Probably the biggest success stories were the sweetcorn, the onions (which we hung in shed 2), mange-tout and the potatoes. So much so, that we’ve planted even more this year. We’ve also taken on a new plot! The people next door didn’t really make a go of it last year, and in turn didn’t renew their interest, which has made it really easy for us to expand. It’s about half an acre now!

Sounds good yeah? Well, not strictly true. We’ve actually found that the rubble that had supposedly been buried 7 feet down into the ground, was only about 2 feet down, so we’ve spent the last few weeks digging up massive concrete slabs, bits of walls, glass, metal fencing…you name it…even a fully working retractable dog lead! Get in! Still, we’re getting there, and have nearly two good size patches sorted already.

Last year we also experimented with a bit of homemade booze, making elderberry wine, blackcurrant wine, and even some marrow rum (surprisingly drinkable). This year however we’ve gone up a notch and planted some proper grapevines, Cabernet Sauvignon ones, and they’re looking healthy at the mo!

Anyway, a year and a half has passed since we took on the massive task of getting it fully sorted and, well…we’re getting there. It’s a retreat from the stress of work for me, and it’s great that the kids can learn where food comes from whilst having a great time with their friends on the lawn/slide/sandpit etc! Check out the latest pics on my Flickr photostream, the latest of which are below:

After a half hour brainstorming meeting between me and Simon Wilson over a cup of coffee, and 2 weeks hard slog from the team at fuse8, I can proudly confirm that our fun World Cup website ‘World Cup Stick Up’ has now gone live!

The basic concept is this, you can upload your own picture, pick from one of the set sticker templates (currently Charlton, Keegan, Waddle, Beckham, Beardsley, Seaman and Graham ‘Turnip’ Taylor) and turn yourself into a football sticker. You can then upload your pic to facebook, where it creates your own World Cup Stick Up album. Twitter integration is coming soon.

Despite working on several pitches which have facebook connect at the core of the concept, and some experimentation with our developers, this is our first proper attempt at using it on a site. It’s been a hectic week in which we’ve experimented which the flash and javascript APIs, but we got there in the end, and it really has made a massive difference to the campaign. The vast majority of early visiting traffic has come from facebook, showing that a fun tool, and a snappy bit of copy on each upload can make a huge difference.

The last time we created a self-promo site at fuse8 was at Christmas, with our Powered by Sprouts website. The launch of that site was under similar circumstances, in that there is a crowded marketplace. Replace Christmas, for the World Cup, and as you can imagine there are a lot of agencies and brands doing their own thing. It was imperative this time that we created something that could be updated and tweaked periodically to maximise word of mouth. So, the idea this time was to create different ‘packs’ of stickers, so we can continually update and offer more choice on the site! The great news for non-England fans, is that the next pack is our first ‘Rest of the World’ pack, hopefully containing Maradona, Valderamma, Voller and Gullit! Keep an eye out on the site, and follow World Cup Stick Up on twitter to keep up to date with all updates.

Have fun using the site, and let me know what you think! Always great to get some feedback!

If you haven’t heard of Moshi Monsters then chances are you don’t have kids. It’s fast becoming THE social networking site for kids under the age of 13, and after a few weeks of playing with it, after daily persuasion from my 4 year old girl, I can proudly come out and say it’s brilliant.

The basic premise of it is simple, you create a cute little monster with a house, you look after it, buy it clothes and furniture and then mingle with other monsters. It is in essence a safe social network for children. It’s very simplistic, but the design and details make it great fun, and hugely addictive.

I’ve been doing a lot of research recently into designing digital content for children, on the back of being involved in the BBC @North initiative with fuse8, and Moshi Monsters hits the nail on the head. Cute characters with big eyes, great sound design, easy to use, and engages you on a daily basis to collect ‘rox’ (Moshi Monsters currency)!

It’s also educational, and that’s the main reason I keep going back with the kids. The daily quiz, which gets you the most rox, is a collection of different puzzles and quizzes. It’s a good way of getting kids involved in elements of maths, english and geography. There are also a selection of downloads for kids to colour in.

