Website Reviews 25 Mar

Ada Lovelace Day

Apologies for being a day late, but here's a thought for Ada Lovelace Day, thanks to The Guardian. It's a great story and has afforded an opportunity for the press to celebrate the role of women in technology. Personally I think the mere fact of celebrating this tells a story: that there are not enough women working in technology. Successful women in technology is still a noteworthy subject. You don't hear of a "Celebrate men in technology day", probably because it would actually be "Celebrate talking in code whilst wearing a Metallica t-shirt and camouflage trousers day". Personally I've worked with a number of very talented women in technology, from Digital Producers and Copywriters to Project Managers and Engineers. Generally the attention to detail and focus has exceeded that of their male colleagues, myself included. Now, where was I ...

Picking up on an earlier post on the wonder of Twitter (yes, I know many are still undecided, but go with it people, it really is the future), I followed a link from @jearle, a former colleague and a moderately good SysAdmin (OK, a bloody good SysAdmin) offering a link to the following blog N2Teaching. This seems like a fine resource but it does have a slightly odd voice-over "are you a teacher too" or something like that. My view on instant audio or video is that is should "polite-load" - make its presence known but never autoplay - let the user engage. Anyhoo, the article links further to Weather Pixie a neat little site offering weather reports from about a kajillion locations worldwide and serving them up as little characters (see picture). You can customise your Weather Pixie and grab the code to post on your website or blog. Neat. Oh, and built by a woman. Happy Ada Lovelace day everyone.