Sitting reading the Sunday paper I noticed an advert for The Sunday Times Social List. It appeared to be similar to Klout in the way it uses the most popular social networks that you use to to create a score for your influence on the social web. As with Klout, the more networks that you add, the more accurate a picture it can give you. So what the heck, I’m a curious kind of chap, I might see how sociable the Sunday Times think I am.

After connecting up all the social networks currently on the site, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Four Square, it crunches through all the available data to give you a result. And what a pretty result too, a nice brightly coloured info-graphic. Turns out that I currently rank 6,203 out of 27,779 over all, but 6th out of my digital friends. Not bad for starters. Maybe if I work on my social skills a bit I can rise up the charts, but on reflection, is this really of any use?

Responsive design isn’t limited to layout changes. Media queries allow us to practice some incredibly precise fine-tuning as our pages reshape themselves: we can increase the target area on links for smaller screens, mobile versions and multiple columns. In theory, this allows the same web page to be served to devices with differing resolutions, allowing the design to dynamically adjust, providing the optimal viewing experience for that particular device. Unfortunately not all web browsers support media queries, but thankfully it’s fairly easy to ensure a reasonable default design can be displayed in these browsers.

Some Examples of Responsive Design

Further Reading

Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte
Fluid Grids by Ethan Marcotte
Fluid Images by Ethan Marcotte
Adaptive Web Design by Aaron Gustafson
A responsive mind by Jeremy Keith

7up has refreshed their new branding, created by TracyLocke. It’s surprisingly simple, and I like it. Normally the logos and packaging for drinks end up becoming very intricate, but this shows class in it’s simplicity. The official line is that the branding “goes back to the core elements that define 7up: lemons, limes, bubbles and refreshment”.

The new packaging designs look pretty nice too, with the bottles being my favourite. Let’s hope the final packaging that appears on the shelf looks as good.

I’ve been using tumblr on and off since September 2008, but never really committed to the platform. Very sporadically I’d post things to my account, but then just forget about it. Over the last couple of months I’ve stared using my account in ernest. Why the sudden change? Because I’ve suddenly realised that, to me at least, it’s the perfect scrapbook.

It’s become a way of me collecting together all the images that influence me, stuff that other people have created or captured that I find interesting. By using tumblr it allows me to keep all these images together, without filling up my hard drive and accessible from anywhere I have a net connection. It also serves as a visual diary, of where I was mind-wise. What initially appears to be a bunch of unrelated items serves to build a profile of my tastes. Whether this is a positive thing we have to wait and see.

Why keep a scrapbook?

Understanding that the things & stuff we surround ourselves with and the activities we indulge in, all have a tremendous effect on our views and opinions. They greatly affect the way we think. By keeping a scrapbook it allows us another way of solving problems, you’re never quite sure what will be triggered when you look back at what you’ve collected. Building a scrapbook is a task that I would encourage everyone to do. You don’t need to use tumblr, a good old sketch book and some glue will do the job. However you decide to keep you influences, as long as you keep adding to them, you’ll be creating something unique to you. Your own little visual library.

Why not just use Google Images?

You could, the same as you could just as easily use Flickr, but tumblr is so easy to use and if you use a search engine you’re limited to what you’ve searched for. It’s also not personal to you. tumblr also allows you to credit the place you found the image, which helps with copyright and allows you to take a different path to who knows where? tumblr is one of those things that just works. It’s simple to start using and if you feel like diving into it a bit deeper, you can. It’s taken me a while to really start using it, but now I’ve found a proper use for it, I can’t stop adding to it.

Links

My tumblr: dereckjohnson.tumblr.com

tumblr: tumblr.com

When I bought my iPad back in May, one of the self justifications I used was that it would be cheaper the replacing my old titanium Power Book – which had recently died. I couldn’t justify buying a new Mac Book Pro and the iPad was way cooler. The lack of physical keyboard didn’t hinder me as much as the lack of a stylus, but I’ve covered that elsewhere [Looking for an iPad Stylus?]. However roll on 7 months and with a lot more apps available, I’m using my iPad more and have started thinking I need a proper keyboard.With this need came the thought of  either and Apple Bluetooth keyboard or their iPad Keyboard Dock. Neither of which I was enthused about. The dock looked too restrictive as the keyboard is physically joined to the dock and not very portable. So the separate bluetooth keyboard appeared to be the way forward. That was until I discovered Kensington’s new KeyFolio™ Bluetooth Keyboard and Case for iPad.

