It’s a long flight to the other side of the world. About 16 hours in total to get to Taipei airport including a transfer in Hong Kong and a fifteen minute delay at Heathrow.

It’s my second time here; the first visit just over five years ago, and although most of the people I met have moved on, not much else has. My cousin, Nick, is still living in the same building, a big and airy house near Jungli (pronounced Djong - Lee) which is in the north of the country and south west of the capital, Taipei.

Since my last visit he has taken in his fiancé - Maxine, and a excitable daschund - Coffee, who follows you around as though his life depended on it.

I arrived late on Thursday evening and after a few beers took a good long sleep which seems to have prevented any jetlag outright. With Nick and Maxine working on Friday I spent most of the day taking it easy in preparation to get back on a plane - a trip to Hong Kong organised at the last minute. Nick has to get a visa renewal every 30 days or so, and it’s a regular journey, although not generally anything more than getting a passport stamp then heading back into Taiwan. This time however we were staying for two nights and being as I’d never been before, a bit of a general exploration.

A few more beers later, it was Saturday and Nick and I headed into the centre of the city - a packed metropolis that rises up out of the edge of the water and one of the most densely populated places on the planet. It’s pretty hard to take in the size of the buildings - we were on the 18th floor of our hotel and yet we couldn’t see over any other building out of our window. Most were double to three times the height, and every one adorned with some glowing neon advertisement or video board.

We took a cab to the Peak Tram - a steep train ride to a vantage point that sits upon the mountain directly behind the main business and residential district which gives a panoramic view of the whole harbour, and Kowloon, which sits directly opposite. The clarity was fair, but despite being overcast, the clouds diffused the sunlight so brightly that it was with regret I realised I hadn’t brought my shades with me. We walked the path that circumnavigates the top of the mountain - peering through the fences that protect the opulent mansions that sit right up here, well away and above the crammed apartment blocks and skyscraping offices below.

We ate well here - and in true Hong Kong fashion - an almost entirely western experience at Bubba Shrimps. OK, so not particularly cultural, but they do make bloody good cajun shrimp with fried bread…

We got a cab to the town of Stanley in the afternoon - a trip that took us to the other side of island and past several busy beaches but deserted waters (it appears people don’t swim here, for whatever reason) and after briefly skipping through the packed market made our way to the ferry pier.

We sat and waited under the pontoon watching the locals mussel-picking and line-fishing until our trip back to Hong Kong arrived - a traditional sailing junk (powered entirely by a very noisy engine) but on which we managed to get the best seats and enough beer to take us right around the island again and then onto Kowloon.

This busy shopping district heaves with people pouring in and out exclusive shops and malls - Boss, Cartier, Prada, D&G etc but with a little extra searching, yields some truly hidden gems. Little local markets and malls which are practically unvisited by tourists or Chinese - they swarm with Hong Kong’s African and Indian communities.

We stopped harbourside to watch sunlight disappear only to be replaced by the garish glow of a thousand neon billboards and a million office and apartment lights flicker on across the city. If there is ever a place to try and gauge the size of a city population in one eyeful, this is it.

We stayed for the daily light show (and as Nick pointed out, disappointingly not accompanied by live music) then fell back into the hustling market halls to find a small Indian restaurant somewhere in the heart of a building which served a fantastic meal of poppadums, lamb on the bone, saag (spinach) chicken and naan amongst others. It’s the best Indian food I’ve had since Delhi, and cost us next to nothing.

The next morning was much clearer, a symptom of an approaching or nearby typhoon, but we had to catch a flight back to Taipei and so took ourselves back to the airport for the 90 minute jaunt back across the channel.

