Pistachio Monkey

The 90s culture didnt seem to far away with a Gold Plated Acid face and a Massive attack poster. This Urban Art show, now i think in its second year has some very cool and thought provoking urban scenes. It ends today with an action, so catch it if you can

I managed to get a couple snaps of some D Face, Banksy and Blek Le Rat

Was walking back from the Tate modern today when i saw this Astra parked up on the side of the road. It had Google Maps decals on the side of the vehicle and seen as though the driver was’nt to busy i thought i would ask him some questions

He said that the mapping of London was nearly complete and that he expects the data to be fully mapped in the next couple weeks. This should mean that we can expect the street view applications to be live soon, weather that’s though a g Phone (android) or iphone i don’t know, probably both.

I asked him about confidentiality when tagging people and he said that he tries to avoid funerals (as he did this morning in Brixton) and other sorts of processions. He either drives around them or uses a pause function on the camera. He had a dell monitor in the foot well of the passenger seat which prompted him a review of what we being recorded, while the hunk of the machine sat in the boot. He also told me he didn’t work for Google but did have to have a special driving licence (racing and precision) in order to do the job. I asked him why the racing part, and he said that some of the youths in South London can get a little sketchy seeing camera’s driving about. he suggested they may have a shoot first and ask questions later attitude, and that he prays every morning that he faces no trouble on his trips.

Pretty interesting stuff, i suppose we see the app’s live soon with London being the first Mapped city and others to follow

UPDATE

My original post explains an old process of doing this and overtime i have began using another one which Ian has recently commented about, its much better and simpler!


#wrapper {
/*we need to tell the browser the size of the warpper div*/
width:800px;
height:400px;
/*align the top left corner of the page to the center
of the browser*/
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
left: 50%;
/*offset the page by half the width and height*/
margin-top:-200px;
margin-left:-400px;
/*allow us to see wrapper*/
background-color:red;
}


Here is the old post for refernace

Something i frequently get asked and have managed to do before is Horizontal and Vertical Alingment. I have previously used an old implmentation which got a little starteld when IE7 was released that required 3 div’s to work. This is find is not very efficent and looks heavy and messy.

Theo

Dance from Center Point to Leicester Square with Theo. Enjoy Blue Steel and the Mac Flurrey. Is it really necessary to tuck in your leather jacket to your jeans. But the best bit is at 3:04 when some guys try to make him a fool. Thanks to Sepas for this one.

Learn Disco

Learn disco Moves with our Greek Friend. Learn all the moves, seems like Theo did. Thanks to Andy for this one

Mr T - Treat your mother right

We all love Mr T, even more that hea treats his mother right!

Apache

This song takes me back, when i saw the video i realized why, its just so daft

Gregorius: NMKY (Finnish YMCA cover)

These guys now how to party. But you would expect them to have got dressed out of their sports gear before they went on stage

suppose this shot is upside down, but he’s pretty funny

This article comes in response from a Information Architect asking how a coder can better Search engine Optimization. These are my impressions of SEO, typically developers may have different opinions, as after all there are many ways to crack an egg. I have provided a few links to where others have supported my thoughts and or discussed the practice. SEO goes hand in hand with accessibility a few aspects of which I highlight below.

Separation

XHTML should be written from a legal point of view and should preferably have little to no reference to how the content will finally render as per the designers creative. We should code trying to use the full array of XHTML tags to make the most semantic use of the copy provided. For example we would like to use <h1> to <h6> for headings and title’s; <ul> & <dl> for lists like navigation and definitions; and <em> and <strong> for italics and bolds.

The creative elements which depict width, colour, images and layout should be applied in a separate CSS document, where we should try to apply styles as natively as possible, so by only using class’s and Id’s in areas of division and irregularity. Segmenting the code into Divisions of Header, footer and Navigation can be applied while making best use of wrapping and the box model techniques (meaning no self closing divisions).

Finally JavaScript can be used to bind behaviour to the documents establishing segmentation of structure, presentation and behaviour considered to be the model-view-controller architecture. Although in respect for JavaScript we should always provide an accessible backup to an onclick event by retuning false and adding a server side operation in a href on an anchor.

Layout

Typically you would expect elements to appear in right to left and top to bottom structure in the code as they do in the creative. However this is not very SEO. Consider the navigation; it will always appear near the top and left on every page. We don’t want to expect Google to churn through it each time just to reach the content (a bit like munching on a jam donut). We would rather have the content as close to the top as possible and then have the template navigation at the bottom. This keeps it fresh and clean. Likewise if required inline (preferably in an external file) JavaScript should not dominate the top, we should have it at the bottom of the page. Restricting of the document can be handled using CSS, as explained here but be sure to use scalable dimensions and relative positioning to maintain accessibility.

