Speaker: Julian Dolce of Fuel Industries

The session spoke to the development process in creating www.fairiesanddragons.com.

Explore the inevitable challenges working with a highly inter-disciplinary team presents. Learn about the various tools and approaches adopted to ensure a smooth project work flow from conceptual to delivery, on time and within budget.

Challenges and moving from short-cycle projects to long term and high resource projects:

• Working with a big team
• Version control
• Bug logging
• Testing & Q/A
• Multiple locales
• Cross platform development

Step 1: choosing technologies for a desktop app installed from cd. A feature comparison and requirement checklist between Zinc, mProjector, SWF Studio, and AIR. Side bar note: current reservations with AIR are with the requirement of the AIR runtime which really puts up an obstacle for the general public and general accessibility to that platform. Chosen technologies: mProjector, Zinc, InstallBuilder (enable easy and streamlined installation), FDT (flash coding ide) and WPF (windows presentation foundation) for integration into windows platform.

Step 2: Tactics in streamlining production. A couple examples:

• Automatic nightly builds
• Image cropper and importer - automatically prepare images
• JSFL to automate flash processes =

Step 3: Debugging and QA.

• Use Mantis or Bugzilla
• Test on low spec machine
• Check OS configurations. For example, UAC on Vista

Cross platform development:

• Key elements: folder delimiter, performance of transparent desktop, and build on each separate platform.

Weird "features":

• Cool OSX trash can feature
• OSX Icon refresh rate
• Windows titles could not exceed 8 characters when running off a CD on Windows NT
• On lower end machines mouse clicks get ignored by the desktop wrapper

For the past couple years, and this year included, 76design has sent a small contingent down to Toronto for FITC. FITC is a design and technology festival and the only one of its kind. We’ve been attending for a number of years now and always found it to be an inspirational and engaging conference. Last year we documented a few of the sessions and this year we’ll do the same.

I know, I know - it’s not polite to brag. But please, cut us some slack here, because we really do have something exciting to brag about!

Yes, for the 3rd year straight, 76design has been made an Official Webby Honouree for the work we did conceiving, designing and building the Ottawa Public Library’s new children’s website.

This was a really innovative project and it definitely feels good to get this recognition. In case you don’t know the Webbys, they’re kind of like Oscars for the Web. We didn’t actually win a Webby - we got the equivalent of 2nd place. But considering our co-Honourees in the youth category include the likes of Disney Channel, Barbie and MTV, we figure we’re in some pretty elite company.

What’s even more amazing though, if I do say so myself, is that this is the 3rd year running that one of our sites has been a Webby Honouree. Last year it was our corporate website, and the year before it was the site we built for Maisonneuve Magazine.

76design is not a huge shop. We don’t charge as much as the big international agencies and our clients’ budgets tend to be - well - just a tad smaller than Disney’s. But the quality of our work speaks for itself. Year after year we rank alongside the world’s top interactive agencies in the toughest competition there is.

Next year we’re aiming to crack the final frontier and become an official Webby award winner. Which of our clients will benefit from that acclaim, and be the proud owner of one of the best websites in the world?

It could be you.

We recently released two Wordpress plugins to help better you interact with and inform the readers of your blog. We call them Friendsroll and Toplinks.

Toplinks takes the pain out of updating your blogroll by keeping it fresh for you, automatically. This lets your readers get a handy snapshot of what sites on the internet influence your opinions.
Friendsroll lets your readers indicate to you that they value your opinion and want to be associated with you.

You can download and install both plugins from http://friendsroll.com. And you can come check us out at DemoCampOttawa8 tonight!

Always looking for the right candidate. 76design is looking for a full-time web developer with a minimum of 3 years professional experience to join our talented team. We need a smart and responsible individual who is ready to be a key contributor to several exciting new projects. Our ideal candidate is equally comfortable talking to computers and to people. He or she is proficient in multiple programming languages but is also deeply engaged with the social aspects of web culture.

Our ideal candidate knows what’s happening today and what’s coming down the pipe tomorrow, and can’t wait to get there. He or she is driven to achieve but is also comfortable working in a collaborative environment, and is bursting with ideas and skills, just like we are.

The core technical skills we need are expertise in:

• PHP, mySQL and HTML

Knowledge of one or more of the following is also necessary:

• ASP.net, CSS, JavaScript, WordPress, Ruby on Rails, Ajax, SEO, podcasting, advanced web metrics

If you think you’ve got what it takes to join our team, tell us now! Email your CV and a cover letter to: jobs@76design.com