By the time we got back, the wind had really picked up and although we didn’t get any rain, it was pretty clear from the cloud that Typhoon Parma was getting close. It’s not hard to see the menace in the skies - the clouds split into layers and move rapidly. As the weather system revolves, the tail brings the rain, and so the further out you are from the centre, the less frequent the downpours. We remained pretty dry until late afternoon when Nick needed to get into Taipei city for a Kung Fu class - and so while he got on with that, Maxine and I braved the weather on the streets of the city - getting to Memorial Hall to watch changing of the guard, and trying a few local delicacies.

I’m pretty good with most food, and tried ‘stinky tofu’ at one of the night markets on my last visit, but there was a real mix of stuff this time - some good, some I wasn’t that so bothered about. The small fried ‘snack fish’ and shrimp (which you eat, shell and all) were nice, but I wasn’t so keen on the the peanut-powdered pigs blood lolly (too spicy) or the deep fried tofu (I don’t really care for tofu anyway, whatever you do to it). The nicest thing was definitely the white rice sausage and the luminous green sugar cane juice.

We made our way to Taipei 101 - the largest building in the world since 2004, and though we didn’t go up to the observatory (visibility was pretty much negligible at this point) the structure itself looks incredible amongst the swirling clouds and inside is every bit as huge as you might expect.

In the end we had to rush back for the final event of what had otherwise been a pretty packed day anyway. Nick plays in a band and there was the weekly jam session back in Jungli. Squeezed into a tiny little padded room on the fourth floor, it was great to get to hear some live music and meet some more long-term Taiwan-resident westerners. Following a pattern fast emerging on this trip, after a few more Taiwan Beers, we found food at a small, family run, late-night patisserie.

And so today is Monday and I have another chilled out day. The typhoon hasn’t truly struck (much to the chagrin of everyone, who it turns out were all looking forward to a day off work) but the rain is persistent and so this evening I’m heading to Fulong - a beach on the east of the island where I will be staying alone for the next few days to get some respite, read a few books and hopefully see so whatever of the typhoon remains.

Oh, and I’d forgotten how much I liked this place and how strangely crazy it all is.

So, I initially greeted Google Chrome Frame with some skepticism. It’s not very often that something comes along these days that truly revolutionises the ecosystem for us web designers, but I really thing this could be it.

My reasons are these.

1. Google did it.

Had Microsoft done it, it would have been complicated. In fact, it’s unlikely it would ever have crossed their minds to do it. The idea of rendering engine portability is one I remember talking to people about a few years ago, but of course I wasn’t technically minded enough to understand what that might involve, just that it would be really nice and potentially solve some future issues if your browser rendered with an engine hosted online (and that could be updated silently).

Well, this isn’t quite that, but it uses a quite similar principle.

And the really massive thing is, despite what Microsoft says about it’s security - the remaining home users using IE6* are not concerned about security, or are they likely to install updates or read Microsoft’s blog. What they are likely to do however, is to visit google.com.

So imagine if Google made the decision to request the plugin install every time you visited google.com?

OK, perhaps a little underhand, but with some (IE) browser targeting, it’s not beyond them. They’re going to be doing it with YouTube, so why not with their main search? It doesn’t make sense not to capitalise on this. You already get an advert asking you if you want to download Chrome itself, but with a little well written copy or a plugin download request on the homepage, Google could potentially bite a huge chunk out of the IE6/7 and even 8 share. I’m not thinking they’d deny anyone access to their own site, but they might start really pushing it.

I really think if this takes off, Google will determine the end of IE6’s life, not Microsoft. And that could be very humiliating - and liberating.

2. It’s not a beta.

Quite amazingly for this day and age, a piece of software that isn’t launched in ‘beta’. Google have gone out of their way to say this. That means, it is ready to deploy today (whether it actually performs like a beta is another matter entirely, but for marketing purposes… very shrewd).

3. We’re ready to push forward.

I don’t think it’s jumping the gun to say that HTML5 and CSS3 are now rolling stones. I’ve said for a long while that we should expect a second wave of hyper-activity soon (I class the first wave as the valid/semantic code switch, which lasted 2-3 years and is now almost entirely washed out). It’s not happened quite yet, and the reason has most certainly been the browser limitations. IE6 has been the sticking point for months now and although is still fading, still must be considered in most cases.

