Just back from a 3 week holiday… one of those trips where I was visiting friends and family in my hometown of Vancouver, BC. I thought this might be the type of holiday where I might have some down time and could catch up on a few things.

Well I didn’t get any work done really, but I did figure out a few things this trip that I will take with me on the next ones where I intend to do a bit of work on the side.

Airports

This is my place to get any work done on the laptop. Lots of space, the occasional plug where you can charge your battery and sometimes even a wifi cafe that serves a beer while you check last minute emails or finish off a bit of work.

Airplanes

Time to shut off and read a good book. I thought my laptop would be great for the plane but in the end it’s just too crazy, cramped and my brain kicks into vegetable mode where it can only be stimulated by crap box office hits like Spiderman 3.

Laptops

The MacBook Pro 17 inch display is awesome for home and at other desks that you might have transported it to in your computer bag.. but have you ever tried to open one up on a plane with the seat in front of you reclined? Hectic. Throw some TED talks on your iPod and forget about it.

Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter

Seriously, what plane actually has this fabled ’seat power port’ that Apple claims will end my worry. I am yet to find a use for this ridiculously overpriced cable from Apple.

We want plugs! - Click on the plugs flash movie… love it.

RSS

I am now a full convert to Google Reader. Offline mode with Google Gears is the best thing when you are traveling and don’t want to spend $10 on wifi for a few minutes. I just have to get used to the shortcuts now.

That’s all I can get out of my jet-lagged brain, sometimes minor details are the things that can make the next overseas trip more pleasant.

SxSW Interactive is still quite a while away but I always find myself getting a bit excited once the new season is upon us, which is usually signified by the redesign of the SxSW website and the first couple of newsletters from Austin hyping up next years plans.

With the new website comes the new version of the panel picker, which was introduced last year to give the public a chance to have their voice and vote on what topics and panels sound interesting and should be voted in to create next years line-up of panels.

The new panel picker is more intuitive and a lot more polished than last year. Lindsey Simon has done a great job and when I get a decent chance to sit down and start reading all of the entries I will get my votes in and throw some of the good ideas up here for discussion.

Standardzilla has proposed a panel this year called Corporate Semantics which is based on an article I wrote for Digital Web a couple of months ago. I think this article is a great starting point on standards in the mainstream and it would make for an interesting panel.

If you like the idea for this panel, feel free to vote or comment on the idea as it would be great to hear feedback and ultimately end up presenting again at SxSW next year. I think you have to sign up first… but it’s a pretty quick process.

If the panel doesn’t make it it, well we still don’t lose out really. Great panels, free booze-ups and the most-hyped geek event of the year… what more could we ask for?

In the last of my series of guest posts on Notes on Design, I discuss relationships that often occur between the designer and the developer at some large organisations where you these might not be the same people all of the time. Head on over and have a read…

This concludes my guest appearance on Notes and Design for a while, so time to get cracking on some of the ideas that have been backing up in the Standardzilla inbox.

I have written one article on Notes on Design covering basic concepts of accessibility for designers. It has been split into two parts for easier digestion.

Accessibility on the Web and Why Your Employer Should Care About Accessibility are both published now so head on over and check them out.

I am currently guest authoring at Notes on Design, a general blog on design, writing, development and business issues in the online industry.

The content tends to be a bit more design focussed than development, so I decided to do a few articles on web development for designers.

The first article has been broken down into to sections, first talking about Developing Websites with Meaning and further explaining how to apply semantic markup to your websites in the second half, What do we mean by semantic HTML?.

This post is to provide some extra resources following my presentation at Open Publish.

Below are some links to some of the examples I discussed during my presentation for further reading on topics that were too complicated to discuss due to the timings of the presentation.

If there are any questions regarding this presentation, please post them below or feel free to contact me and I will do my best to answer them.

Information on Accessibility for the Web

Introduction to Screen readers and screen magnifiers

Two perspectives on accessibility

Tesco Access - Case Study

Tesco Access

Tesco.com shames rivals on accessibility – and legal services

Tesco launches visionary website

Alternative Content for Flash

Unobtrusive Flash Objects (UFO) v3.20 - javascript detection of the Flash version being used and serves up alternate content.

SWFObject: Javascript Flash Player detection and embed script - works almost identical to UFO above.

sIFR 2.0: Rich Accessible Typography for the Masses - replace snippets of text with Flash fonts for more design freedom

Websites highlighted in the presentation

Jakob Nielsen on Usability

Tokyo Plastic - fantastic Flash animation

Revish - Book Reviews

Primal Scream - Band website

The Show with Ze Frank - Video and Transcription examples

… I will add more links and details as I get the time.