It doesn't get more fun than this.

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Check out these websites that took one look at tables, the traditional way to arrange lots of content, and smashed the table to pieces. Rob Morris, Jonathan Yuen and Dave Barnes have some really off the wall sites that should make the designers of the worlds worst websites turn in their digital graves.

Digital mash is from down-under web designer Rob Morris. It is straight down the middle brilliant, with clear info and plenty of little touches to entertain and inform you. We would point out the pensive designer seated in a deck chair. Clearly a surreal, other-worldly picture, because there is no sign of lager or other 3rd party substance to explain this guy's over-active brain. We found digitalmash.com via a podcast from Practical Web Design.

Jonathan Yuen is on another planet, in a good way. Fire up this site, turn off the lights and enjoy the trip through what appears to be a real zen garden. And don't freak out, the cursor control is deliberate. Breathe deeply, exhale, it's all good.

Dave Barnes is chasing mississipi and doing a really good job. They say that embedded music that launches when a web page opens is a real design no-no. I have to agree, normally, but here I am writing this article, listening to a string of music blasting uncontrollably from this totally engrossing website. The guy is a total rule breaker. There isn't a straight line on the page, no discernible menu, and even the form to subscribe to his newsletter is a squiggly mark at the top of the page. It is a disgrace that there is no alternative version to cater for the rectangular thinkers in the world!

It is weird hovering on the homepage, because on the one hand, he has included features so people can play and explore, yet on this homepage there is so much to discover, I don't want to click on anything just in case I get whisked away, never to return. But rest assured, when the time comes to stop looking and begin delving, the site evolves yet again to a higher level.

Every link blows an info sheet away from the left side of the page and replaces it with another. So I don't ever leave the homepage. Wow. One moment I am looking at his tour notes, the next, a selection of Dave Barnes' music.

Fricking amazing and indicative of the minds and aims of all three web site owners. Got any totally out there fave sites?





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As a follow-up to the blog post about the Oscars of the blogging world, I can confirm that without any overt persuasion, coercion or bribery, I was nominated for the Best Blog Design Award.

Money-Making Mike picked up on my recent post and with a swoosh of the pen from Polliwogs Pond owner, Polli, it looks like the site is votable at this address.

Sweet, and let's hope the positive fall-out goes the way of the theme designer and magister, Bonsai Studio.

Quite interesting to me was the accompanying text for the nomination.

The Pisstakers is a multi-faceted humor blog covering web, tech, world news and quirky stories. As you can tell from the blog's name, articles are somewhat cynical, sarcastic and humorous (and have nothing to do with urine.) For the purists, content is based on genuine events and topics and never strays too far from the truth.

I forgot I wrote that, or did I!

Bloggers Choice Awards are like the Oscars for bloggers. To be honest, I am not a fan of the Oscars, too much glitz, not enough substance and debatable voting. When blogging is at stake, though, I thought that maybe I should peel back my cynicism of this style of competition, and get stuck into the Bloggers Choice Awards. So I did.

Best of what award section?

I maintain that at this stage of my blogging career, it is daft to try to enter as Best of...blogger in one of 29 sections, because I am not even 7 months old in bloggy years. So, to play fair, I have tried to get nominated for best blog design, the theory being, that judging for that category relies totally on the here and now, an instant impression.

With a design, there is no requirement to dive through the archives to the first post, then shoot back to the here and now to compare the consistency of writing. No need to hunt through the content looking for Best of... material to eulogise about. Just load one page and go on your gut instinct.

I am still awaiting a nominator, but when I get one, I will be glad to do my bit to further raise awareness of the many designers striving for recognition in their field of endeavor. Especially Bonsai Studio, who designed our theme.

My Best Bloggers Choice votes so far

As far as worthy Bloggers Choice Awards winners in other sections, I've been busy-ish. I did vote for Mikes money Making Mission as Best Business Blog, Polliwogs Pond is a Best Blog about Stuff winner in waiting, MyBlogLog has an outside runners-up chance at Best about Blogging, Bobbarama will do well with his best humor blog, and MyExtraLife Radio should be Best Podcast, based on the review we did of them, alone.