Clearly the industry has been baying for the next big shift; by nature we love to explore new territory, but at the moment there is all this potential building up, but no way to release it. It’s like the dam has a few holes in it, but really we’re still stuck behind it.

IE7/8 is soon to become the annoyance. If you’re thinking “all my sites look fine in IE7/8, so I really don’t think it’ll be an issue”, just remember that if we have another big boom of activity now as it appears we will, most of the HTML5/CSS3 stuff won’t be possible in either of these browsers, and without a solution like Chrome, we will be bemoaning them for years.

Conclusion

So my conclusion is this. We were heading for the edge of the waterfall anyway. If Google uses it’s savvy and does push Chrome frame as a ‘requirement’ or otherwise throughout it’s primary products, it’s going to speed things up tenfold. I had estimated that we’d be in full swing of a HTML5/CSS3 revolution within 18 months to 2 years. I now think it has the potential to be much, much sooner.

* Commercial users will be last to ditch IE6 for a variety of reasons, but essentially Chrome Frame offers a get out clause. Some will take it, some won’t. But it doesn’t matter. The pressure will only really mount on these businesses to upgrade when they discover they cannot use/do any of the new stuff possible with the new technologies. The web industry needs to move forward before these remaining businesses will ever move themselves. It’s like trying to explain the benefits of Twitter without a demonstration.

 

OK, so I should have found this years ago - it’s been a issue that’s been the bane of my life for a long while, but like all these things, you just accept the solutions you develop and forget that you are living with a problem that still needs addressing.

The difficulty I’ve been having for years is that as a heavy Yahoo! Mail user (all I can say it don’t knock it until you’ve tried it) it means that any time you click an email link on a webpage it tries to load your default mail application - usually Mail. Because Yahoo! Mail doesn’t support IMAP (because they want you to use Zimbra Desktop to access your mail if you want to do it from the desktop) it means that the occasional and accidental click of an email link just starts loading all sorts of Mail related windows that are simply useless.

Firefox realised this was a problem for people who prefer or who are forced into using web based mail products and introduced an option in their own preferences recently, but Safari - my primary browser - has never tackled this successfully.

The answer is actually a very old one.

There is a program out there called Yahoo! Mailer. It’s a tiny app, weighing in at a crushingly small 68Kb - and which, despite my initial skepticism, runs happily on Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) despite not having been updated since 2006.

All you need to do is download it, and set it as your default email app in Mail’s preferences. It will then delegate all emails to your Yahoo! Mail account using your default browser. Bingo!

Download Yahoo! Mailer and save yourself from the pain of using web based email on Macs (also configurable for use with Hotmail and Gmail).

It’s that time of year again.

For the third time, Geek In The Park descends upon Royal Leamington Spa’s Jephson Gardens this summer for an afternoon of picnicking and web chat, and with any luck, a bit of sunshine.

The free (as always) event will be on Saturday 15th August 2009 from noon (talks start later at 7pm).

This year we’ve upgraded the venue for the evening talks, and we’re in the famous Royal Pump Rooms. Our speaker line up is also very worthwhile; we have both Simon Collison - creative director, author and founder of Erskine Design, and Remy Sharp - JavaScript and HTML5 go-to man.

As always, it’s open to all - friends, kids and family - and in two halves (so that your other halves don’t have to endure the talks, but get all the benefits of the picnic time). You’ll also need to bring your own food. Of course, all the information you need can be found at GeekInThePark.co.uk and if you are coming, please don’t forget to add your name on our Upcoming.org event page so we can get an idea of numbers.

Finally, there would never be a Geek In The Park without the hard work of Trevor Morris, who once more has been the lynch pin for the event, and thanks must also go to The Design Frontier for an excellent 2009 website too.

I’ll see you there!

