The first ever Build conference was held at the Waterfront Studio in Belfast this week, Thursday 5th November. Featuring a truly stellar line up of Tim Van Damme, Andy Budd, Mark Boulton, Ryan Sims, Wilson Miner and the legendary Eric Meyer, Belfast had never seen anything like this.

Much credit has to go to Andy McMillan for pulling this off, with some 300 odd attendees, it put the FOWD tour which recently came to Belfast, firmly in the shadows.

Having attended @media 2009 this year, my 3rd time of going, I can confidently say that Build was better by a mile.  Whether it was fluke or intentional, there was a natural progression through the day as one presentation seemed to follow into the other. From the opening appearance of Tim Van Damme chanting “designers, designers, designers” to the closing call of Eric Meyer announcing “the web has won”, Build brought some really inspirational stuff and will no doubt have a huge impact on every delegate who was fortunate enough to have had a ticket.

The highlight of the day for me was Andy Budd who has got to be the slickest presenter I’ve ever seen. Excellently prepared, informative and entertaining Andy’s talk about seduction techniques on the web was genius. I hope Build release video clips in the not too distant future as this is one that will get plenty of play on my iPod.

With Build 2010 already in the pipeline it’s hard to see how it will top this year. I for one would appreciate a presentation from the very personable standardistas, I’m just sorry I couldn’t attend their workshop. Judging by the amazing buzz at Tweets from Build I have a sneaky feeling Andy McMillan will have less asking to do next year when it comes to speakers and rather will be handling numerous requests to appear!

Gossy is fan site for my favourite artist Matt Goss. There are a couple of really informative fan sites out there and loads of social networking links but nothing pulls them together. So I created a new Wordpress blog and got working on bringing feeds together to develop a dynamic and easy to manage site.

There were a number of things I learned over the last couple of days that have been invaluable for future projects, whether personal or work related.

As we all know Wordpress has some really great plugins and one which came into play today was HITS – IE6 PNGFix. I’d spent some time trying to fix the transparency issue with pngs in IE6 going the hardcoded route but something wasn’t right. Eventually I thought there must be a plugin for this and hey presto – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/hits-ie6-pngfix/

Another superb plugin is Tubepress. Tubepress lets you integrate videos from YouTube, either using featured, favourites etc or as I did, from a specific user. It comes with a whole host of customisation options called “Tubepress Shortcodes” which basically let you add things from video runtime to opening videos in a jquery style modal window. Fantastic!

During the development I learned of the Facebook fan box facility. As someone who is still relatively new to Facebook it was something I’d never come across before. I never really like using widgets out of the box, preferring to customise so this is something I’d like to revisit and perhaps later blog on, how to write your own css for Fan box.

Gossy is still very much under development. I like to think I have a good eye for design, especially detail but what I realise time and time again is I can’t do both at the same time. So I imagine I’ll eventually sit down and rethink the site layout but in the meantime I’m reasonably pleased with the simple grunge style I employed.

Any Matt Goss fans out there, let me know what you think either here or at gossy.us. Thanks!

I’d great difficulty finding the venue for @media, having stopped several people none of which had ever heard of the Southbank Centre. Twenty minutes stumbling around later my colleague and I eventually found it by luck no thanks to the complete lack of signage – marks lost already.

Thankfully the conference started late so I hadn’t missed Andy Clarke who’d been looking forward to hearing since I booked my place. As usual Andy didn’t let me down and about 90% of the notes I took were attributed to his content. Andy’s presentation Walls Come Tumbling Down was particularly relevant to the private sector in today’s credit crunch but as a public sector web manager I got enough out of it to make me rethink how my team works and better ways of developing in the future. I have already discussed designing in the browser with my colleagues and been looking at CSS3 for progressive enhancement within hours back at my desk.

Next up was Simon Collison who didn’t disappoint either with his lovely package, or was it his ultimate package? Simon’s process toolbox again was very relevant and having developed something similar with my own team I thought there was nothing to gain from the presentation. However, Simon played a blinder for me near the end when he showed the audience his clever in page feedback facility which provides his team with details on the customers browser, window width, screen res etc.

Next up was Jon Hicks who spoke about icon design. I didn’t expect to enjoy this talk but Jon is a great presenter with a real likeability factor, perhaps he should audition for the X Factor?

After Jon we went off for a spot of lunch and ended up with rather dull food from the imaginatively named (sarc.) Eat. Rather too long sitting in the sun and watching joggers dodge past the crowds didn’t help our first signs of heat exhaustion much so it was something of a relief to head back into the venue. That was of course until we got into the room itself which was beginning to feel like an oven!

