eGAAD! Here's one thing not to do for accessibility.
By: Michael Diedrick on May 11, 2021
For Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) we're going to cover the one thing not to do for website accessibility: use accessibility overlays.
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Domain Name Security, and Why It Really Matters
By: Michael Diedrick on Mar 8, 2021
Any website build or redesign requires we get involved with the organization’s domain name, and we’ve seen a lot of things that worry us. We’re creating this nice, easy checklist to keep everyone's domain names safe and secure. After the break we'll explain an overview about domain names, registrars and why keeping domain names safe and secure is vital. We'll also include a bonus round that can save money and administrative headaches.
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Coded Bias at Milwaukee Film's Black History Month
By: Michael Diedrick on Feb 1, 2021
Coded Bias is a new documentary that follows a researcher at MIT, Joy Buolamwini, who discovered that facial recognition doesn’t work for women or people with brown skin. Was it a bug, a feature, or an indication of something endemic to the industry that produces the applications and software that surrounds us?
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Safari Tales: Integrated Testing Module "Micro Product"
By: Padraig Sullivan on Oct 2, 2020
Turning a boring test document into a fully realized Testing Module “Micro Product”, integrated seamlessly into the ByteCMS.
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Interfaces without touch
By: Michael Diedrick on Sep 22, 2020
What's an interface without touch? We explore a new proof of concept and some demo apps to see what's in store. What's an interface without touch? We explore a new proof of concept and some demo apps to see what's in store. What's an interface without touch? We explore a new proof of concept and some demo apps to see what's in store.
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Creating a Safe Reservation and Ticketing System in the Age of COVID-19
By: Padraig Sullivan on Jul 28, 2020
How a previous commitment to clean, future-proof code helped us safely re-open the doors to two of Milwaukee’s revered cultural institutions
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Byte’s tech investment pays off in the Age of COVID-19
By: Michael Diedrick on Jul 28, 2020
We've been busy here helping cultural institutions and libraries adapt to the changes necessary to keep people safe during the coronavirus
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Making Waves: The Art Of Cinematic Sound at the Milwaukee Film Festival
By: Michael Diedrick on May 1, 2020
When we think about the magic movies can create, we probably never think about sound design. Recording audio is tricky to begin with, but creating realistic sounding effects is certainly worth an interesting documentary. Check out details and showtimes after the break.
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Content Strategy Skills to Connect With Your Patrons
By: Michael Diedrick on Sep 2, 2019
Library navigations are important to get right because of the wide range of people visiting a site, and the range of needs those people have. We often hear librarians consider their website an online branch, which requires the care and thought an offline branch would take. So, how do you start thinking about a content strategy for a new branch? Read more!
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West Bend Community Memorial Library Puts New Website Live
By: Michael Diedrick on Jan 4, 2019
Libraries are of course a major focus here at Byte, and working with librarians is a great pleasure because they’re highly organized, they understand how content works and they’re strongly patron and community focused. We especially loved working with the good people at the West Bend Community Memorial Library (WBCML) because they’re highly inclusive and strive to communicate effectively
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General Magic at the Milwaukee Film Festival
By: Michael Diedrick on Oct 15, 2018
The Milwaukee Film Festival is screening a documentary named after a company called General Magic, about “The most important company that came out of Silicon Valley that nobody’s heard of.” Screenings on October 27 and October 29. Scroll past the break for our preview and showtime details.
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Byte and The Walters present Ex Libris at Best in Heritage Festival in Croatia
By: Michael Diedrick on Oct 1, 2018
Byte and The Walters won the 2017 gold Applications and APIs MUSE award for The Walters Ex Libris website, and were asked to present on the project at an international conference for museums in the Dubrovnik, Croatia Best in Heritage conference this month.
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AlphaGo at the Milwaukee Film Festival
By: Michael Diedrick on Sep 20, 2017
Byte is in its third year as community partner for the 2017 Milwaukee Film Festival showing of the film AlphaGo, a documentary that covers the subjects of artificial intelligence and “deep learning”. If you like to see explorations of how artificial intelligence (AI) teaches us humans about us, this will be a fun documentary.
The chinese game of Go is considered to be the most difficult game in the world, and ...
Byte and The Walters Art Museum Win Gold MUSE Award
By: Michael Diedrick on May 30, 2017
Byte and The Walters win the 2017 gold Applications and APIs MUSE award from the American Alliance of Museums for The Walters Ex Libris website.
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Byte Process: Learning Canvas Part 1
By: Sam Korthof on Feb 28, 2017
Here at Byte as well as in the Web and Technology Industry, it is important to learn and keep up with new languages, ideas and concepts. One of the new concepts that we are tackling is Canvas.
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Byte CMS Upgrade: Issues Manager
By: Sam Korthof on Jan 5, 2017
After a request and some interesting conversations about issues, and some upgrade-building and testing, we are excited to announce that the new issues system is ready to install and use on your site.
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A Byte How-to: Making Screen Captures
By: Sam Korthof on Oct 21, 2016
When it comes to communications, one of the most efficient ways to communicate is visually. Just like the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words, so is a screen capture.