And I went mad and selected Wil Wheaton for best celebrity blogger. (I felt for Wil Wheaton when Diggers get thuggish with him, just for being him, and he responded with plenty of gusto.)

Talking of Oscars

The definition of Oscars is: a panel of pompous judges who waffle over lunch about what they think is the most politically correct winner.

This was never illustrated better than when El Woody Allen won best foreign film at The Spanish "Oscars" at the Santander Film Festival last year. It was so obvious he was going to be the winner when they announced the nominations. He was simply the biggest box office name, giving the competition most credibility. Shame the cynics saw straight through the strategy, and the quirky Mr Allen earned 3000 pesetas for the 3 DVDs that got sold outside the ceremony that night.

As I say, I feel a little skeptical of any Oscar-like competitions, in whatever sphere of endeavor, but in blogging, I think any good excuse for a mutual love-in, and a bit of extra publicity for the winners, is fair enough, and no harm done. Keep track of our voting.

We all like widgets and sideshows to give us a break from the heavy stuff in the main content. Unfortunately, like all good things, widgets tend to get abused and, as you can see above, they can end up breaking sites rather than aiding usability.

In fact, widgets have effects beyond belief. ie too many can make a site unusable, inaccessible and frankly, irritating. That is a shame because if bloggers go the trouble of setting up and then spicing up their theme, then they probably have something good to say - and see!

Is the person in the banner image sexy in red? First time round, I had no idea because for the first 3 minutes I sat like a lemon, waiting for the content to load. When I can't see a thing apart from great widgets for miles, it sort of loses the appeal of an intriguing blog at least by name.

But hey, I am persistent.



.Now I know it is a blog about general stuff and `I learnt that to get into Technorati top 100, you need to be favorited 115 times. If that happens for her, she should be sure not to add yet another widget. Sometimes, less is more.

The pesky widgets

and

Widget box

And if you cant help yourself...

Not wishing to intrude on your meander through the site, but I would be interested to know how quickly or slowly this web site is loading for you. It is great for me, because I have a mega Comcastic crap cable connection and near enough the whole site is cached in my browser! But maybe it isn't such a smooth experience your end?

Perhaps you could set your watches and tell me, via the survey, how long it takes to open this plug-in loaded page? Thanks.

And I highly recommend any visitors with their own site or blog, to check this poll widget out, (via View button). The Pollcode guys seem to have nailed the code, so don't be alarmed by the speed at which the results page opens!

We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search our keyphrase funny stuff or web search. It is a win-win, perhaps!

Back in the summer of 2006, I had a classy Italian website designer and coder at ((( Bonsai Studio ))) work his magic to produce the Pisstakers theme. It was based on a schematic by Oscar Furgoni. The Latin touch was there for all to see in the comical, colorful and irreverent attitude to the rules (ie barely a straight line in the building!)

In January, along came the cows from Net Disaster who ate up all the tasty bits, dumped on the rest and forced us into a revision.



What you see all around you is tweak number 3. Uh? You may ask, what is the difference between January and March's theme? All looks the same.

Tweaking a website

Yep, it certainly does look similar, except it has been tweaked to be more user-friendly. When you mouse over the face icons, they change color just to let you know you have entered facial territory. Most important.





Then, if you roll over the Search, Bloggers and Contact Us bar, thanks to a rocket up our behinds from a usability expert on Sitepoint, the text and icons are combined.

Yeehah, now even a drunk pisstaker can click on them.

Little things, see, make all the difference.

Tweaking fonts

Sometimes less is more, so we took the big text in blockquotes and shrunk it a little.

Still legible, and not Web 2.0 any more, but oh well, it takes up less space.

Tweaking SEO

Keywords Since being advised by SEO guru-ette Linda Jenkinson, we have been working on an SEO strategy too, re-defining our keywords for the long term. Yawn, yawn. Satire and humor are still there for all to search, but as we don't know how to do political satire, we need more keyphrases to get anywhere with Google and co.