So, if you have kids, check it out, but be careful…it’s addictive!

Well, after weeks of anticipation the North’s very own World Cup song, Mr Capello, has been released as a free podcast available on iTunes!

The video already has over 5 and a half hits on Youtube and is spreading fast on facebook, all very exciting considering me and the kids are in the video! Check me and my wee boy Fraser out at 1:52 exactly.

For those that don’t know the song was written by brother and performed by his band The Defenders, from Leeds/Bradford. The song was made possible due to a collaboration between Mag If, a production company from Newcastle, and investment from NorthernNet who made available the use of the MABs.

Here’s hoping that it gets some good coverage over the next few weeks! If you could, please help out by downloading for free.

John Barnes is apparently coming out of retirement to start rapping again, El Tel is doing some schmoozy rat-pack number, but that’s about it. Step forward an initiative setup by NorthernNet to showcase their network of media access bureaus across the North of England.

The Old Chapel Studios in Leeds, home to local bands such as the Kaiser Chiefs and The Pigeon Detectives, were contacted by NorthernNet to find a band interested in recording their very own world cup song to represent the North.  Local lads, The Defenders, stepped up to the mark with an instant classic…Mr Capello.

The band are well known to me, as the guitarist and singer is in fact my brother Chris. So it’s exciting to think that it’s going to get some exposure in the coming months. The song has been recorded in a top notch studio, and the video is in production at the moment. As part of this, the production company involved, Magic If, have set up a facebook group that encourages people to record themselves signing along to a snippet of the song.

So if you fancy being in a music video, join the group and follow the instructions!

In the meantime, check out my eldest daughter getting well into it!

Yesterday I was privileged enough to take part in a full day workshop on HTML5 organised by Technique. HTML5 is a subject I’ve been following to some extent, but not something I’d actually tried my hand at. It seemed like something that was a fair way from becoming standard, so I’d not really assigned it too much importance, or had the time to even contemplate it’s importance. However, at a bargain price, the workshop seemed too good an opportunity to turn down.

The workshop was led by Rich Clark of KMP Digitata and HTML5 Doctor and was all in all a great insight into the topic. The event itself was put together by The White Room, and sponsored by Northern Net, and was a great opportunity to soak in some knowledge at a very fair price, just over �100 for the day, which also covered a quality buffet lunch and endless tea and biscuits. It was a small group of 5, and I was joined by fellow fuse8‘er Joe Mason.

Rich started the day with an informative section on the history of HTML5 giving us an insight into the key people and organisations involved, also explaining how HTML5 had now become the industry recognised future spec, ousting the ‘too-pure’ XHTML 2.0. He then went on to discuss the design principles behind the spec and to cover some of the myths behind HTML5 (Come on Hixie! 2022!?).

My previous take on HTML5 was that it was designed to make the web more semantic, and to some extent it does. We covered some of the new elements such as <navigation> and <header> which certainly go some way to adding meaning to your markup, but it comes as a bit of a surprise to me that it doesn’t go further. We discussed the idea that the new elements were restricted to informational type content, perhaps too generic. I personally don’t understand the reason behind not including elements such as <product> or <review>. From dealing with microformats over the last few years it seemed like this would be the logical step forward, but I suppose the argument is just where you would stop with this kind of approach. I’m not gonna argue with some of the leading minds in the industry!

Anyway, we went through a few exercises designed to help us understand the current usage of the new elements, at which point it all started to sink in. A few things that really stood out as being beneficial were the ability to wrap a whole section (including headers, paragraphs, images etc) within a link attribute, and the fact you can now add multiple h1 tags within your markup, as long as each header sits within a root element, this has many benefits in my opinion.

Just before lunch we discussed some current accessibility issues with HTML5 and how to get around those by adding ARIA roles on elements. This wasn’t something I had heard of before, but it was presented in an easy to understand way and backed up with a helpful exercise to ensure that the information had sunk in. After lunch we then went on to discuss Web Forms 2.0, which is currently very well supported by Safari on the iPhone and the latest versions of Opera. Very clever stuff that massively improves usability on handheld devices, and also introduces a nice approach to in-browser error handling.