Dan Rubin was up next and this is where I started to feel a sense of deja vu. Much of what Dan said was interesting and again relevant to me but I was pretty sure I’d heard much of it before on a podcast. Was this presentation a repeat? I felt Dan was making some really good points about the use of light and texture in designs but it was kinda lost on the big screen as the effects were obvious.

Mark Boulton went onto Typography next and made us all laugh as he told us about how he’d been hounded since he declared his love for Comic Sans. Mark was very slick but I’m ashamed to say in the last 20mins of his talk the heat got the better of me and I started to nod off. A 10 minute break later and that was enough for me, I made the call to miss Jason Santa Maria and I’ve a feeling I missed something great so am looking forward to the podcast when ready!

On day two the first presentation really didn’t appeal to me so we used it as an opportunity to catch up on some lost sleep and made an appearance half way through Chris Wilson’s “The Web Platform Just As It Is”. I found this one particularly boring, which is no slant on Chris but I guess this was one more for the designers than developers. Molly was next up and despite her yee haas the heat I felt the HTML5 presentation was mainly a filler until Bruce bolted on stage in his rather fetching chaps. Bruce spoke very well and I am really looking forward to his Html5 doctor site which is due for release soon.

After watching countless children and adults get soaked in the fountain during lunch we returned for Andy Budd who received an excellent reception. Andy is a fantastic speaker and there were some great pointers in his user testing talk that I have certainly taken away with me.

After Andy came Robin Christopherson who immediately made the audience gasp as he demonstrated the ridiculous hoops blind users have to jump through to navigate past captchas. I personally couldn’t believe how the Google sign up captcha was so inaudible nor how adept Robin is with a screen reader, man he was fast!

Unfortunately I had to leave early to catch my flight and missed the very entertaining Jeremy Keith moderate the hot topics panel. All in all I felt somewhat let down by @media 2009. Perhaps the schedule was to blame, was it wise to have Andy Clarke up first? Personally I’d have left him and Colly to day two and left the punters eager with anticipation.

The venue too was a let down. It was much too hot, I can’t believe that was as good as their air con got. Between talks there was no supply of water, seriously, its free people?! Oh and if you managed to grab a cold drink outside you weren’t permitted to bring it in, plastic cups anyone? Really when paying so much money in these trying times I expected more, especially having to buy my own lunch.

Lastly a shout out to Ross, the MC for the event. I really don’t want to offend anyone but… was this his first ever public appearance? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so uncomfortable on stage and why did every time he get up did he proceed to walk side to side with his head down? Hello, we’re over here! And that suit, just how long was it? I really wanted to take a pair of scissors to his cuffs and trousers lol!

Not sure if I’ll splash out for @media 2010 unless a bit more though goes into the venue, hospitality and line up.

I’ve cleared my Firefox cache, absolutely everything including cookies and saved form data. I’ve reset my password for my blog but still when I try to login using Firefox I just get stuck a constant loop as I’m redirected to the same page.

I’ve Googled this and not found an answer other than what I’ve already tried. So in the meantime I’m stuck with IE7 which I hate.

If anyone has an idea how to crack this, please let me know.

1. The Bravery – An honest mistake. Good song this, it’s the radio 1 live lounge version too.
2. Climie Fisher – Love changes (everything). Well I do love my 80s pop!
3. Michael Jackson – Dirty Diana. Not my fave Jackson track but still a credible track I think.
4. The Who – Who are you. I downloaded this after watching several episodes of CSI. Prefer Baba O’Riley though and especially how it’s been reworked for the new CSI NY theme.
5. George Michael – Fastlove. Gotta love a bit of George, seen him in concert last year, awesome!
6. Wet Wet Wet – Thru the night. I have everything the Wets ever recorded and this offering from their last album shows they are the kings of ballads.

So there you have it. I think I got off lightly considering some of the more dodgy stuff I have. Anyway I’m off to listen to some Peter Cetera, rock on!!

As I sat on the country road rather unusually a bus was in front of me and I noticed two things. Firstly this was the second time of recent I’ve seen a bus with a large advert on the back which says “Where Are We Going?”. I thought if the bus driver doesn’t know I pity the passengers! Reading on revealed this was some kind of spirtual message as it also reads, “If God did exist what would you ask?” with a link to www.alpha.org.

