Petit Bourgeois

Hmm, before I really go, I have to finish the work on a web site for a publisher, which includes a shopping cart and the Multipay online payment system. It's a pretty decent piece of software and quite well documented, nice to work with.

Last day of the year at the office, it's raining. Suzanne and I are flying out to Tokyo tomorrow, on Alitalia, via Milan.

Our highly competent maintenance man Yann Droneaud installed the Sympa mailing list system as a demo on our server, so that we could demo it to the RINO. Immediate hit, and we'll probably be phasing out their existing hosted BlackBoard DLE solution, plagued by wretched usability, feature creep, and a too-loose link with email systems.

Splandigo has now 6 people on the payroll. The latest arrival is Jamy Vodegel, also a EMMA/DMD 2002, who graduated with honors.

Here's Jamy:

Read more »

Overzicht W3C ijkpunten op prioriteit geordend from accessibility.nl.

Accessibility tips for CMS systems from accessibility.nl. Not extremely interesting but it's a start. And it can be used for marketing...

Victor Segalen's poetry book, Stèles, is built upon the cultural material provided by China. Segalen published it (in French) in Beijing in 1912. Form and content are very tightly linked, and quickly after I was given the book, I tried to explore how this link could be taken online.

This is very early work: it was first put online in October 1997, and the last significant change was done in April 2001. This site is a perfect candidate for a quick refresh: standards-compliant code, an improved navigation, and probably a less Chinese-exotic look, in order to leave greater room to the content.

A renewed web site will feature:

• a cleaner interface (images used better and themselves of a better technical quality)
• a more muted, and if possible more efficient navigation method
• standards-compliant code, and particularly structurally correct markup, and relevant use of <link...> tags
• a better technical implementation, using quicker and less wasteful technology (Smarty)
• ... and finally, all Chinese characters (never bothered to scan them all in...)

Coming up soon...

On their site Identity Matters, corporate identity consultants Fitch present their vision on their own work field. They started this in 1992, I'm not quite sure how early this was in the agency's career.

This publication serves them in many ways, particularly:

• they contribute (quite forcefully) to the public debate around the work they do
• they are in a position to influence the agenda in that debate
• they ensure that all the work they do "for free" has as much impact as possible

One may consider that Fitch helped shape the perception of the work that they do: they ensured that the products and services they deliver are assessed according to their own criteria.

The web design and development world has several such voices already. At this moment, I believe however that only Adaptive Path has got a comparable clout, in our younger business.

"Your system is low on virtual memory..." The cost of improving the overall user experience can be seen in the overly visible side-effects of system failures.

Synchronizing OpenGroupware with your Palm is a pain in the butt. It works, but not well. Reconciling the two bases is very difficult, and simple things like deleting an appointment in the Palm don't work (the OGo date will be synced back to the Palm).

The more it goes, the more I understand how people put up with the piles of crap Microsoft is publishing: it may be shitty programming, but it works where you need it to (well at least that's the impression I have from the outside: I haven't had the opportunity to ever use an Exchange server).

But well, if I manage to get this working half-way decently, Splandigo will soon be equipped with Palm devices (probably the Zire 72, to sync on the move over bluetooth + GPRS).