Yesterday evening I sat in a crowded pub in Moseley, an attendee of my first barcamp event. Well it didn’t strictly follow the barcamp format, but it had a collection of short presentations by local webnorati and social media types. It was good, and I’d do it again (photos here).

If you decide not to read all of this post, I urge you to read the final paragraph (but it’d be great if you did look at the rest too!).

One question that has been raised and discussed recently is that of the stability or existence of a ‘local web scene’. Matt bravely volunteered himself to poll the masses at the barcamp, and put the question to the floor, “Well, is there one?”

There was most certainly a mixed response, but the most noticeable thing is that is was nearly all positive. People seemed deeply passionate about the topic, and I thought I’d summarise the salient points.

Clearly some people already believe Birmingham has very much a thriving ‘web community’. A few people highlighted that there had recently been some extremely positive praise by communities in other regions, including specific examples from London and Spain, which came as a surprise to me, although it quickly became apparent that there are two different things we are talking about here.

Firstly is the idea of what the web community is. Someone from the floor pointed out that Birmingham does have a fantastic reputation for Social Media - and this might be considered a group of it’s own - web development and design is another, and perhaps this is why there is some disparity. Despite highlighting this difference (which quickly became apparent through the comments from the floor) this particular contributor suggested that there might be a difference now, but he personally believed that greater overlap of the two web communities would benefit everyone.

There also seemed to be a feeling that, to quote another contributor, Birmingham sometimes feels like “an echo chamber”, a place where a lot is talked about, but sometimes, not all that much materialises. Several people agreed with this point, and others mentioned that although there were pockets of vibrancy, it did seem to lack wide-scale co-operation and joined-up-ness.

Despite this, it was possible to intone that people were not keen on ‘branding’ Birmingham; something which I happen to agree with. Umbrella organisations wouldn’t benefit anyone here and with so many strong identities already here, this should provide the groundswell that lifts the city’s profile alone. Several people commented on the uniqueness of the community, and one person specifically said that they didn’t want to interfere with it’s natural development or an attempt to perhaps ‘commercialise’ the process. There had been suggestions during the evening that some central shared space might benefit the community and stimulating more collaboration.

This however leads onto the second thing I observed. There seems to be a marked difference between the internal and external perceptions of The City. From my very unscientific canvassing of @media attendees last week, it seemed the perceptions of folk involved in the web industry in other cities were not necessarily negative, but certainly nothing more than neutral - mostly responding “I don’t think anything happens there”. Nobody I asked seemed to be aware of anything that was going on up here, and there was general feedback that they didn’t believe the midlands had any web based networks at all- perhaps strange considering we may have more networks here than in many of the major northern cities.

This seemed in stark contrast to many local people who contributed opinions suggesting we have a very strong and feature-packed web scene.

As part of external perceptions, Stuart proposed that we might need to be careful about losing out to Manchester in becoming regarded as the Second Digital City, which seemed to rub some audience members the wrong way, who fairly questioned why we couldn’t be the First Digital City (in a way that seemed to suggest that some people believe we are already in pole position). Although it seemed not to have been received well, I think it actually proved that people are very passionate about this, and would go as far to say it seems people do want to give London and other potential digital destinations a run for their money. I think they were simply irked at being told that we might have no chance of achieving that.

Earlier, Stuart had suggested to me that we are potentially at a tipping point and I very much agree. In three years time, we may either be ‘the place to do digital business’, or we may miss our opportunity because we failed to promote our efforts externally more effectively. It’s a crown up for grabs, and I think it would be a great shame for a city like Manchester to add that string to it’s bow, especially if regionalisation does remain important (and I still believe it will, because great community seems to breed excellent output).

