The Whole Widget

I'm currently travelling down to London on the train to attend @media 2007, so thought I'd take a moment to take advantage of GNER's wireless internet access and outline what I'm planning to see.

The whole lineup looks great but because most of the event is run on two seperate tracks I'm forced to make a choice about whick speakers I would like to hear.

Thursday morning kicks off with Beyond Ajax, the keynote by Jesse James Garrett.Next up is the choice of Molly E. Holzschlag or Jason Santa Maria. I'd really love to hear both of these speakers and I'm torn as to who to go and see.On one hand I've heard many of Molly's previous presentations via podcast of various web conferences over the last couple of years and am unsure if there will be much that I haven't heard already. On the other I'm aware that she is giving up the conference circuit and so this might be my last chance to hear here at a live event.I'm trying to make a conscious effort to learn more about the areas that I am weakest as a web developer and so hearing Jason talk about design is a prime opportunity to learn from one of the most respected designers in the industry about a topic that isn't my strongest field.I think this might have to come down to going to whichever room I can get a seat in as I expect both rooms to be rammed.Next up I think I'm going to attend Drew McLellan and Simon Collison's presentation on Design vs. Implementation. I've heard both of these speakers before and I think it should be a light hearted affair but still outlining the tough choices that need to be made everyday when designing sites with web standards while still maintaining a design flair.After lunch I'm hoping to catch Dan Cederholm's presentation on http://www.vivabit.com/atmedia2007/europe/sessions/#interface. Dan is the founder of SimpleBits, co-founded the wine community site Cork’d and is a designer I've admired for some time. Like Jason earlier I'm hoping to pick up some top design and process tips so that I can improve my skills in this area.After Dan I'm confronted with a tough choice once again as Mark Boulton and Tantek Çelik go head to head. I think I'm leaning towards going to Mark's presentation as, like Molly earlier, I've heard Tantek talk about Microformats via podcast a number of times whilst typography is an area in which I am becoming increasingly interested in and could do with learning a bit more about.Day one ends with Joe Clark talking about When Web Accessibility Is Not Your Problem. I'm really looking forward to hearing Joe Speak as I've been a regular subscriber to his blog for years and love the way he is passionate about everything he does and the forthright manner in which he expresses his views.Well, that's day one's agenda sorted and I think I'll take a break here for now. I'll post later on what I'm looking forward to for day 2.

Designers, developers, project managers. Writers and editors. Information architects and usability specialists. People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?

I've just taken the survey. So should you if you work in the web design industry.

I've recently been converting an area of the back garden at my house into a kids play area. Being the ever concerned parent, I thought it might be a good idea to try and source some rubber mats so that, should my kids fall off their slide they wouldn't do themselves too much damage.Trying to find a supplier online was proving more difficult than I had imagined, but I eventually found a site that looked quite hopeful — Smith Brothers.Unfortunately, their order form didn't fill me with confidence as it appeared that they either never maintained their website or had a time machine at their disposal for making deliveries.

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