Every so often, in pretty much any field, something comes out or is released that I don’t realise I’ve been missing until it’s pointed out to me. Today it is a little proof of concept for toggling multiple check boxes by click-hold-drag. This is something that I’ve become familiar and comfortable with in desktop programs, but I never noticed it was missing from web browsers. Now this script has pointed out that it’s not there - I miss it.

I decided quite a while ago, probably about 18 months ago, that I wasn’t going to attempt to style form controls any more.

This was based on my personal experience and my personal preference - I think your average user appreciates being able to easily identify a text box, a form button etc. - as forms can be confronting beasts to some people. If you leave all the form controls in their default style in the users chosen browser then at least they can readily and quickly identify and understand them.
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I’ve just read this great little interview with Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails). It doesn’t give much insight into his music and new album etc. but it’s another great slice of artist’s views on the music industry and the record labels continued resistance, and stupidity, to the changes in the way in which we consume music.

I’ve been very quiet recently due to two things, firstly I had been working pretty much ever spare hour my new project (more details to come soon) and then 3 almost weeks ago I got the keys to my first house. It’s needed quite a bit of work (OK it didn’t need it, but it really was the best time to do it) so I’ve spent pretty much every spare hour in the house - I hadn’t been near a computer for the first 8 days of getting the keys for my house.
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I’m a big fan of trying to use a common vocabulary to describe things, especially when working with different departments, companies etc. - the more people you have involved the more important I believe that becomes.

So I was wondering how designers (I’m talking about visual designs here, UI etc.) refer to designs, I’ve heard some of the following being used within my time (mostly with my current company):

• Design
• Design candidate
• Mock-up
• Concept

I’d like to know how do you refer to designs, especially if you work in a design shop etc.

I’m currently in the very early stages of a new personal project that we’re really excited about. It came out of an idea I had a couple of days ago when I got frustrated with a situation I was faced with in work.

Now we’re on the short road to getting something designed and built and I’m really excited. There’s not much to tell right now as it would all just be pie in the sky, but I shall be sharing as much as I can as and when things progress.

Disclaimer: I understand that this post is kind of pointless and lacking of any real substance for you, but I’m just a little giddy about this idea.

Something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time now is to create a couple of back end implementations for my JavaScript Image Cropper UI (I really need to come up with a snazzy name for that) - obviously that hasn’t happened.

I have noticed a couple of implementations appear in the comments, we are now using it at work and I have been emailed about at least one more, but I would like to formalise this a little bit to share these implementations with other users; hence my solicitation.
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I and a small team have been writing a small application in PHP using CakePHP, which we all have an ongoing love-hate relationship with.

However we have been thinking that to really get things moving forward quicker we might move to Coldfusion. We currently have a dedicated server which runs my family of sites which is a LAMP box running.
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I was called over to Stu’s desk earlier today when he asked me "Dude, have you heard of Ralio?" (which is a Java Coldfusion - CFML - interpreter or engine).

"Yes I have", I replied.

"Just imagine for a second you didn’t know about it and take a look at this", he said pointing to the Railo website open on his screen.
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A very, very generous donation I received yesterday for my JavaScript Image Cropper UI reminded me of a conversation I had with my friend Martin Laine quite a while ago during an instant messenger conversation when we both happened to get donations for our separate coding projects (him for his fantastic Audio Player Wordpress plugin and me for my JavaScript Image Cropper UI - again) at the same time.

That conversation, I feel, gives quite a concise view of what donations mean to people like me and Martin (and possibly everyone else who asks for donations to support their free projects) so I thought I would share it here to give you the view from the other side of the PayPal account.
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