Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Happy Holidays!

One more day and we're off work/school for the festive season. If you haven't already checked it out by invitation, here is this year's festive Flash ecard (a new tradition):

card

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Snow

Yesterday on my walk to the Westmount YMCA I saw the tell-tale signs alerting pedestrians and particularly motorists of the city's plan to start removing snow from the streets. After the 40-odd centimetres we received on Friday - necessitating a day off school for Kassie - I considered it a clear indication that the storm and its aftermath had passed. No longer would we need to drag a giggling child over banks of snow, trudge along sidewalks caked with snow, or disembark from a bus straight into a snowbank.

The weekend had reminded me of my own childhood winters and the delight of tobaggoning down mountains of snow, building forts in the backyard, and making angels and snowmen. Today, however, it was with a sick feeling in my stomach that I made the same journey to the Y. Last night a young woman perished, and the 10-year-old brother she rescued seriously injured, when their paths crossed those of a snow removal vehicle. This morning cameramen were out shooting pictures, reporters standing near the entrance to the Y with microphones at the ready, and I prayed no one in my exercise class would speak of last night's tragedy.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Flash, not just a cleaning product

I've finished my Flash training. No, it is not domestic drudgery I refer to (and the popular UK cleaning product) but the powerful web technology that delivers animation and along with it a high level of visual impact. For web designers, however, how effective is a Flash website? Many of us have been turned off in the past by bandwidth-hungry Flash intros, to the extent that now that we have broadband, we still opt to skip the intro. Flash technology presents several problems that conflict with how we use the web. Apart from the long download time, there are accessibility and usability issues to worry about, not to mention search engine problems.

Personally I think the best websites seamlessly make use of Flash, in Flash animations or banners embedded in the (X)HTML document that are lightweight (and therefore do not consume excessive bandwidth), load quickly, and exist only to enhance the appearance of the site. To web designers I say save your Flash-only sites for portfolios, games and for sites intended to mimic the medium advertised. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride promotional site is a perfect example of the latter type: it gives us as close to a movie experience as possible in a web browser. Check it out by following these links: