October « 2010 « Will Goldstone

October, 2010

Design / General — 3 Comments
5
Oct 10

A Quick Guide for New Web Devs

As the web and its technologies are a constantly evolving mish-mash of standards, languages and trends, it can often be difficult when you are just getting started to know what to invest your time in. Often it will seem like an up and coming technology should be your main focus as many pundits may be calling it the ‘next big thing’ that you’re a ‘fool not to invest in’ but a lot of the time, this thinking falls flat. So where should you start? Well if you’re starting out as a web developer, its crucial that first off you get an overview of the important stuff.

Fact 1. HTML is the language of the web and the current working draft of it, version 5.0 is what most developers are getting excited about at present (more on this later)

Fact 2. Flash as a technology is unlikely to go anywhere any time soon, so is definitely worth knowing but not an essential part of web development.

Fact 3. Mobile devices are the biggest thing to change the way web designers think in years – finally forcing lazier developers to consider accesibility issues, so it is important that once you are up to speed with web design that you look into how your content works on a mobile phone, PDA or tablet device.

Fact 4. Whilst HTML5 and CSS3 (the latest standards) provide useful tools in terms of animation, transition and other dynamic elements to otherwise static pages, most developers working today either in agencies or a freelancers will use a form of javascript to enhance page functionality – either Javascript itself or a ‘Library’ product that allows for more simple commands and pre-written behaviours. Examples of this are jQuery or MooTools.

Getting Started

The first thing any new developer needs to get to grips with, is HTML – Hypertext Markup Language. You’re looking at HTML right now, and all web pages are rendering in (by?) it – whether they are simple static pages, to vast dynamic social networks, the end result is always HTML. Understanding how a page is structured, and how HTML tags effect content is really important and acts as a foundation for future development. The visual side of HTML is CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) – a complete language not only for styling, but now in the current edition of CSS (3.0) also behaviour creation also, and by behaviour we mean the way in which content reacts to interaction and also to other content.

The latest editions / combination of CSS3 and HTML5 are really important as some of the things they provide a developer with in simple terms have needed to be done with javascript in the past, or have had to be written in what developers call a ‘workaround’, creating code that does the job but does not make sense semantically.

In the next few weeks I’ll be creating some new video tutorials to replace my old somewhat outdated video tutes I’ve had online in the past (you can still see these at willgoldstone.com/learn but they will be replaced). In these I will cover the basics of what I have discussed here but until that time I suggest that you take a look at some of the following links to help you get started in your career as a developer of online joy!

W3 Schools
The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is the body that sets out standards for HTML and also provides a basic school of tutorial information that you can use to get started.
http://www.w3schools.com/

Dive Into HTML5
This site is a fantastic and almost too detailed historical overview plus presentation of new features of HTML5
http://diveintohtml5.org/

Smashing Magazine
An excellent digest of what is happening in web development, plus tutorials, free usable content for your sites and more
http://www.smashingmagazine.com

960 Grid System
When designing pages for the desktop browser, you’ll need to consider grids in order to give you consistent designs, the 960 grid system is one of the most popular practices out there
http://960.gs/

Envato Network – PSDTuts and NetTuts
The Envato network is a network of tutorial websites that offer all kinds of cool stuff, mostly for free and always very well presented. I highly recommend taking a look through PSDTuts and NetTuts when starting out, and trying a few of their tutorials on for size.
http://psd.tutsplus.com/
http://net.tutsplus.com/

Web Designer Wall
This fantastic site by Nick La is a source of immense inspiration, not only is it nicely designed but also offers lots of well written tutorials and has a good community of readers attached also
http://www.webdesignerwall.com/

A List Apart Survey
A List Apart is a fantastic blog about everything going on in the technical side of web development, and each year they do a massive survey of web designers to get a sense of everything that is going on in the development community.
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/findings-from-the-web-design-survey-2009/

Moluv
A nice blog of inspirational web design
http://www.moluv.com/

More will be added as I have time!

Music — No Comments
3
Oct 10

This is a blog post about a band called Adebisi Shank

Excuse the unusual post title, but this is something I’ve excitedly meant to write a blog post about for a couple of weeks now since discovering this fantastic band Adebisi Shank, via a mix of rock-sound.tv and Spotify wanderings. Imagine a fantastic blend of Battles, Chrome Hoof, The Advantage and.. well I struggle at this point because I can’t think of more references that adequately describe this Irish Punk/Electro/Rock band ‘Adebisi Shank’.

