Mid-July Link Dump

BgPatterns: Create tileable background images.
SWF searchability FAQ: I’m sceptical about how this’ll work in practice, as the content will lack the kind of structure supplied by half-decent HTML and the spidering may uncover lots of diverse data to associate with a single URL. Will users want to click from search results into a Flash file that might contain what they’re looking for somewhere deep within its interface?
blogshank: Interesting to see the gradual evolution from sketchbook to comic strip when going through the archives.
Thsrs: Reading Ironic Sans regularly makes me feel inferior as both a blogger and someone who has daft ideas.
Paamayim Nekudotayim: I’d not heard of this bit of PHP trivia before.
Show Us a Better Way: It seems the people behind this have the best of intentions, but it’s ludicrous to be asking for ideas for what to build. Give us the data in clear and simple formats, with minimal strings attached, and we’ll build things ourselves.
The Brown Corporation: Well, it’s certainly the bluntest approach to marketing a product that I’ve seen recently.
DEFENDER of the favicon: Arcade classic Defender. In a favicon.
Fonts available for @font-face embedding: A depressingly short list at the moment.

Thu 17th Jul 2008, 2:37pm GMT

Filed under: Daftness, Design, E-commerce, Games and Multimedia, Rants and Grumbles, Server-side Coding, Timewasters, Web

Comments

Maybe you missed the gigabytes of freshly-published public data (with minimal strings attached) at http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/…

— Tom Loosemore, 17th Jul, 5:25pm

I do appreciate there's some good stuff already available, and perhaps the word 'ludicrous' was too harsh. I guess I'm just one of those developers who'll be unreasonably grumpy about government data until things like the postcode database are made free ;)

— Matt Round, 17th Jul, 5:51pm

The postcode database has just been made available for use as part of the ShowUsABetterWay.com competition. All you have to do is ask for it ;o)
http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/…
I'd argue that the best way to win the argument about opening up public data is for peopel to conceive / build wonderful products which the government itself would never have imagined. Approaching this as a purely theoligical debate will cut little ice inside government.
Stay grumpy, though.

— Tom Loosemore, 22nd Jul, 11:07am

Add your comment

Comment	(text only; full URLs will be turned into links)
Your name
Your URL (optional)

Matt Round’s company blog, covering web development, media, technology and pretty much anything else.

Web Sites: Good-looking, effective, accessible sites.
Multimedia: Logos, Flash games, animation and illustration.
Advice: Help with strategy, planning and getting noticed.