MATTHEWGOODONLINE

The new del.icio.us design has been launched and it’s an amazing improvement. The same cannot be said of Facebook, whose new design looks as though it was farmed out to a high school computer class. True, the new tabbing system solves some layout problems, but it’s even more confused now than it was before. While Myspace might look like complete ass, at least they’re consistent.

While I am a steadfast Safari user, while on the topic of social apps I should also mention Flock, which is perhaps the world’s premier browser for integrating social applications. If you haven’t taken it for a spin, I highly suggest downloading it and giving it a whirl.

I should write about musical genres more often. Perhaps it will eventually come to blows. Not sure I’d be against that, I’ve been a little bored.

Knock yourselves around a bit, pit the DJ against the guitar player, thin the herd. I’m actually a fan of a lot of electronic music. Mind you, most of it was made in the 70’s, but nonetheless. I mean, it doesn’t get much better than Here Come The Warm Jets now does it.

They caught Karadzic. He’s sporting the Saddam Hussein spider hole look. He was captured in Belgrade where he’s been practicing ‘alternative medicine’.

Sounds about right.

I didn’t write anything yesterday because I was otherwise engaged. A little demoing, a little designing, had the Livesey’s over for dinner.

There’s plenty of nonsense transpiring at this very moment between the poles. Countless journalists are reporting on it. Hit the Google and see what’s up. This monkey’s got some finger drums to play.

Here’s a quick tutorial of the changes that we’ve implemented. Please note that if you’re using Internet Explorer we haven’t fully addressed cross compatibility issues yet.

Header Icons

This icon activates the website’s dedicated search feature. You will see it appear below the main menu bar, directly above page content.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for, such as certain fan related information (set lists, images, etc), try a Google search to see if you can locate it on a fan website.

This icon leads to Matt’s Facebook page. If you’re not already one of his friends, feel free to add him.

Please note that Matt’s Facebook page does not have an active wall feature. He also politely asks that friends refrain from sending him application and event requests.

This icon leads to Matt’s del.icio.us page where he have some 4720 articles bookmarked to date. When he has the time, and is able to do a great deal of reading, activity on his delicio.us page will be greater than when his time is limited, such as when he’s on the road.

This icon leads to Matt’s flickr photo page. On it you will find numerous photos that include everything from personal shots to videocasts to images that document tours.

For those of you that prefer to follow site updates via RSS, this icon links to the website’s RSS feed (operated through Feedburner).

The Menu Link

Clicking this link will produce a drop down menu that includes a variety of links to do with the site’s content.

The Audio/Video Player

The link to the audio/video player is now located at the top of the music page. Simply click on the Menu link on the header to access it. The a/v player is in a pop-up window so you will be able to listen to music, or watch videos, and still navigate away from the music page.

Archives By Tag

The tag cloud is now organized alphabetically.

As a front-end designer (*see below), I spend my time concentrating on appearance and how it best cooperates with functionality. As anyone worth their design salt will tell you, there are two challenges faced by front-end web designers. The first, and ultimate challenge, in my opinion, is the ability to design with white space representing the primary plane. In truth, the anchorless realities of white space make it one of the most difficult web design mediums to work with. As Dale has often said - “less is more, but less is also more difficult”. It’s a maxim with which I totally agree and, besides the fact that I am drawn to clean layouts, have become wholly enamored with the repeated challenge of designing white space based sites.

One factor to take into consideration regarding white space designs is that not all websites are geared towards them and that site identity should be taken into consideration. I have found, over the years, that websites that are text content heavy tend to benefit more from the implementation of white space designs, which would be why most major news sites, for the most part, employ them.

White space designs also offer other challenges, the most difficult of which is that any addition to them is usually very noticeable, making the structure of their initial design platform crucial with regards to the addition of a variety of content - specifically images, hyperlinks, and so forth.

The second challenge is content clutter. As web pages have become more diversified and complex, it is not uncommon to encounter pages that are rammed full of content that, while resourceful, is presented in an entirely confusing fashion. While a specific website might be an unbelievable web resource, if its layout is choked to death by confused content it will only detract from the ability of visitors to quickly and enjoyably explore it. That’s not to say that the diversity of content isn’t important, just that when it comes to how it’s presented there are ways to go about it that don’t automatically confuse visitors and, ultimately, turn them off visiting a site.

Dale and I have repeatedly dealt with this issue in the past given the volume of content that this website has and have struggled with how best to simplify it so that it remains inviting while still providing the ability for visitors to access its depth of content. In truth, it is a process that consumes us on a weekly basis, even though we do not implement those ideas that we frequently discuss. Today we are currently in the midst of implementing new changes that will further help to address a variety of accessibility issue, adding a simple yet comprehensive drop down menu for every header link, while at the same time generalizing them and thus reducing their number, and a more accessible and powerful search feature.

So what do I mean by confusion? Well, not to pick on a specific website, especially being that I find it a fantastic resource, Smashing Magazine provides a good example. Below is a screenshot of the Smashing Magazine website. While a clear and concise top menu is employed, the layout of the site’s content is confusing and, in my opinion, detracts from the desire of visitors to explore what it has to offer. Adverts consume the top of the site’s sidebar, detracting from the list of resources presented below them. While I understand that revenues generated by adverts are important for various sites, their dominance of a design often convolutes the website’s initial impact with regards to content.