This combination of a case with built in keyboard looked to answer my needs and luckily Carphone Wharehouse were stocking them in the UK for £69.99. A quick visit and a salesman willing to let me feel the keyboard before buying convinced me I was right. Back home it only took 30 odd mins to charge, it connected/paired as advertised and I was up and running.

This is not as nice as using a full size keyboard, but is much better then using the on-screen keyboard. At first I was a little concerned about the angle at which the iPad sat, but there’s a series of ribs on the top of the keyboard so you can adjust to your preference. This is a really nice touch. The keys themselves are rubberised, but thankfully don’t feel anything like an old Sinclair Spectrum. Please excuse the quality of these images, I used my iPhone for speed.

Some of the keys aren’t exactly where you would expect them to be, such as the quote mark, but that’s understandable with a keyboard of this size. Overall I think it’s going to do me just fine, now let’s see if the battery lives up to the claimed 90 hours working time…

Links:

Kensington

Carphone Wharehouse

While mooching around the sales I visited Muji and discovered this little delight. Although not strictly designed for wireframe sketching it’s perfect for those initial quick scamps. The 4 boxes on each page are just the right proportions to scamp out ideas without getting bogged down with details.

Each pad has 40 pages and measures 82mm x 185mm, ideal to keep in your pocket for those impromptu sketching sessions. The paper quality is great, although it’s not bleed proof so be careful with those Sharpies [a little tip is to place a sheet of grease proof paper, tracing paper or good old brown paper under the sheet you're using to avoid bleed through]. With only room for 160 page scamps you might find yourself getting through more then one pad per site and at £1.25 each that could soon start adding up. However, if you’re like me and keep printing out A4 sheets to sketch on, I’m sure it’s not going to work out much different?

If you don’t have a Muji near you then you can always order them online here: www.muji.eu

The Mo, slang for moustache, and November come together each year for Movember.  This year I’ve decided to donate my face to a worthy cause and join in with the fund raising and awareness campaign.

Movember challenges men to change their appearance and the face of men’s health by growing a moustache. The rules are simple, start Movember 1st  clean shaven and then grow a moustache for the entire month.  The moustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds are raised for cancers that affect men.  Much like the commitment to run or walk for charity, the men of Movember commit to growing a moustache for 30 days.

Now this mustache is not comfortable, it’s irritating, but can no way be compared to what some men have to endear suffering with prostate cancer. So, please help me raise funds through Movember’s UK campaign to benefit the The Prostate Cancer Charity (TPCC), the UK’s leading prostate cancer charity. Even if it’s only a £1, it will help.

Why not pop along to my Mo Sace at http://uk.movember.com/mospace/1070488/ and hit the donate button, it’s worth it…

i-KOS, the company I work for, has become the first Acquia approved Drupal Training Partner in the UK.

Back in April this year Dries Buytaert, the creator of Drupal, announced that Acquia were about to launch a series of official Drupal training courses via selected network partners. In his blog Dries said; “For a long time now, I’ve been saying that we need to train more Drupalistas. Almost every Drupal company I talked to is trying to hire talented Drupal developers, but can’t find any, to the point that it is holding back Drupal’s adoption. To help train more Drupal users and developers around the world, Acquia will develop and maintain a Drupal training curriculum, and commercially license the curriculum to our partners so they can more easily deliver training to their customers”.

Myles Davidson, i-KOS’s Managing Director, was extremely proud to announce that “i-KOS have been granted the first licence in the UK to run Acquia Authorised Drupal training programmes”. When asked what this means in the UK Myles commented that “Being able to develop and deliver the high quality curriculum set by Acquia will enable us to deliver more training, and to deliver it more cost-effectively”.

The i-KOS run courses will be led by Nick Abbott, who has 20 years of experience of teaching and 25 years of development under his belt. Nick brings an incredible energy and enthusiasm to training in a classroom or one-to-one environment. This unique combination of educational and development experience will ensure you leave the course with much more than a renewed motivation for building your next Drupal site.

As Dries concluded: “The net result should be that it helps to advance the Drupal ecosystem, and most importantly, that we’ll be training many more Drupal people”

The first couse is planned for 18th October 2010 and will be an absolute begners course named ‘Drupal-in-a-day‘.

Click here for more details about this Drupal training course.