Wow, it’s been a while since I wrote something here. Today I went to a show at the ROM with Poppy and Alisa, called House Paint. An awesome show of urban art based on tent city. A place I used to drive by weekly on my way to Cherry beach for a walk with the dog. We didn’t stay long as Poppy could hear the calling of the dinosaurs two floors below us.
Last week I launched the 2008/2009 version of Matjash’s website. We changed every photograph and added a bunch of new galleries and revised the text to reflect what he has been upto over the last year. Go have a look and check out his latest work.
Not many posts over the summer.. I have been busy with a few site updates and a lot of work for ConnectABILITY. We have been working at launching regional pages and adding some youth content to the site. As well as re-engineering the site access so that everyone and anyone can access the information without a password. Now you will only be prompted for a password on the private and personal areas to the site. A much needed change, but as usual it has taken a little longer than planned. Testing is nearly finished so you will soon be able to see all of our hard work.
Poppy, Alisa and I took the bikes over to Toronto Island last weekend for Fathers Day. We had great time, Poppy loved the bike seat. She was so tired on the way home she had a short nap while I was riding. I wish we got a photo of that, she was very cute. Here is a link to Poppy’s Flickr site where you will find some great snap shots of the day.
Out from Under: Disability, History and Things to Remember
A really great exhibition of historical objects of disabled people living in Canada. Wonderfully curated and presented in neat portable looking presentation cases. Hopefully this means the show will travel to other public places across the province/country. It really shows how our thinking has changed over the years.
Alisa and I have been working on creating a site to showcase her beading work for children. This is something she started just after Poppy was born and it has been growing steadily for nearly a year now. There are only a couple of pages now but we hope to add to it as her business grows. Have a look and send her an email if you would like to find out how you can get one of her cool hand made beaded accessories.
We received some very positive feedback this week on ConnectABILITY. It’s amazing how motivating it is to hear feedback from your audience. I encourage all of you to add a comment to a blog or a site you like. Lets make an effort to tell the designers, developers and producers that you like what they are doing.
We made a family trip to the ROM this weekend. Poppy had a great time dressing up in the clothes they had in the kids area. It seems that every time we go she discovers something new. It’s simply amazing to watch how quickly she picks things up. I look forward to going back soon to check out the show on disabilities…
I had a call from a friend asking if I could help a work colleague of his, they had a flash website that was taking forever to load. Not a job I would usually jump at but since April was looking pretty slim I took it anyway. After a little back and forth I convinced the client that to do it properly I would have to recode the entire site and therefore charge again for what he had already paid for. We decided to try and tweek his existing design and add a preloader to help alleviate the wait time. After that was done the client still wasn’t happy although the preloader worked it was still 10 seconds before the the first photo showed up. This was due in part to a slow hosting co. In the end we moved to a prebuilt Flash engine called “Fluid Galleries” something one of his friends had used. In short it was a cheaper solution, but as usual there were a few awkward issues that we had to get over. The site is still not fast but that has to do with the hosting co.
Laurie Coulter has written a post in the Annick Press blog (Tea Time at Annick Press) about her experience in creating her new website with me.
