Firstly, I’ve decided that next time I’m forced to skip the country for a few months, I’m taking my Mac. I’ve just booted up, and totally forgotten what my Blog posting software was called!I have to say, aside from the 9 hour flight and inevitable jetlag, the past few days have been brilliant. I am of course talking about dConstruct! Its nice to have a ‘Web Geek’ conference within walking distance of your house.As I have come to expect, the speakers were great - really inspirational and knowledgeable. I only wished that some of my business partners had been there for Jeff Veen’s excellent session on User Experience. Also really enjoyed the presentation from the Yahoo Guys, Simon and Paul - you have me wanting to run a Hack Day at work (or if you read Computer Shopper, apparently ‘Hack Amex Day’ may be a more apt name!). Another great presentation from Jeremy Keith - sorry for mistaking you for Andy Budd at the pre-conference party!Controversially, I really enjoyed Derek Fetherstone’s session on Accessibility. All too often you get people who run through the WCAG guidelines and convince you that if you follow them, then you have nothing to worry about. Derek did an excellent job at highlighting the real issues which, as a developer, you may not even be aware of. Great Job!Unfortunately I had to miss the MicroFormats picnic, which is a shame - I was quite looking forward to it and I think MicroFormats are going to follow in the footsteps of RSS and become the next big thing for making content accessible to non-browser applications. I think I’m going to head to the London Microformats vEvent at the end of the month to learn more….Of course the speakers weren’t the only people who made the conference what it was - it was great to meet the other attendees and put faces to the blogs which I frequent! In particular:
- Andy Mitchell (I already knew your face, but good to see you!)
- Dave Child (I love those cheatsheets!)
- James McCarthy (I saw more than your face…. always a pleasure)
- Stuart Gray
- Tom Anthony
- William Lawrence
- Paul Silver
All in all, I think I’m feeling more inspired (I’m tinkering with XCode now, working out how to go about making a Microformats plugin for Safari! plus also have a new article for the site which should appear in a few days… on resourcing/collaboration) and more…. community spirited? I’m quite interested in going to more of these conference and smaller events like Pub Standards. I wonder if there are any speaking opportunities for Financial Services geeks 
Firstly, I’ve decided that next time I’m forced to skip the country for a few months, I’m taking my Mac. I’ve just booted up, and totally forgotten what my Blog posting software was called!I have to say, aside from the 9 hour flight and inevitable jetlag, the past few days have been brilliant. I am of course talking about dConstruct! Its nice to have a ‘Web Geek’ conference within walking distance of your house.As I have come to expect, the speakers were great - really inspirational and knowledgeable. I only wished that some of my business partners had been there for Jeff Veen’s excellent session on User Experience. Also really enjoyed the presentation from the Yahoo Guys, Simon and Paul - you have me wanting to run a Hack Day at work (or if you read Computer Shopper, apparently ‘Hack Amex Day’ may be a more apt name!). Another great presentation from Jeremy Keith - sorry for mistaking you for Andy Budd at the pre-conference party!Controversially, I really enjoyed Derek Fetherstone’s session on Accessibility. All too often you get people who run through the WCAG guidelines and convince you that if you follow them, then you have nothing to worry about. Derek did an excellent job at highlighting the real issues which, as a developer, you may not even be aware of. Great Job!Unfortunately I had to miss the MicroFormats picnic, which is a shame - I was quite looking forward to it and I think MicroFormats are going to follow in the footsteps of RSS and become the next big thing for making content accessible to non-browser applications. I think I’m going to head to the London Microformats vEvent at the end of the month to learn more….Of course the speakers weren’t the only people who made the conference what it was - it was great to meet the other attendees and put faces to the blogs which I frequent! In particular:
- Andy Mitchell (I already knew your face, but good to see you!)
- Dave Child (I love those cheatsheets!)
- James McCarthy (I saw more than your face…. always a pleasure)
- Stuart Gray
- Tom Anthony
- William Lawrence
- Paul Silver
All in all, I think I’m feeling more inspired (I’m tinkering with XCode now, working out how to go about making a Microformats plugin for Safari! plus also have a new article for the site which should appear in a few days… on resourcing/collaboration) and more…. community spirited? I’m quite interested in going to more of these conference and smaller events like Pub Standards. I wonder if there are any speaking opportunities for Financial Services geeks
Tags: dconstruct06