Austin Debrief

~ 16 March 2006 ~

Thoughts before, during, or following SXSW 2006…

No, I’m actually not a comic book geek. Perhaps I should be. But the Vibranium shield bit comes from “How to Be a Web Design Superhero”, in which the Andys nickname me “Captain America”. They must have succumbed to my name-dropping, mind-twisting superpowers.
Andy Budd and Andy Clarke put together some gorgeous slides. Best I saw at SXSW. You can view them using the Superhero preso link above. Be sure to check out Clarke Kent’s write-up, too.
The Craigslist makeover couldn’t have gone better. As we expected, some die-hard CL lovers were shocked that we suggested changing anything at all. We were hesitant to do so, but it’s incredible to see what a little whitespace, color, and repositioning can do — all within 2 KB of the original page size. Ryan’s write-up is a good recap.
What a ride being up there with Dave Shea, Kelly Goto, and Brian Fling for “Demystifying the Mobile Web”. Surprisingly, we had nearly a full room despite being up against the Kottke/Armstrong keynote. Brian really did a fantastic job as moderator, and Kelly waxed eloquently on many things mobile.
Relive a few of the SXSW panels as podcasts — Coudal/Fried, Newmark, and others.
In case you missed it, Ryan did a Craigslist listing page, complete with functioning sparklines (Andrei’s doing) and mouseover descriptions (first listing only).
Ooo, hot! Tristan Dunn converted the Craigslist redesign to a Greasemonkey script.
If all CEOs were as hip, tech savvy, and ethically responsible as Mike Davidson the world would be a better place.
Greg Storey is a veritable blast to hang out with. His witty one-liners had me rolling on the spot. It’s like Airbag in person.
Chris Mills, editor for CSS Mastery, flew in from Manchester just to tell me the first print run sold out in 6 days (!!). Superb work, Andy. (Okay, so Chris came for SXSW and not for me, and a second run is in the process of printing.)
Speaking of the book, I had one reader email saying the min/max JavaScript expression I use in my case study site freezes IE 6. I thought it was an isolated case until a second reader emailed with a similar report. If you’re experiencing the same, please let me know.
Post’s Banana Nut Crunch is undeniably tasty. Same issue with the cereal bag, though.
April’s issue of Modern Drummer is chock full of riffs and solos. Scads of cool hardware, too: Snake-like Serpent Cymbal with both gong- and ping-like characteristics, Trash Kat 20” floor tom crafted from an actual trash can shell, and Moongel damper pads.
Um, smile next time, Cameron.
Breaking up the band. Need to kick out the guitarist who knows only three chords? Here’s how.
CMT’s gorgeous station IDs in QuickTime format.
I missed the ColorBurn contest, but the winning entries are hot.
The ExpressionEngine contest results are in. Congrats to all who entered. As an aside, all three of my top picks happened to be women or women-centered sites — very cool.
4 new worn typefaces by Device.
There were too many folks I didn’t have a chance to hang with at SXSW. Everything seemed like a blur, jumping from one panel to meal to panel prep to party to bed. I needed like another week to chat with everyone.
I can’t pen a SXSW recap without a big thank-you to Suzanne, who reluctantly stayed home this year with the boys. I know it sounds trite, but she’s by far the one with superhero strength, watching all four boys for nearly five days.

Until next year.

16 Comments

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1 P.J. Onori ~ 16 March 2006 at 02:09 PM

Wow, a plethora of great articles and links. This will keep me busy. ;)

2 Travis Schmeisser ~ 16 March 2006 at 02:17 PM

Great work on the Design Eye panel!

Wish I could have caught you out to say hi, but maybe next year. Unfortunately, I missed the Demystifying the Mobile Web session, so I’m hoping there’s a podcast of it soon. Do you know if anyone has slides up from it?

3 Scott ~ 16 March 2006 at 02:18 PM

Sounds like a good time all around, which I suppose isn’t too surprising. I’m a bit sad I wasn’t able to get down for SXSW this year… especially since I have to go down to Austin in a week or so for business… Could have killed two birds with one stone…

4 Cameron Moll ~ 16 March 2006 at 02:27 PM

Travis - Not sure if there will be a podcast or not. There weren’t really any slides used for the discussion, aside from a few Kelly has. Most of it was general talk about mobile web basics. I’m sure between the four of us, one of us is bound to publish something on the topic soon.

5 Wilson Miner ~ 16 March 2006 at 03:34 PM

Not surprising that we all hit your panel instead of the Kottke/Dooce show. To quote Jeff, “if I want to hear those guys talk about themselves, I’ll just read their blogs”.

6 Ian Adams ~ 16 March 2006 at 05:58 PM

Man, I love those Craigslist redesigns. How did that come about? Was there specifically a panel about redesigning Craigslist, or did people just spontaneously get the idea in their head to do it?

7 Chris Kavinsky ~ 17 March 2006 at 08:01 AM

Sorry I missed the Design Eye panel (was wasting time in the Dallas airport). Glad to meet you in person as well, although it was very brief.

8 Mike ~ 17 March 2006 at 09:37 AM

I’m a big fan of the Design Eye guys — can’t wait until next year. I hope to get the chance to meet you next time. Thanks for some great links.

9 Keri Henare ~ 19 March 2006 at 12:26 AM

I’m not a very big comic geek (infact comics arent anywhere near as popular in NZ as they are in USA) but isn’t Captain America’s shield made of Adamantium?

10 Blake ~ 19 March 2006 at 12:58 AM

Overall, I loved the Craiglist realign. However, what was with the tables, and paragraph tags, used to markup the Discussion Forums list?

It is clearly an unordered list—no offence to whomever coded it, but that sort of markup belongs in the dark ages.

11 Cameron Moll ~ 20 March 2006 at 09:20 AM

Keri - More on that here: Marvel Directory

12 Cliftonite ~ 20 March 2006 at 01:36 PM

Good gravy, as if I didn’t have enough distractions for the day… thanks for the links!

I plan to write a review about CSS Mastery, but I’m having a hard time finding anything wrong with it. That’s whatcha’ get when you review the work of a perfectionist (Andy Budd).

Writing this comment reminds me of something.

Keep up the good work!

13 Keri Henare ~ 21 March 2006 at 01:55 AM

Ah so the sheild is neither Vibranium nor Adamantium but instead an Iron-Vibranium alloy similar to Adamantium with the added properties of Vibranium.

I’m heading to America in June so I might get a chance to catch up on some comics when I’m there.

14 Richard Rutter ~ 22 March 2006 at 04:20 AM

Great to meet you again Cameron, although SxSW was stuffed so full of people (friends old and new) that unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to talk. Maybe next year (with another Design Eye I hope!)

15 Richard ~ 05 April 2006 at 02:17 PM

I had the same problem with the Tuscany page, resizing it down would freeze and eventually crash IE 6.

16 Cameron Moll ~ 06 April 2006 at 10:10 AM

Working on a solution, Richard. It’s been noted by others, too…