http://tmartineau.com

So please visit the new site and update your blog readers, I would very much appreciate if you would all continue to follow my growth in the web industry and as a person. I have a new theme at the new address that I think is very nice but is still not the final one since I plan on making a custom one very soon. Also if there is not a new post up when you visit the new site then please be patient I am planing a new post as we speak that should be up today so update those blog subscriptions!

So that’s the update of what’s been happening over the week, now I would like to talk quickly about where I want to be in the next couple months since I’m effectively finished school in about 4 weeks! I decided today that I’m going to take the plunge, get a domain and finally consolidate my online presence in one place that is truly me. I’m looking into a hosting company right now but I’m thinking I will go with HostPappa.ca since they are a Canadian company, have great features, but are also powered by green energy which is something I care deeply about. So as I finish school I will start to think of how I want to design the site so that it reflects me, and which CMS I want to set it up on. For the CMS I’m thinking WordPress or Joomla, my main reason for considering Joomla is in case some day I want to add advanced features to the site. The design may take a bit because it is not my strong point, but an area I so desperately want to improve on and one that I do have a strong base in.

I’m very excited for the next couple of months and I’d say by the time the weather turns warm I want to have my branding fleshed out, my online presence up, and I’m really really hoping I can preform well in my placement and land employment with them. And just as a note Sarah and I are still trying to work on getting our side venture up and running so that’s also a goal I want achieved by the Spring or Summer.

A Shout Out to all my class mates for an awesome couple years of school, we’re almost there, let’s get through these last projects and then kick ass out in the industry!

We are living in an era where the individual has unprecedented opportunity to speak out and be heard. I have recently watched a TED video on The next age of government where he highlights this fact and how it can help to shape politics. No longer do the big bureaucratic governments have complete control over the message, so why do we let them. People are gravitating away from the large news organizations to the internet in order to get their news. Which means they can find out what they want on whatever topic they are interested in, not just what a few want them to see or think will be profitable.

We can use this to help push political agendas in the favor of the people. Like sites that track crime rates across a particular city. This can then educate the public and give them a tool to use and engage their city council in order to help push change in their city. There are also sites that track government spending in certain countries. Imagine the level of accountability you could hold your government to if you could see every cent they spend in real time. And you could go beyond these things and start tracking cities and countries that are implementing things that interest you and you think are vital, build a community around this and drive change in your own governments.

We no longer have to site idly by and hope that someone influential will come by and push our cause. With the right determination and the knowledge of the social media tools that are out their we can all build communities around what we are passionate about. It is hard work but we can begin to change the face of politics in our country and build nations truly controlled by the people for the people and not just one party’s interests. Utopian? Maybe, there will always be debates because not everyone will agree on everything but lets put those debates, and education (not political spin) in the hands of the people so government truly has to listen to the majority.

This is the power of the new social media revolution, and it does not just apply to politics it applies to everything. So if you have an opinion that you feel strongly about, or are passionate about something and want to push it out there, start to build a community around it and you’d be amazed by what one person can start / achieve in this new world!

Just my opinion…

EDIT: I was also thinking today that these same principles could be used to create a community around consumer happiness. Although there are sites out there that track how much consumers are happy with products and they can give reviews, there doesn’t seem to be one with huge reach. It would be interesting to see if someone could create a big enough community with this in mind that would utilize all social media tools available so that people who are unsatisfied with a product or customer service can hold that company truly accountable. This would help to force companies slow to move on becoming more transparent, open up and acknowledge it’s customers or fall.

From what I now each medal is unique in that they each have a different part of a larger piece of art work engraved on each one. As far as I know each one is unique and there are no repeats but again not entirely sure. But lets just assume (cause that’s always a good idea) that they are. It was while thinking about this interesting concept that I had an interesting idea that could of been done. They should of taken a digital copy of the full piece(s) of art work, placed it online, and plotted out where each medal sits in this piece, and as they are won information about the athlete who won it could be linked to it. The individual medal locations could start out slightly grayed out and then when it is won come into full color so that as the games are in progress people would know at first glance which had been won. When a user mouses over a won medal the name of the athlete and country they are from would show up. Then when clicked it could go to a page with information about what sport the athlete was in, the time, or score, etc that they posted to win the medal, and maybe a bio.

I just thought that it was such an interesting and creative idea that they came up with to have each medal unique, and very disappointing that they did not run with it a little more. Imagine how cool it would be as an athlete to be able to go online and see where your “piece” fit into the bigger picture, how they could share this with the people they know. How cool it would be for any sports fan to be able to go and look through at all the different medal winners in a way they could not before. If an Olympics in the future decides to do something similar with their medals maybe they could look into this idea.

Just my opinion…

I’m a HUGE hockey fan, so when my team (The Ottawa Senators) moved into first in their division I wanted to see how many games the next team behind had before the Olympic break. When I went over to the Buffalo Sabers’ web site I was greeted by this splash page.

Screen shot of Buffalo Sabers' landing page

Now first off splash pages on their own can be bad usability depending on who you ask. In my opinion you should only use a splash page if it’s serving a very specific and useful purpose, such as a language selection, or location selection before serving up the page. All NHL clubs use their splash pages as advertisements that are always changing, which can confuse some users especially since this means the link to enter is always in a different spot and styled differently. Maybe at some point I’ll spend a while collecting screen shots of the ever changing splash pages to demonstrate this, it would be an interesting project anyways.

