So whats the hold up?

Yes I know, things have been quiet around here lately, but to be honest, I've been really busy. I haven't forgotten about my blog don't worry. I will be starting a new job soon, which I am extremely chuffed about, so once I get settled down there, the blog posts and other cool shizzle will continue!

SOAP: A great blogging initiative you should know about

So if you don't know what SOAP is (Scratch One Another Program), it's an initiative thought up by Easton Ellsworth from Know More Media. You sign up, and Easton will provide you with a blog to review. In return, your blog will go to someone else to review (and by Easton himself). That, in a nut-shell, is the general process.

Personally I think it's great. It's a sublime way to get some tips from fellow bloggers on your own blog, and to offer some constructive critique or helpful tips to a lucky blogger out there in the blogosphere. I reviewed Lisa Gate's site and provided her with quite an in-depth review of her blog. She was thrilled with my tips. Hopefully I will post my review here, on my blog shortly, if Lisa doesn't mind of course.

So if you've got some spare time, go check out the project and fill out the questionnaire. It won't take you long, and it will definitely be worth your while.

Google Reader crashing Firefox?

So it seems like I'm not the only one who has this problem. I have Google Reader open all day in one of my firefox tabs, but it's causing firefox to crash all day long, with the very informative "illegal operation" error. Thank goodness for firefox's little "restore your previous open tabs" feature, otherwise I would of moved to another browser by now.

Firefox is on thin ice actually. Apart from the random crashing (which I can deal with), it also seems to eat up system memory like crazy and the newer versions of firefox haven't really resolved this problem, which tons of people seem to be having.

Currently, I have 6 tabs open, Gmail, Blogger CP, Design-feed, Google Reader, a page with google search results and a random html website. Firefox is using 84mb of my precious ram. If I add another site to the list, this time a full on flash site, it jumps to 110mb. Crazy really, but it seems there isn't much you can do about it.

Yes I have tried Opera, but that too has its own flaws, like randomly refreshing the page before its fully loaded and seemingly limiting you to the amount of flash sites open in tabs you can run simultaneously.

I'm hoping the guys at GReader will sort out this crashing issue, they seem to be working on the site all the time which is refreshing to see. If anyone has any temporary fix's for the crashing problem (or the firefox memory leak) I'd love to hear them!

Andy Rutledge on web standards

I must say Andy sums it up really well in this article about web standards and quality. Here's an excerpt:

In spite of the widespread acceptance of Web standards by a specific segment of the design and development community, hosts of professionals – those out there right now creating the Web – are working in direct opposition to these standards. A significant reason for why this is happening and how those not working with Web standards justify their activity boils down, I believe, to something regrettably simple: nomenclature.

Read the rest of this well-written article here

3 top-notch online magazines you should be reading

MAGWERK has 4 superb online magazine's to choose from. In my opinion, Encore and Play Music Magazine are the ones worth reading. Here is some more info on each mag:

Encore:


Inside spread of one of the designers featured in Encore #30

Having just published its 30th issue, Encore magazine is jam packed with various creative related articles and designer showcases. Their main sections are Design, Film, Art and Photography - which basically covers the whole spectrum. All thrown together in a nifty flash interface which includes interactive ads.

I believe this interface will become extremely popular in the coming years as an effective publishing medium. It brings a fresh approach and experience to actually reading the magazine and makes it interesting.

PlayMusicMagazine


Index page - playmusicmagazine

Another magazine by MAGWERK. Covering most music genre's, playmusicmagazine is well written and well designed, providing loads of interactivity. Plenty of music snippets for you to listen to and I've actually found some good bands from reading this magazine. So it's definitely worth a visit.

ROYAL magazine


ROYAL's homepage

The Royal Magazine focuses on design, culture and capitalism. KDU (Keystone Design Union) are the guys behind the publication. KDU, for those out the loop, are a "Global Fraternal Creative Collective dedicated to creating and managing innovative design centric objects, brands and experiences." The publication features an array of creative elements and is an insanely tight product. Available in their online flash viewer or to download as a PDF.

The Helvetica Documentary

So there's lots and lots of talk at the moment with regards to this film. I thought the poster design was brilliant - here it is:

Design-feed.net - A great little site for design blog enthusiasts

I have been using this site for about a month now. It pretty much stays open in my browser all day, and I refresh every now and then. Design-Feed is a RSS aggregator currently aggregating 10443 posts across 264 feeds. It reads all your favourite design blogs and does a pretty good job at it. Although it seems to broken right now, showing me the same front page since yesterday lunch time. I'm hoping to get this site on there soon and contribute to the community.



I actually been thinking of building a site like this for quite a while now, but never got round to any solid work on the thing. Though I am thinking of experimenting with building a RSS aggregator but for different topics, and something a bit simpler in terms of layout. We'll see what happens.

Monocle magazine

I have been trying to find this mag here in South Africa for about two weeks now. I thought my usual book store would sell it but alas, they don't seem to have it. I have been reading good things about Tyler Brule's new magazine Monocle (I myself, have never really got into his previous mag, Wallpaper*). However Monocle has an interesting take on content, ranging from Affairs (no not the juicy kind, just world affairs I think), Business, Culture, Design and Edits.


Image - Monocle.com home page

They will also be pushing their website as they have online-only content featured on the site. It seems they want to keep the magazine separate to the printed copy, which I feel is a good thing, as for someone like me who can't seem to find the printed version yet, I can still visit the site and read some interesting articles. The first online only bit of juice they have posted is a 25 city guide, which you can also download as PDF's.

Something worth reading however, is Dan Hill's (content editor at monocle.com) blog post on the whole monocle scenario.

Here's to me finding a damn copy!

A great resource for corporate logo's

I stumbled upon this site which seems to have a large collection of logo's and the story behind the company/design of the logo. You can also download an EPS file of the logo's which is very handy. Generally a well designed site with lots of nice goodies. Definately worth a visit, in my humble opinion.

This is why Amon Tobin rocks

So if you're a fan of Amon Tobin like I am, you might already know that he is going to be releasing a new album soon. But I wasn't aware of his new site, which seems to be a promo thing to go along with the new album release. The general idea is to explore this "underwater" world and find the 5 different recording samples and obviously do stuff with them. I havn't been able to find them so I can't tell you exactly what goes on.

Here it is!

As if the world needs another design blog.

Yes I know the blogosphere isn't scantly clad with design blogs, but thing is, I am getting tired of just sitting back and reading everyone else's blog and feeling like a minority. Maybe that time has come when you feel you have to "give back to the community", community being the blogging and design world.

The aim here, at the end of the day, is to showcase design related stuff - be it interesting design blogs, articles, an awesome designer chair or other random design goodness. I plan on making my posts fun to read and to reward my readers by taking the time out to read my blog. As we all know, there are just too many blogs copying information, re-writting it and claiming it as their own content.

But hey, at least this aint another CSS showcase site! Be thankful!