Notes

Koken

From the experienced hands of Dominey Design comes Koken - a creative web site publishing tool. Out of private beta today, Koken is a self-hosted content management system specifically designed for “photographers, designers, and creative DIYs to publish independent web sites of their work”. It sports a beautiful interface, it themeable, and even syncs with Adobe Lightroom. And all this is absolutely free:

Why free? Because amazing things can happen when individuals with ambition, ideas and the urge to create are provided tools to bring their visions to life. […] The more creative talent we have using Koken, the richer our marketplace of third party themes, plugins and other enhancements will be. That in-turn will push us — as Koken’s developers — to continually improve and expand the platform for everyone’s benefit.

The business model is sound too, by providing extras, services and enhancement the product can be kept afloat. And as it’s hosted on your own server you don’t have to worry about the acquisition and subsequent shutdown scenario either.

Koken requires some degree of effort to install and set up, but nothing that should frighten even the rustiest of web masters. If you’re in the creative field, a photographer, illustrator or fine artist perhaps, it might just be the product you’ve been waiting for.

1361498160 · Nicklas Persson · Follow Us on Twitter

The Periodical

The most recent entries in the Periodical and Reviews sections:

• Ethan Marcotte is a designer, developer, writer and speaker who, amongst his many and considerable achievements, is perhaps best known for coining the term Responsive Web Design. He lives and works in Boston. We asked Mr Marcotte a dozen questions…
• Cameron Koczon builds things, organises things and writes things (and, of particular appeal to our passion for gentlemanly pursuits, smokes an impressive variety of pipes). He lives and works in Brooklyn. We asked Mr Koczon a dozen questions…
• Josh Brewer is Design Lead at Twitter, and an accomplished author and speaker who, "Spends his time thinking about, designing and building things that live at the intersection of form, function and aesthetic." He lives and works in San Francisco. We asked Mr Brewer a dozen questions…

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HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions

Learn how to build hand-crafted web pages using well-structured XHTML and lean and efficient CSS. By embracing a web standards approach, HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions enables you to create web sites that not only look great in all modern browsers, but are also accessible to a wide variety of audiences across a range of platforms - from those browsing on everyday computers, to those accessing the web on the latest, emerging mobile devices.

Get it at Amazon.

The Authors

In addition to their role as lecturers in interactive design at the University of Ulster at Belfast, where they have been active in promoting a web standards-based curriculum, Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson are practicing designers and digital artists. Their work has featured in a variety of design books and magazines alongside numerous internationally respected designers and they are regular speakers at design conferences and workshops worldwide.

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