Bandwidth anal-retentiveness
The new homepage is covered in spanky-new graphics. It's got loads more content. It has a tonne more .CSS than the old one.
And yet it's only 500 bytes larger in size.
That makes me just a tiny bit happy. It was also entirely accidental. Now, hands up if you care. … Anyone? No? Dust? Anyone…?
Posted by Alex on Sat 30th September 2006
It is done.
The new homepage is live. If it breaks, I don't want to know - I'm off to the bar.
p.s. I have 47 rejected variations of that bloody logo. Perfectionist or simply idiot? I say I'm the latter ;o)
Posted by Alex on Fri 29th September 2006
Freshers, sportos, Snakey B and endless pixel tweaking
Let's set the scene here: I'm sitting in a corner of the Sabb office. Somewhere behind my back and to the right, less than 30 metres away, the Waterhole is largely full of sportos (sports team members for the uninitiated) and Freshers. Most of them - especially the Sportos - are sampling the delights of Snakey B, a concoction of beer, cider and blackcurrant cordial capable (I lie not) of permanently staining stainless steel and everything else it comes in contact with.
It sounds foul. It tastes good. And it gets you horrifically drunk when not treated with the proper respect a very sweet, alcoholic drink should be treated with. And no-one shows Snakey B any respect whatsoever ;o)
So, while the fun's going on “over there”, I'm sitting “over here” in the Sabb office.
I'm finalising the new UPSU.net homepage. I say finalising - I actually mean, “trying to shoehorn the UPSU logo into the space I have left to fit it in”. And I'm trying to use the proper branding style, which means logo, and “the Union” text, and the bottom corner of a big purple circle around it.
So far, it looks crap. See for yourselves (click pics to enlarge):
- Version 1:
- Version 3 (2 isn't even worth mentioning):
Ok, so “crap” is probably a bit over the top. But it still looks pretty wrong.
I think, after two hours of deliberation, I'm going to drop the UPSU branding style, and just drop the logo and text into a stripey, rounded-edged oblong to fit in with the shape of the other boxes on the page.
It's a shame really, because the whole point of branding the homepage like this was to make the logo stand out from the rest of the page content - now I'm worried that the logo is going to blend into the page, or at best stand out for all the wrong reasons. But, that said, if I don't try it, I won't know - it's hard to picture how it'll look in my mind and decide if it'll look good or bad on the page at the same time.
I reckon I'll be able to go for a pint about midnight…
Posted by Alex on Fri 29th September 2006
Smaller Than Life - it’s grrreat
It's a blog. It's written by a chap who describes himself thus: “I make a living from writing for TV, radio and occasionally newspapers,
though it has to be said that it isn’t much of a living. I am sure that
you will not have heard of me”. And it's quite funny really. Uhhm, that's about it. Linky goodness: smaller-than-life.blogspot.com
I have to be in work in a few hours. My head hurts, but at least my laptop's better now after I managed to kill it earlier playing with Vista. Oops….
Posted by Alex on Mon 25th September 2006
Want to try Windows Vista for free?
(Further off-topic than a snowmobile in the desert. Or something…)
If you're interested in trying out Windows Vista, you can now download the RC1 version of Vista straight from Microsoft.
Because it's version RC1, it means Microsoft reckon it's almost finished - there are probably some bugs, but it's largely well-behaved. That said, you shouldn't really be thinking about replacing your working copy of Windows just yet, and there are some programs that probably won't work, but if you're curious … ok, let's call a spade a spade here: if you're as much of a geek as I am - then you'll probably want to give this a go.
A couple of important things to remember:
- It's not a “final” release - things will crash, break, not work, misbehave… Basically, if your sanity hangs in the balance at the moment, this will probably tip you over the edge. Don't say you haven't been warned…
- You should install and run the Microsoft Upgrade Advisor before you try installing Vista - this tells you what software and hardware you have that won't work under Vista, and what software and hardware will probably misbehave.
