'Web ideas'

NakedTranslations.com – building a bilingual website

Posted on July 30, 2009 ~ Filed Under Web ideas

Today we launched the new version of NakedTranslations.com, a website for my friend’s translation business. The site is entirely bilingual, including a blog, and raised some technical challenges. Here’s how I did it.
Defining ‘bilingual’
We wanted to be able to do the following:

give the user a clean experience in their language of of choice, so [...]

Google’s Wimbledon cleverness

Posted on June 22, 2009 ~ Filed Under Web ideas

Ocassionally I forget just how clever Google can be. I went to the search bar and started typing Wimbledon. Google suggested ‘Wimbledon 2009′, which I selected. It then gave me live scores. Of course.

Google suggest scariness – ‘ways to’

Posted on July 6, 2007 ~ Filed Under Culture, Web ideas

I went to Google with the intention of looking for I forget what, starting my search with ‘ways to’. I got a bit freaked by Google’s suggestions:

I am encouraged that “ways to say I love you” comes above “ways to kill yourself”. On the other hand, you’d sort of hope that people could work [...]

Guardian print on demand PDF newssheets

Posted on June 1, 2007 ~ Filed Under Web ideas

It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then I come across something online that makes my colleagues worry. I’ll be sitting quietly at my computer, and suddenly start saying “oh my God. That’s so clever. Coooooool. Wow.”
Yesterday, this happened when I came across the G24 on the Guardian website.
G24 brings you the [...]

Website report for Transport for London’s Oyster site

Posted on December 15, 2006 ~ Filed Under Web ideas

URL: https://sales.oystercard.com/oyster/lul/entry.do
Site purpose: To allow customers to research and buy tickets, including top-up, for the Oyster card used on London Transport.
Overview: This site has serious usability problems that hinder the customer’s experience. The following points should be addressed. Further issues exist, but these points would dramatically improve the site in the short term. I recommend [...]

My sister the novelist

Posted on November 30, 2006 ~ Filed Under Culture, Diary, Web ideas

My sister Octavia has been taking part in this year’s NaNoWriMo, the challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in a month, and she’s done it! She is a NaNoWriMo winner! Her novel came in at 50,250 words (but, for some reason the NaNoWriMo word count squeaked her in with a word count of 50,080), [...]

Webcameron

Posted on October 14, 2006 ~ Filed Under Culture, Web ideas

I’ve just been looking at Webcameron, the new website from the Conservative Party bringing lots of videos of David Cameron, leader of the Party, to an internet near you. I’d heard about it, of course, but hadn’t thought much of it until a Labour MP made a (really bad) spoof and put it on YouTube. [...]

Blog comment authorisation

Posted on October 9, 2006 ~ Filed Under Web ideas

Interestingly, I’ve just been put off commenting on the blog of a blog consultant because the comment process was too difficult to bother with. I decided to write about it here instead. Call me contrary if you will. Check this out:
Chocolate and Vodka :: Post Comment
I read Suw’s blog fairly regularly and think she is [...]

New Waterstone’s website

Posted on September 29, 2006 ~ Filed Under Web ideas

Waterstone’s booksellers have launched a new website. They were tied in with Amazon for ages, but they’ve broken free. The first mark against them, though, is their URL space. Their homepage is at:
http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/home.do
Why, oh why?

The PM Programme has a Flickr account

Posted on August 30, 2006 ~ Filed Under Culture, Web ideas

This made me laugh today: Flickr: BBC Radio 4 – PM Programme. There are several things that are brilliantly entertaining (in a techie way) about this in my view.
1. It’s a free account
2. The pictures are TINY and out of focus. Gloriously amateurish.
3. They haven’t set up a proper url for it (e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/radio4pm/)
And the [...]

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