Webstock Mini, December 2006

Russ Weakley

CSS Workshop

Russ Weakley is a standards-based web designer, developer and trainer from Max Design who has worked in the web industry for 10 years.

Russ co-chairs the Web Standards Group and co-founded Web Essentials. Russ has also produced a series of widely acclaimed CSS-based tutorials including Listamatic, Listamatic2, Listutorial, Floatutorial, Selectutorial. He recently wrote his first book, "Teach Yourself CSS in 10 Minutes".

What the workshop involved

• An outline of decisions you should make before starting a CSS layout including levels of browser support, deciding on semantic containers and naming conventions, how images will be used and more.
• How to structure your CSS files so that they are more efficient, easier to modify and maintain.
• Overcoming layout issues including frustrating float problems, dropping columns and some of the common Internet Explorer bugs.
• How to create resolution dependant layouts - layouts that will rescale depending on the browser window size.
• How to create a liquid 3 column layout with full length colour in eachcolumn - regardless of content length.
• How to style accessible, semantic forms.
• How to create individual templates with descendant selectors.
• A clearly explained flexible and maintainable system that allows you to hide and show CSS rules to various browsers without the need for extensive hacks or workarounds.

Who it was for

• Web Designers and developers who have a basic, intermediate understanding of CSS and want to learn more about building CSS-based layouts.
• Web Designers and developers who have a high level of understanding of CSS and want to refine their skills.

Natasha Hall - Trade Me

Usability - Trade Me style

With over 2.5 million unique visitors each month, Trade Me has a large number of users to cater for. Natasha Hall spends her days conducting usability sessions with wide range of Trade Me users, identifying common problems and behavioural oddities. She will share some of what she's learnt along the way.

Natasha has had her hand in the web pie for over 6 years: a dollop of design + development, a handful of content editing and usability and accessibility analysis, and a pinch of training and project management thrown in.

She loves film, soup, her boston terrier Charlie Bird and bloody marys.

Russell Brown - Hard News

Travels in America

Russell told us about his recent experiences in the USA, visiting Google, IBM and attending foo camp among other things.

Described as a web entrepreneur and a mediaphile, Russell Brown is the mastermind of PublicAddress and the voice of HardNews. He's a blogger, a journalist, an "internet specialist", a columnist for the Listener and several other publications, and an authoritative media commentator.

Nat Torkington - O'Reilly Media

Seven Threads in Web 2.0

How does Amazon know that their site is as sticky as it can be? How does Microsoft think about its data centers? What are the real lessons of Ruby on Rails? What do startup Meebo and open source heavyweight Ubuntu have in common? Nat answered those questions and in just one hour outlined seven specific strategies, techniques, and tools behind the success of the latest startups and industry leaders.

Nat Torkington has chaired ten years of Perl Conferences and O'Reilly Open Source Conventions, is co-author of the bestselling Perl Cookbook, and blogs on the O'Reilly Radar where, with Tim O'Reilly, he identifies and tracks technology trends.