Interestingly the subject here has done a bad job or effective separation, the comments mixed, some praise it for its lack of tables where others point out critical flaws like dimensions and lack of semantic XHTML. Here I would say is a good example, but bare in mind it’s an incomplete development, but its parent site now gets to number 1 on Google which uses not all of my explained techniques. Peter Bui discusses and shows of some good examples on his post about SEO.

Rules

The standard rules of XHTML should of course be followed. A Valid page is always going to behave better than an invalid page across devices. But we should also consider practices such as the order and use of headings and titles. Titles should be specific to each page and not be generic, they should be to the point and descriptive of the content in the page and not to long (saw 90 characters with spaces). Meta tags should be relevant and never to many. Every page should make effective use of Headings.

<h1>

possibly the brand or logo

<h2>

the title of the page specific content

<h3>

a subheading and so forth.

We should never skip levels (e.g., <h1> directly to <h3>) and have more than one <h1> or <h2>.

Furthermore we have some of the obvious ones to note that are inline images (only included if the image is relevant to the content and not to the style) should contain descriptive alt tags. Form data should appear in a <fieldset> with a <legend> (I find using an unordered list as well helps layout a form easily). Use semantic class names and Id’s (Orange-Header is not very useful if we want to change the colour, and we should already know it’s a header because its using a heading tag right?) Finally Use tables (try not to nest tables) for tabular data including <thead>, <th>, <tfoot> and a description attribute on the table declaration. There are many more to note which are all in the many of the different guidelines depending on platform and doctype but these are issues I face regularly.

Happy Coding, Please tell me what you think

I remember vividly waking up at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings and pacing downstairs to start a marathon of cartoon viewing thanks to the BBC and the going live crew (including Phillip Schofield). If i got up to early i had to watch the snooker before the toons started and i would prepare juice in cups ready

Saw this collection of top ten 80s intros to cartoons and it really takes me back. It like ive seen this all a thousand times and i had all thos toys. Mask, Defenders of the Earth and Visionaries, all classics, and i would love to watch them all over again… just in better quality than you tube has to offer.

If you still need more of a hit then wath this. It’s pretty long at 30 minutes but covers many more of those classic 80s intro’s

I suppose it was acceptible in the 80s

ReubenMiller : Chris Gilmour: Cardboard Sculptor

Well chances are you wouldnt want to ride this one, as this collection from Chris Gilmour is all made from cardboard. Makes you wonder what he was doing in his junk modeling classes at school

A Pair of Beautiful Lamborghini’s, one real and one concept.

Lamborghini Car Painted Amazingly

Some incredible detailing has gone into this ride, its even on the windows.

Lamborghini Embolado Concept by Luca Serafini | Auto Unleashed

This badboy looks like a stealth bomber! heavy.

But what happens when you try and merge such a sexy sports car with a Golf?

Venice

Towards the end of a hot June Liz and i flew into Venice Marco Polo airport to spend 5 weeks traveling. With our only key date the Exit festival in Serbia we were free to go where we liked. Starting in Venice allowed us to blow the budget from the outset and we found relatively cheap accommodation at The Hotel Antico Capon, which gave us a nice little room overlooking The Campo Santa Margherita, which was in a lively and central area. Be warned that you may be serenaded by groups of drunken students strumming and singing Hay Jude in the early hours, earplugs are advised.

Its Hot in Venice, even in June, but it doesn’t smell like some people had said. Heading to St Mark’s square was our first outing and it was typically full of people feeding pigeons, popcorn kernels. We left the visit to the Cathedral to the last day but made a brilliant call on ascending the tower on a clear evening providing some stunning views. Not only did we get a lovely sunset but all the crowds and gone. We tried one morning to rent a boat, but my skills as a captain and lack of Italian failed this opportunity, probably for the best as it would have been like riding a bicycle on a motorway. Other than heading to Murano to see some glass where we perfected the technique for getting cheep cold beer (in supermarket, take two bottle’s, hide them in freezer, return 20 minutes later and collect prize!) and eating nibbles at our favourite wine bar.

Rovinj

Boarding an evening ferry took us across the Adriatic to Rovinj. Sandro of the Villa Salzburg picked us up and after dumping are bags dropped us back in town. We had a scrumptious fish platter for two and after touring some dubious bar’s we followed the noise and came across the 3rd Croatian Salsa Festival. It spilled out of the hotel and onto the streets, a very lively and sweaty crowd. While at the villa, which served a great breakfast from the friendly Sandro, we rented bicycles which we used to get into town and ride the coast. We climbed the tower (up rickety wooden stairs to Liz’s horror), relaxed on the beaches and fed crabs watermelon. Sadly i missed out on diving the Baron Gautsch, so i look forward to a return.

Bol

The best way to get to the south is from Rijeka, where we got on the Marco Polo Jadrolinija (The Jadrolinija is a reliable and cheap ferry service made up of many regular routes used by the locals to get around the islands of the south) which took us down the coast during the night to Split sleeping on the deck (lookout for the black soot which rains is pumped out of the chimney), where we got off and got another ferry to Brac, and a bus to Bol. The promenade connects the quite town to a series of large hotels, spa’s and dive centers and the spit pebble beach formation called Zlatni Rat (Golden Horn), seen in many tourist images of Croatia. The resort is very much a family resort, so there is not much in the way of night life. A secret nudist beach can be found beyond the Church towards the east, after the first cove.

Havar

Next stop was Havar on Havar island. Stepping of the bus we negotiated a cheap deal for an apartment on the edge of town. We got a balcony with a great view and a small kitchen so we could be a little more self sufficient. It seems that as long as your not visiting in the middle of the high season their is no need to book in advance, and if you don’t find somewhere direct their are numerous tourist offices happy to help. Havar was definitely the pace to be, there is a lively nightlife around the harbor, as well as a cluster of small uninhabited islands a small boat ride form the town. Renting a boat here was easy, as long as you don’t mind only having 8bhp at your disposal. This keeps it pretty safe to, as there is not much chance you can make it out in to deep sea, just remember to take your mobile with you as running out of petrol is not fun, they insisted this wouldn’t happen but it did. Thankfully we got rescued by some nice locals who topped up our tank.

Renting a scooter was probably better than the boat, as it actually had some power. Our beast was a FireFox, and came with cool decals to boot. First of we ventured out of town in search of our own beach. After a dubious journey down a long dusty path we came back to a concrete road, but then found another shaky path which took us to the coast. sadly it wasn’t long till someone else joined us but it was worth it. After we went to an another town for dinner and while the sun was setting we made it on to the old road back to town. It took us into the peeks of this island and gave us some spectacular panoramic views. The road through an area which had previously been ravaged with fire, caused when the island got hit by lightening, which created an eerie contrast of burnt shrubs and open road.

Mjlet

Next stop was Miljet, an island reserved as a national park. This had to be the most difficult place to access (2 Boats, 2 Bus’ and a Taxi) and was the most quiet and peaceful. Having missed the regular ferry from Debrovnik we decided to catch another regular connection from Prapratno, which upon arrival we realized that this was for Drivers only and not really foot passengers, so access to and fro can be tricky. Luckily we managed to bribe our way into a mini-bus which we found by chance. Other than walking round the lakes and visiting the cathedral there is not much to do, so we rented a canoe and rowed out of the bay to the small uninhabited islands surrounding. The water across much of Croatia is really clear and great for snorkeling and diving.

An early start commenced our journey north back through Debrovnoik and onto Mostar in Bosnia. We waited much of the day here until our connecting bus arrived. Many of the buildings of Mostar are dashed with bullet holes and some lay abandoned overgrown on the inside. An incredible sunset said farewell as we drove out of the valley for a very shaky journey north through southern Serbia. In retrospect we believe flying would have been as the journey is most relentless all the way to Belgrade.

Novi Sad - Exit Festival

This was what this tip was all about, the Exit music festival in Novi Sad, Serbia. With almost 50 of my friend arriving in this normally sleepy town on the river Danube, joining 10,000 Brits and many more Europeans. Performances from Prodigy, Snoop Dogg & the Wu Tang Clan were accompanied by many little stages perched atop walls and hidden in moats of the Petrovaradin fortress. My favorite spots where Cafe del Danube (which had a great view of Novi Sad and the sunset, not that i made it there in time) and The Converse Chill zone (with its bean bag fun). Most impressive of all was the Dance arena which took 25,000 revelers at a time in a multi-tired environment.

Life during the four day festival (which goes on in the fortress from 8pm - 8am) is spent sleeping during the day while partying in the night. although for many of the campers and wreck-heads sleep is usually not an option. The main campsite sits next to the beach which blasts dance music in direction of the tents all day, attributed by the scorching sun, i recommend getting a hotel, hostel or flat for the week (which can be very pricey but is a sound alternative when considering its a four day event).

Once the festival had come to an end we got on one of the last trains of the day to Budapest. The train was packed full of Brits all on their way home, this time quietly on route, as we had heard that the inbound trains were rammed full of excited party goers getting invloved.

Budapest

After five consecutive days of little rest arriving in a sweltering city was probably not the best of idea’s as we probably would have preferred to be back on the beach and swimming in the sea. However Budapest does offer some fantastic Spa’s with thermal and massage treatment. We decided to go to the Gellert bath which was beautifully ornate. We indulged in a Thai massage and then headed to the hot baths. In the communal garden they have a wave machine which fires off every half hour or so. We also tried to go to the Lukacs Medical Bath, known for its healing mud baths, but we were turned away being told you had to have a note from the doctor to be allowed in.

After spending the rest of our funds it was time to fly home. We arrived back for the floods but had little choice to stay after i was frog marched to a cash point by large bouncers to pay a tab in a dance club… we had the last the laugh though by fully consuming our ‘quota’