Q1. You are the "One" on SingleFunction this week, so, who are you really?

I’m Ozh, 37.05 years old, father of two, husband of one. I live in France and work for a mega corporation in a job that has mostly nothing to do with computers.

People knowing me online either do because I’ve been a sort-of-famous european Quake player, or because I released popularish WordPress plugins.

Q2. What made you start web development/design in the first place?

I began making static HTML websites in 1996, for fun and friends, and about various topics. In 1998 I created a site that quickly grew into a vivid community news site, so uploading a new page every night by FTP was getting seriously cumbersome and frustrating, I really needed something faster, easier, and that would allow readers to interact and comment. So I started to learn perl and coded a home made CMS that still powers the site today.

Q3. What inspires you?

I’m currently obsessed by simple apps with uncluttered simple interfaces, naive and colorful designs. This is part of my recent Twitter addiction

What inspires me really is when I want to do something and realize there’s no way to make it as I want. This happened with scr.im when I wanted one day to share my email on Twitter, this happened also with every WordPress plugin I coded.

Q4. What’s a typical day for you?

Get up at 7:00, hug the boys in their beds to wake them up, check my mails & blog comments before shower, eat, spend an hour in front of my computer in pajamas and with a toothbrush in my mouth before I go to work. From 9:15 to 18:45 I’m at work where it’s as boring as it can get, with hopefully a nice paycheck at the end of the month. Back to home at 19:00, spend time with my kids and wife. It’s around 21:00 when I can sit in front of my computer and have some time for myself till, usually, way too late.

Q5. How does your "Command Center" look like?

My home office has 2 computers, one for my wife and the kids to play and surf the web, and mine for everything else.

My desk is usually totally cluttered with random stuff (messy, but clean: *no* dirty greasy stuff like food) but it’s been rather clean for a couple of weeks now. I’m not sure why

You’ll see on my desk: a spare camera I lend to kids, my iPod nano, USB thumb drives, CD, DVDs, various cables, papers and pens, my PDA docking station, the DSL router, a webcam so kids can Skype grandma on week-ends.

I guess this is really the average home computer desk, except maybe for the old school CRT monitor. This one is brand new, my awesome 19′ Hitachi died a couple of weeks ago. This is for the sleeping hardcore gamer inside me, I dislike flat screens, they’re too slow, too ugly.

Q6. What operating system do you use?

My main box used to be a high end gaming computer but I stepped out of this a couple of years ago. I’m running Windows XP with no fancy stuff and the minimal number of services at startup.

Q7. What’s the programming language you are most comfortable with?

PHP is definitely the language I’m the best with, although if I look back at what I did during the last couple of years, there was probably as much Javascript. OK maybe not as much, but close. I think I’m getting decent with jQuery and doing fun stuff on the client side.

Q8. What’s your favorite tool/IDE?

I don’t like fully-fledge IDEs like Eclipse, they’re too complicated and bloated for me. I’ve been using Notepad++ for the last 4 years I think: tabbed interface, function list, and the best syntax highlighter I’ve found.

Notepad++ is my tool of choice for all the server side stuff. For all the client things, ie interface layout and javascript, I think I would never code anything again if I couldn’t use Firebug anymore. This tool is the most awesome tool I’ve ever used.

Q9. How do you start a new project?

An idea pops into my mind. I start coding and re-use a few things to a point it gets functional but messy. So I pause things a bit, try to do some sketches and flowcharts, but after a few minutes my patience has gone and I want to code again

Q10. What’s your design philosophy?

My goal is a balance between dead simple (one task, no option) and feature packing (many options). As a user, I like powerful and very flexible apps with a gazillion of options, but I know a lot of users are easily confused or intimated, so I always try to imagine what the average user would like, dislike, understand or not. The Wife Test is something I like to do because sometimes it really highlights something I would definitely overlook.

I’m also more prone to releasing stuff earlier than before. A couple of years ago, I would publish something only after every little details was polished and exactly as imagined. While I think I did a good job, it makes things more difficult to re-arrange or to implement differently when users want something you didn’t think about.

I try to think differently now: release an app with core features, and wait for the public to ask about extra options. This way, I don’t implement things that are eventually not used, and I also have more feedback from users about how they’d like their additional feature, which might differ from my need.

My little web service over at scr.im was recently a very interesting experience. I did show friends and wife an alpha version and watch how they would use the interface, what they would click or not, what they would think would be an option, what if they would understand in a glance what the app would be about. Even after release, user feedback was rich and fostering.

Q11. What was your first website?

Back in the days when websites were mostly “home pages”, my first site was in 1995 or 96 a wicked awesome page hosted on Compuserve. I was a real hipster at the time: scary background picture, l33t sp34k, tags, and enough animated gifs to crash my 28.8k modem connection. Those too young to remember can google for "JeffK", my site was something like the first result will show.

Of course, the purpose of that page was just to show I had a page on the internet.

Q12. What’s your favorite creation?

As of today, this would be scr.im because it’s the first time I really release something *simple*. Plus, the design is cute

In the long run though, my favorite creation would be the online gaming community site I founded FrenchFragFactory.net. It really gathered a number of exciting people and events, and I met invaluable peeps through it. When I’m old, I’ll remember this more than any of the WordPress plugins or other fun websites I’ve done.

Q13. What’s hot now and you would like to let everyone know about?

I think the hottest stuff on Earth actually is Twitter, but I guess no one needs this information

Q14. What’s next?

What’s next with me: I have several WordPress plugins under way, but nothing I want to advertise at this point. I’ve also began coding a service related to Twitter that should be fun. I think people should follow me on Twitter to know more

What’s next with the world: I don’t know. I’m not one of these inspiring visionary people who can predict what will be next

Q15. Being the One, what’s the one advice you would give to the wannabes out there?

Well, "the One", that seems a bit too presumptuous

As a coder, my recurring advice has always been: read sources. Reading open source code teaches you how to do things, shows how to do them differently and sometimes better than what you had in mind.

Q1. You are the "One" on SingleFunction this week, so, who are you really?

I’m 40 year old freelance designer, programmer and analyst from Czechia. Married with two lovely daughters. “Ye olde league” of the webdesign. The older, the better, anyway.

Q2. What made you start web development/design in the first place?

I’ve been addicted to computers since I smelled them first time, somewhere in the deep 80′s prehistory. I still can recall the smell of the heating Sinclair Spectrum… Later I studied programming at the university, but when a friend took me (in early 90′s) to a DTP studio and I saw these huge displays and ebony macs displaying newspaper pages as wysiwyg, I became addicted to design, DTP and typography. I spent all the 90′s with Quark, Illustrator and Photoshop in newspapers, advertising and publishing. When the web started to be more than a toy for nerds, I moved to the new media allowing me to join both design and programming skills into a new amazing profession.

Q3. What inspires you?

What can NOT inspire me?

Q4. What’s a typical day for you?

Oh, don’t tell me. I’m night-owl and I love to work through the night. Everything had changed 2 years ago, when my daughter started to go to the kindergarten. It’s horrible now. Before 7am I have to get up, drive the car to the kindergarten, go back, have some breakfast, have some cofee, do something on the computer for several hours, have some more coffee, and then, at about 10-11am, when I wake up, I start wondering where I am and what am I actually doing. Then I try to work all afternoon which is disturbed every other minute by my daughters. But when they fall asleep, and when my wife falls asleep too, my activity culminates. At 2-3am I have to use a force to myself to stop working and go to bed to be able to be a morning zombie again…

Q5. How does your "Command Center" look like?

As you can see, it indeed isn’t a home-sweet-home polished navigating bridge. It’s a busy working place, it’s Lister’s, not Rimmer’s spot. All my activities have to fit in this tiny corner.

Q6. What operating system do you use?

Mac OS X (Leopard) is primary and Windows XP (virtualized) for testing and debugging purposes only.

Q7. What’s the programming language you are most comfortable with?

ECMA/Javascript. And jQuery last months. I love it, it’s the best thing since the DOM. On server side I prefer PHP.

Q8. What’s your favorite tool/IDE?

BBEdit, CSSEdit. I like simple tools with powerfull background.

Q9. How do you start a new project?

With an analysis. I think the graphic design is the last and the less important thing. I need to know the purpose, the target group, the message to be conveyed. Then the structure and navigation logic has to be designed. And if all background information is gathered, I start to sketch. First on paper, than in Fireworks.

Q10. What’s your design philosophy?

KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. Don’t confuse them, don’t make them choose too much, don’t make them think. Drive the user to the target.

Q11. What was your first website?

It had to be a local company presentation, I guess. I don’t remember, it’s a 1996 prehistory. Recently, I found one of my first sites, it’s a Jarre’s fan site from 1997. Very funny.

Q12. Speaking of music and hobbies, how many do you have?

