I’m Jacob Thomas

I am assuming myself to be a client who is on the lookout for a good design for his blog. What do i look for in my designer?

Portfolio

Firstly, i go straight for the portfolio section in our designers’ website. It defines him in the realms of aesthetic designs, accessibility results and client lists. Portfolios should not be vague and misleading. If I have two websites with one displaying the screenshots of their work and one linking to the original websites, i would be definitely convinced by the latter. The reason simply means i get to experience what his designs would feel like.

Spiga.com.mx , thewebdesigner and WillBlackmore.co.uk are good examples of  portfolios. They give proper details of what they have done and links and screenshots wherever necessary.

Website Design

Though his portfolio gets me the maximum of his design capabilities, a good website with minimal project listings also gets my attention.

Services

Services that my designer provides is also a measure for selection. The reason is closely associated with ‘loyalty of the customer‘ and ‘future projects’. For example I get my blog done with a designer who is only offering xhtml/css design with no flash oriented websites in his services list. I find his work appealing but still I would still prefer a design studio with a wide range of services. In the future I probably will come back to the same firm for a different kind of service.

Client List

An impressive array of popular clients can be very effective. Tofslie is one such portfolio. It has a good client base ranging from popular sporting brands like Nike and Adidas to Winter X Games champion Shaun White’s official website. That is impressive! Almost all the doubts about quality, accessibility and all the other criterion for selecting a designer reduces dramatically as the result of my website will be surely a good one.

Popularity

Someone popular in the blogosphere with a large number of loyal readers will automatically qualify as a good designer. They wouldn’t have been popular if their designs were bad. Bryan Veloso’s (the message is distorted?) and Veerle’s  happen to be my favourite bloggers. And surely their portfolios show that they are talented designers’ too. Besides getting your website done by such popular blogger/designers is always good for me and my business.

 Rates

Last but not the least, the rates he charges. Obviously when ‘high-end clients’ are catered by the designer, the rates go high. If it is a blog or a simple website with minimal number of features i would select a smaller, less exuberant design house. Nowadays finding one such designer is not at all a problem.

So i ask, ‘What do you look for in a designer?”

Kwaaaaaaaaaaa!!! [That’s what i think is the sound on a new born.]

A child is born! Dad is excited.He thinks about what all he has to do. After lots of talk, discussions and fights with Mum, the baby gets a name.

Next up in the ‘To Do List’ for Dad’s is all the municipal formalities including the ‘Birth Certificate’. Since it is the new-age of advanced ‘blah blah’ , people just don’t finish with that.

The ‘Youngest PAN Card Holder in India’ was Krishhey Thacker (aged 56 days then) but recently Akshita, 50 day old girl beat him in the record hunt.

The online identity is getting even more established as the person’s alternative identity as infants get their own domain at the age of ..err…on the day they are born.I know designers and developers getting so excited to know that their newborn is due soon.The excitement makes them do all kinda stuff. Buying them their own domain is just one in the ‘normal’ type.

In a CNN online article, It was written

“Besides leaving the hospital with a birth certificate and a clean bill of health, baby Mila Belle Howells got something she won’t likely use herself for several years: her very own Internet domain name. Still, even if the effort is for naught, $9 a year is cheap compared with the cost of diapers and college tuition.”

Corrie Pankow, pictured with daughter Makenzie, has claimed domain names for her children.

Many of these parents believe that their child’s domain name will not be available by the time their children reach their teens. Well if people go on buying Domain names, web spaces , registering in social networking sites like MySpace or even activating a personal GMail account for their children…yep! it is not a distant reality.

Courtesy:CNN.com, Rediff News

When i was browsing through my old files, i stumbled upon this music file. The dial-up tone for connecting to the internet was remixed with a couple of softwares like Multiquence and Mp3 Remix.

The ’share all of them’ bug has recently moved into me. So here is the music file.

Size:607 Kb

~zipped

DOWNLOAD ~ Internet Remix 

maximumcompression.com deals with the various compression technologies available today on different types such as image files, text files, and bulky video files … all in a very impressive tabulation of their tests. This kind of tests are very useful when we have to choose among a lot of compressors.

Later.

I am a windows application programmer…i don’t know whether i can boast about it anymore? The first few years of my programming life were concentrated around visual basic and windows application development. Back then i didn’t have an internet connection(, probably one of the bigger reasons why i evolved away from being one). I created a few applications based on some loose codes from planetsourcecode.com. I really enjoyed it! Every bit of code. I was very inquisitive of the how the softwares were made and that led me into a very simple but exciting world of VB. (I was 14 back then.)