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Site Launch: Walters Ex Libris
By: Joy O'Brien on Oct 4, 2016
We’re excited to introduce Walters Ex Libris, a project that has been in the works for about a decade (however our involvement was just over the last couple years).
New Site Launch - River Forest Manor & Marina
By: Joy O'Brien on Sep 19, 2016
The River Forest Manor & Marina is a beautiful, family owned, century-old Victorian mansion in the charming “Inner Banks” town of Belhaven, North Carolina, and includes a deep water dock on NC's Intercostal waterway, and we're excited to launch their new site!
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Generation Startup - MKE Film Festival
By: Jen Fox on Aug 29, 2016
Generation Startup, is an upcoming film about six recent college graduates struggling to build their startups. Check it out during the Milwaukee Film Festival, and see if these entrepreneurs have what it takes for their startups to succeed.
read postLoud Things are Happening
By: Sam Korthof on Aug 24, 2016
Learn about our experience at our client MPL's Library Loud Days Event.
read postLast House Productions’ Feature Film, Neptune, is coming to the MKE Film Fest
By: Joy O'Brien on Sep 10, 2015
It’s that time of year again— the Milwaukee Film Festival is almost here!
read postSo you’ve launched your new website. Now what?
By: Joy O'Brien on Feb 27, 2015
First of all, congratulations on launching your new site! It takes a lot of work and time, for both us and our clients, to get a new site designed, built and online. So before anything else, give yourself a pat on the back for getting this far.
read postChristmas comes early: New business cards!
By: Joy O'Brien on Nov 4, 2014
Our new business cards came in the mail, and they look great! Mokey, our furry senior designer, approves.
Anyone familiar with Moo, a popular printing company, will recognize that these are Luxe business cards. They’re about 3 times thicker than your standard card, and it’s noticeable. There’s also a very subtle blue stripe all around the edge of the card. It’s all about the details, folks.
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Meet the new Byte wordmark!
By: Joy O'Brien on Oct 22, 2014
“I want you to have business cards,” Michael announced to me one morning, coffee in one hand and his own card in another. He handed it to me and continued, “but this design is old, and it’s not working anymore. How would you like to redesign it?”
read post1,000 Times Good Night at the Milwaukee Film Festival
By: Joy O'Brien on Sep 16, 2014
Byte has been a regular supporter of the Milwaukee Film Festival and this year we're proud to co-present 1,000 Times Good Night.
The film is about Rebecca Thomas (Juliette Binoche), a woman torn between two passions: the love she feels for her husband ("Game of Thrones" Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and two daughters at home in Dublin and the social responsibility she feels as a war photographer sent to conflict zones to capture the devastation experienced within them. When one assignment leaves her wounded, she is made to choose once and for all between her family and career. Director Erik Poppe captures both sides of this equation with humane generosity, composing stunning images of far-flung locales while allowing luminous performances from Binoche and Coster-Waldau to encapsulate the inner struggle that this ultimatum generates.
read postYou case-insensitive bastard
By: Michael Diedrick on Aug 12, 2014
JQuery is an immensely useful framework in Javascript, and even better, when it misses something, like how the ':contains' selector only finds things that are the same case, it's surprisingly easy to extend.
$.extend($.expr[":"], {
"containsNoCase": function(elem, i, match, array) {
return (elem.textContent || elem.innerText || "").toLowerCase().indexOf((match[3] || "").toLowerCase()) >= 0;
}
});
Then change your :contains selector to :containsNoCase, like $("body:containsNoCase").each(.... And voila, you’ll shed a tear for both the little and big letters in no time.
read postVisionaries
By: Michael Diedrick on May 27, 2014
Long before the 1945 ideas of Vannevar Bush, known to be the seeds of the modern internet, there was a Belgian bibliographer and entrepreneur named Paul Otlet. In 1895, Otlet envisioned "Universal Libraries" as a way to give access from afar to a vast number of books.
A new piece in The Atlantic by Alex Wright, Secret History of Hypertext, describes how 40 years later Otlet refined the idea to "electric telescopes" which could deliver books, pictures, audio recordings and movies. In 1935, Otlet wrote "From a distance, everyone will be able to read text, enlarged and limited to the desired subject, projected on an individual screen. In this way, everyone from his armchair will be able to contemplate the whole of creation, in whole or in certain parts."
read postHeartbleed Vulnerability
By: Michael Diedrick on Apr 9, 2014
It’s another day, so there’s another worry in the world of web development (and servers in general) -- the Heartbleed vulnerability for OpenSSL It’s a tiny ‘glitch in the mainframe’ that allows someone to read 64 kb of a server’s memory and un-encrypt things that are sent through what we all understood to be secure, like your credit card numbers or your secure email. And while every minor bug gets security analysts and the press running around like a bunch of frantic muppets, this one will be a real problem if not addressed. Why? Because it’s not a single piece of software, it’s part of the foundation of secure communication, OpenSSL, the system that keeps the most secret of the secrets.
