Category: Tech

Google Chrome

So, we all knew it was going to happen at some point, it was just a matter of when.. and I have to say, I’m surprised, it’s just what they promised, clean, simple and FAST!

I’m still tryign to get used to the tabs being at the top, but it makes so much sense, it almost converts your computer into a web-browser but gives simplicity and cleanliness a new meaning! 

I LOVE the concept behind Chrome.. it’s true that browsers need a complete re-think, Firefox started some pretty sweet movements in the browser industry, and Google are just the people to do it, they’ve implimented the great features of Firefox (the awesome bar like address bar), the solid, smooth running  of Google apps and the inginuity of Google itself.

They’ve created a beautiful little app, that admittidly is a beta, and has a long way to go… but they’ve thought long and hard, and done a pretty sweet job… 

I think I’ll stick with Firefox for now, perhaps until a portable version of Chrome comes out, and there are some plugins/addons like firebug etc.

Download Chrome Here

The Recommended Links [Part 2]

The Bathhouse Restaurant

The Bathhouse Restaurant is a fantastic lakeside restaurant, aimed at a fine-dining experience.

The Bathhouse’s old website was ugly to say the least, it was one of those Microsoft Publisher websites with horribly textured buttons, and horrendously poor quality photos.

The brief was; to design a simple and sleek website that was easy to navigate, and could hold plenty of content.

After having some discussions with the Creative Director, we came up with a very simple, dark theme, using 2 fonts that she’d chosen. Unfortunately for me, the fonts she wanted to use aren’t standard web-fonts, which means either flash or images :(.

Due to simplicity and the fact that she is experienced in Photoshop, we went with images, after resizing, resampling, rewording and some redesigning, we managed to put together the site.

Some issues arose when the owner wished to add more pages and we had to recreate the menu to fit in the new links, and merge some pages together, but it went fairly smoothly.

I whipped up a simple contact, reservations and contests system which does the job, and the site is now a dynamic, informative hub for the little round restaurant on the lakeside.

The Bathhouse Restauarant, Queenstown, New Zealand
The Bathhouse Restauarant, Queenstown, New Zealand

The Recommended Links [Part 1]

Parker and Stella

Me, wearing krebits coutesy of Parker and Stella.
Me, wearing krebits coutesy of Parker and Stella.

Parker and Stella, is the t-shirt making, environmentally conscious website of my boss, Cynthia Friedemann.

She found and purchased the design off of a templates site (something I definitely wouldn’t recommend). Purchased designs tend to simply be Photoshop splices, which are both unfriendly, unhelpful and completely messy.

[ad#posts]

Learning

However, being my task to put the site together, I did my best to keep to the original design, while allowing it to be more user/tech-friendly. I had to dabble in a few things that I’ve not really had any experience in. Flash for starters is definitely not my forte, so adjusting the flash file to work with the AJAX content system was certainly an obstacle to say the least.

I also had to integrate a shopping cart system (again, not my favourite part of web-dev), so having to learn from scratch about cubecart, and having it also work with my AJAX system was nothing but a pain. Did I mention that I hate PayPal SandBox?

Final Outcome

So after all the confusion and stress, we finally came up with a website (although slightly compromised from the original idea), that works, and it’s always nice when a product is finished.

So check it out, and purchase some eco-friendly, bamboo, soft as hell shirts and make the world a smilier place.