Wordpress 2.6 upgrade - small downtime, but Whatwasithinking is back!

Posted by Alexander Rehm on July 17th, 2008

Uprading WhatwasIthinking.co.uk to version 2.6We apologise for the 15 minute downtime last night, we have just ugraded Wordpress to version 2.6 and the Automatic Upgrade plugin died on us due to a read-write permission error (I think!). But we are back now, happy days! :D

I am still working on getting my Yahoo-map-based travelblog prototype online, the Flash image-uploader is working fine, but there is an error once you have a number of users trying to connect / upload at the same time. Stay tuned for updates!

On Flash - map integration with Yahoo Maps + ActionScript (part 2)

Posted by Alexander Rehm on July 9th, 2008

On Flash - map integration with Yahoo Maps and ActionScript (part2)If you followed my entry about Map integration with Yahoo Maps and ActionScript you will probably be wondering what I have to report about the progress. As you may remember, this mash-up is about offering a client a new spin on travel bogging: being able to log in to the client’s website from anywhere in the world and give other users (and family and friends) the opportunity to see where you are going and what you are doing there.

Last time I wrote about this Yahoo / Flash mashup I connected the Yahoo map’s API through Flash and PHP to a MySQL database and was able to write / read from the entries. My next goals were to integrate a user-login, adding links, implementing moderation and a Flash image uploader script.

On web development - How to install FireFox 2 next to FireFox 3

Posted by Alexander Rehm on June 26th, 2008

Installing FireFox 2 alongside FireFox 3 - Whatwasithinking.co.ukWith the arrival of FireFox 3 (and its record-breaking amount of downloads in its first 24h) more and more of us web architects and web developers are getting rid of their beloved FireFox 2 installation and are moving all their bookmarks, themes and extensions to version 3 of the popular browser. And rightfully so, version 3 is faster, much more stable and its updated Gecko engine is displaying your website creations in the best possible way… or is it?

I came across a couple of odd bits when developing a website - it seems like Firefox 3 is displaying a floated element’s width of 100% correctly, whereas FF2 would not fully acknoledge the width unless the element was previously set to “clear: both;” (or something along those lines, unfortunately I am still relatively new to the CSS cut-up world.

So we decided to install FireFox 2 again on the design-machines next to an existing FireFox 3 installation without causing any issues with the extensions or other settings between the browsers. I got it to work pretty much instantly on the first go, but since colleagues and friends were asking about how to get FireFox 2 to work with FireFox 3, here is a quick step-by-step guide after the break.

On Flash - Flash Player 10, Features & Rich Media Information

Posted by Alexander Rehm on May 20th, 2008

On Flash - Flash Player 10, Features & Rich media informationAdobe Labs has just released the beta of its Flash Player 10, code name “Astro”., and its time for us flash-developers to get stuck right in! Flash Player 10 introduces a number of new features and technical improvements to the exhaustive list of features and abilities of Flash 9, among them improved 3D effects and a enhanced drawing API.

For the full list of features please continue reading below the break…

On Flash - map integration with Yahoo Maps + ActionScript 2.0

Posted by Alexander Rehm on May 5th, 2008

On Flash - map integration with Yahoo Maps + ActionScript 2.0In my job it isn’t always about a swish flash interface, a cool looking site or animation these days - it is about integration, about offering functionality that jumps out from the rest of the competition. The magic word is integration. A client of ours approached us about adding a special sort of travel-blog.

What we would like is some sort of members-only application that allows our users to track their journeys with us and to maybe blog about them, but it should look swish and very easy to use. We would like a similar functionality for our travel guides who would then post information about the tours.

The idea of a blog is a great tool for customer retention, if done right it allows users to post comments about their journeys, maybe with images to keep a log of what they are doing while on that trip. It would allow visitors to see what is going on on a journey with <Company Name> and what you can do or what the user(s) saw and took part in. Obviously, I wanted to offer a little bit more than just a blog. My idea was to work on a map-blog…

Previous Articles

On Air - Specifying an interactive gallery application

Posted by Alexander Rehm on April 22nd, 2008

On Information Architecture and user-testing - Part 2

Posted by Alexander Rehm on April 12th, 2008

Designing for the mobile web

Posted by Alexander Rehm on April 1st, 2008

Welcome to WhatwasIthinking.co.uk

...my Flash Development, Information Architecture & Web Design Blog. Here you will find best practice suggestions, case studies and code snippets about anything related to Web 2.0, mashups and usability and accessibility testing. And rants.