What We Aren’t Talking About With Healthcare.gov’s “Debacle”
By: Michael Diedrick on Oct 29, 2013
To us as web developers, it’s fun when a website makes news. More so when the President of the United States has a press conference about a bad website launch. Even more so when a website plays a part in a great national debate. But it’s downright fascinating to see how website part the debate itself is just plain wrong. Read more past the break.
Google and the World Brain at Milwaukee Film Festival
By: Michael Diedrick on Sep 23, 2013
Byte is co-presenting a film at the Milwaukee Film Festival 2013, Google and the World Brain. The film seems to be positing that there’s evil lurking below Google’s “don’t be evil” unofficial motto. The trailer ends with a quote, “google could basically hold the whole world hostage,” pushing the idea that their seeming monopoly could limit access to the world’s knowledge. Really? Follow on in and let's discuss.
Using NFC to make life a little safer and more awesomated
By: Michael Diedrick on Feb 8, 2013
If you’ve purchased an Android phone in the last year, you probably have a featured called NFC that’s never used unless you’re using Google Wallet, with despite how convenient it is, it’s a seeming west coast and Japan phenomenon. But you don’t have to fly west to use NFC, it’s also a rather versatile way to make your life a little easier and maybe even safer. Read more after the break.
Site Launch: Purple Door Ice Cream
By: Ivan Eisenberg on Aug 10, 2012
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This afternoon the Byte staff took a trip just down the road here in Walker's Point to Purple Door Ice Cream—our newest client!
A Wonderful Friday
By: Michael Diedrick on Aug 10, 2012
What a wonderful Friday! It is finally not 100 degrees outside, our projects are moving along swimmingly, office cat is being as cute as ever, and we are enjoying the musical stylings of Lonely Planet on the office stereo. Recently we have had a few very technical and slightly stressful projects, but the team stepped up and met the challenge head on. Now they are fully functional and firmly in the rear-view as we move forward. Looking ahead we have some really cutting-edge, fun projects coming out way. Things are great! Enjoy some more cute office cat pictures after the jump.
SpeechTails an even better investment
By: Michael Diedrick on Jul 2, 2012
Byte alumni SpeechTails is in the news again, specifically they they're certified as a 'qualified new business venture' by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. That means that new investors of SpeechTails will be eligible for a 25% tax credit on the amount they invest. Congrats Todd & Amy!
Nerd Beer!
By: Michael Diedrick on Jun 26, 2012
All the way from Manhattan... Kansas comes with out a doubt the greatest beer packaging I've ever seen. Just the other day, while our office sound system was playing the London Philharmonic's rendition of video game theme music, I was thinking about the massive impact these 8-bit video games have had on my generation. Forever seared into my frontal lobe is the Mario Bros. music (and apparently the ability to beat the first world with my eyes closed, no whistles needed.) It is fun to see my generation making an impact on the world.
Now, brewing a beer (that I have never seen in person) in the Midwest isn't the largest impact mind you, but none the less things from my childhood are appearing in the "real" world, and it is interesting. Now I'm just waiting for Limp Bizkit to play on the oldies station and I'm all set.
New site completion tool
By: Michael Diedrick on Jun 19, 2012
In the business of being a client, you get the advantage of working with professionals, so all the really hard things are done for you. Except one: Content. Even we sometimes forget how hard it is to get the content right. Any time we forget how hard it is, we always remember when we upgrade our own website. It's like a powered microphone on a well-lit stage.
But the biggest, most painful part of this process is simply now knowing how far you are, how much of the content is done and how much has yet to be written. This last time we updated our site, we created a tool that we're offering to our new clients: a simple progress tracker that shows how close we were from completion, and what had to be done yet.
Eponymous Laws: Schneier's law
By: Michael Diedrick on May 15, 2012
Each month, we're taking a look at an eponymous law, a 'law' that's named after someone, usually the author.
Today we're looking at Schneier's law - "Any person can invent a security system so clever that she or he can't think of how to break it." More, my new hacker friend, after the break.
Eleven-foot-long Multi-touch Wall
By: Michael Diedrick on May 15, 2012
An eleven-foot multi-touch system delivering 3D views of quality tools, all installed on a custom-built semi truck driving across this great country of ours? Hell yeah.
Learn more after the break!
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Leading indicators: Quality in geographical area
By: Michael Diedrick on May 15, 2012
When I travel somewhere, there a few leading indicators that tell you the quality of the place. Here’s my top three: coffee, beer and radio stations. Learn why after the break.
Domain Names and Registrars
By: Michael Diedrick on May 15, 2012
Not too long ago, any hosting company hosted the Domain Name Service (DNS) of a web site, but that’s very much outdated, and not the smartest move. So let’s talk about what DNS is and what the better way to manage it would be, right after the break.
Easy Answers for Email Providers
By: Michael Diedrick on May 15, 2012
Who do you recommend to host email? Here’s an easy answer: Google. Now 10gb of space, excellent spam control, a tool designed for productivity, support for accessing your email via smartphones, mail clients and, of course, Google’s web interface. All this adds up to the most professional system we’ve seen, the system that any competitor will have to beat. Learn more after the break.