Consequently, as of last week, we are on a web search for the funny stuff in... (tech, news, or life, take your pick.) They are competitive words, and we will be buried for a while, for sure, but we have given ourselves plenty of time to cash in on their popularity. (Do a random search for these and prove that we don't come up!)

Paid to search!

Content It can be dangerous to tweak with that shit, so as far as the verbiage and imagery, we aren't changing our style of posts. Still light and vaguely humorous with a point to it hidden somewhere.

Layout. There is still a summary of our posts on the front page linking to the full articles in the different sections of the website. But I have re-organised the homepage so that the Editorial blog content ie Ed's demented ranting and trips down memory lane stay archived on the homepage.

Tweaking the services to web users

We search the web every day looking for news to satirise. Naturally, we come across loads of search engines. Ding ding. Therefore, in an effort to help out webmasters, or even people looking for useful/practical web search resources, we are building up a listing, with commentary, on all the search engines out there on the internet. Cool, hey?

This will enable visitors and webmasters to quickly see the current trends in web search (pay to search, etc), read a quick pointer and link through to fuller explanations - all written in Pisstakers child-like plain English. See, we like a laugh, but we also like to be helpful too. Pisstakers web search will fit the bill on both counts, we think.

Tweaking for the mobile web

So, that is where the tweaking has got us so far. Oh yeah, and the whole site is viewable on a mobile phone too. Minor detail!

Check out if your phone is Opera mini or Opera mobile compatible and take us out for a spin when you are next on the road, bored out your brainbox.

Tweak on, and if you think there is more fiddling to be done to make The Pisstakers work better for you, let Ed know.

A bag of gummi bears for each of the suggestions we implement!

I was listening to another entertaining podcast from Boagworld. It was recorded in Austin, Texas at this year's SXSW (South By South West is a show for web designers and developers. Everyone Paul and Marcus interviewed was having a good time. Plied with beer and free t-shirts, interviewees plugged their presentations or enthused about meeting barely famous people, learning from other experts, networking and handing out their business cards, blah blah hic.

I can see the fun involved with such a gathering, but it made me realise, I have never seen the business appeal or the benefits of such conferences. It did, however, give me an outline for an idea on how conferences should be run in the 21st century!

btw, I have organised a few events in my time, so I sort of know what I am talking about.

The old-fashioned way

Back in the day of phone calls and hand-written letters, I could see why conferences would have helped to get industry people face to face to exchange and disseminate information. But even then, I never understood the business sense in paying vast sums to get your work force pissed up, over fed, and occasionally laid on company time. Crazy thinking.

The old ways are still the best?

Conventional conferences are an even crazier notion in this day and age of ultimate communication. Why do I need to haul my ass half way across the world to listen to someone who is going to upload a full stereo audio recording (minus the coughs and erms) hours after the talk has been delivered? Or worse, pay for someone else to have a good time while I am sat at home listening to the recording. Or even worse than that, listen while sat at my desk, toiling away to earn the money to pay an employee/co-worker's damned expenses bill!

If it is all about a holiday for the boyz and gurlz, hmmmm, Austin, a holiday destination? If it is all about the atmosphere and excitement of real life presentations, fair point, but at such expense? There is a far better way of giving web businesses what they want, I think.

What is so bad about video conferencing?

Technically there is nothing wrong with videos. Afterall, any decent sized audience at a popular event will have a big screen to help them see better what is going on on-stage.

Conference organisers are probably going to scream at this preposterous idea of using technology wisely. Afterall, they make a living, getting thousands of displaced professionals under one roof to consume as much as possible for as long as possible. Whilst good for the economy of Austin, SXSW is a lost opportunity for the bosses of the speakers and staff sent out to prowl. And a lost opportunity to boost the local economies from where the speakers and visitors partying out in Texas, come from.

