Simon Oliver blog

One of the not so pleasant areas of social media is the affect its having on children.

Children being children tend to say stupid things with no comprehension of the consequences. That’s a given. The problem is that when children say stupid things on Facebook the words stay there for all to see. Its getting some children into trouble with their peers and stories of bullying on Facebook crossing over to physical abuse are common.

Do children really have the communication skills to express themselves properly on this medium? Doesn’t it just increase the likely hood of being misunderstood to a larger amount of people with an increased amount of social pressure on the individual?

Facebook allows children to sign up from the age of 13. Of course its easy for anyone or any age to sign up as long as they can type.

Facebook can’t police all its members for their age but they could do more to look after the next generation of their users.

There have been no prosecutions for breaching the laws below. This is partly because (apparently) the department in charge of up holding these laws is running on a very small budget.  This is not to say they will not be taken more seriously in the future.

The web accessibility and disability discrimination act differs in that anyone can make a complaint. Again there have been no successful prosecutions. The Royal National Institute for the Blind has forced two large corporations to make accessibility changes as an out of court settlement.

Company information

Your are required to display the information

Place of registration

Registration number

Registered office address

Sole traders must display their name

Partnerships must display both names and both addresses

If the business is being wound up

Web Accessibility and the Disability Discrimination Act, Priority 1

In general

Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element with an ALT tag

Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.

Clearly identify changes in the natural language of a document’s text and any text equivalents (e.g., captions).

Organize documents so they may be read without style sheets.

Ensure that equivalents for dynamic content are updated when the dynamic content changes.

Until user agents allow users to control flickering, avoid causing the screen to flicker.

Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site’s content.

If you use tables

For data tables, identify row and column headers.

For data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers, use markup to associate data cells and header cells.

If you use applets and scripts

Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page.

If you use multimedia

Until user agents can automatically read aloud the text equivalent of a visual track, provide an auditory description of the important information of the visual track of a multimedia presentation.

For any time-based multimedia presentation (e.g., a movie or animation), synchronize equivalent alternatives (e.g., captions or auditory descriptions of the visual track) with the presentation.

The data protection act

If your website collects users data, even a simple enquiry form asking for Name, Email and Phone Number, you should include a Privacy Policy that informs website visitors how you retain and process their data.

E-commerce sites

Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations

The following information must be shown on your website, and this is commonly done via pages such as Terms & Conditions, Delivery Details, Returns Policy etc.

Identity of the supplier and address whereby payment is upfront

A description of the service

The contract price inclusive of taxes

Delivery Cost (if applicable)

Payment and delivery arrangement

Notification of the right of cancellation

The cost of the means of communication by which the contract is to be concluded (e.g. premium rate phone numbers)

The period for which the terms are available

Minimum duration of the contract, where it is not of one-off performance

Electronic Commerce Regulations

The EU Ecommerce Directive is a policy for online service providers to ensure that customers can easily and quickly contact their service provider.

You should display the name of your business.

We recommend you display your company registration number or proprietor’s name (as you would in a letter).

You should show your geographic address (street number etc, not just a PO box).

You should show your contact information such as phone number and email address.

You should show your VAT number if you are VAT registered.

Refer to trade or professional recognition schemes, with registration number, if applicable.

Provide clear information on price, tax and delivery.

Show clear Terms and Conditions and acknowledge orders.

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

Using a third party shopping cart like PayPal or WorldPaywill save you having to worry about any of the points below.

Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect data

Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for passwords or other security parameters

Protect stored data

Encrypt the transmission of cardholder data and sensitive information

Use and regularly update anti-virus software

Develop and maintain securer systems and applications

I’m not trying to advertise Google just highlighting a really bad advert. Getting people to switch to a new browser is notoriously hard. There are still people and companies using Internet Explorer 6. Microsoft is even enlisting outside help to get these dinosaurs to upgrade.

Does this advert motivate me to try it out. Nope. With its lazy tagline, A fast, new browser for Mac and weird plastic eye thing on the right, it puts me off completely. These adverts are everywhere and the more I see them the more I’m tiring of Google.

I can remember when Google came out. For the first time you didn’t have to wade through porn sites to find what you were looking for.

Suddenly there was order in the web and we were all very very grateful. Out of that gratitude Google got lot of loyalty and maybe its still feeding of it. Google was a brilliant idea and affected all out lives with its simplicity. Now its an advertising giant that reads all our searches and emails and makes money out of what whatever we write. And the more Google finds out about us the better it will be.  Its a $20,000,000 million a year brilliant idea and cant seem to fail.

Were next? They are making an operating system that is only a web browser (you will have to use Google applications to do the usual things) and set to slug it out with Apple over the ipad and Safari.

I don’t want to use Chrome. Ive got enough Google stuff in my life and don’t want to be invaded with anymore. I did’nt realise it until I was that really bad advert, again and again and again .

I discovered Microsoft Word has a really good dictation feature on Monday. Unfortunately its not available on Macs (bummer).

Using dictation software is a bit of a revelation to me. As someone who has dyslexia typing is really monotonous as you keep having to go back and re-spell, re-check and use Google search (the best spell checker) when you’ve really got no idea how to spell it.

Macspeech is on the market for $200 which is a lot but it would speed up my work flow. Shame there’s not a trial version.

A simple process allows you to use six striking fonts on computers running Windows Vista or OSX (Apple Macs operating system).

These won’t work on older computers; the usual fonts will be displayed. So there is nothing lost.

I used Candara on this website. I didn’t want the type to fight with the bright graphics I’d designed. A font like Constantia or Times would have caused a distraction and upset the heirarchy. Candara has a kind of relaxed quality that fits with the message I am trying to get across.

It looks great big which is why I used image files instead of HTML text on the top navigation. Anyone using a older operating system would still get the same impact, which should help to convince the user of my design capability.

This art movement was about saying something and getting your point across. Its use of geometric forms, cut out imagery and the same colours gave it a simple dynamism and power that was accessible to all people.

There had never been anything like it before and it shows how design can be a hugely effective form of mass communication.

Not really ‘design’, but when I got into Picasso’s and George Braque’s work something clicked. I went from drawing lengthy photographic pictures to something a bit wilder and expressive. It really opened up new doors for me and I haven’t looked back since.

Vaughan created distinct identities for lots of bands but for me its his work for The Pixies and Gus Gus that stands out.

His style of strange imagery with distinctive typography made a big impression on me when I was at college. It was the first design style I really wanted to emulate and gave me a lot of inspiration.