In my view, those who are heavily involved in projects locally (Social Media Cafe, Likemind, Social Media Surgeries, Multipack etc etc) do a great job of engaging local people who are seeking involvement, but struggle to attract wider audiences or change the wider perception that Birmingham doesn’t appear to have a great digital offering. I don’t doubt that groups of people who come to work here leave very impressed, but I don’t necessarily think that is enough to win widespread external regard - especially since Birmingham has a long standing image problem that is still dogged by stereotypical regional perceptions (something I have experienced on a number of occasions in the past few weeks).

Someone made an astute point that perhaps continually asking others might be part of the problem and suggested we might be better acting as amplifiers for the successes of regions existing communities. Perhaps we should be actively talking to people in purely positive terms about the existing scene here. I think as West Midlanders, we tend to be a fairly modest people and I worry that we do indeed miss a trick when representing ourselves to key parties. As the guys from Created in Birmingham interestingly pointed out, we do enjoy being the underdog and I do wonder if it is perhaps a reason why external views on the city are almost inexistent - we simply are not wired to better our lot. 

OK, so I think I’ll sum up my views on this. Clearly ‘scene’ is important and we’re still in the formative stages. In some sectors we are well regarded already, in other sectors more work is needed. Work is needed to promote Birmingham’s digital merits externally to competitive cities and regions, but also we need to engage people within this area who still are not aware of the cauldron of activity that apparently is present in The City. The tools are appearing to do this, and with the launch of Josh’s digitalbrum.co.uk (and the various partner sites) it’s becoming easier to tackle some of these issues.

But no matter your opinions, I would suggest one thing to help grow the outwards facing image of Birmingham and the Midlands as a digital centre. The next time you engage someone from outside the region in discussion, refrain from the negative, refrain from indifference and proclaim some of the great stuff going on here, whether you know the details or not. Reference it, use it, make examples of it. I think a shift in the way we talk about ourselves might just improve the impression we maybe conveying already - whether we realise it or not.

I think I need to establish early on here that attending a web conference was a new experience for me entirely - well not entirely - I once attended a bee-keeping conference. Yes, you did read that right, and no, it didn’t have many similarities.

For me, @media is pretty synonymous (if not the definition) of ‘a UK web conference’. I was the first I ever knew of, and pretty much has therefore remained top dog in my mind ever since.

A major reason why I never made it to @media previously was cost. As start-up self-employed, it can be hard to budget the hundreds of pounds for tickets (and the rest) which other larger organisations spend without so much as a moment of hesitation. But when I saw this year’s lineup, and combined with a change in the circumstances of the business in the last two years (e.g. the limited status) it made it far easier to finally say yes. And so I went.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that there is a general agreement that 2005 was a ‘buzz’ year, and since then the industry has perhaps has slowed down a little (not loads, but a little). One of the problems I’ve found when contemplating my attendance previously has been the potential problem of paying to attend talks on subjects you felt had been discussed to death and just wouldn’t be worth the investment of your own time.

And so it’s with pleasure I can say I wasn’t disappointed that I waited. From amongst the well-weathered attendees that I spoke to, the consensus seemed to be that this year has been one of the best to date.

I don’t want to sound utterly gushing in praise, but over the two days, I met some fantastic people and enjoyed every talks I sat through. Admittedly some were more useful to me than others, but absolutely nothing disinterested me.

Day One took a strong design perspective, and the speaker lineup comprised of Malarkey, Jon Hicks, Dan Rubin, Colly, Mark Boulton and Jason Santa-Maria. Of all these, I’ve only ever seen Jon talk before, and I was pleased to see that although he was talking icons, it was a significantly different and improved version of the very enjoyable talk he did at Geek In The Park 2008.

Andy’s piece really was beneficial to the understanding of his most recently aired views on IE6, process and CSS envelope-pushing. I had a wide variety of half-formed views on this bucket of ideas already, and I came out with a greater sense of clarity.

Simon provided some really nice insights into working practices at Erskine and I scribbled quite a few notes here. I wasn’t sure I’d call it a toolbox like he did, but there were loads of really useful pointers on things like content auditing, audience grouping and then some genuine physical tools for getting the job done.