I have lots of them, mainly regarding arts. In fact I’d need several hours more a day, for I have too less time for my hobbies. I play several instruments, mostly guitars; both acoustic and electric, try to learn mandolin and I’m planning to buy a bass and a banjo. I also sometimes use keyboards (but I don’t dare to say I can play it). And some woodwinds and brass too – I play flutes, clarinet and looking forward to buy some saxes in the future… Unfortunatelly I’ve never been in a band, I always play alone; but I’m happy with it too. I also compose music and really enjoy today’s technology: cheap and easy-to-use software pieces make for me a studio equipment only professionals could have ten years ago. It’s very impressive for me.

Besides music I write (poetry, song lyrics, funny columns), I like to translate for fun (i.e. Dave Barry’s columns)… I used to be a blogger, in fact I had one of the most visited blogs, in the pioneer era years ago. Sometimes, I play with photos, make Photoshop collages, I tried to paint etc. – but I really had to reduce everything to a tolerable level. Anyway, I feel it’s very hard to be resigned with the fact I can’t learn everything I’d like…

And since I have kids (now my daughters are 2.5 and almost 5 years old) my hobbies are reduced to play and sing some kid’s songs, play a couple of guitar licks every other day and try to write rhymed fairy tales for them…

Pixy Jamming at the Czech Webdesigners Potlach

Q13. What’s your favorite creation?

I prefer to love everything I’m recently working on. When I’m done I’m starting to see bugs and I want to redesign everything immediatelly. I always have to move on and focus to the next favorite thing.

Q14. What’s hot now and you would like to let everyone know about?

To me, it’s not any particular project or web site. For me the hottest thing is the fact the browsers finally started to behave. After many years of chaos I feel a touch of a standardization. The very first time in the history I dare to say I can code almost anything I can design. And I’m happy about this.

Q15. You are the author of a bestseller book in Czechia, can you tell us a bit more about it?

The title is "CSS: The Complete Guide", but all the information is in Czech only, I’m afraid. It’s a detailed CSS2 reference with browsers support and compatibility tables. It was published in February 2003 and still being sold – which is unbelievable in webdesign where everything goes so fast…

Q16. What’s next?

Today’s coder work is all about implementing browser incompatibilities. I think, these incompatibilities will reduce and perhaps in 5-10 years there finally will be good translators or compilers, able to fully replace the coder’s work. I think the webdesigner in a few years will only draw the web in a IDE and they won’t need to know HTML/CSS anymore. It’s just a prophecy, of course, everything may be totally different – but I’d rather be prepared.

Q17. Being the One, what’s the one advice you would give to the wannabes out there?

Graphic design is NOT the most important thing in the webdesign. Do not start designing web from graphics, finish with it instead. No web site is successful because of its graphic design, and vice versa: there are many successful sites totally graphicsless. Graphic design is only a bonus.

Q1. You are the "One" on SingleFunction this week, so, who are you really?

I am David LeMieux, a San Francisco Bay Area software engineer currently employed at Widgetbox. I recently graduated with a B.S. in Communication from BYU-Idaho. I have a lovely, supportive wife and two amazing, beautiful children. If you peek in to my window late at night under a full moon you will see my up late working on a some crazy side project.

Q2. What made you start web development/design in the first place?

I actually got in to programming by way of animation. When I was younger I wanted nothing more than to be an animator for Disney. My parents have always been tech savvy, so one day while on the Internet I stumbled across a web animation contest. Contestants got to download free trials of Real Player (for audio recording) and Macromedia Flash. I started on my project right away, but as I went I discovered that I like the interactive aspect of Flash (buttons! inputs! oh my!) than actually doing any animating. So I started getting in to ActionScript. Fast forward ten years and I now code in Java, PHP, HTML, CSS, ActionScript (2 and 3), and JavaScript.

Q3. What inspires you?

I will unashamedly sound cliche and say that my family inspires me. I say it because it is true. My first working PHP/MySQL application was a note program for my wife and I to use to send notes to each other at school as we were both in college at the time. When we were expecting our first child I made a count down timer for the occasion. I also get a lot of inspiration from frustration. In other words, when I am frustrated (“why won’t X just work like it is supposed to!”) I often get ideas on how to solve what is frustrating me.

Q4. What’s a typical day for you?

I wake up, get out of bed, and drag a comb across my head. Then I walk to the bus, take the bus to the train, take the train to the city, and then walk to my office in San Francisco. Then I work all day, mostly on front-end development, specifically Flash. After work I go back the way I came and then spend the evening with my family.

Q5. How does your "Command Center" look like?

At work I have a totally awesome setup. My home computer is nice too, but its kind of familied.

Q6. What operating system do you use?

Work = OSX. Home = Windows Vista. I love them both, really. I have an equal number of complaints about both as well as equal praise.

Q7. What’s the programming language you are most comfortable with?

I have the most experience with Flash and ActionScript, but anything ECMAScript related works. In school I learned to love Java. In my spare time I use PHP.

Q8. What’s your favorite tool/IDE?

Notepad++ for Windows. I am still undecided on which text editor I like best for OSX.

Q9. How do you start a new project?

Sketches. Diagrams. More sketches. I love putting ideas to paper. I always carry a notepad with me. I use my computer for just about everything else, but when it comes to brainstorming and kicking off a new project I always, ALWAYS, get out a pen and pad and start jotting.

Q10. What’s your design philosophy?

I like to keep things simple. I also make things for me. That is to say that when I’ve said “I should make that” enough times to myself I clue in and make it. Most of my creations (E.ggtimer, TinyAsk, J.ot Down, PeqURL, MediaPox Card Creator) I use on a regular basis because they fill a need I previously had.

Q11. What was your first website?

My first website, beside my AOL member page back in the day, was for my country. A few friends and I decided to unite our bedrooms and secede from the nation and the tyranny of bossy parent. We called it the United Rooms of America and made a website. Anyone could join if they filled out the questionnaire. We voted on a new president every week. I wish that site was still around. It is not, alas.

Q12. What’s your favorite creation?

In college I ran a widget development company called WidgetNest. That was probably the best thing I’ve ever done in terms of where it took me professionally. I worked for clients of all types and sizes, made lots of contacts, and ultimately ended up getting a great job from it. And, without my help, it continues to grow in user base.

Q13. What’s hot now and you would like to let everyone know about?

search.twitter.com – I didn’t make it but let me speak to the power of the real-time web, especially as it relates to searching for updates on current events. Its going to change the world.

Q14. What’s next?

I always iterate on my projects, meaning that I am constantly updating things. I plan on adding more features to J.ot Down, my internet notepad project, as well as sprucing up some older projects with fresh design. Take PeqURL for instance. Didn’t some other URL shortening service just get tons of money? I am sure it isn’t as awesome and mine.

Q15. Being the One, what’s the one advice you would give to the wannabes out there?

Do. Make. Create. When you get an idea to make something, make it. Even if it is completely silly, just do it. Even if it has already been done, do it your way. You will learn a lot in the process. I know I have.

Q1. You are the "One" on SingleFunction this week, so, who are you really?

My name is Elbert. I’m a 25 year old self-employed web developer from The Netherlands, currently living with my girlfriend in Australia. I built websites for a living and often work on experimental projects for fun.

Q2. What made you start web development/design in the first place?

I’ve been a programmer since the first year of high-school in 1995 when I used recreate games like Tetris in DOS. I made my first website with the first iteration of Microsoft Frontpage somewhere in the late nineties and I started programming in PHP by hacking my own phpBB board in 2004. As a kid I always wanted to do “something with computers”.

Q3. What inspires you?

I like simple and clever inventions. Stuff like Twitter, which started off as a service with basically one feature and now the fastest growing social network on the web. People who come of with brilliant ideas and realize them while others say it will never work, inspire me.

Q4. What’s a typical day for you?

I get up, start my computer, check my mail and kiss my girlfriend goodbye as she leaves for work. I usually spend some time reading RSS feeds with a cup of coffee as I like staying on top of tech news. Then I boot up my text editor and start coding! Before my girl comes home I make sure dinner is on the table, and we relax behind the TV. What happens after TV, I don’t say.

Q5. How does your "Command Center" look like?

It isn’t much. I have my laptop (you can tell it’s being used) and an extra monitor dedicated to Twitter/TweetDeck and IM. I keep my desk clean and organized, I don’t like clutter. One thing you will always find on my desk is a glass of water.

Q6. What operating system do you use?

I’m on Windows XP. Ubuntu used to be my OS of choice but I always had Windows on a separate computer for software that doesn’t run on Linux (try opening a complex PSD file in GIMP). Right now I only have one PC so I’m stuck with XP.

Q7. What’s the programming language you are most comfortable with?

PHP. JavaScript comes second.

Q8. What’s your favorite tool/IDE?

I use SciTE, a very simple text editor (boots in a second). It has syntax highlighting and a tabbed interface, which is all I need. FileZilla is my favorite FTP client.

Q9. How do you start a new project?

