Blog Standard Stuff

To mark the imminent release of Web Standards Creativity - a book that covers a wide range of inventive web techniques, using tricks from the world of DOM scripting, CSS and more, and all with web standards front and centre - the whole posse of authors (well, apart from one notable exception) are going to be having a little competition at this year’s SXSW Interactive. Coincidence or otherwise, all of the individual chapter authors are not only going to be at SXSW, but we’re all speaking at one or more sessions - your task is to track each and every one of us down to get a chance to win a copy of the book.

There are ten copies to give away and all you need to do is:

1. Print out the PDF below
   
2. Track each of us down (the flyer has a picture of each of us and where we’ll be speaking)
3. Ask us nicely to stamp the relevant section on the flyer.
4. Buy us a beer (optional)
5. Offer up some mindless chit chat (optional) before finding your next victim, I mean author
6. When you’ve got the whole set, be sure to ask your final stamper to mark the time/date and sign it for you (the final stamper will need to retain the flyer or just tear off that bottom section as proof)

The first ten people to complete the flyers will each get a copy of the book, once it’s available to ship. Good luck!

Technorati Tags: SXSW, SXSW2007, WSC, Web Standards Creativity, Competition

So, it may have taken me 50 minutes to get in to work compared with the usual 10 minutes this morning, but I have to say I was happy to see a decent covering of snow for once. Yep, the big kid inside said “nuts to travel chaos - let’s remind ourselves that it can be fun”. But just what did Fraggle make of it? Being just 5 months old, she’d never seen snow, so I was sure to capture the moment that she saw it for the first time as I opened the door:

Technorati Tags: fraggle, terriers, cairn terriers, snow, weather

Every now and then, you read something or hear a story that, for whatever reason, makes you think "Wow, isn’t t’Internet a fab thing?" Today was my day.

Backtrack to 1998, when Manda and I went to Prague for our first trip away together (this was before Prague transformed into the stag do capital of Europe!). One of my favourite photos from the trip was one taken in a Metro (underground) station. Not a setting that you’d immediately think of as offering a great photo opportunity, but Prague’s Metro stations are quite something to look at:

Last year (2006) we went back to Prague and on the final day there we went back underground for the sole purpose of taking photos of the stations on one of the lines. Literally, it was a case of stop, hop out, take photos, then back on to the next line then repeat all over again.  I was really pleased with the end results.

Today, I received a really touching letter from someone about these photos. I’ll not paraphrase, but simply quote the relevant section of the mail:

I ran in to your shots of the Prague Metro on Monday and wonder if there is any way I could purchase some or all at the original resolution so that I can make some high quality prints.

First, an explanation.

My wife is Vitezslava Otrubova, who is a graphics designer and photographer. She left Prague in 1968, just a few days after the Russian tanks rolled in, at age 21.  She ended up years later in Seattle with me.

Her father is Jaroslav Otruba, the architect of the set of stations that you photographed. He has taken me on exhausting walking tours of Prague, and has a few of those anodized aluminum panels in his apartment.

Dr. Otruba suffered a stroke about five years ago at the age of 85 and has been on the decline ever since.
My wife has gone back to Prague every year and had to see a talented architect and artist, who was always working, trapped in a body that couldn’t speak, couldn’t write, and couldn’t draw.

We got a call three weeks ago from my mother in law, saying that Dr. Otruba had taken a turn for the worse and was hospitalized.
Even though my wife had last visited Prague in October, I encouraged her to immediately fly back.

This Monday, Dr. Otruba died of pneumonia in the hospital.  This is an bittersweet event, in that the mind and spirit have finally been released from a body that trapped them for five years.

I want to mark his passing in some small way, by celebrating his most recognized works.
I would like to, with your permission, make two sets of high quality prints  of your Prague Metro photographs and present them my wife and her mother.

My wife will be returning to Seattle on February 27th.  We will be taking some of Dr. Otruba’s ashes to Orcas Island, a place he loved when he was alive.  If you are agreeable to this project, I will present the photographs to her when we have that small family ceremony.

How nice is that? Naturally, I said yes (and of course at no charge). All I asked was that I could see a picture of what they did with the photos, and if possible  - and if it were deemed appropriate – to get a picture of Dr Otruba’s daughter being presented with the photos that I took because they were so striking in design.

I love that Flickr allows me to share photos like this and the fact that I’ve been able to connect the Czech designer behind this set photos with his daughter in Seattle from beyond the grave. The sender of the original email (Dr Otruba’s son-in-law) has since sent me a picture of the designer, presumably before the stroke took its toll, and it was really special to put a face to the name, a name that I had not known just a day before, but whose work I’d raved about to many people since coming back from Prague.

Can you recall a time when you’ve felt like you’ve really made something special happen because of something you’ve done on the Internet? If so, I’d love to hear your story.