I've just spent ten minutes speeding through Flock. Firstly after realising it's Firefox with some major tuning, i didn't need to check for CSS security stuff, because that's all standard from Mozilla stuffy.

Ok, so now down to the tuning. Lovely integration with Flickr, flickr being the app i've fallen in love with recently. I can browse the photos for hours (if I had the time, that is). Blogging is nice and tidy from it (doing it right now). And news feeds, something I miss built into firefox, is extremely well done.

That's as far as I got.

Mos Out

Just Dragged this in too! Nice.

I'm sure this guy is a great designer. I'm sure he and loads of people know that. But this rant about the state of current web design is a bit lacking argument. He just seems to troll the design fads of now without actually suggesting any improvements, the article provides no value.

I like when people critisize my work, but I like it more when they can give me way to improve or at least reasons for not liking it.

As you know, myself and my production company make quirky short clips. These are mostly music videos.

Where the Hell is Matt?

Matt made this. This is amazing. Not just the video, but the effort that went into making it seems unreal. To come from a concept so simple to implementing it over what would seem months / years all for a 3 minute clip is what makes this unique.

Kudos Matt

Since Lucy is such a bitch and not happy with anything. Here is an alternative GAA Website. The reason I did not include in my previous post is because the Déise does not seem to be present. Get your act together Sheepstealers.

There won't be many GAA Pride marches. Although some may say there is one every to every venue of every GAA Match that Takes place. Here is the answer to all your fashion crisese when attending your counties matches, Pride.ie.

The T-Shirts are excellent quality and the really simple designs can be worn on Match day or not.

Wear your county colours, wear them with Pride.*

Shit that's a pretty good slogan, Copyright 2006 Tomás Breen. Please contact me for use.

Mary's Of Sligo
Originally uploaded by mossybreen.

Me and Donna went to sligo last weekend. It was lovely. We stayed in the Radisson (4 Star) just outside the Town. Luxury and it cost nothing*.

Anyway, there are photos on Flickr for your enjoyment. This one is of Marys of Sligo. Marys is like a massive Franchise in Ireland. Bigger than MacDonalds. Seriously. They have one in Dublin, Limerick, Sligo and many more.

Update: *This is an expression. Obviously if it cost nothing, more people would have gone. It was simply very good value for what we were getting, so it was like it cost nothing.

I've always been a true believer of not taking pills for daily help and shit. Like vitamin tablets and stuff.

I think If you take pills your natural defenses will weaken and new viruses will be easily picked up. I always say, "I never get sick". And I don't, except once, in college, I was sick for a few days. You remember blackie, donna! I'm a shitty sick person. That's because I'm not used to it.

Well about the pills and stuff, they've proven it. Sort of. It's on slashdot.

Ok. A Bit Better. Ish.

The header. The header. I don't like it. But I figure if I put it live, you the public will be able to fix it. I'm just on a mental block is all.

I've given the new design a few days to sink in and although it is nice and a refreshing change from the blogger template it was, it's still not "right".

The design is too weak. There is no defining header. The entire page seems to fade into the background. I'm going to change that next week. The header will get a complete redesign to make it more powerful and i'll use the blue and gold in larger elements to enhance the color scheme.

I will add a footer also and try to give more structure to the central content.

Mos Out.

You know, I feel a bit at a loss blogging on a techie nerdy blog like Mossys but I feel slightly better knowing that I am in fact the techie nerd of my workplace....well, my floor...well, the room I work in with 6 other girls.

Today, one of the lovely gals gushed about my technological abilities as I

1. Introduced her to the joy of limewire at work while chanting the words 'highly illegal' just to distance myself from any future problems with the whole illegal downloading at work jazz that is apparently bad.

2. Told her that if she pluged her ipod into my laptop she could take songs from my itunes. In fairness, this is not a stupid girl, it is just a girl that really does not care for all things nerdy/tech-like. The other day she rang our 'i.t guy'cause the cable had unpluged from her keyboard and she didnt know why it wasnt working.

Anyway, can you see why I am the offical tech geek in work?