My background is mostly in design and front-end coding, but the next section was right up Joe’s street, in which Rich discussed the possibilities of audio, video and the <canvas> tag. I’d seen a lot of video examples flying around, and the possibilities look very exciting. It’s great to see that the markup is so simplified also. I for one can’t wait for the day when all video is embedded as such:

<video src="myAceVideo.ogv" controls></video>

It’s a bit step forward in how the web treats rich media, and the ability to create a certain amount of interaction with video opens up some real opportunities to create exciting content.

I came into the day not knowing what to expect, I came out excited with plans to redevelop my blog, experiment with a HTML5 iPhone specific site and keep on top of what is without doubt one of the most exciting developments in the industry. The workshop was faultless, extremely helpful and well organised. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for any future workshops put together by Technique, and will continue to read the great quality articles at HTML5 doctor, and I recommend that you do the same.

I’ve been to a few conferency things over the past couple of years and more often than not they’ve been a let down, not in terms of presentations, but atmosphere.

Speak the Web nailed it.
A bar.
At night.
No pads and paper in sight.
Just a group of people getting together and listening to some good speakers talk shop.

They got the price right too. More often than not you pay over the odds for these things, but at £20, with a free pint (and an iPhone development book in the raffle) you simply can’t complain! Bargain…especially when work pay for it

First up was Stuart Smith, who talked mobile, and brushed over the current mobile landscape. I did find it odd that the likes of the Nokia Ovi store and the Android platform were completely missed from his talk, but Stu said he simply didn’t have time…fair do’s! All in all a decent enough talk, but didn’t really encourage any debate or conversation.

Next was Chris Mills from Opera, sporting some fetching MC Hammer pants and a corker of a beard. HTML5 was the order of the day, lots of examples of what possibilities lie ahead when browsers catch up. Decent enough fare.

Last up was Andy Clarke, talking about what he coins ‘hardboiled web design’. I’ve seen Andy a fair few times now and was lucky enough to attend one of his workshops in London last year, so I knew to expect. He didn’t disappoint. Again, it was a glimpse into the possibilities of a HTML5/CSS3 future with a few eye opening examples.

Andy also pushed his message of using progressive enhancement. Designing for the more competent browsers first then degrading for older browsers (who cares if they don’t get rounded corners…yeah?). Some of the guys in the audience were understandably a bit cynical about it, after all, IE6 still needs to be considered for most clients. It’s a a familiar frustration but I strongly agree with Andy that if anything is going to change, we as web designers need to push the boundaries and make the change happen! Little by little.

Now, I design websites, and also have a background in coding, so for people like me it’s perhaps easier to see the possibilities, and understand the pitfalls in designing for technologies such as HTML5. What became clear however, after talking to a few people present, was how some developers struggle with designers who have little knowledge of technical developments in HTML, and therefore can’t take advantage of it in their designs. It’s certainly difficult finding a decent designer who understands code, and vice versa.

That’s where the likes of Andy come in. They, with their gypsy-like life of the conference speaker, and apparent lack of corporate clients insistent on testing in every single browser until they look the same, can continue to experiment, to push, and try and change people’s attitudes.

I’ll be the one stood at the back nodding in agreement, and patiently awaiting the day when HTML5 and CSS3 are the norm.

It was to be expected. It’s a bold strategic move to compete directly with newly designed Facebook, who have reworked their user interface to look and act much more like an email inbox. But who is Buzz targeted at?

Obviously, gmail users will be quick to adopt as it will be added automatically to their account. But the masses are much less likely to change their webmail provider than they are to adopt a new independent social network, so is it ever going to achieve widespread usage?

I’ve watched the above video from Google, and to be honest my instant reaction was…well…meh. It simply looks a lot like Friendfeed/Facebook, so how is it going to differentiate itself? what’s the big deal?

