Notes

Podcasts I listen to

My friend Vasilis has listened to his first podcast and liked it and was asking for recommendations. I took this as a chance to start a new list of podcasts. Some I listen regularly to, some I listen to from time to time, some in German even. I’ll update this post as soon as I find new podcasts. Also I am happy if you send recommendations my way.

Before I start, I have to say, that I am not focused on a certain kind of show. Some are tech related, some are gadget and hardware based podcasts and some are more design oriented. I simply list all I like and you pick and choose. The order is completely random.

Life + Limb

The Life and Limb podcast is a show by designer Chuck Anderson from Chicago, in which he interviews other creative people. The episodes are quite long with mostly over an hour and sometimes even close to two hours, but I like listening to it, while I am working. Sadly Chuck recorded the last issue in November 2014. I hope he is doing some more.

ShopTalk

ShopTalk is a live show by Dave Rupert and Chris Coyier. In over 200 shows – all about one hour long – they have a mix of having guests and a variation called Rapidfire in which they answer as many questions as possible (sometimes also with a guest). ShopTalk deals with topics around front end web design, development and UX.

Hired

Hired is a podcast by Cameron Moll about work life, company culture and hiring. Cameron just started the third season of his show, usually always having a very interesting guest in on his virtual couch. With around 25 to 40 minutest for each episodes it is a great show to listen to not only in your studio or at home, but also on the bus, train or during a walk.

Creative Coding Podcast

Seb Lee-Delisle and Ian Lobb are recording their Creative Coding Podcast since 2011 already – another fact that shows me how fast time is ticking. They had a short gap between 2013 and 2015, but are back on a regular basis now. The name states, what the show is about: programming for creative applications. Sometime Seb and Ian have guests, sometimes they don’t.

Unfinished Business

Unfinished Business is a show, which started 2013 with Anna Debenham and Andy Clarke and is now hosted by Andy only. It started as a more business oriented show, went through a time when it was a more personal show of Andy’s interest only and is now back to topics dealing with creativity, web design, work and life and much more. Usually with some interesting guests and mostly quite entertaining.

Let’s Make Mistakes

A podcast about design – that is what the tagline says about Let’s Make Mistakes. Hosts are Mike Monteiro, Liam Campbell, Steph Monette and Seven Morris. They have changing guests and each show is about 50 to 70 minutes long. Attention: very inspiring conversations …

Working Draft (German)

Working Draft is a weekly German Web developer and Web designer podcast by six fantastic people. Usually the podcast is completely in German, but sometimes they have guests like PPK, Chris Heilmann and Jeremy Keith, which makes them switch to English. In over 260 episode, they usually discuss current topics and/or recap the past week.

Back to Front Show

The Back to Front Show is a podcast hosted by Keir Whitaker and Kieran Masterton. In 2015 they more or less took a break, but they are back now and do not focus on a certain area in particular, but discuss a number of regular topics.

dConstruct 2015 Podcast

Not really a podcast, but maybe something like a small-batch podcast. In 2015, before dConstruct, Jeremy Keith interviewed the speakers of the event. I really liked the loose and nice atmosphere during those interviews and can recommend listening to them.

The Big Web Show

Who else then Jeffrey Zeldman could host a show named The Big Web Show? Usually Jeffrey invites an interesting guest to have a conversation about all things web. Each episode is roughly an hour long and the pace of the show is quite laid back, which I enjoy while having a glass of red whine for example.

The Web Ahead

Like The Big Web Show, The Web Ahead is 5by5 network. Jen Simmons, known to the web industry from many articles and speaking at a lot of events, invites experts of a variety of technologies and always with an eye on the future of the web.

Style Guide Podcast

I am a bit sad actually, that this very nice podcast with a lot of useful insights by Anna Debenham and Brad Frost came to an. They did 12 episodes and decided that a small batch series would be enough to cover this topic up to now. But who knows: maybe they are back sooner or later. Fingers crossed.

Simple Podcast

Developer Kahlil Lechelt is part of a few podcasts dealing with web design topics. This one, called Simple Podcast, is a personal podcast of him and what I like about it is, that every episode is only 3 minutes long. That makes it really easy to listen to it and sometimes get a nice view on things, a suggestion for something or similar and it does not even harm if you don’t get anything out of an episode as you only spent 3 minutes listening to it.

The Bureau Briefing

Beginning of 2016 the The Bureau Briefing was started. It is a podcast with 20–30 minutes episodes and the host is Carl Smith, whom I happily met at one of my conference trips. The show consists of interviews lead by Carl. In a very calm and nice way Carl has a conversation with someone out of the Bureau of Digital community.

The Path to Performance

Katie Kovalcin and Tim Kadlec hosting a show dedicated to fostering a culture around web performance in organisations … but not only. Every episode is transcribed and in each episode they have a guest with whom they discuss a specific topic. Sadly they did not produce any new episodes since November 2015 after ten episodes, but I simply hope they continue the show.

Presentable

The Presentable Podcast is a podcast by Jeffrey Veen in which Jeffrey and his guests set their focus on how we design and build the products that are shaping our digital future. In his charming and gentle way, Jeffrey is interviewing and chatting to people for about 45–60 minutes.


… to be continued…

Updated on June 2nd, 2016: added a few podcasts and added RSS feeds in addition to the websites of each show

Updated on June 9th: added more podcasts to the list

Updated on June 17: more podcasts

⇾ iA on icons

An icon can represent a thousand different words, and that is precisely the problem.

This is just one quote of a thousand I could copy and paste here. A great article by iA about the question(s) why or when to use only icons or only labels or a combination of both. It’s not an article about pro or contra the use of icons or labels only, but it gives you some good advice to think about when you use what.

Thanks for writing this, iA.

The icons you use need to be handled with maximum care. You cannot invest enough time in getting your icons right. Icons need to be recognizable by themselves, they need to illustrate the notion they represent clearly, and they need to work together with all other icons and notions you use, in context.

Oh … before I forget: the crazy bastards even built and released a free game for this. Iconic – the battle between logic and emotion.

⇾ Visit: iA on icons

⇾ How to do good at slides

I just stumbled over this nice link on the Website of Charlotte Jackson. She points to a post by Alice Bartlett in which she give some very useful, basic advise to set up your slide deck for a presenation.

⇾ Visit: How to do good at slides

⇾ TWUMBLE – I finally started my own podcast

More than two years ago I had the idea to start my own podcast. Well, it took me some time, but finally I got to the point to start it. Yesterday I released episode one of TWUMBLE and my guest was Bastian Allgeier.

The podcast and the website are in German, which does not mean, that some guests will be from English speaking countries. Just keep an eye on it … ;)

⇾ Visit: TWUMBLE – I finally started my own podcast

⇾ Working Draft Revision 263

The lovely chaps of the Working Draft Podcast recorded a new revision of their show during beyond tellerrand 2016 in Düsseldorf. They got PPK, Chris Heilmann and later Jeremy Keith to be part of their show.

⇾ Visit: Working Draft Revision 263

⇾ Issue No. 4 of Lagom Magazine

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

⇾ Visit: Issue No. 4 of Lagom Magazine

⇾ IndieWeb Summit 2016

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

⇾ Switching to HTTPS on Apache 2.4.7 on Ubuntu 14.04

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

Good Bye Flashforum

Screenshot of the Flashforum from the last day with last stats before closing.

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!

Sascha Wolter and me at the Flashforum Konferenz 2003 in Offenbach.

Leaving for btconf

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