- You can upgrade an existing copy of Windows (2000 or XP I think), but you can't uninstall Vista - again, if you use your PC for work, or have irreplaceable stuff - photos, music, videos, etc - you shouldn't do it, just in case it all goes horribly wrong.
- This version of Vista will work until May 31st 2007 - you'll then need to get the release version of Vista, or re-install an older copy of Windows.
- You'll need a “passport” sign in - if you use MSN Messenger, you can sign in with that e-mail address and password. Otherwise, you'll need to sign up for one.
- You will be given a working product key once you have signed in at the link, above. Remember to save the key - it'll also be e-mailed to you.
So far, I'm really impressed with Vista - it's actually faster than XP, has a lot of nice user interface touches, like the Launchy-style search in the start menu, and a search bar on every Explorer window. The sidebar is also a nice toy, and the gadgets actually work, which is always nice. It's probably a bit unfair to say Microsoft simply “borrowed” a stack of ideas from Apple's OS X operating system, but there's certainly a lot of inspiration there.
More information on this release of Vista can be found here.
Posted by Alex on Sun 24th September 2006
Pipped to the post, sorta
(If you are one of Portsmouth's students who gets all upset at the mention of anything Southampton-based, you might want to turn off now…)
As part of my web-based paranoia, I spend an inordinate amount of time checking out other Students' Union websites. I mentioned how impressed I was with Cambridge SU's site a while back - pretty, accessible, fast to load and easy to find “stuff” on.
SUSU (Scumhampton Students' Union) have been quietly adding in some very interesting-looking toys over the last couple of months - their i-bar, despite a couple of teething problems, is a nice way to customise the site (although I don't know if your customisations are saved with your account or using a cookie, although for a site like SUSU which encourages people to sign in and get involved, I'd hope it follows you around when you sign in).
In the last couple of days they've unveiled their new homepage and I have to say I'm impressed. I haven't pulled the code apart yet, but it looks like there's a nice bit of AJAX in the directory thingbob on the bottom right, and the graphics - for example the gallery link - are crisp and easy to read.
There are a couple of things I don't like about the new design which strike me as small oversights rather than major problems - the headings, for example “Wessex Scene” - aren't clicky, as you might expect on a “portal” page. The site still makes some use of tables (as does UPSU, I'll happily admit), and a little lateral thought might allow them to be removed without any loss of backwards-compatibility for users of older browsers.
I'm also not convinced they've made the best use of white space at the top of the page - there are lots of snippets of information on their site which could be sliced and diced into the top bar without losing the homepage's identity, for example “SUSU suggests”, or a pr
Posted by Alex on Sat 23rd September 2006
New homepage - laid out… (kinda)
Today's been spent tweaking pixels and changing transparency settings. Smutty as that might sound to the younger-minded among us (errm, me then), I now have a basic working layout collection which - I think - kinda, sorta, maybe works.
Click a colour below to see the page layouts. Before any smart-arses comment that it's table based, this is only because that's how Photoshop spits them out (and it's a damned site quicker that individually working on the images). And, for the other smart-arses that know 50 much faster ways of doing what I've done here… Do let me know so I can spend more time in bed please!
- Light purple
- Dark purple
- Light blue
- Dark blue
- Light desert
- Dark desert
- Light green
- Dark green
- Light light blue (odd name, I know)
- Dark light blue (even odder…)
- Light orange
- Dark orange
- Light pink
- Dark pink
- Light red
- Dark red
- Light yellow
- Dark yellow
… and the award for dullest template design yet goes to…
The Conservative party don't have a patch on my dullness ;o)
The “light” versions of each colour will be selected during daylight hours (in Portsmouth), with the “dark” version displayed after dark, and varying shades of grey/blue/orange/something used as a backdrop during dawn/dusk (although that might have to wait until later in the term when I have a bit more free time). There are a couple more tweaks in that area planned, but it all depends on time - I've still got to make sure the page content works before the site can go live.
