When Anton Olsen and I were at SXSW Interactive this past spring, we decided to propose a class on web application testing. Part of the panel selection criteria is determined by community voting. Voting is open now, but closes soon (Midnight on Friday).

If you have a little time, please consider voting for our panel. (Registration is required to vote).

Our proposal is here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/572

The general Panel Picker page is here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/

Once the votes are counted the SXSW panel will take 3-4 weeks to decide which panels will get the green light.

Thanks!

Anton and I planned on stopping by the Dorkbot tent, but the line and crowd were too intimidating, so we left, checked into our hotel, then came back for later events.

The frog design SXSW Opening Party was pretty cool. Malford Milligan’s band put on a great blues show and the Interactive crowd proved all kinds of stereotypes about computer oriented people true. We stayed for an hour or so, then headed out a few blocks away to the final party of the night.

The BuzzFeed / Ze Frank After Party at the Molotov Lounge was a good time. Open bar - we had a lot of great conversations with people who will never remember having them with us. Also, we ran into Anton’s long, lost brother: this guy

This was a cool panel because it had San Antonio’s own Real Live Preacher. The discussion was focused on unique issues encountered when blogging about religion online - both pro and con.

One big pro was that being online provides an outlet for those who can’t find a religious community that accepts them in their local area. A relative negative was the angry, ugly comments that some people receive. Another mixed fact is that members of your real-life community may have issues with what you write.

The panel caught a little flack from some of the audience for not including the atheistic community, but it was an interesting discussion.

Good user interface means providing for the user w/out then noticing.

Some picking on laha.com

(I believe we left at this point) - we’re pretty good at ruining the user experience already.

This panel was on using the modern design technique of grid layout to improve web site design. This one was good, but would have benefitted from a longer session - 30 minutes was rushed. My notes:

• subtraction.com
• markboulton.co.uk
• 2 dots imply a design
• columns turn to grid
• rationalism < decore + logic, reason
• standardization
• crate & barrel’s web site is a good example
• commentisfree.guardian.co.uk
• yeeaahh.subtraction.com
• 3 or 4 columns in multiples of the base column width - 12 total is ideal

I thought this was going to be about going over the success and failures of a particular web app, but instead, this was a discussion of the numbers of income, users, servers, support calls, etc. for several different sites. Represented were:

• Blinksale
• FeedBurner
• RegOnline
• ParticleTree
• Icon Buffet

Universally, December is the worst month and January/February the best.

The presentation can be found here.

This was one of the panels that was a real inspiration & idea starter. The presenters talked about how their hobies and interests provoked inspiration that could be applied to projects. My notes:

• Nicham old style & Venitian Old Style types
  
• Adobe Jenson
  
• Vendetta - a more moden take
  
• Inspiration is the sum of input - not the result of copying & me too
  
• Look into the cultural and historical type information when choosing a typeface
  
• How a letterpress class led to re-thinking type ideas
  
• Business card ideas - corner rounder, silkscreen office stamp
  
• Turn Off Your Computer
  
• Pulp Novel covers as inspiration
  
• Jason Santa Maria
  
• Comic Books/Graphic Novels
  
• The Art of Looking Sideways
  
• (aside) These designer sure present better than tech guys
  
• Keep a photo archive of inspirational imagery: type, colors, etc.
  
• Sketchbooks
  
• Exercise: Be a Design Vigilante
  
• Puzzles: crosswords - relationships between the words
  
• Five-Seven-Five - the daily haiku
  
• 48 hour film festival
  
• Find a Muse
  
• The Birthday Bash
  
• Make Posters, T-Shirts, Web Site, Invites, etc.
  
• Wedding Planning - Invitations, web sites, etc., etc.
  
• Secret Santa - have to make the gift
  
• Virtual Stan (To Do: Look for this)
  

Saturday morning came awfully early after being out so late Friday night, but I managed to meet Anton on time.

The first session of the day was “Why XSLT is sexy”. I was curios about this since I had mostly written off the suitability of XSLT as a means of making good presentation of XML. It just always seemed like there were easier ways to solve the problem. My notes were:

Notes:

• First slide: Putting Lipstick on a Pig


• Joe Orr, Lindsay Simon


• XSLT running on XML DOM parser in browser


• Unlike CSS can add new elements to the page


• XSL is a functional language - not procedural


• Fast processor in most browsers (Safari lagging)


• ActiveWidgetGrid


• bandwidth saving advantages - dl the XSL once, process many XML transactions (like AJAX ezchanges)


• AJAX-S


• XML Binding Language


• Freja and Formbuilder: MVC for Javascript, XSL is a View


• Sarissa: presents same syntax for all browsers


• AspectXML


• BrowserBasedXML.com


• detects browser w/ XSL engine and transfers only the appropriate XSL file - easier to keep browser specific XSL separate)


• GRDDL: part of the semantec web project


• simile.mit.edu/welkin
• The functional programming aspect of XSL is the big deal - productivity wise - don’t write the code as though procedural.
• Screenbook maker
• IE crashed on the presenter (oops)
• Uses Xalan, XSLT, XPath
• LEO - Literate Editor w/ Outline (written in Python) - seems like it would be cool for CSS editing also - good code block folding capabilities
• MyTimes.com
• Custom widgets - looks like an alternative to Java Portlets
• Speed advantages compared to quirks mode in the browser
• Michael Kay
• www.screenbooks.net/sxsw

Friday night, we went to see Ian Moore play at the Cactus Cafe - it was a fantastic show as always!

Bukka Allen opened up the show with some really nice piano driven music with great songs and soulful vocals. He was joined by Will Sexton on guitar and Brian Standefer on cello. Great stuff!

Ian was backed by the always amazing Kullen Fuchs on (deep breath here): trumpet, B3, omnichord, marimba, accordion, vibraphone, and probably a few other things I missed. Bukka Allen played a few songs on accordion. On cello was the fabulous Kestrin Pantera a hugely talented woman who was in town promoting a film.

Afterwards, I got a change to ask Ian what tuning he plays Cinamon in (open D) - so I’m one step closer to butchering another Ian Moore song for my friends and family.

It was a great night to follow up a pretty darn good day. Afterwards, I drove Anton back home and crashed out at my parent’s house.

The second session was one on how your vlog can save the world. This one was more interesting. The panelists were knowledgeable and passionate about the topic and had good information. When we talked with them after the panel and again later at the ze Frank opening night party, we found them to be really cool people also.

• Media with no boundaries


• swajana.com


• momentshowing.net


• ryanedit.blogspot.com


• www.freevlog.org


• ryanishungry.com


• poor video quality driven by download and video start speed