This morning I was happy to receive the fourth issue of the lagom magazine.

⇾ Visit: Issue No. 4 of Lagom Magazine

I’d totally love to go. But I am away with my family. But if you are interested in IndieWebCamp related stuff, you should not miss this.

⇾ Visit: IndieWeb Summit 2016

I just mentioned on Twitter, that I switched this site to https. But I did it the lazy way and got a SSL certificate at my hosting provider Host Europe, implemented it and made sure that all source links point to an https-link. All in all this took me an hour maybe.

Jeremy Keith took a longer run and switched his sites on Apache and Ubuntu to https using Let’s Encrypt. In this blog post he describes how he did this.

⇾ Visit: Switching to HTTPS on Apache 2.4.7 on Ubuntu 14.04

I was thinking about what I did within the last couple of days for such a long time already. But I decided it was about time to do this now. If you don’t feel the love and the passion for something anymore and also are not able to justify any time you put into it (not to speak about money), then – I think – it is about time.

The Flashforum and FFK (the Flashforum Konferenz) have been a big part of my life from 1999 up to 2010 (and longer even). It was the home of many people in the German Flash community. With over 115000 members, over 266000 threads with over 1703000 posts and sometimes between 1500 and 2000 people in the forum at once, it was a platform for everybody who was in the Flash-, Design- and Web-Scene in Germany.

From 2001 to 2010 we also organised an event for and around this community with sometimes around 500–600 visitors and even 1500, when we did the Flashforum and Studio 8 Tour in 2005.

The Flashforum never was just about Flash and questions about how to do something or Tutorials and alike. It was about the people as much as about things left and right from Flash. Many talented designers used it as a tool, many careers started in and with the Flashforum and many friendships had been build during all those years.

But if something wonderful like this slowly becomes something that is more like ball and chain, then you should better stop it and take all the good memories with you.

This is what I did now after thinking about it for month, if not years. I was thinking about the possibility to keep the content alive at least, but up to now I haven’t found a good and cost effective solution. Therefore I made a backup of the database and the project folder and downgraded the whole server to a simple one-page website.

With a happy-sad feeling I say good bye to you, my good old Flashforum. Happy to have so many lovely memories. Sad to let you go.

Thanks for a fantastic time and all the wonderful people I got to know because of you!

Good night drink before I leave the house in the morning for a couple of days to meet some lovely people. #btconf

Tim Brown has written a pocket guide about “Combining Typefaces“ for Five Simple Steps. Now, that they sadly closed their doors, Tim is making this book available as free download for everybody. I recommend you to go and get it.

⇾ Visit: Combining Typefaces by Tim Brown available for free

Kai Brach, the person behind Offscreen, publishes a lot of good content with insights and behind the scenes stories out of his life as an indie mag publisher. I often find myself in his stories and find many, many similarities between his publishing business and running my event(s). A very good read … not only for magazine publishers or those who want to become one.

⇾ Visit: Publishing an indie magazine

Sadly the promising looking event called Material, that was planned to be held in July by my friends Brian Suda and Joschi Kuphal is not taking place. The reason is that they only funded 1/3 of what they tried to get through their Kickstarter campaign. Their website states:

ATTENTION: This conference will not take place in 2016!
Thanks for your support — we'll be back in 2017 ...

I haven’t seen a post with Brian’s or Joschi’s view on things about why they think it wasn’t reaching the goal they set, but in my opinion reasons could be, that it was set in the wrong time of the year. In Europe July in most countries is holiday season already where people take time off and where flights are more expensive than usually. Also, for an event like this one, being in Iceland, maybe 4 months are not enough to make a decision whether to go or not. It might be the time most people need, like seen in the survey I did, but maybe for a trip like this, being special (in a positive way) in my opinion, it could be different.

Also, as I stated before, Kickstarter is not my favourite choice for backing an event. It works if you already have a huge network to spread the campaign and where you can be sure that it will work out in the end, but otherwise I think it leads more to a “I wait and see how popular this is” mentality than to being quick to get your ticket. People maybe wait and see instead of grabbing a well-priced ticket to reserve their seat. But maybe I am wrong … just my guess and opinion.

I myself have to blame me as well for not backing the event though I was planning to got. Only the time was difficult for me as well, as I have a family who loves to spend time with me (obviously) and where everybody is happy, if I am not attending events in July and August. Therefore I wasn’t sure either and did not back it … shame on me.

I do like the idea Brian and Joschi had and I hope they’ll give it another try in 2017. Let’s help them and spread the word even more next time.

I just arrived back from San Francisco and am done sorting the photos I took at SmashingConf. Usually I am a bit faster, but at the weekend I took time off with my family and then I had to get directly to work for the upcoming beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf as it is less than 4 weeks to go.

The first event in San Francisco was a great success for Smashing Magazine. A good set of speakers, a great venue, Tim Kadlec was – in my opinion – ace as MC of the event and even the weather was playing nice and the sun was out all of the event days, which is not often the case in San Francisco during this time of the year. I guess the Smashing circus will be back to this city next year again.

Wow! Is it already three months into the new year and the events I have written about, I gonna attend are already over? Tell me that time is not ticking fast! While I’m writing the delayed, first update to the beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf attendees, I decided to quickly update my own blog with the events, I plan to attend during April, May and June (ordered by date):

SmashingConf San Francisco

At the end of this week I take my flight to San Francisco to be part of the first Smashing Conference in SF. From April 5th to 6th with workshops on 4th and 7th, the first SF SmashingConf is opening the doors. Many old and new faces on the speaking circuit are going to give the attendees a great time. Expect photos from e after the event.

IndieWebCamp and beyond tellerrand // DÜSSELDORF

Apart from this, I am not able to attend more events in April as my own event is coming up quickly and a lot of stuff is to be done still. May 7th and 8th, we run the IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf for the second time as part of #btconf. It’s a free event for everybody interested in this topic and I, together with Aaron Parecki and Jeremy Keith, would be happy to welcome you. beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf is sold out and about 70 people are on the waiting list. So I better get my act together and get it rolling.

Typo Berlin

I attended Typo Berlin last year and have a ticket to do so again. Sadly it is so close to my event, that I never really know until very short before the event. This year Typo Berlin takes place from May 12 to 14 and tickets are still available. It might happen that I am not able to come, but I try to make it over at least for one day. A lot of good speakers and friends are going to speak.

OFFF Barcelona

After a few years of not being able to attend, I hope to be back this year. But same here: too many other events and this is so close to mine always. Just crossing my fingers, that I am able to make it to OFFF this time from May 26 to 28.

Smashing Conference New York

From June 14 to 15 the event I started with Vitaly Friedman is back in New York for the third time. Tickets for SmashingConf New York are still available. Of course I am back with photos here as well.

awwwards New York

Right after Smashing Conf, the awwwards Conference opens the doors from on 16th and 17th of June. The list of speakers looks great (as with most of the speaker lists from the above) and I am looking forward to a busy week in New York, meeting and chatting to a lot of people.

And that is it in short for the next three months. I anything adds to this, I’ll update this post. If you are at any of these events, let me know and we can have a chat and hang out!

Update: Obviously I totally forgot to list ConfConf amongst the events I’ll be at. Not attending but speaking, but that is not changing the fact, that I am there … and you?