However, what was spookier still was what was above the advert, in the back of the bus so I immediately got out my mobile phone and too a photo. Look at the photo and see for yourself, I honestly couldn’t help but think is this a sign? Is the big man upstairs trying to tell me something? Of course I worked it out that what I was seeing was a skylight and a fluorescent light but it seemed like one coincidence too many that I was staring at a cross.

So this evening I’m off to read more about alpha.org and as for what I would ask God, that’s a no brainer, I always wonder if He does exist, why can’t He appear every now and then to prove his existence? Surely the world would be a purer and less evil place if He did?

As a child I used to love reading Asterix books and used to pester my local librarian for any book which I’d never read, often reading the usual stock over and over. So when a few years back I discovered there was a theme park based on Asterix, it quickly became one of my wishes to visit.

After spending two days in Disneyland Paris, my second visit in the last four years, Parc Asterix was not only a refreshing change but an exciting one! The park is of course based on the adventures of the little Gaul with themed shows and rides, focusing more on log flumes and big rollercoasters.

On what was an extremely hot day, it was a real thrill to finally meet Asterix and Obelix and have my photo taken with them in the Gaul village. Despite the large queues we managed quite a few rides our favourites being the Périférix, a medium sized rollercoaster and ideal for all the family (and a big scaredy cat like me), the La galère which was your typical viking boat type ride only boarded by very enthusiastic tourists and last but not least L’oxygenarium where you climb on board a large round dinghy and go down a great big water slide.

Maybe it was the novelty factor or the collection of Asterix goodies I got (t-shirts, mug, towel, figures, pens, pencils…) but I enjoyed Parc Asterix so much more than Disney. It’s got more of a French feel to it (obviously!) but that makes it all the more special, Disney is big and commericalised and on some levels very false whereas Asterix seems more authentic and focused on fun.

Step 1 – Find a redemption code. Not always easy but this link currently offers one:- allhiphop.com/promo/bmm/. Enter your details and when the code arrives in your email, go to step 2.

Step 2 – Enter the US store. Launch iTunes and, if necessary, sign out and select the US store from the bottom of the page. When the US store loads you will see an option in the top right menu “Redeem”. Click this and go to step 3.

Step 3 – Redeem. Here’s where you enter the code after which you’ll be prompted to sign in. Choose to create an account and go to step 4.

Step 4 – Create your account. Agree to the T&Cs first then you will be presented with a screen where you enter your personal details. At the bottom you will see payment options, the option should be selected, don’t change this.
Now enter your name and email address, ideally a different one to your UK account, but for postal address it’s time to Google. Search for a well known US location or store, such as Walmart and enter the details. Once done submit and confirm.

That’s it! Now you’re ready to start downloading and grabbing those freebies. A good place to keep up to date with what’s free is www.itsfreedownloads.com

I also recommend you go to the iTunes store, select TV shows and look at the bottom of the page where there’s a hoarde of free on iTunes stuff.

Don’t forget to sign out if you want to return to your UK store and purchase stuff.

Recently I’ve been bombarded with a deluge of what I can only describe as the biggest load of bollox. Even in the shitty world of spam, this stuff is the pits. What is the purpose of it, what am I expected to do, can anyone translate this crap?

Here’s an example of my most recent example of literacy genius which starts (links omitted):

House the any sale combivent and spread roxicet inimitable performanc cocaine ristram.

What?? Let’s attempt to break this down. “House the…” what House? Is he talking about the famous Gregory House played by the excellent Hugh Lawrie? No he can’t be, I remember 4th year English now, it’s a verb, he wants me to house something, ok next… “any sale combivent and spread roxicet“. Ok that beat me so I had to Google and apparently combivent is a trade name for some kinda inhaler for asthma suffers, so shouldn’t that have been a capital C? Tsk Tsk. Roxicet? Well it seems to be some sort of pain killer, similiar to aspirin.

Ok so far we’ve got this guy wants me to house the “any sale” inhaler and then spread some painkiller.

Next part “inimitable performanc cocaine ristram“. Inimitable means impossible to imitate, I’ll give him the typo and assume he means performance, we all know what cocaine is but ristram?? Back to Google again and result number one turns up an ancestry entry for some family name. Anything else I can find turns out to be similiar entries on message boards etc. So what the hell does ristram mean? The whole meaning of this sentence hangs on it I’ve got a guy here busting for me to house a sale for inhalers while I spread some painkillers which not for one moment could be mistaken for a theatrical cocaine….?

This is sentence one out of nine, I think I’m in for a long night here…