Well, to state the obvious, Google’s strength is in search. It’s search results pages are also going social, we know that for sure (enter link). So this raises some interesting questions. Will content aggregated by Buzz be given any form of priority? Will users profiles be highlighted in any way?

I can personally foresee a future where when searching a topic on Google it will return not only site listings, but a list of the key influencers around your search term.

For that reason, I’m going to dip my toes in and keep on top of any future developments.

I’d never be stupid enough to underestimate the power of search.

Being able to communicate directly with people all over the world helps me share my thoughts and opinions, but I was dubious whether there was an app out there that could positively affect my health and well-being. I’ve done my research on this and there are plenty that assist in helping achieve a balanced and healthy lifestyle, but last week I came across one, costing 99p, that has since made me re-evaluate the true power of the iPhone.

It’s called Sleep Cycle.

Sleep Cycle uses the sensitive accelerometer in your iPhone to monitor your movement in bed. It then determines the best time to wake you up by measuring your sleep phases, and rousing you when you are in the lightest sleep phase. You can of course set a half hour period in which it does this.

A natural way to wake up where you feel rested and relaxed.

I was dubious at first but was swayed by the positive reviews on the app store. But it works! I’ve been using it for a few days and have instantly noticed a difference. Even the alarm sounds are a massive improvement on the standard alarm, and the fact you can review and save a chart of your sleep phases night after night is a huge plus.

Now you may not be aware of the fact I’ve just become a dad again for the third time recently, and am loving it! But, believe me, I have years of experience in dealing with sleep deprivation and understand how it can really affect your day.

Sleep Cycle doesn’t shut my kids up or tuck them back into bed (how I wish there was an app for that!) but anything that eases the affect of interrupted sleep and helps me come to my senses in these dark, miserable mornings is a winner in my opinion.

It may also have woken me up to the true potential of iPhone apps.

This book came to my attention via a colleague of mine (@mspownall) who sent a link to a competition on the e-consultancy website. I’d never heard of the book, or the author, but e-consultancy is a trusted resource of mine so I entered it. All I had to do was explain what my passion was.

I sent an email:

My passion is…divided. Work/life balance is very important to me, so family always comes first. Parenting is a hugely rewarding challenge, especially when you have 3 children at the age of 28! Professionally I thrive collaborating on exciting, innovative products and campaigns for a variety of clients.

Anyway, a few days later I received an email with the subject line WINNER. Bonus! Another few days went by and the book landed on my desk. A signed version no less. Queue the questions from everyone in the office asking who the hell Gary Vaynerchuk was.

“No idea” was my reply.

But hey, what better way to find out than stick my nose in on my daily travels to and from work!

It turns out Gary is a the epitome of the American dream. And was recently listed in the top 10 internet entrepreneurs of the moment.

Born in Bosnia (or Serbia, I can’t remember) he moved over to America when he was a young lad, and eventually ended up working at his fathers liquor store. He’d always had an entrepreneurial instinct but working day in day out in a liquor store has it’s limits.

Then the spark happened.

Gary discovered the Internet.

There are lots of similar stories out there, granted, but Gary’s sheer enthusiasm for the power of the Internet, and belief in following and promoting the one thing you are truly passionate about really struck a chord with me. He also stresses the importance of personal branding, and delivers some great insight into how to promote yourself whilst remaining true to your personality. He is a family man, like myself, and it is refreshing to hear that you can put family first, but still ‘crush it’.

Anyway, this lad Gary really knew his stuff when it came to wine, so he set up a video blog, pimped himself all over forums and the social web, and Winelibrary.tv was born.

The hard work didn’t stop there though. His straight forward language and abrasive style really caught on, and his sheer determination and effort to engage fully with customers and prospective viewers/ customers very quickly made him his fortune.

He now runs a consultancy firm that guides businesses on how to reap rewards from the Internet.

It’s a really easy to read book. Gary’s personality really comes across and his advice is spot on.

Passion + hard work + good use of online tools = success

Simple as.

You can buy the book from Amazon or if you want further views email me at mail@kevcharlton.com – (tip from Gary, include your email address as often as you can )