If there was one real gem in Dan Rubin’s enjoyable presentation (and there were a few others), it was the demonstration of the Offset Filter in Photoshop. However I lived without it before I don’t know - it automates the worst part of image tile-making and so I am eternally grateful.

Mark delivered insights into typography on the web, and although I felt the climbing analogy was a bit tenuous, the demonstration of typographical imbalance and an explanation of potential pit falls over the coming months was good food for thought before people rush out and just start implementing every font under the sun into their websites.

Rounding off the talks for the day, Jason delivered a beautifully designed presentation as you might well expect from the man with the wonderful blog posts. It left me creatively yearning, and with an urge to just get going on something of my own. Genuinely inspiring.

If day one encouraged you to break down walls and start implementing all this stuff, day two could have been a list of reasons why you couldn’t implement any of it yet. Despite my cynicism, it turned out that was not the case.

Douglas Crockford opened with his witty observations on the work methods of developers. It could have been dry, but I really enjoyed the humour and it set a good tone for the rest of the day.

Molly (and sidekick Bruce), replete with arseless chaps and cowboy hat) answered some really useful questions about HTML 5 and where we’re at with it now. I was surprised to see how far some of the implementations actually go already and would recommend that you keep an eye out for the HTML5 doctor project launching in the next week or so. The whole event did feel like we’d all accidently turned up to a Opera away day though :)

You could tell that Chris Wilson from Microsoft was being eyed with a degree of suspicion before his talk, and although of course there were the inevitable clashes of doctrine, he came bearing apologies (which were more for amusement than genuine recourse, but which were accepted well) and a very useful perspective on to the state of IE now and going forward.

Andy Budd’s guerilla usability testing proved very useful and really filled a gap in my practical knowledge of these things. I’m now feeling geared up to start directly applying some of the methodology he suggested and might seek out one or two of the book recommendations too.

Robin’s discussion of accessibility in today’s web was an eye opener. I’ve never seen a first hand demonstration of JAWs, and came away with what I felt were some really useful insights and bringing me a bit closer to the realities of access on the web in 2009. I’m really pleased there was some decent accessibility stuff provided to supplement everything else that had gone so far.

And then Jeremy Keith’s hot topics, which was a good amalgam of all the things that had already been discussed so far, but interspersed with beautifully dry contempt of the whole internet by Douglas and a fantastic piece of facial hair modelled for the full hour and a bit by Jon Hicks.

I couldn’t complete this without mentioning the other major aspect of a conference like this, but I really did meet some great people, and spent much time chatting and discussing things with really interesting folks including Natalie and Paul from ClearLeft, Chris Mills, José, James Smith, David from Beggars, Remy, Marco and Andy from RNIB, Aussie Sheila and everybody else who I ended up chatting too. There’s a stack of business cards here which need filing.

Naturally I also spent much time with Owen and Paul doing our utmost to present the acceptable side of the Multipack too, and between us all, I would think many of the restaurants and bars can remain confident of their own futures based on their performance over the past couple of days alone. And what brilliant sunny days they were too.

A few months ago I was introduced to two guys through a mutual friend of ours. They have devoted a significant amount of their time while at and after university to the development of products which assist those with the most common forms of colour blindness.

The two Lukes (as they are known) generated algorithms to simulate the effects of dichromatic colour blindness, and they have just launched an iPhone application, Huetility, which allows you to effectively simulate how nearly 1-in-12 men, and a smaller proportion of women see the world.

The app is being promoted as an educational aid for parents, teachers and opticians to demonstrate and understand the effects of colour blindness, however there is no reason why this should not be part of every designer’s toolkit. All too often overlooked - badly thought out design decisions can prove difficult to those with an inability to perceive colour - and although not every design is colour critical, a quick check using this tool can help to eliminate these problems.

At £1.79, I think it’s a snip. You can find out more about Huetility here, or you can download the application from the App Store today.