Rants, squabbles and other blog affairs of web developer and web designer Beno Rudolf.
From my experience, there are two contributing factors to a search-friendly product:
- good, readable content
- clean, semantic markup
What I was getting at in my book was sort of that Ernest Hemingway mindset: write the story, take out all the good lines and see if it still works. In other words, once you get down to the very utilitarian aspects of a design, where it’s really functional and usable and people can understand it, it should still work. You have to make sure that the best lines aren’t just the really cool, sexy things: the best lines are what’s left.
If you’re a client in the process of building a new web thingy, be it a page, an app, or whatever, you have almost certainly hired a professional. A professional.
Now, here’s the tricky part: Listen to her/him!
You are paying her/him for her/his counsel and service. You. If you think you know better (which you probably don’t), then don’t hire people. You’re wasting time and money. Your money.
Instead of forcing outdated browsers to display the newest and coolest features, we should embrace the idea of websites giving browsers what they can display and not choking on code. A text box that is a solid blue background in IE6 and rounded-corner drop-shadow box with a beautiful blue gradient in Webkit browsers and Firefox is not a bug; it is actually the way the Web works. One cannot easily build a physical product that adapts to the person using it; we can on the Web, and we should exploit this opportunity instead of condemning it.
I’ve been an avid gamer ever since my first encounter with a b&w Tetris encounter on my dad’s 386 computer. I enjoy spending my time in immersive experiences that games provide and the feeling of epicness and achievement that they bring me. I also enjoy learning about the business of the game industry, its ups and downs, who’s doing the best and why etc.
For all my gaming needs and news I favor gametrailers.com, which have great coverage and have the best screencasts, podcasts and other game related series out there. My favorite: EpicBattleCry. This post is my personal BattleCry to the best gaming podcast out there!
The hosts are amazing and ridiculously funny guys; Daniel Kayser, Tony Grice and Brent Adams, who are very down-to-earth people, hardcore gamers who understand casual with top notch knowledge and great style of humor. Daniel is a pun machine, a wizard like ability to come out and catch the best puns you’ll ever hear. Tony is an in-your-face kind of guy, telling you like it is. Brent is a viking; he’ll rape and pillage through the show and you’ll be laughing.
The show starts with a funny recording the guys made (I’m guessing during rehearsal?), that opens the opening credits and makes you burst with laughter even before the show actually starts.
The show is comprised of four sections; the first covers current gaming news, second being The Gauntlet, where a much more general topic (or problem) is talked about in more detail, usually divided in subtopics. The third section are BattleCries, basically shout-outs from the hosts to people, games, sites, ideas, etc. and a best user BattleCry (from their website), which is richly rewarded. The last section covers analyzing the poll results of the previous week and presenting the new poll. The polls are usually in context with the topic talked about in The Gauntlet (the second section of the show).
If your into games, definitely give the show a try. I’m actually listening to the newest episode right now, as I write this post :)
( I am not getting any royalties or other payments from EpicBattleAxe, Gametrailers or MTV for this post and mentions. It’s a personal blog and a personal post. Enjoy! )
So I guess this would be my first (new) blog post. Some presentation would be in order; my name is Beno Rudolf and I’m a web developer and web designer (a web builder) from Kranj, Slovenia - s smallish country in south-eastern Europe.
With the creation of my new website I also decided to start a bit of blogging. About what? Well, mostly web stuff, but also games, snowboarding, dirt bikes, chinchillas etc.
So about this new website …
I’m more of a developer by heart, with design coming close second. The site has been made to be functional, accessible and as user-friendly as possible. There are loads of people who deserve credit and you can find them in the humans.txt.
If you find something unaccessible or something I should fix on the website, give me a good bash/flame and I’ll try and make amends :)
Off to the seaside for the next couple of days, so no blogging till then. I’ll make the next post more interesting.
Enjoy the site and thanks for the visit!
