andyhume.net

A little searching round for something to parse my hcard implementation in the comments has turned up this rather nifty bit of kit. X2V from suda.co.uktakes the URL of a web page and searches the mark-up for any hcards contained in it. It then generates a handy vcard file with everyone’s details and allows you to insert them into your address book.

This is a really simple way to add the details of people who are commenting on your blog. For example I tested it out on the entry before this one, and immediately I had Jonathan Snook‘s name and URL to add to my address book. I already had Rob‘s and Pete‘s details in the address book so I chose to automatically discard them as duplicates.

I think I’ve actually found quite a useful reason for marking up commentors details with hcards. I wasn’t aware of any tools around at the moment that could parse hcards as efficiently as this, and it makes you think of the power of these things in the future. How about a little browser plugin that identifies hcards on a web page automatically and asks if you want to add them to your address book? The possiblities are pretty thought provoking. No wonder all this excitement over Microformats.

It was supposed to be some kind of chain across the top of the logo, which I thought might fit quite well in to the whole Dredge look, but the 3D nature of the links makes it look a little too much like some other famous set of rings. In fact four of the first five people to see this redesign have said Audito me within 10 seconds of clapping eyes on the thing. So I think it’s going to go.

This begins to establish the idea that the design isn’t quite finished yet. It isn’t. The truth is I wasn’t planning on pushing this out yet, but… somehow it happened.

The story begins on an extremely sunny Sunday afternoon. With a few cans of Old Speckled Hen by my side, and a few more in the fridge, I set about rolling out some back-end preparations for the redesign including a few database tweaks and a shiny new WordPressinstallation. Despite my meticulous planning, I managed to bodge it tragically and the site was down for a few hours while I tried to recover things. I didn’t have a local back-up of the old site, that being on my laptop some 20 miles away in the centre of London. So eventually I decided to just push out the redesign—along with a fully functional WordPress install—in all it’s unfinished and unglorious splender.

A few things I’m trying out with the comments are probably worth mentioning. Firstly, commentors here have their name, URL and email marked up using the hcardmicroformat. Now, whether this is a good idea or not I’m waiting for someone to tell me. The possibility of having numerous instances of the same hcard on one page may not be desirable, and although it doesn’t appear to be in violation of the specification, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone came up with a reason why it’s a bad idea.

The second and more obvious thing, is the use of XFN. The way I see it working is as follows. When someone comments on my blog, I add some XFN values for them to the database. These are then pulled into the rel tag within the link to their site, and also added for all to see underneath the gravatar.

Once again, maybe this is a really messy way of implementing a seriously cool concept, and perhaps it’s undesirable to have more than one instance of the same URL and rel value on a single page. If so it would be trivial to add the rel tag to each commentor only on the first comment they make, but I’ll see how it goes for now.

If anyone has any comments about this please feel free to leave them below. Anyhow, I know you’re all dying to try out the comments now to see if I’ve already added you to my rel database. I’m quite a friendly guy. (Hint: Keep your email address consistent—the same as your gravatar email).

Having now caught up with a bit of sleep, here’s my @Media 2005 round-up. You’d think that living in London would be a benefit for an event like this, but come the early hours of the morning with everyone else staggering back across the road to their comfy hotel beds, I still had to make my way back to Waterloo station and see if there were any trains left home. Which there were—sort of.

Anyway—the conference. Zeldman kicked things off with his keynote. It was fascinating listening to his stories about the creation of the WaSP. Hearing it from the horses mouth, so to speak, really brought home what astonishing achievements the project has made, and continues to make, in the fight for Web Standards. The defining characteristic of the WaSP’s work is the dogged determination with which they go about reaching their goals. That they got through those early days, when even their own members were sceptical about what they could achieve, defies belief. Developers present and future will always be grateful for the astonishing results the WaSP has achieved for the Web.

Another presentation which stood out for me was Robin Christopherson’s introduction to some of the issues with using adpative technology. I think most people present found it quite enlightening watching an expert screen-reader user, and taking on board some of the problems they come across in their everyday browsing. Robin works for AbilityNet, which if you haven’t come across it, is a great resource for information, advice, and help on all kinds of accessiblity matters, including web accessibility.

Other highlights: Joe Clark, who is as entertaining as you would expect from reading his blog. He’s also an extremely sharp and clever guy, with an extraordinary knowledge and passion for web accessibility, as he demonstrated in his two presentations. He’s still my favoutire guru. ;)

The other half of the @Media experience is the social/networking/schmoozing time. I’ve heard it’s nice to mention people that you met for the first time after these kind of events. Due to the fact that the only person I had actually met in real life was Richard, it was really nice to put faces to names (and domain names) – although many of these people I didn’t really get a chance to chat to properly. Next time I guess. Here’s my list – in the order of which (I think) I met you:

• Jon Hicks
• Denis Radenkovic
• John Oxton
• Simon Collison
• Ian Lloyd
• Patrick Griffiths
• Cindy Li
• Andy Clarke
• Andy Budd
• Joe Clark
• Jeremy Keith
• Pete Lambert
• Derek Featherstone
• Roger Johansson
• Doug Bowman
• Phil Roche
• Veerle Pieters
• Mark Boulton
• Simon Rooney
• Faruk AteÅŸ

…I know there were many others, whose names I didn’t catch or was too pissed to remember.

Congratulations to everyone that made this a really enjoyable and exciting few days, particularly Patrick Griffiths and the Vivabitteam. There’s no doubt it was a real success, and with all the feedback gained from this years delegates, I have no doubt that next year’s conference will be even bigger and better. Hope to see you there.

Two weeks into working with Mac OSX Tiger (yep, I’m a switcher!) and I had barely even glanced at the much hyped dashboard environment. My initial thoughts about it at that point were:

1. Why is it seperated from the rest of my desktop? Why not run widgets alongside already open applications?
2. Why are the widgets completely useless and crap?
3. What the hell is all the fuss about? These are basically bookmarklets with a poncy interface.

Only after spending a bit of time searching through Apple’s widget showcasehave I come across a few widgets that might actually make my life easier.

This widget brings the handy power of TinyURL.comto your desktop (well, one key away from your desktop anyway). As someone who regularly works with the most mind-bending URL’s, I am a fairly regular visitor to TInyURL, and this little beauty just makes that process a little bit simpler… and cooler.

I don’t watch a lot of TV, but it’s not a rare event for me to want to look up the start times of various sporting occasions. Having this on my dashboard just makes that process quicker, easier, and — dare I say it — cooler.

The final widget I have come to found useful (so far) is this UK Train Guide. Not much use for planning journeys for future days, but good to confirm little details shortly before leaving to catch a train.

What have I missed?

What widgets do you have on your dashboard? I’m talking useful ones, that get jobs done in a simple and easy way – not just ones that are clever for the sake of it, but ultimately pointless. I’ve seen plenty of them thanks.