Some interesting data tools from Google

These tools and a few others have just been released.  Interesting and worth a look I think:

The google trends tool is here:

Google AdPlanner is here which is targeted at agencies.

Interesting article on both is on The Register.

Accessibility Checklist

Here's a very good article on Accesibilty, quite a nice design to this site as well

http://northtemple.com/1608

festival for the summer?

Quick note to let you know about a small music festival (1500 capacity) called 'Festinho'.



Festinho is a boutique outdoor music festival, held in the heart of the beautiful Suffolk countryside – showcasing an eclectic mix of new and established music and creative talent from the UK and Brazil.

The festival is one of the few (if not only) in the uk that is run entirely for charity, with all the profits going to the abc trust (www.abctrust.org.uk) , who are dedicated to helping the most vulnerable children and young people of Brazil.

The line up is still be sorted at the mo, but amongst others, The bays, Hexstatic, James Yuill and The blockheads are confirmed to play.

Lots more info, tickets, location etc available on their rather lovely website : http://www.festinho.com ... wot i did build :)

....more useful / interesting sites

Here a few I rather like also. Some geeky, some pretty, all pretentious...


Kitsune Noir, hoovers up lovely design , photography, music etc. Also posts some mixes.

We make money not art has a range of interests. Some interesting takes on uses for new technology. Likes RFID stuff and robots if I recall correctly.

Spinning tunes

hello. I've gt a guest DJ spot at 'fluidnation' at the Big Chill House (Kings Cross) this Wednesday it's a fairly mellow affair but as I've got the late slot I might bung in a sprinkling of drum nbass.

free entry, pretty good food and cocktails 7pm-midnight.

A few useful resource sites

Here's a short list of some sites that might be useful to you:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com
A blog featuring tips, tricks, techniques and tutorials.

http://www.cpluv.com/
Good showcase of new and experimental design work

http://bestwebgallery.com/
Collection of all the nicest new sites/flash/ajax etc

Brand Tags

See what people think about brands:

http://www.brandtags.net/browse.php

Try guessing the brand from the tags - many funz0rz and internet points if you win!

Sharing cool stuff you find on the web

Cool stuff. The web is choc full of it. And we, as a team, should be sharing any cool stuff we find with each other.

The problem is how; email is great and instantaneous, but not always convenient and often gets ignored. A better solution would be to leverage some of the news aggregators' sharing functionality and have someone else do the hard work for you.

Google Reader is my first choice - I can share stories and append my own notes, even when I am not currently logged into the app, through using a handy shortcut in my shortcuts bar. This creates a web page that is dynamically updated with all the items I choose to share from my feeds.

If I add you as friends to my account, then I can view all your shared items when I log into Reader, so we can all share in the goodness (and the badness) of the web.

There are some other options that I haven't explored in any depth yet: del.icio.us, Twine; which introduces tagging and a pseudo-semantic element into the mix.

So, don't be shy: set yourselve up with Google Reader and add 'richard.fort@carlson-europe.com' to your buddies (you have to do this by adding me as a contact in GMail or in Google Chat), and I'll start sharing my favourite LOLCATs and FAILs...

Midweek fun

The Agency and M&C Saatchi are battling it out as to who can sell better. See for yourself and decide.

Trust advertising - NEVER! Advertising men are the Devil's spawn.

W

Litmus Apps - web page and email testing

http://litmusapp.com/

Cleverly renders as JPEGs your web page or HTML email as they would appear in all the major browsers (IE7/7, Firefox, Opera, Safari etc.) and email clients (Outlook 2003/2007, Thunderbird, Mac Mail, Entourage etc.)

Beats loading multiple browsers onto your machine any day of the week - blegh! There's a 1 hour trial version available, so go forth and...err...testify!