You'll probably have noticed the grey box in the top-right of each page. This is where the buttons to change the homepage's colour will live. The colour changer will store your preferences in your profile, so you'll need to be signed in to see your custom homepage colour. Yes, I know, it's a very small thing, but the “for” argument comes from the same camp that reckons different coloured iPods are cool - being able to change the colour of UPSU.net's homepage is just another (slightly geekier) way of expressing yourself.
Or something like that…
Tomorrow I will mainly be playing with CSS and banging my head against a PHP notes-strewn desk… How's everybody else's holidays going? :o)
Posted by Alex on Tue 19th September 2006
The new UPSU homepage
I’m busy working out how the new UPSU.net homepage is going to look at the moment. We’ve been collectively throwing ideas around for a long time now - in fact almost since the first homepage went up last year. The new design is going to address the two main areas of criticism received so far - the prioritisation of content isn’t felt to be as good a reflection of the content of UPSU.net as it could be, and there is a little too much reliance on text instead of images. It’s also a good time for me to make use of some of the cascading style sheet (”CSS”) skills I have improved on over the last year, so the aim is to create a largely CSS-driven homepage.
In other words, it’s bye bye to the table tag wherever possible.As I’m concentrating on the design side of the homepage at the moment, I’ll briefly cover what I’m planning, and my main concerns. Just so that, should you spot me running around campus tearing my hair out, the perfect image of a gibbering wreck, you’ll have some idea what the likely cause is. ;o)
The first concern is how different web browsers handle CSS in their own different way. Internet Explorer, as a key example, likes to interpret CSS commands - which set things like what colour text should be, how large, where it goes on the page, and so on - how it likes. You want a box that’s 200 pixels wide, and has a border of 10 pixels around it? In IE, it’ll be 200 pixels (box width inclusive of border), while in Firefox, Safari, Gecko, Mozilla, etc, it’ll be 220 pixels wide (box width, plus border around the outside). Or is it the other way around…?
So while designing the homepage layout itself will be relatively easy, making a one-size-fits-all layout - which is the ideal since there’s nothing worse than having to edit six or seven similar-but-slightly-different CSS files to make one change - will take some time, testing, swearing, and a lot of coffee.
The design itself is largely an evolution of the current homepage: many of the current elements - a big “hero” advert on the top right, search, sign in and quick links on the left, news and Social:Life highlights on the bottom right - will still be there, but more prominence will be given to our ever-increasing range of dynamic content; for example, Sabbs’ blog entries, forum posts, and photo galleries.
As for the design itself, here’s a sneak preview of an initial idea, laid out in HTML (changing background colours show how the overall page colours might change depending on whether it’s night or day. Funky or not?):
And one of those boxes close up:
Right, back to work…
Posted by Alex on Tue 19th September 2006
Rain, iTunes 7 and UPSU homepage polishing
It's pouring down outside! Ravelin Park is ankle-deep in water in places, the street lights are back on at 8.30am, people are walking along looking like they've just been for a swim in their work clothes, and Pete Hooley is having to walk around bare-foot nursing his lighter back to health after one of his pedals fell off his bike on the way to work.
Basically, everyone's a bit damp - a nice start to my first day back to work in three weeks!
Still, on the plus side, iTunes 7 was released yesterday(ish). There are some very gucci additions, like the album browser, and an automagic thingy which looks for album artwork (basically a way of putting a picture of the track's cover into each tune).
There are also some improvements to the way the program behaves - when you close a copy of iTunes with a huuuge music library (like mine - around 5,000 songs), iTunes now tells you it's saving your library - in the past, it would simply appear to have crashed for up to ten minutes, so this is a welcome addition.
There's much better support for video files now (although iTunes still won't talk to .avi and .mpeg files, or DVDs it seems, so I can watch Spooks on it just yet…) and the side-bar has been re-organised to reflect this re-shuffle. All in all, it all looks very nice, and I've just sent it off to fetch as much artwork as it can - should be finished in time for work tomorrow, hopefully…
On the work front, since that's what this blog's supposed to be about, I'm about to start putting three or so months of design ideas onto paper for the UPSU.net homepage redesign. The overall layout isn't actually going to change much - we will still have a “hero” advert on the top right, a banner across the top, the purple nav bar above that, a search and sign-in/sign-out box, news, a directory “quick links” listing, news, and social life coverage, but there are also a few new additions planned.
