Some Random Dude

Some Random Dude is a blog by P.J. Onori that covers design & technology in the broadest sense possible.

Archive for February, 2007

Click on one of the items below to go to the post

Daily Delicious – FAUST: Flash Augmenting Standards

Through a fairly heated debate on standards I ran across a very nice write-up on how to integrate Flash elements in a site with maximum accessibility, backward compatibility and standards in mind. Called FAUST (Flash Augmenting Standards), this method ensures media/data will be accessible no matter how far down the technology chain you go. The example on the site shows how absolutely beautiful this is for the end-user. Flash developers and front-end developers should sit down together and read this side-by-side.

I have made very clear my opinion on anti-flash standardistas. That being said, I have a deep respect for web accessibility/standards and feel it is a high priority to make Flash as web-friendly as possible. A lot of work has been done towards this end and FAUST seems to be an attempt to put all the fragmented pieces together in one cohesive package. I really applaud this sort of work as it is all too infrequent but highly important. With media consumption on the web growing, Flash is almost assuredly going to become even more integral a part of the web. These sorts of methods are going to make the process just that much nicer for the end user. Major kudos.

del.icio.us link

Daily Delicious – Social Data through Microformats

Microformats are becoming hotter topic with each passing day. With Firefox 3 supporting microformats, web designers/developers are suddenly going to have many more tools hanging from their belt. I understood the gist of microformats, but it was not until I read a great brief on microformats that I understood the depth and power of what they make possible.

Semantic code now has a whole new layer of meaning and functionality with microformats that we currently have only scratched the surface of. In addition, those features will theoretically be easier to implement. The elemental microformats are where things get very interesting for me. Social features such as voting, personal connection and tags can be published and parsed through simple semantics. These features give the potential for any site to participate and contribute to socialized information. The next-generation social bookmarking/aggregator sites could be merely a centralized hub of otherwise decentralized information. This theoretically lessens the the need for behemoth all-in-one social sites such as Digg. This gives web publishers another tool to both contribute and tap into a stream of information to make data more rich and connected. Very exciting.

del.icio.us link

Improving Online Advertising (For Everyone)

In my first of three articles discussing online advertising, I wrote about what I consider is wrong with advertising. In this article, I will attempt to lay out my thoughts on how advertising online could be improved. One of the issues that I see as a problem of the current online advertising model is the emphasis on money and/or click-throughs. This current article talks about how the almighty click-through reigns supreme, no matter how much it damages the reputation of the site or the product that is being advertised. In addition, site creators seem to just fall in line and accept the one-sided relationship advertisers have laid out for them. Advertisers and site creators need to think smarter by thinking smaller. My thought is to put less money on the table and create more effective advertising partnerships with a smaller group of sites. In addition, the banner needs to finally be put to rest. A site’s real-estate is no match for its author’s thoughts, content and the trust it has garnered with its audience. Lastly, the site creator’s content, in conjunction with the trust from the audience, are not resources to exploit, but are potential partners in a sustainable revenue model. Read On…

Daily Delicious – Second Life Gets Nuclear

The whole Second Life phenomenon has been quite interesting to watch evolve. For those of you still somewhat ignorant to the game, it centers around the premise that its world is completely flexible – with users able to create new content and interaction for the Second Life world. Hell, it even has its own monetary system, the Linden. What is so compelling about the concept of a completely free world is when people try to take the world in a completely different direction. Recently, long time gamers decided to nuke two corporate-owned stores (American Apparel and Reebok).

The person responsible for destroying these two stores is not too happy about the direction the game’s world is moving and came to the conclusion that blowing some things up was a good solution. This same person apparently wants the creators of Second Life to give his army (yes, he had an army) the ability to vote on future changes. Through this little experiment, “citizens” have begun to rebel and ask for more democratic power. I find this all extremely interesting. I am quite curious how these same people will react if they do not get what they want. It could soon be a very unhappy (not to mention radioactive) world in Second Life…

I am not a gamer myself, I myself look forward to seeing how this pans out. This has to be the first case where violent actions in a game’s world impacts they way that world works.

del.icio.us link

Daily Delicious – A Black Google Saves Energy

TreeHugger has an excellent article about how a website’s color scheme can actually impact power usage of its audience. Actually, it makes perfect sense, I just had never really thought about it. If Google switched their background to black, it would have 750 Megawatt-Hours a year. According to the Department of Energy, this would roughly be enough to power the state of Pennsylvania for an average month of consumption. Frankly, I never would have thought the numbers would be so staggering.

As can be expected, some eco-minded folks are already changing their bright-color-schemed ways – such as ecoIron with an energy efficient color scheme. Even the slightest glance at this blog’s design shows how energy inefficient it is. White is by far the highest consumer of energy with red not too far behind. All of this is spelled out very clearly from another DOE page. Some Random Dude is the web equivalent to the Hummer. Yeah, this all sounds funny to myself as well.

So what to do? Do we all change our vibrant ways? I would like to scale things back a tad from this site, but I am very cautious of ruining the site’s identity. Either way, this is an interesting topic in the theoretical sense. Does design on the web need to start accounting for energy efficiency for the end user? Perhaps it is just me, but it seems that with every passing day, web design becomes more and more like industrial design.

del.icio.us link