The conference content

Web designers and developers want access to cutting edge and entertaining info before the masses get a hold of it? Well, our cost effective approach to providing content would be to contract professional videotapers local to each of the guest speakers. (Money for local media firms, little or no travel to worry about / minimal time off work for the talkers.)

The gurus would record their speech/discussion, and field questions sent in ahead of time by interested parties. That is the content sorted out!

Conference income creation

We'd distribute the whole "conference" in the form of pay per download. The exclusivity / scoop factor for the conference participants would be assured with a registration process, just like a ticket deal for conventional conferences. Then at a later date, the material, maybe slightly hobbled would be put on the internet for free for the public.

We would pay the speakers for their time and travel expenses to their office by way of a cut of download revenues. If you are a boring speaker, noone will pay to view, and you only lose your time and a bit of pride. Scintillate and you will attract plenty of dough!

Business owners would incur a fraction of the expenses of a traditional conference, and with some imagination (provided below) would in fact win brownie points with the workforce and create work within their local economy.

Ding ding, clear up time for everyone concerned, except for unemployed conventional conference organisers, out-of-state hotel chains, airlines and caterers.

Pay per download, I don't think so!

Detractors may say that noone will pay decent bucks for downloaded video conferences. But let's face it, knowledge is power and if you can be ahead of the game for the sake of a few bucks, wouldn't you prefer to pay for a download, rather than a mile long tab of business expenses, lost workforce... Anyway, if your judgement is clouded by dreams of foreign travel, the beancounters will surely advise you to move money dedicated to travel, accomodation, food and booze bills into payments for downloaded conferences.

Afterall, some of the speakers could be your own employees, so let them reap the rewards with a cut of download monies. Keep the money in the local economy.

Virtual conferences are boring!

Only if you have no imagination! Make a day of it, locally. Hire a room and big screen, let ALL your employees benefit, not just the chosen few. We'll go mad and include a barrel of beer with each Platinim package download if you want to recreate a party atmosphere. Hell, even a bucket of chilli, if you insist. It is still cheaper than flying a couple of your folks half way around the world.

What about the lost networking angle?

Yes, networking is oh so important, but, if tags and email and social bookmarking are really as useful as the people attending web related conferences claim - do I have to continue?

Whichever way you cut it, real life conferences are sooooo early Web 2.0.

Not wishing to put the virtual cat among the pigeons, but personally, I think that traditional conferences are an exercise in making money for conference organisers and associated suppliers off the back of deluded businesses. Conference organisers had all better re-think their employment prospects, because Pisstakers All Points North virtual conferences are going to be the next marketing paradigm of the 21st century - and everyone involved is going to clear up!

If you are interested in All Points North 2009, rather than All Heading SXSW 2009, drop us a line.

Update: What do you think to this example of on-line papal crud? You would have thought the guy who used to run the Vatican, Pope John Paul 2, would have had the best marketeers in the business - what with selling god and other dodgy religious concepts in the hi tech 21st century. Not so fast with those assumptions, designer boys and girls.

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There's a lot more color where this banner came from.

I am a nice person and a helpful guy, but found myself embroiled in a scandal after being nice and helpful. This post is a bit dull to begin with, but does warm up a bit!

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Would you give your credit card number to this person's affiliate? 12 billion files to choose from; unlimited downloads on a subscription basis. Doesn't this all add up to paid piracy? Sorry, paid P2P? Or do they have digital watermarking and such like to prevent illegal copying, and in fact, of the 12 billion files, you only get to choose from 3 legal ones?

Listening to some Google advertising bumf about the nuts and bolts usage of Adwords and Adsense, we picked up on a nifty presentation technique. YOU alternate THE tone OF each SECTION of the EXPLANATION, presumably, so you don't get DRAWN INTO A mONOTONE comfort zone. I guess it is too UNCOMFORTABLE as a techniqUE for the written word though?Thanks Google

Anyone got any ideas for names for Astromodder's computer-based website? We came up with Knackered hacker, PC mod bod. Maybe you can do better?