I usually just work the idea out in my head. I start by creating a new folder in my projects directory and copying some files I will probably be using. Then I just start with code. I should probably begin with doodles on paper, diagrams, flowcharts etc. but I’m way to impatient.

Q10. What’s your design philosophy?

“The best interface is no interface at all.” I first heard that in an eye opening Google Tech Talk “Don’t make me click“. It means that you shouldn’t require user interaction unless it’s absolutely necessary. A good example is Google Reader where they removed the pagination and load more content as you scroll down. Less clicking, more enjoying.

Q11. What was your first website?

I made my first website to put photos of my artwork on-line, long time ago.

Q12. What’s your favorite creation?

I have to say one of my latest apps, Cloud.li, because it is everything I stand for. It’s simple, requires hardly any interaction (no buttons to press) and can be inspiring at the same time. It took me 2 hours to make and 5,000 people were on it the next day.

Q13. What’s hot now and you would like to let everyone know about?

My latest project is Twitchance, which is a viral and social marketing experiment where I’m going to give away $500.-. To join, all you need to do is post a message on Twitter with a message from the sponsor 6S Marketing.

Q14. What’s next?

All desktop applications will make their transition to the web. We are seeing the beginning with Avairy, Gmail and Google Docs etc. (cloud computing). I’m waiting for Internet2 or The Grid, we need a much faster web if we ever want to leave desktop apps behind.

Q15. Being the One, what’s the one advice you would give to the wannabes out there?

I’m not the One! I have a long long way to go. My best advise is to just do what you enjoy doing and be passionate about it. There will always be people to discourage you, which usually means they don’t have the guts to do what you do.

Q1. You are the "One" on SingleFunction this week, so, who are you really?

I feel like I should be ripping of my mask and revealing my true self to the world. Haha! I fooled you all, I am really…. Nope. I’m just Chris. Mild-mannered web designer.

Q2. What made you start web development/design in the first place?

It was just a natural progression for me. I’ve been a bit of a computer nerd since I was a kid, but I also really enjoyed art. I started going to college for Computer Science but I just wasn’t loving it. I ultimately switched to Art. And now, I do both!

Q3. What inspires you?

Mostly other amazing websites. That, and dreaming of early retirement and financial security.

Q4. What’s a typical day for you?

Very chill, just how I like it. I work from home, so my daily commute is just down the stairs to my computer. I spend the days working for the design company I work for, and my evening working on my other projects.

Q5. How does your "Command Center" look like?

Old photo, but it hasn’t changed much:

Q6. What operating system do you use?

I’m a mac fanboy. I don’t shove it down peoples throats, but I definitely think it’s the way to go. Once in a blue moon to I ever have any trouble with my computer. And even then it’s usually no big deal. The interface looks good, it feels good, it gets done what I need to get done, and doesn’t get in my way.

Q7. What’s the programming language you are most comfortable with?

I’m mostly an HTML/CSS/jQuery kinda guy. I know some PHP, and have written some small applications in it, but it’s certainly not my fortay. When stuff like security starts becoming a factor, I run and hide. I’ve worked on a number of apps in Ruby on Rails with Richard, so I’m comfortable designing in that enviornment, but definitely not coding in it.

Q8. What’s your favorite tool/IDE?

Coda.

Q9. How do you start a new project?

Information gathering is the first step. Figuring out as much detail as you can about the goals of the project, so you can make sure to have those in mind before you start pushing pixels.

Q10. What’s your design philosophy?

I guess I don’t really have one? Maybe I should. Maybe I should make one up right now:
Design good.

Q11. What was your first website?

I’m sure it was for a college class. I was in a bluegrass band in college afterwards for years, I think one of my first personal projects was creating a website for that, which (of course) went through many iterations over the years. You can’t see it though, it’s long gone (that’s probably a good thing).

Q12. What’s your favorite creation?

Chris has answered this together with the next question

Q13. What’s hot now and you would like to let everyone know about?

These questions I can answer together. I’ve really really enjoyed working on the web app Are My Sites Up. It’s a dead-simple service for notifying you if any of your sites go down. It is quite the complicated beast on the back-end, so it was a great challenge, and continues to be a great challenge, to design for the site ensuring it’s as simple and easy to use as it possibly can be, while working well and offering many features.

Q14. What’s next?

Oh, we’ll just have to see. Keeping chugging away on my current projects for sure. There is also a book I’m tinkering around with, no details yet though.

Q15. Being the One, what’s the one advice you would give to the wannabes out there?

Work hard. Being good at anything takes loads of time and effort. I also love this quote: