Actually, the web isn’t littered with reviews of Microsoft’s follow-up to hideous FrontPage, may it never return. The beta got some decent coverage last year, and now that the final product is out it might be interesting to know what the Microsoft solution to Dreamweaver can do.

For experienced developers who are happiest working in the code, Expression Web doesn’t get in the way. Unlike its predecessor Frontpage it doesn’t try to change your code to suit itself and the excellent rendering engine seems capable of rendering most layouts. As with any visual environment, working out how to create CSS visually takes a little effort, but if you are someone who enjoys working visually it would be worth the time spent as the rendering engine is very faithful to the view in a modern browser.

In other words, the Vitamin review is positive, rating Microsoft Expression Web 3 out of 5. However, it points to some silly problems with the beginner’s guide templates, with broken columns and that actually being the sample in the manual! Weird, how did that get through?

Lee Underwood over at EarthWeb WebReference wrote a review on it as well, however I didn’t tell me anything really, other than the direct link to the trial version of course, which you probably should check out if you’re doing your hacking in a visual editor (like Dreamweaver, FrontPage and so on). Me? Oh, I do it by hand in a text-only editor. That’s what you get when you’ve been doing web pages since 1996… It’s a feature!

Check out the Microsoft Expression Web product page, as well as the download page for the free trial, if you want to know more.

Originally posted on January 23, 2007 @ 4:33 am

BBC is a very new media aware broadcasting company, their exceptional website have proven that over the years. And when the boundaries between TV and internet starts to blur, they announce the BBC 2.0 project, talking about why on demand changes everything.

Blogger Tomski works for BBC, and he shares the 15 guidelines that the BBC 2.0 project have lead to.

1. Build web products that meet audience needs
2. The very best websites do one thing really, really well
3. Do not attempt to do everything yourselves
4. Fall forward, fast
5. Treat the entire web as a creative canvas
6. The web is a conversation. Join in
7. Any website is only as good as its worst page
8. Make sure all your content can be linked to, forever.
9. Remember your granny won’t ever use “Second Life”
10. Maximise routes to content
11. Consistent design and navigation needn’t mean one-size-fits-all
12. Accessibility is not an optional extra
13. Let people paste your content on the walls of their virtual homes
14. Link to discussions on the web, don’t host them
15. Personalisation should be unobtrusive, elegant and transparent

Descriptions and clarifications in the blog post, because 901am believes in #3.

Originally posted on January 23, 2007 @ 4:08 am

I personally want to do some analysis on the end of Performancing.

First off service based industries are a hard niche to go into. Serving the blogosphere is extremely difficult. You have teams of people publishers who at times can be high demand, and your returns are often not very great as a service provider. With that in mind you have to really reach out and calm the storms. Being a huge diplomatic person is the only way you can have success as the service provider.

Being somewhat upfront and out there can really be difficult. Causing controversy can also be a huge issue. Not everyone will like you. Not everyone liked Nick Wilson, but Nick is a smart enough guy who has had successes and will move on to greener pastures with his new projects I’m sure.

I wish all the guys at Performancing luck in the future.

Originally posted on January 23, 2007 @ 4:31 am

With the release of WordPress 2.1 I have some concerns.

The ever blurring lines between the WordPress.org and Automattic community continue to blur as Automattic has taken pretty much full control of the WordPress releases rather than the greater community IMO.

While I’m plenty happy with the release products I’m a bit worried that the Akismet plugin which I use comes fully loaded with every release. Are we relying on one company for our support and basically holding ourselves hostage to the will of Automattic? Now that we’ve started seeing Google, Wikipedia, and others seemingly wielding power against the blogosphere we have to consider our options towards relying more on open source tools and communities and less on companies.

While I’m fully certain Automattic will be on the up and up. I think the blogosphere should start looking out for itself. We should begin work on an open source spam blocking plugin as effective as Akismet.

Source: WordPress Development Community

Originally posted on January 22, 2007 @ 6:38 pm

<truth>
After unsuccessful attempts to monetize their core services, Performancing has finally pulled the plug on their operation.
</truth>

<fiction>
Anticipating this move, 901am editors were standing by before the announcement was made, and we were actually fortunate enough to capture video footage of the event as things unfolded.

Or should I say crumbled.

The screaming guy in the background? That’s Nick Wilson.
</fiction>

Originally posted on January 22, 2007 @ 8:57 pm