Blaze New Media

To celebrate the pending move to Vancouver next week, I’ve just completed and launched a completely new site design.

The site is finally back on Wordpress, having languished in the world of Textpattern for the past two years. Wordpress blows Textpattern away when it comes to administration functionality and general ease of use.

The portfolio section has undergone a big revamp with the focus more on screens rather than long explanations. There is also a fancy new “Latest Projects” section on the home page which has been given the scriptaculous touch.

I’ve always loved dark designs, I’m really happy to bring a dark touch to the company site. The text has been given an off-white colour, so hopefully not too eye straining for those reading blog articles.

Have a good look around, feedback is encouraged!

If you’re in or around Victoria, BC then Monday night (10th Dec) is the night. Come on down for an evening of beers, interesting conversation and good food.

Oh, and did I mention Derek Featherstone and Dave Shea will be there presenting?

Definitely not one to miss out on. Derek will be talking about “Accessible Mapping with Google Maps” and Dave on “Top 5 Ways to Improve Your Web Design”.

It’s going to be really great and I can’t wait to finally meet them in person. The whole thing kicks off at 7:00 PM at the Stickey Wicket’s “Maple Room”.

See you there!

I wanted to give a quick shout out to the people I share an office with here in Victoria. They go by the name of Highway Three Solutions and they’ve just put up a new website at http://highwaythreesolutions.com (running on Wordpress!).

They offer a whole range of services, right from custom Facebook application development all the way to Oracle Middleware. Give them a shout if you like what you see.

Nice work guys!

I’m now the proud user of some downtown Victoria, BC office space.

It’s good to be back downtown working with people buzzing around me.

I’ve spent the last eight months working out of a home office which I found to be a bit of a drain on my creativity. It’s hard to get motivated when there is no clear separation of work and home. The worst thing really was not having people around me to bounce ideas off.

Thankfully I’m out of the house and into some office space. I’m sharing with three other people, two of which I worked with at a previous job.

I just sold my iPod a month or so ago, and now I have a 20min walk into work, time for an iPhone perhaps?

After this morning’s announcement from Apple, it’s interesting to consider the possible impact of the iPod touch on a web developer’s world.

The iPod touch is Apple’s new touch screen iPod offering. It’s essentially an iPhone without the phone features. It includes Wi-Fi, as well as the Safari web browser for internet access.

The crucial difference between the iPod touch and iPhone however, is the fact Apple is selling the iPod touch worldwide from the end of September.

Apple have already sold over 100m iPods, not all of which were full sized versions, but it gives an idea of the numbers. This means there is the possibility of many millions of people with the ability to browse the web on a quality mobile device. As Steve Jobs said, this is not the watered-down mobile web, this is the full web experience.

What does this mean for Web Developers?

With the potential for millions of people to use their iPod to browse the web, it could become a significant platform. It definitely will become a platform that needs to be tested on by developers, making sure that sites work with the screen-size and interface.

However, the bigger question is when will clients start requesting “iPod enabled” websites? We have already seen the likes of Digg and Facebook creating iPhone specific interfaces, making use of the iPhone’s screen size and touch interface.

I wonder if it will ever get to a point in time where people head on over to your website or web app and expect an “iPod enabled” interface?

Lots of things to consider, but you can see how the inclusion of a web browser on the iPod opens the doors to many new possibilities.

What are your thoughts?