Archive for October, 2006

Nike hybrid

by Armando Alves.

The Rise of the Hybrids is the new page at nikelab, with 3 short animations.
Online video is used as a promo to Nike’s Air Max 360 and it sure looks lovely. A lesson fon online marketeers is the copy/paste code for viral posting on blogs or social networks.

[swf width="470" height="358"]http://www.nike.com/nikelab/oto/hybrid/shell.swf[/swf]
The Flash video player has some nice features and we can see all the 3 shorts in a row, download wallpapers and, of course, access the Nike Stores.
(Via Adverblog)

Recommended wiki software: ccTiddly

by Armando Alves.

Based on Jeremy Ruston’s TiddlyWiki, ccTiddly is a web personal notebook.
It’s a server-side adaptation, based on PHP and MySQL, with version 1 released last September.

I’ve tried to use the TiddlyWiki standalone version for notetaking in a USB drive, or the GTDTiddlyWiki version for the incursions in GTD, but these weren’t quite useful since i’m always exchanging notes between work and home. Also, as i’m most of the time online, it’s not that practical to plug the USB and save the HTML file, that could easily reach several MB.

From the several server-side adaptations, only one seemed promising, so i gave ccTiddly a go. The setup was quite smooth, mostly database parameters and admin rights, and after the upload, it was online.The only thing that failed were the importTiddlers plugin, so i had to start with a blank wiki and expected that future releases might fix this problem.

I spent some time customizing stylesheets, creating some default tiddlers, and learning how to adapt my writing/note-taking style to this app. An finally,here it is:

ccTiddly Screen

[Screenshot only. Web app on private URL]

It has all the 2.0 webiness, with ajax transitions and easy editing and the essential feature of being able to access your personal wiki anytime you’re connected.

My review: Great ! If you’re a writer, blogger or training consultant it’s an excellent tool for knowledge management and notetaking, with more freedom than a traditional wiki.

Download link: http://cctiddly.sourceforge.net/

AdFavs: Lee Jeans and Zapatero

by Armando Alves.

Lee Jeans Lolita
Above: An ad poster for Lee Jeans, shot by Terry Richardson, that was quite controversial in Australia. Although the ad depicts that the girl is over 18, it is a thin line between photo-chic and soft-porn.

More here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/duetg/tags/lolita/

On a more noble subject, Tiempo BBDO Spain created a viral video for the United Nations campaign against poverty. Following the same idea of the Air Force 1 graffiti hoax we see President’s Zapatero seat in the UN being “hacked”.
[youtube]Nd1q_JIR_B8[/youtube]
After the video went viral, the agency explained it was all an hoax and the video was edited to make it look real.

Shameless PromoTion: Stay Quiet

by Armando Alves.

It’s been 4 days now, since the anonymous megaphone StayQuiet is running.

StayQuiet 4 of 6

This shoutbox from WeBreakStuff, the portuguese Web 2.0 “rockstars” (pun intended), invites us to scream to the web, so you won’t do it alone if you spill coke on your keyboard or the client meeting was a drag.
Some screenshots below of the slick interface, but you’d better check it out yourself.

StayQuiet 5 of 6

StayQuiet 6 of 6

Internet Explorer 7: If it is broke, why haven’t you fixed it ?

by Armando Alves.

ie7

[tag]Microsoft[/tag] sent me an email (see transcript at the end of this post) letting me know that Web sites, extensions, and applications shoud be compatible with Internet Explorer 7.
Well, that’s all beautiful, but instead of the climate of FUD, maybe MS should consider implementing real CSS2 support and compliance with W3C standards.

I wonder what clients think about paying support so their sites work with the new IE7 ?

For us, poor mortal web developers, a few headaches are coming:

  • New user-agent string, so you should consider updating those browser detection scripts;
  • [tag]CSS[/tag] hacks for older IE versions are unpredictable. MS instead “recommends” their proprietary model of conditional comments;
  • Garbage code that MS applications (appolo, ASP.net, Word) spit out.
  • You still have to support for quite a while those older IE versions. Less fun, more work.
  • Lazy ” webmasters” will keep their old bad habits. Valid [tag]XHTML[/tag] is still a mirage.

But not all are bad news. In fact, some improvements are on the way:

  • Full PNG support. At last !
  • Some famous bugs no longer present (Peekaboo, Guillotine, 3 Pixel Text Jog, etc)
  • width:auto, percentages are expected to behave normally.
  • pseudo classes (:hover) in any element are now supported.
  • support for ABBR tag

Final Fantasy at Clube Lua

by Armando Alves.

Final Fantasy is the solo project of Owen Pallet, a tour member of Arcade Fire.

The 2nd time here in Portugal, now with 3 concerts, one of them at Clube Lua , 15 October.

He recently won the Polaris Prize for a canadian album, based only on it’s artistic merit.
I’ll be there !

Musical genre: indie pop.

You could find more here:


Final Fantasy @ Clube Lua

Yepa Yepa Yepa

by Armando Alves.

From Chimpancingo – Mexico, arises the iconoclastic Silverio.
Provoking performances banished him from several stages but were the jumpstart to a more global reach.

You really should listen to the electro-cheese music by the neanderthal Silverio along with stage dancer Ceci.

silverio

image © http://www.rock.com.mx

MORE:

The performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUaftTy9Ck8

The video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb4UT7YuI9g

The Label: http://nuevosricos.com/

Albergo Olisipo

by Armando Alves.

Just launched Albergo Olisipo: http://www.albergoolisipo.com
Albergo Olisipo

It’s a youth travel hostel, right in the centre of Lisbon, co-owned by a close friend.

Main challenges:

  • Clean XHTML and and CSS
  • Implementing the Holy Grail
  • Use of CSS backgrounds as section watermarks
  • Create XHTML code anyone could update

Hope you like it.