Search Utilization

Most websites offer a dedicated search feature that, depending on its parameters, will produce in-depth results. Ironically, site based searches are commonly underused, something that I have never understood.

When it comes to website content, especially with regards to blogs, dedicated site search features are invaluable and far more affective when searching for specific content – even more so than archive features given that most sites employ dynamic categorization methods that are automatically included in dedicated site searches. That said; the dedicated site search is an invaluable tool and should be easily accessible.

As I mentioned a little earlier in this post, we are currently implementing a new search feature that will be far more predominant on the site. But the issue of content clutter can also not be overlooked when it comes to how search results are presented and how they form the beginning of the informational chain that will ultimately lead site visitors to the content that they are seeking in a quick and clutter-free way.

Here again is a screen shot from Smashing Magazine that shows how its search results are displayed. The site employs an embedded Google Search, which isn’t uncommon as many sites use it to increase their standings in broader Google searches with regards to various topics that relate to them. My focus is on how the results are ultimately displayed with regards to clarity and ease of usability…

Notice how the search result text is cut off by the sidebar, as indicated by the red arrow. Also notice that the search results are confusingly preceded by the inclusion of adverts as well.

Hey! It’s My Day Off!

Anyway, back to enjoying my day off. We’ll be working on implementing the changes I mentioned earlier this evening, and, over the next few days, will make sure to post an entry outlining all of them.

I’ll admit it; I’m hooked on flickr’s new video feature. I think it’s utterly brilliant, primarily because I can’t stand YouTube – for some reason everything Google touches looks like crap.

This morning alone I have posted four different video clips. Hopefully, as flickr develops the feature, they’ll increase the file size to allow for more than 90 seconds.

Given my new found love for it, I may add a permanent link somewhere in the menu to my Video set, so that readers can wander over and keep up to date on them if they’re at all interested.

Speaking of the site, and our never ending graphic psychosis, here’s a little preview of some of the changes we’re about to make…

The new backend admin features for Wordpress are pretty cool. Even cooler is the fact that Dale customized our layout. One of its downsides, unfortunately, is the fact that audio upload sizes are pretty restricted, making it basically impossible for me to throw up teasers on a whim.

Another cool development is the addition of video to Flickr. I know that a lot of Flickr purists are against it, but like anything, you just don’t have to use it. The clips are limited to 90 seconds, but can be embedded, so I’m probably going to use it primarily for quickly answering fan questions. If you’d like to ask a question, you can email me at matt@matthewgood.org or by using the Flickr mail service. If you chose to, please include your real name and where you’re from, because I won’t answer anonymous questions. Obviously, I won’t be able to get to everyone’s questions, so forgive me in advance if yours isn’t chosen.

Anyway, a few film reviews…

John From Cincinnati

I wasn’t sure what to make of this HBO series, but bought it anyway given that the creators of Deadwood are behind it. I must admit that I was refreshingly surprised – so much so that I watched the entire first season in one sitting.

There Will Be Blood

To say that this film wasn’t the best film made last year would be a profound understatement. While I have always been a massive fan of the work of the Cohen Brothers, there is simply no way that No Country For Old Men is even in the same league as this film. The acting, the dimension, the cinematography and depth – they are all representative of the sort of superlative filmmaking that is becoming increasingly rare.

The film opens with almost fifteen captivating, dialogue-free minutes; a powerful achievement and one that certainly speaks to not only the ability of Daniel Day-Lewis, but also the vision of Paul Thomas Anderson.

How this film did not win Best Picture is entirely beyond me.

I’ve added a nice feature to the site which I think adds to usability, without being too flashy. Those that have been around the site for awhile know that in some of the previous designs we’ve had some fun with progressive web technologies, perhaps a little too much fun, but such is the life when you’ve got lots of extra time and no one telling you not to.

The feature is the dynamic (ajax) loading of entries inline on the main page, search results pages, and archives & category pages.

Originally built by Duane and I for an upcoming theme release, WPtouch WordPress theme (a theme that you can install on any WordPress blog to format its content for viewing on an iPhone or iPod touch).

Hmph, dynamic whatchamajiggy you ask?

At the bottom of the home page you’ll see the ‘Load more entries…’ link shown in the image to the right. When clicked, it will fetch the next 10 entries and show them inline in the page, below the ones above. You can continue to fetch more entries and browse the extensive archives here easily in this way.

The same goes for search results, archives, and category pages.

While nothing was inherently bad about the way that pages flowed before on the site, this feature I felt was suitable for use here because we have so many entries, and searching through them can be an onerous task for those new to the site, or when searching for a specific older entry.

As you can all see, we have a new site design. The truth is that it’s not actually new; it was a design that we used over a year ago. After re-designing the site after its use, Dale made it a Wordpress theme available for download, so if you want to use this theme, and have a Wordpress blog, please do. We’ve obviously made some changes to it for our use here, but it’s basically the same.

