Cubeworks blog – digital opinion & insight

“The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
John Gilmore

It’s been a pretty intense week so far in what Newsnight calls “cyberspace”.

From BBC News:

When is a secret not a secret? When it’s on Twitter.
An injunction served on the Guardian and at least one other national newspaper, was meant to stop the papers reporting that the MP Paul Farrelly, had tabled a Parliamentary question about the oil traders Trafigura and its solicitors Carter-Ruck. And it succeeded – up to a point.
…
The social networking site Twitter, was soon awash with posts deploring a threat to media freedom and the reporting of Parliament.

What Trafigura and Carter-Ruck have been a victim of this week, is the combined effect of the internet interpreting censorship as damage (and routing around it), with the Streisand effect

Continue reading “Mrs Focker and internet damage”

In my previous blog post, Heavy Lifting (save money – don’t reinvent the wheel), I introduced the concept of Heavy Lifting – using tools provided by specialist websites to introduce functionality into your own as quickly and cheaply as possible.

It’s always easier to explain a concept with an example, so without further ado I present to you The Cubeworks Music Match Maker! Have a play around with it – enter a list of musicians/bands that you like (separated with commas) into the box, then click “match me up” to find the Cubeworks team members that have similar taste. Seeing as we’re a fickle bunch musically, I’ve added a list with a few suggestions in case you’re not getting many matches.

Continue reading “Building a music matchmaker with last.fm (aka Heavy Lifting Part 2)”

Google have recently launched a new tool which allows any user to add a comment to any page on your website. Yes, you heard that right… ANY user can comment on ANY page on your site and Google don’t give you an “off” button if you don’t like it.

It’s called Sidewiki and it is a plug-in for the Google Toolbar. On the Google blog, Sidewiki is promoted as a tool where all users can add “their knowledge along the way”. But it’s already clear that brands are not seeing things quite the same way…

Continue reading “Google’s new Sidewiki kicks up a storm”

Picture by Jacob Botter

I recently debated this question with some exciting Brighton digital businesses via the MDHub 100 network.

So what do I think the answer is?

Continue reading “Is today’s economy the “new normal”?”

Picture by Giuli-O

If you’ve ever needed a good photograph to illustrate something, you may have been frustrated that the usual stock photo sites have returned just the usual stream of polished, cheesy smiles. A lot of people seem to overlook Flickr as an option, which now contains a fantastic array of over 3 billion images, all uploaded by its users.

Until recently Flickr’s search wasn’t too helpful for browsing large numbers of images. Now Flickr has updated their search and presents the results in a nice grid, perfect for browsing. But can you legally use the images you find for commercial purposes?

Continue reading “HOW TO: Use Flickr for free commercial-use photos”

In this post I’m going to explore the concept of ‘heavy lifting’ and demonstrate how collaborating with 3rd parties can increase user interaction with your site whilst reducing development costs.

Continue reading “Heavy Lifting (save money – don’t reinvent the wheel)”

More and more of our clients at Cubeworks want to understand how they can use social media and especially Twitter. It might not be the right move for their business just yet, but with all the Twitter buzz in the air, they don’t want to be missing out.

Many a social media/web consultant has blogged in recent time about the benefits and pitfalls of Twitter for business, and I had formulated my own thoughts. Well… just as I sat down to finish my post, I discovered Twitter had put me out of my misery with their fantastic, shiny new business guide entitled “Twitter 101“.

Continue reading “Making sense of Twitter for business”

Picture: col_adamson on Flickr

How do you update your website? If you have a content management system, it will probably have some kind of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) text editor built-in that gives you a set of controls something like this:

The basic TinyMCE toolbar

Tools like this are good because they give you a lot of control over what your content looks like, but that control and freedom comes with an important trade-off: Unlike a more restrictive system (think of a stock management system, say), it can’t tell you when something has gone wrong. Content can be formatted in so many ways and still, to the human eye, remain meaningful. Look at the example below:

Continue reading “Seeing meaning with semantic markup”

Here at Cubeworks, things are getting HOT. We feel like Expats in the Far East here in our offices by the seaside, so we have employed a cooling system that is convenient and cheap – the USB fan.

‘Its like being on the beach in New Zealand , with the wind blowing lightly in your face while you watch the calm seas and listen to the distant sounds of sheep. I feel right at home now I have the USB fan.’

Cubeworks endeavors to make its team happy, so they can keep you happy.

Get your own here...

Hello. My name is Iain and I have joined Cubeworks as a Senior Developer.

Why? My entire career to date, has been delivering software that adds real value to its users; something that Cubeworks has also been doing for a long time.

How? My route to the Cubeworks family started 10 years ago.  First in London at a network management software company, then via two of the largest companies on the planet, followed by two smaller Brighton based companies.  Each one was a leader in its field.

So? Cubeworks has worked hard to foster a creative, robust and constantly improving development environment.  As a software professional, that’s something to be cherished and it shines through in the final products.

And? Like Cubeworks, I’m focused on the ALT.NET way of using Microsoft’s .NET framework; utilising the best-of-breed components and practices to maximise the quality of all the software I have a part in creating.

Cool. Yes, I think so too.