Many of these new additions won't be turned on until we're happy that (a) they're ready, and (b) there are people who have promised to maintain them - for example, the “Sabb watch” news feed will be a box detailing the latest news from the Sabbs' camp as a whole - yes, the Sabbs are being encouraged to write blogs this year to keep everyone up to date on the democracy side of things, but they are also (I hope!) going to provide a weekly or monthly group update which summarises what they're up to in 500 words or less, and preferably with lots of pretty pictures.
New features I'm planning - but which probably won't make it onto the homepage this side of the start of the academic year - include the option to search the web using Google from the homepage - another addition which, I hope, will encourage people to set UPSU.net as their homepages (but more on that train of thought later) - as well as a number of “personal” features, including a bookmarks tool and an RSS feed aggregator thingbob. Again, I will go into more detail about these toys later as we're not ready to release them yet, but they're basically designed to - again - encourage people to choose UPSU.net over other websites as their homepage, and the only way we can do this is on a combination of features, speed, ease of use, appropriate and current content, and more.
Well, you know what “they” say - 'aim high'. Or something along those lines…
The design side of the homepage is going to be the part I enjoy the most I think: it's an opportunity to combine a year's PHP learning and a year's self-teaching in web accessibility and CSS to make - I hope - a faster-loading, prettier, and more accessible homepage for the Union. There are going to be a few little “features” introduced over time - little touches that aren't immediately apparent, such as a colour scheme which changes depending on the time of day (the current colour scheme changes depending on the day of the week) - and possibly a way of overriding the colur scheme for signed-in members who want to make UPSU.net look a bit more “their own”.
One day, maybe, we'll have enough experienced people here to be able to look into creating a funky AJAX-based liquid homepage layout… Sorry, sorry - I have a habit of going off on an geeky tangent… But it would be very cool indeed… ;o)
Right, I'm off to find a stationery cupboard - I need crayons, coloured paper, sellotape, some sticky back plastic and an oven pre-heated to 200C or gas mark 7…
And, I've just spotted, while I've been away some cheeky b'stard has moved/binned/hidden a stack of my UPSU.net paperwork. Grrrrrr…!
Posted by Alex on Thu 14th September 2006
NUS registration redux
So the NUS Registration system has been online for about a week. 301 people have registered or updated their accounts, but naturally there have been a couple teething troubles which I'm working through now.
- One problem is that some people have reported problems when creating a sign-in name - the new registration system checks a list of (currently) around 300 offensive and reserved words, and if one of them appears anywhere in the new name, the system comes back and says it's reserved. For example, “superstitious” comtains a three-letter reference to the female form, so it wouldn't be acceptable.
I currently can't reproduce a problem where some people are saying they're unable to enter any sign in names at all that are allowed, so I'm at a bit of a loss to suggest what they should do, or where to look in the code. Fingers crossed it's PEBKAC, but it'll probably be something horrifically complex knowing my luck ;o)
- The other problem is that a number of people (currently about one in ten) upgrading their accounts are receiving an error saying we weren't able to upgrade their accounts.
It looks like the cause of this is the registration system losing track of their account ID somewhere in the registration process. Again, this is probably something horrifically complex, but it's very odd that their ID - which should be set in their user cookie when they sign in (which they have to do to upgrade an existing account) is suddenly unavailable. I can only assume (at his point) that they are being signed out at some point during the registration process.
The two problems are a bit odd, but hopefully we'll get around them. If you've been affected by these problems, or any other with the registration process, I'm very sorry - please post a comment below detailing what's gone wrong. I won't publish them, but I will look into them (so please leave a contact e-mail address), or you can e-mail us the normal way from this webpage.
Posted by Alex on Thu 7th September 2006