Back in the dark ages of web design, layouts were lumbering beasts with heavy skeletons of nested tables and spacer GIFs. I have no regrets for designing this way; it was the de facto standard, even detailed in web site reference material. But then we entered a renaissance period: we discovered the elegance, freedom, and flexibility of tableless design using semantic (X)HTML and CSS. (more…)
Wenex Technologies
February 23, 2010
February 12, 2010
CSS3 Might Be the Best Prototyping Tool Ever
While CSS2 and CSS2.1 introduced some ambitious elements, it’s CSS3 that’s becoming a real design powerhouse. I have to give credit to 24Ways and Handcrafted CSS to give me compelling examples of applying CSS3 design to prototyping. (more…)
February 1, 2010
The iPad: Because We Pretty Much Have To
Being a self-proclaimed gadget fanatic with a blog, I pretty much have to sound off on the recently announced iPad, lest I do the internet a disservice.
Apple is very good at repackaging technology and selling it as something new. They didn’t invent the mp3 player, nor did they pioneer the cell phone (or the smart phone, or – and someone correct me if I’m wrong – the touch screen cell phone). But they are quite good at taking a piece of technology coveted by a niche of gadget fans and turning it into something that few consumers can live without. (more…)
January 9, 2010
The CMS Isn’t Part of the Project; The CMS Is the Project
There’s a common trap into which we fall as a company. Well I’m sure there are several, but I’m just talking about the one for the sake of this post. We will put together a project proposal/contract for a client, collecting abstract feedback from them and turning it into concrete deliverables.
Then comes the bait. The client casually offers, “Oh, and I’d like to be able to update some of the pages myself.”
Eager to please, we return with “Sure, not a problem.” Sproing! Just like that, we’re ensnared. (more…)
November 11, 2009
Migration
We originally set the Wenblog up on Wordpress.com, but have since decided to install it on our own host. We’re updating all the site links accordingly.
Out with the old: wenex.wordpress.com
In with the new: wenex.com/wenblog
I am still also working on tidying up the layout for the blog, bringing it closer to a happy marriage between the Wordpress style we had, and the core Wenex layout. But then the best feature of the best sites are their malleability; the capability of the webmaster to make subtle yet powerful adjustments without adversely affecting the overall browsing experience.
Learning the Wordpress platform in general has been a great and rewarding challenge. I probably don’t need to sell a whole lot of people on the application, but would still highly recommend it for blog publishing. And I’m still constantly uncovering new functionality and utility, which only serves to strengthen my attachment to it.
And while I’m working on the blog’s layout and functionality, I just know I’ll be inspired to build on its content!
September 26, 2009
Why don't we talk about Findability?
We’re big fans of A List Apart. They’re on our list of resource links for a reason, after all. We admire the goal of touching on as many aspects of the web as possible. This means that pretty much every issue will have something for us. A feature in particular that I like about the site is “Editor’s Choice”, a selected article from a past issue that is insightful as always, and usually very relevant, no matter how long ago it was originally published. (more…)
June 28, 2009
Bring on Bing!
There’s a good chance that by now you’ve heard of bing, Microsoft’s new search engine. The optimistic will say that it’s a distillation of many existing search engines, honing what works, culling what doesn’t, adding what was missing, and subtracting what was extraneous. The cynical will admonish the Redmond juggernaut for yet again forcing its way into a market of which is just can’t bear not having a significant share. While the negative have precedent to cite (such as Exhibit A and Exhibit B), the positive arguably have some evidence in their favour. bing does have a number of features that could make it a useful little engine, after all. (more…)
March 28, 2009
Code vs. Content: Where to Optimize?
A web design trick I learned very early on in my career is “peeking under the hood”: glancing at another site’s source code to see how they pulled off some visual trick or another. I taught myself a good number of JavaScript techniques that way; granted, this was when the technology was being used solely for mouseover effects, pop-up windows, and the like. Anyway, I’ve come to discover that peering at another site’s source is not so much a trick as it is common design practice. Just as long as you’re not brazenly plagiarizing the source in the process. (more…)
February 16, 2009
Does Your Web Site Do The Job?
Having been in the web design business for a little over 10 years, we’ve had occasion to look at hundreds and hundreds of web sites when doing research for our clients in order to “scope out the competition”, and try to do something just a little bit better and a little bit different. While doing this research, a couple of things quickly become apparent. Sites that appear high in search engine ranking show a lot of forethought, planning and effort in presenting a site that is truly representative of the business. It’s also apparent that a lot of money has been invested in a professionally created site. We’ve also seen the other end of the spectrum where businesses in a effort to “doing things on the cheap” have cobbled together a do-it-yourself site just for the sake of having a presence in the Internet. I won’t ruin anybody’s breakfast with details, but we’ve all seen them, haven’t we? (more…)
August 29, 2008
The Obligatory "Welcome" Post
This is the first true post of the Wenex Blog. So it should be somewhat introductory in nature.
The closest thing we’ve ever done to this is our Knowledge base in prior iterations of wenex.com. Writing articles for it were a lot of fun, but recently, I wanted to do more with it. In particular:
- Create some more “editorial” or off-the-cuff contributions to the Knowledge Base.
- Allow for reader interaction (partly to see if anyone was actually reading some of these articles!)
- Make it easier to search, cross-reference, and just plain find these articles.
And as the tired cliche goes, why reinvent the wheel? This wish list describes a weblog to the letter. So a weblog is clearly the way to go.
So please link us! Add us to your blogroll! We’ll be discussing the web, technology as it pertains to the web, business as it pertains to the web, and life, as it pertains to-well, you get the idea.
Best of all, if you would like to comment, we may take requests for future issues to address, as well as solicit additional contributors. This will be far more organic, more involved, and more dynamic than the Wenex Knowledge Base ever was, making it ever more exciting to work on as well.