One of the alterations is the addition of the little ship logo, which, as is usually the case, I designed to look like a football crest. The little ahoy! is a guilty pleasure that we included because, well, we have a soft spot for base nautical humour.

The favicon was also my idea, though we might change that in the days to come because most people will automatically assume that it’s the Cross of St. Andrew, the Scottish flag, which it isn’t. I, myself, have some Scottish heritage, so it’s nothing against Scotland. It was just meant to be, once again, a little inside nautical humour.

I have always had a thing for ships, primarily 17th and 18th century vessels, so it’s really no surprise that I would use a ship’s silhouette in the design. That said, it will stick around until we get bored of it and, ultimately, find something else to replace it. We are, after all, design freaks, though this latest change was made primarily to trim some fat from the site.

No matter how many changes we make, the content, and the archives, remain the same, so there’s no worries on that account. I personally like single column designs when it comes to blogs if they include a clean top menu, which this one does, so.

If you read the site via the RSS feed, make sure to take note that the author of each entry is now listed below the post itself. I have to take the blame for that, as I didn’t think putting that information above the entry text looked clean.

The ‘Featured’ Icon

You’ll notice that a few entries at the top of the main page of the website have this arrow icon next to them. These are entries that are ‘featured’, or been pinned at the top of the site because of their popularity or because they contain important announcements. New, regular posts, will appear below them. So make sure to scroll down to see if anything new has been posted.

Recent Film Views

I purchase and watch a lot of films, so providing in-depth reviews of all of them isn’t something I have the time for. So when I do, I’ll be short and sweet. Anyway, here are three that I picked up this week…

Beowulf

The classic Anglo-Saxon tale Hollywoodized. That’s to be expected. The use of Rotoscoping was an excellent decision, and makes the film.

The Darjeeling Limited

Like his films or not, Wes Anderson has a natural gift for making films that focus on the nuances of dialogue, something that is sorely lacking these days. Both Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman were excellent.

Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale

Would I go so far as to say that Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have redefined comedy through works such as The Office and Extras? Yes, I would. This series finale is so good, in fact, that it overshadows the brilliance of the entire first two seasons.

The lynch pin, though, is the acting of Ashley Jensen, whose performance is, in my opinion, outstanding.

Need A Boob Job?

Jump online…

“Karla-Rae Morris is getting an $8,000 boob job for free – and she owes it all to bosom buddies she befriended on a controversial website.

Since the fall of 2005, the petite 26-year-old Fort McMurray mother has been racking up donations on www.MyFreeImplants.com – a California-based site that allows men to invest in breast augmentation surgery for flat-chested women who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it. In exchange for donations, the women chat online with the charitable men and send them photos and videos of themselves.

Morris, a married stay-at-home mom with two young children, reached her goal of $8,000 last month. She joins Strathmore mom Candace Leadley, also 26, as the only known Canadians to reach “Hall-of-Fame” status on the site.

The five-foot-six, 98-pound Morris, who initially took some grief from her husband and two of her sisters for her quest for a treasured chest, plans to undergo surgery this spring to expand from a 32AA to 34C cup.

“I’m going to be really super happy,” she told Sun Media. “I always felt like less of a woman and more like a little girl. It’s going to make me more confident wearing a swimsuit. And I won’t have to buy padded bras anymore.”

There goes the Community! We’ve streamlined the site for multiple reasons, and returned to a familiar theme. Though the Community features have been removed, that’s not to say they’re altogether lost- Matt and I will re-think our approach to these types of website attributes, and may at some point bring them back.

We have considered doing a major overhaul of the website top to bottom, and to accomplish it, a streamlining like this puts us in a better position to make that happen.

In truth, the main focuses of this website are on the content of published articles and Matt’s music, which should always have the lion’s share of attention. That said, we both enjoy working on additional features which serve both readers and fans alike, so I reckon they won’t be gone forever.

Additionally, Matt’s going out on tour soon, and I’m a little busier these days, so it’s probably a good idea to trim the hedges for now as we both won’t have as much time to dedicate to site maintenance.

This new website theme is a variation on the original one designed and developed by Matt and I in the spring of last year, affectionately titled ‘Minimalia’. It’s available for download and use on your own website free of charge if you run a WordPress blog yourself. You can check out all the details here.

We’ve done it again- another redux of the design of matthewgood.org. Matt and I ditched a complete overhaul in favour of a lighter detailing, which we are really happy with. Of note to visitors should be first and foremost the Community Hub, which now includes all the former Community features on one page, and adds new features.

Recent Activity
The Recent Activity listing will show you everything that’s new in blog posts, comments, and changes and updates on pages around the site.

MG Flickr Pool
The Flickr Pool is back, so if you’ve got a Flickr account and would like to contribute, check out the photos and links on the sidebar of The Hub for information on how you can join.

Featured User
We’ve also included a ‘featured user’ on The Hub page. A new new user will be selected by staff each month. To be eligible, make sure you fill out the ‘About Me’ section of your profile page.

There are still more changes to come, but after a few long days of work we really wanted to sail this ship tonight. We should note that the Community Forums are now offline. We’ll be considering a few different approaches to upgrading the way that forums work on the site, so in the meantime, they’re down.