For this example in specific it’s not even about the debate for or against splash pages it’s, can you even find how to enter the site at first glance? That’s right its that small un-styled link at the bottom of the page under all that advertising! Oh and I would also like to point out that at some monitor resolutions the fold is right at the bottom of the bottom advertisement meaning this link falls just out of the viewable area of the page with no indication that anything lies bellow. If you were not an experienced user you would not spend the time to try and find your way in, and they would probably just click on the first clickable area which would lead to the page to buy tickets. If this is not why the user was going to the page then they would be frustrated by this, and as anyone in the industry knows a frustrated user is not a happy user, and a non-happy user means a non-returning user, and a non…. ok I think you get the point.

I’ll wrap this up so it’s not too long of a read but I do hope to do some more posts on usability as I advance and learn more since it is something I think is very important. The better I am at designing and creating more usable sites, the higher the conversation rates, and the more valuable I would become.

Just my opinion.

People tend to take the internet, and the amazingly interactive content on it, for granted. In today’s age when people have all these tools to do things they think anyone can whip off a proper website for free and in 20 minutes. This is just not the case if you really want something of superb quality that is unique. Is that what everyone out there needs, no so for them ya then can go out and do it themselves (or have their kid do it as they often say they can) but don’t insult a web designer or developer with a $50 – $200 offer and waste their time.

Even worse is the person who asks “For a site like facebook” and then turns around and says that they will pay $300. So many people really don’t get a grasp the amount of work that goes into creating these sites and applications, or even that they are talking to a professional that has to make a living doing this. Even something as simple as having a map embedded into your site with custom icons marking your offices in the city on it takes time. Yes using the API is easy and straight forward but it still needs to be codded and fit in with the site, it’s not a point and click process. I think this spawns from tools that allow an end user to create personalized home pages so easily in different applications that they believe it’s that easy for the developer to create the application.

I look forward to entering this industry when I’m done, but I’m not so much looking forward to the people who may depreciate what I do. I hope that when faced with theses clients I can be civil and hopefully get them to see the truth, or at the very least know when to turn and walk away because they are just not worth my time (much like the ones at Clients From Hell).

I decided to do this switch simply because I think I have finally figured out where I want to go with my online presence. I am in the preliminary stages of designing and setting up a site for Sarah and I to discuss our passion for sustainable living. I’ll post all about that once I get it up and running and have links to it. But I still wanted an outlet for my other passion, web development and design so I have decided to dedicate this blog to that.

I plan on posting more creative posts, for the design side, as well as posts about things I find interesting or that I learn about web development. Things like usability, accessibility, and best practices, as well as social media. I want it to showcase what I can do, what I know, and what I am learning about the web.

I’m hoping to push these brands, once I get them both polished up and eventually, if possible, combine them some day as that would be amazing to be able to do both of my biggest passions.

Although I am very optimistic and excited after reading Crush It! and although I agree with Gary on %90 of what he says, I do have some issues. Throughout the book Gary emphasizes the amount of hard work that you will have to put in in-order to cash in on your passion and that is very very true. A lot of long hard hours will go into promoting yourself and coming out on top. But he basically says that you will have no time or wanting to do anything other than your passion, you wont play the Wii, have time for hockey or much of anything else. You’ll have a bit of time to catch up with your significant other, play with the kid and that’s about it. This is where I disagree, I believe that you should make an effort to put aside a bit of time every week to do other things that interest you that are not your passion. I love Hockey and I would make sure to make a little bit of time here or there (probably often) to watch or even better play! I believe that staying well rounded will help you to grow and not become stagnant. Gary’s “DNA” is such that he probably doesn’t need that because he is soooo driven and focused but most are not like that. Keep time for other things and you will be more focused when you come back to doing your passion!

Just my opinion though…

All of a sudden I found myself going on about how he should blog about it. Now at first he was a little confused but I explained how he could establish his brand as being the honest and talented carpenter. He could blog about unscrupulous practices in the industry, that carpenter who just ripped off someone he knows, or how he would do it better and more honestly. On top of that he could post video showing how he builds different things, and the quality he puts into his work. Of course he would have to put time into promoting himself and his blog using other social media but this would establish him as an expert in his field and grow his family business. Of course there was a lot more ideas discussed on the subject but I think you get the idea.

Now he is still not sure if this is truly his passion in life but he definably has something to think about now. He also now realizes that no matter what he decides is his passion he can use whatever tools are available to self promote himself and do what he is passionate about. I am truly excited about the playing field that social media has given us and I am more than ready to play the game.

That takes me to another huge reason I am going away from the daily format, I want to figure out what drives me, what I am truly passionate about. I’ve been really putting a lot of thought into that lately and had a very in depth conversation about this and related subjects with a couple very close friends today. And I’m not %100 sure right now and I want to take some time to really figure that out so I can fulfill that. As said before I’m really interested and passionate about emerging, so called, “green tech” but I don’t know if it is really going to be the equalizer or savor I think / want it to be, and this has me wondering. I want to make a difference and know I can’t do that with my other passion, web design / development, alone and although that can pay the bills it wont satisfy me in the end to just be doing that.

Hopefully this is not too long cause I really want to pose a question that’s on my mind right now and I want people to answer. Are we as humans willing to really invest in our future, invest in each other, and come to a solution to our problems? Are we willing to pay a lot right now to live free and clean in the future? Are we willing to not only make life better for ourselves but for others around the world on their terms not ours? Would you be willing for our governments to put up the money to research these things? Do you even feel that the way we are doing things is a problem?