Its something that I always look out for in a band and Adebisi Shank have it in droves – Riffs. Yeah I capitalised in there because its missing from so much modern rock, and why many rock fans return to classic rock for kicks. Just take a spin of Machine Head by Deep Purple and there it is, a wall of fantastic, driving, groove laden (fuck I sound like Tommy Vance now) riffs that stick in your head, and that’s just one part of what I loved about the latest album from these guys – their second not including an EP in case you wondered.

Called unassumingly ‘This is the second album by a band called Adebisi Shank’ – I enjoyed the subtle sense of humour these guys have and immediately sought out the first and second full length offerings upon hearing them on Spotify (Adebisi Shank) and you should too – hey you could even do it as you read me ramble on? great idea right? sweet.

Anyway as I was saying what you’ll hear is a great progression from a punk band with fantastic instrumental structures that equals far more than the sum of its math-rock parts to a band that has evolved into electro territory with more programming, effects and challenging (for you! listener!) parts in the second album – this is another example of a band that works hard and is out there creating music neither you nor they have heard before – and there’s far too much of that effort bereft dullard shit going on in the world – for more information, wiki ‘Scouting for Girls’. Then realise you’ve let yourself down by even typing that in.

</rant>

Adebisi Shank on BandCamp.com – http://adebisishank.bandcamp.com/

Gaming / General — 1 Comment
1
Oct 10

Unity 3.0 Released & My Previews

As some of you on Twitter & Vimeo may have seen, I’ve been working on a few promotional videos with Unity Technologies for the recently released Unity Game Engine version 3. Below you can watch some of the preview videos I created for UT, or to watch all of the previews, head on over to vimeo.com/unity3d.

Asset Management

Audio Features

Cloth Physics

Deferred Rendering

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go check it out but in a nutshell, its an amazing Game Development package thats simple to use, free, and I spend a lot of time teaching people how to get to grips with it via my book and sites learnunity3d.com and unity3dstudent.com.

General — 24 Comments
1
Oct 10

Unity Game Development Essentials II: The Revenge

Okay so that may not turn out to be the ACTUAL title of the second edition of my book but it damn well should be. In all seriousness, its that time again – i’m currently reworking the existing content of Unity Game Development Essentials, to create a second edition of the book, again with Packt Publishing, in order to build on the existing teaching in the original book, the idea being to add a bunch of new content, and also update for the new features available in Unity 3.0, just released this week.

I’m not sure schedule wise when you should expect to see this new version as contracts are still being worked on by the guys and girls at Packt, but I’m hoping to have the book ready for the end of the year or sometime early 2011. This not only allows time for new features to prove prominent in Unity 3, and therefore worth mentioning, and also gives me time to write, live! and also make sure i’ve spoken enough to members of the community on what should be included in this new edition of the book.

The first book has been very well received and I’m always overwhelmed to hear from everyone out there who has a copy and enjoyed it, so I guess this is as good an oppurtunity as any to say thank you to everyone who has kickstarted their Unity development with my book, its an honour, thanks

Keep watching for more info on what I’m codenaming UGDE2:TR. For no real reason other than I like the Jaws films. (and yes I know 2 was ‘The Revenge’ before anyone comments..

Design — No Comments
1
Oct 10

Font Squirrel Free Commercial Type

Was passed this awesome site by Mark Shufflebottom and Matt Northam – its a great list of fonts you can use now with the new CSS fontface system, or using kits. I have used just such system to get the ‘Chunkfive’ font you see on this somewhat redesigned blog, its a great way to transform your pages with legitimate real TTF or OTF fonts, best of all Font Squirrel only features fonts that are free for commerical use too, so not too much messing around license wise if you’re working on a freelance or other commercial project.

http://www.fontsquirrel.com/

Gaming — No Comments
1
Oct 10

The Violent Reality of Old School Gaming

So its about time I actually wrote something on my own blog again, its been forever, and I mostly just post things I find on twitter, but I thought I’d crack out some new stuff ‘real’ blog wise too, so here’s something poppa Hendo sent me, a nice series on IGN of the violent reality of old school games. There’s only 3 on there right now but they promise to do more, anyway, made me chuckle, take a look!