Once i got older (and when i got an internet connection) , i did sense a migration into a much more wider, more reachable platform..the web itself. I was truly inspired by lots of wonderful websites from various design showcases including webcreme, cssremix, cssmania etc. Soon i was exercising my artistic talents and was frantically trying to learn the skills of many accomplished designers. (I used to go ‘wowwwwww.’ seeing some of the websites created by avalonstar.) My entry into professional web development was marked by the founding of Opdyne; a group of young developers, designers, and programmers.

Opdyne has now evolved into a professional firm offering many design solutions with decent quality.(We won’t blab about exquisite designs now as we are still learning.) Now that i look back i find it very difficult to understand whether i would have become an accomplished developer. A few applications like a hapless media player(Neu + Media Player), a CD/DVD indexing software(Thikset) are not enough to make one an expert in that field. Another of my ventures in application development was a CD presentation maker for an event including features like video encryption, authentication module , a fully featured media player , a scriptable interface with advanced skinning options(XTOOP CD).

Just because i am spending all my energy in web development these days doesn’t mean i am done with my old passion. I hope i will be able to complete , many of what i still want to achieve in that field.Presently there are lots of things to finish in Opdyne with release of LF and many other projects slated on immediate dates. Later!

Now that the internet is on a turbulent ramification in all directions,many old concepts are being reiterated on the basis of developing technology.One such concept is Desktop.Yes desktop..the place where you have your ‘My computer’,'Recycle Bin’ and many more of your tools you need to survive in this advanced period of time.What about this desktop?You may ask..Nothing has really happened to it nor am i going to critique some new widgets or applications.The concept of desktop has been refurnished to an online adaptation.Online Desktops..Webtops.David Bouley explains it well in the home page of EyeOS.

Imagine being able to sit down at any ordinary computer in an Internet cafe or public library, start up the resident web browser and access your personal desktop - along with your applications, messages, and information - with a click of your mouse button. Then, when you’re done, you simply close the web browser to have all of the documents you’ve just worked on safely stored on your remote server, leaving nothing on the computer you’ve just been working on. This is the goal of the mobile desktop and operating system called eyeOS.

EyeOS is one such website described as “the Open Source Web Operating System.”..Open source hmm..Absolutely a FREE zone,Guys!!.You can check its live demo here .

The term ‘webtop’ is said to be coined in 1996 and is also known as ‘network oriented desktop’.The topic being new to me lead me to an unexpected array of vast web based applications.To name a random one.Writely,The Web Word Processor,which though is related only to documents is impressive.What sucked me into this was when a friend suggested to me about ‘Desktop two‘.A site which offers the users the look and feel of a desktop.So does eyeOS post an impressive version of a webtop tagged under freeware.Desktop two offers upto 1GB in the free account.

The features include

• Address Book
• Blog
• E-Mail
• Global Settings
• Hard Drive
• IM
• Programs
• Mp3 player
• Office suite

That’s a lot right.Wait till you hear the rest.The latest entity in web development,Ajax,creates a new class of such webtops know as online Ajax desktops.You should have come across small sites that allow you to tag,bookmark and arrange your contacts,favourites etc right?.But you always found it to be hard organising all these information.That’s when such webtops come in handy.
Dion Hinchcliffe classifies the features of Ajax Desktops as

1. One Stop - Centralized online consumption of content and services
2. Accessible Anywhere - Roaming accessibility from anywhere with Web connectivity
3. All Your Data - Easy integration of most existing information sources including e-mail, calendars, bookmarks, news, blogs,pictures, etc.
4. Engaging, Fun, Fast - Rich, interactive experiences that match native software
5. A Platform that Grows And Evolves - Open platform for in-browser third-party software add-ons (Live.com’s Gadgets and Pageflakes’ Community Flakes)
6. Real Software Not Just Data - Increasing integration with Web 2.0 software applications like word processors, messaging, and wikis, plus rich Javascript widgets
7. Intelligent Consumption - Ad-hoc, decentralized, user guided content filtering and mashup creation.

Protopage,PageFlakes,Netvibes,Live are some of the more popular webtops available.Cosmopod,Goowy are also variations that are worth checking.

Java Comes up with a site called java desktop community to promote its GUI support.Sun Microsystems introduced the Java Web Start framework e in 2001. It provides the most essential feature for a Webtop.JNLP is the protocol Web Start uses for this purpose.Anyway,The concept of desktops has definitely evolved.Whether my computer will be running on a pure web based operating

system ..hmm..A probable development in the coming years.Maybe..As all speculations regarding the future ends,I too rely on Mr Time to tell me the future.I leave with some screenshots from desktoptwo.com