It is quite nice and I feel special, I even make comments like 'the usability on this database is just terrible' and people nod appreciately secretly not knowing what I am saying.

Everybody now, isn't it nice to know a lot of nerrrrddddsssss.

Whassup movie loving people of this world! We, my click, have just launched a very beta version of our movie production company 3WheeledScooter.

3WheeledScooter? you may be asking. You're probably not actually, but i'll tell you anyway. I had a 3 Wheeled Scooter for a period of time in 2002. Then I tried to move a flower pot (a pretty freakin heavy concrete one) with it and it broke. End Of.

All Scooters aside, the site is launched here.

Mos Out, once again.

Diet coke and Mentos sales increase due to net video. I gotta try this.

I may be! But i'm better than a lot of professionals out there. You know, the ones who will create a really complex design and call it really simple!

The Use of colour....blah blah blah!

Anywho, Paul Scrivens is a guy in the US somewhere who writes a lot about the web. He has set up a huge amount of successful blogs and blog communities. He writes about being your harshest critic.

As stated before. The navigation is important because it must be present, usable but not inhibit the main focus of the site, the articles. And again as I said yesterday, I took the shadow from the title bar and used it effectively in the navigation.

The fonts are slightly smaller in the navigation so as not to steal from the main area and it is a bit duller for the same reason. My main "inspiration" for that navigation is from Kottke.org. He uses a wider navigation to fit more content in without adding to the length of the bar.

From this point there will be small design tweaks. My next focus is on the site title bar, and also a way to put ads in without disturbing the content to much. Currently the site title bar looks like it's sitting there just as an after thought. I plan to fix it into the top of the page so it creates a flow down to the content. I will widen it slightly too, and change the photo.

I plan on having more than myself contribute to this blog also, so my photo will give it too much of a personal feel rather than maybe a resource. That's if my people would get off their arse and write something! You know who you are!

Mos Out.

I'm going through stages of design as I get inspiration and feel something can be improved. First off, I am happy with the post titles. The little comments box was robbed from (many sites i'm sure) asterisk. I wanted to make the title bigger because all the other sites are doing it. But they are all doing it because it works. Big is the new sharp and small. And it makes more sense, people want to read and scan easily so different colours and sizes aid that. All the abstract shit is now out the window and the focus is on the content.

Ok, that's stage one. What's left? The navigation is something that has always haunted me. I always leave a site with an in complete navigation because it's just difficult. It needs to be prominent but not take away from the main content. It also needs to seem complete and fit in with the design. I might use the drop shadows from the Blog header in some way for the navigation.

I'm not entirely happy with Blog Header. It was thrown together but I dont want it to take over the design so I kept it simple. I might go even simpler, as the lines and shadows might inhibit the rest of the design.

Yes, you may be asking this question. I am too. I dont know the answer but I hope to find it shortly. For about 2 years I've had this blogger design.

It's grand but does not make my site unique (although what blog is unique?). So I am doing a redesign, not just any redesign. A LIVE redesign. Some people do it. I am doing it now.

So, mystery solved.

Ireland Factbook. An interesting read even if you know most about it. I have a sick fascination of stats. I like to know how stuff breaks down. I could browse through my Google Analytics pages for hours happily seeing where people are coming from, what they like, and dont like. It's like spying without knowing who you're spying on.

Statistics are used all around us and are the best way to learn for the future. I learn a lot about what web users like and dont like by seeing how they react to sites. We recently launched a jobs site in out company, and our people in here dont realise how stats can help them improve. Actually they do, but not in the short term. You can react to statistics immediatly, but seldom would.

For example. Job X is very popular and is viewed more than other jobs. It is, however, not applied for at all. If you break this down into a process.

1. User searches
2. User sees job title
3. User views job information
4. User leaves

This tells us, they liked the look of the job, but on reading more information about it realised it was not for them, maybe it seemed out of their skill set. Maybe it was not interesting enough.

We can learn from this, and either improve the job title to be more like the jobs actual description or adjust the description to get more applications. Maybe reduce the skills needed, and compromise on a few things. If you can get a few more candidates in the door, you've helped. If they are not suitable, at least you have their CV and can see what else might suit them.