I always find something to moan about so I suggest you all use that mental filter now that I’m sure you all use on banner ads for the rest of the web… Actually, if you really don’t like banner ads there is a great Firefox extension that will clean the internet of them for you, its called AdBlock Plus

I’m now getting closer with my oonagi redesign with pretty much only one thing left to do on it, which alas due to my lack of php knowledge I have to place a request to ask someone else to fix for me. Shame really, maybe by the end of this year I’ll know what to do, though by the end of this year all the knowledge will probably be out of date anyway!

My recent general lack of internet has severely severed what I am able to do on my Christmas projects. Our house in Manston sits outside the Thanet wired broadband catchment area. Of course there is always a workaround. For us the answer is wireless broadband beamed in through a toaster styled receiver attached to the side of the house from up near the Uni campus. We were with a company called SoBroadband from Rainham but alas they went into some kind of liquidifidation and was subsequently taken over by VFast from Ashford. They all seem very nice so we don’t really mind that their temporary transmitter (put up for Christmas) keeps being blown down by the high winds we’ve been having of late.
projects, broadband, sobroadband, vfast, manston

Christmas was turned out well considering. It was my first without my father and his brother, both having died earlier in 2006, assuming I’ve not mentioned it before. We went down to that side of the family in Dorset and frankly it was generally pretty good fun. My cousins are all come of drinking age and so it was a good fun starting from almost as soon as I arrived. Just got to get them to move off the lager onto some good ales.
christmas, family, dorset

Friday the 29th of December was showtime at the Lido, Margate. Evil Elvis were playing with support from Black Static Transmission rinsing out a Christmas set in the last Plan9 show of the year. ‘This is almost like Christmas with the family’ I explained to my friend Danny as I talked him into coming. ‘Your not sure that you really want to go but you know your going to have awesome fun when you get there’. He succumb, but frankly I think he was lured by the Elvis, a now almost annual event of \m/Rock\m/ and Roll. I played in the 2000/2001 NYE show and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the first. Anyway, loads of others made the same pilgrimage and a very cool night was had by all with lots of drinking and dancing. Even Danny had came out grinning, if not a little worse for wear which meant we had to get out the taxi a little early (if thats not the mark of a good night, I don’t know what is?!)
evilelvis, blackstatictransmission, plan9, lido, margate