Archive
Welcome to the beta of the new saila.com. Send in your bugs.
Dispatches from 2007
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The year that was
A decade ago, the Web was in a boom that would lead to a bubble — now, it’s in a boom that will lead to… -
T-5 Days
We’ve done the holiday tours, and the packers are here now, boxing up the last remnants of our stuff which will follow us into Seattle a few days after we land on January 2. -
T-1 month
Today marks the first day of our last month in Toronto, the first day we are not working, and the night of our Toronto send-off. It also happens to be snowing in Seattle and freezing in Toronto, alas, at least the loonie’s fallen back to par with the greenback… -
Pre-Seattle FAQ
So as the preparations for Seattle get underway, and we pack in the visits with friends, a few common questions are emerging. What better way to address the most common ones than a trusty old FAQ. -
An Overview of the Best Practices
Looking at the key best practices emerging in the Web design industry. -
Thank Hotwired, Saila suggests
Although my first thought was to Twitter this (apparently the frequency for which I do that is starting to make cats salivate), but it deserved more than 140 characters. That being said, had it been a little tweet it would have said this: -
Smells like Seattle
Almost exactly five months ago , I started my first major foray into the world of self-employment and began working with a series of exceptional clients to develop web applications and advise about online strategy. The quality, and quantity, of work surprised me, and I savoured every moment of it. -
The False Idol: Technology
Technology seems to offer a lifeline to the hypochondria afflicting the journalism industry, but the real cure may be something simpler. -
Simple CSS drop shadows, revisited
With improved support for complex scripting and CSS, simple CSS drop shadows are even easier to do. -
Online journalism still needs to learn
Day two of the Online News Association’s conference has had, at least for me a much more engaging set of panels and conversations, starting with Holovaty’s through to integrating interactives into the site (which featured a tremendously strong panel). The day closes with what is dubbed the “Superpanel;” after is the ONA awards. -
Holovaty at the ONA conference
Adrian Holovaty started the day with his session on evangelizing reporting and making data in news articles available for machine parsing (as evidenced in ChicagoCrimes.org). Although I arrived late (something about the Queen St. streetcar trying being diverged, and partly a result of a late night hunt to find a Gypsy jazz band and a Yahoo party), I’ve seen his talk on this before (and he is a good speaker), but it is heartening to see that it was incredibly well attended. -
Midday at ONA, Day 1
So far, Toronto Hydro is failing me, hotel rates are too high, but I do have a recharged laptop (I still can’t believe there’s no free WiFi at an online journalism conference). Thankfully, I’ve been able to catch-up with a lot of people, some of which live in my city, or I’ve just met. And that was one of my hopes in attending this conference. -
ONA conference starts
Arriving for an early start at the Online News Association’s conference here in Toronto, and I have, so far, have run into colleagues I’ve worked with, might have worked with, and could be working with. Apparently the rare, and heavy Toronto fog has closed the airport, preventing some from arriving, but still it is quite packed. -
Beta, baby
The new design is finally unveiled in a non-Web 2.0 beta. -
Succeeding against Facebook
Facebook managed avoid ghettoization as YASN this May when it opened its Web site to third-party applications. Essentially, Facebook answered the unasked question of what to do after everyone you once knew are in your network (and you realize you don’t have much in common with your classmates from kindergarten). -
New York Times free again
The New York Times is dropping its online paid-subscription plan two years after launching it (and four after The Globe and Mail launched the model The Times used). The spin is the online advertising boom change the rules of the game. However, advertising revenue would be a pittance compared to the potential revenue generated through annual subscriptions. -
Good job posts
When checking the times for (my first) DemoCamp tonight, I stumbled across the TorCamp job board. This is an excellent place for anyone looking to fill local Toronto jobs with potentially qualified people. -
Gone alpha
Announcing the release of the alpha version of the long-delayed rebuild of saila.com -
Google News rewards original content
Over the North American long weekend, Google announced a deal it struck four of the top English-language newsfeeds that will see Google News hosting wire stories. -
Podcasting down, video up
One of the topics I’ve been speaking about over the past year has been online news trends, and there’s a few recent pointers from The Editors Weblog that speak a bit more in-depth about two of my themes: video and podcasting. -
FacebookCamp Toronto: Follow-up
The first FacebookCamp Toronto is done, and kudos to the organizers for holding such a successful event. The reported turnout was about 450 people, making it the biggest Facebook Developer Garage yet (other cities, like San Francisco, often have had ten times less people); and, despite the buzz Facebook is creating in the marketing world, nearly half of the attendees were developers, and a quarter of those were actively developing Facebook apps. -
FacebookCamp Toronto
What started out as a little gathering for 30 TorCampers to showcase some development techniques with Facebook’s developer platform has exploded. First it jumped to 60, now it is being held at MaRS and although the declared maximum is 350, more than 600 people have signed up. -
Arrival
The switch to the new host has been, apparently, successful. -
Packing the bags
The time has come, after ten years, to switch Web hosts. -
Changing things up
Just a quick post to let you know about some changes that have happened and will be happening. -
Mix07 wrap-up
Finally made it back to Toronto after a case of mistaken departure and a very bumpy takeoff. -
Seeing the Web’s future
Vegas may be the city you can gamble 24-7, but try to find a decent bar open in The Venetian after 11 p.m.… -
New development platforms
Well, this has been eventful. -
The universal Web is hard to do
Sitting in the keynote for the Mix07 conference, I got intrigued by some of the demos of Silverlight (which is one of the reasons I wanted to come to this). All throughout people like Ray Ozzie have been talking about how its is part of the “univeral web” and can run both on the Mac and other browsers. I happen to to be using a Mac hear (in fact David Crow has the only other that I've seen) and am using Firefox, so… -
Going to Vegas
So, I am on my way to Mix 07 — leaving Toronto from the same place I did for WDN07, only difference, well, almost the only difference is that today it’s warm. -
Web Directions North, Wrap-up
Right now, I’m wearing a sweater, inside a chilly room in snow-covered Toronto… -
Sunny Vancouver
Right now, I’m wearing in a (Digg) t-shirt, on a sun-soaked patio at the corner of Robson and Bute in Vancouver. The incredible Web Directions North conference is over, the skiing in Whistler (for me) is done, and now I have the next nine-hours to explore the city before returning (on a red-eye) to icy, cold Toronto. -
Web Directions North, Day 1
The first official day of Web Directions North is now done; and despite my bias, Dave Shea, Derek Featherstone, Maxine Sherrin, and John Allsopp all deserve our collective thanks. What started as the musings on some blogs, has evolved into a stellar conference in the very fog-heavy city Vancouver. -
Toronto Transit Camp
The theme for 2007 in Toronto’s blogging, Web development, and urban spaces crowd has been the state of the TTC’s Web site, and now today the TorCamp community is doing something about it. All day at the Gladstone Hotel, nearly 100 people from those groups will be participating in TransitCamp — an unconference on all the things transit related. -
Fixing TTC.ca
Possible one of Canada’s worst sites with the most potential is Toronto’s public transit system’s site. Much derided by transit fans, Web geeks, and regular users it is a usability nightmare. But there’s a new chairman — Adam Giambrone — and it looks like he’s open to suggestions on how to improve the site. So four of Toronto’s city blogs — BlogTO, Reading Toronto, Torontoist, and SpacingWire — are collecting ideas.