Hollidazed

I’m no hard core programmer but I do on occasion like to mess around with API code especially when it’s made really easy. I’ve been looking at adding a del.icio.us feed showing my latest bookmarks for a while now and it’s finally arrived… it was even as easy as adding the CSS styling to the code del.icio.us generated for me.

Anyone that reads this blog knows by now I’m not a particularly regular blogger but the changing face of how an individual can create web content is making this less of a problem. If I consider that my original aim in having this blog was to document work, research, design and web development thoughts, than actually what better way to keep the blog fresh than to be able to pull in the latest things I’ve bookmarked as ‘of interest’ in del.icio.us and my latest musings on Twitter (twitter badge added a few months ago!).

Anyway, I’m not quite sure that I’m ready to hit you with a full lifestream just yet but it keeps things ticking over.

Right, off to pack for a well earned week way in Cornwall (well away from all computers) – starting tomorrow.

Last friday I attended d.construct 2006 at the Corn Exchange in Brighton. It was a really good conference and answered many of my questions about API‘s as well as addressing the usefulness of the various services to designers/developers working in real business situations.

Without wanting to review everything that happened in fine detail my highlights of the day were the Jeremy Keith and Jeff Veen sessions:

Jeremy Keith’s – The Joy of API – simply looked at having fun with web services and what is actually possible. This was the most inspiring talk of the day and he also taked about Microformats with great enthusiasm – something I’ve already begun to implement on the sites I work on. I agree that it’s a real benefit to open your data up as much as possible using Microformats. Unfortunately I didn’t make the Microformats picnic though as the call of the Gormet Burger Kitchen was too hard to resist.

My other highlight of the day, Jeff Veen’s session about designing the complete user experience, really helped put everything else into context and looked at making sure that we still focus on user-centred design when working with API’s and creating mashups. This session is especially worth downloading when the the podcasts of the event are released.

Overall the event was really well run and everyone I spoke to was really friendly – Brighton was even really lovely and sunny, something that never happened during the entire month of August. If your a web designer or developer and havn’t been to d.construct yet I’d definetly recomend going next year simply because of value for money for the quality of presentation.

Finally there’s also a really good podcast largely focused this week on reviewing d.construct and interviewing some of the key speakers (especially covering Microformats) by Paul Boag on the excellent Boagworld podcast.