- And woman! Pictograms are used in lots of different ways. Today you can see pictograms on everything from dairy-products to toilet-doors and on the web. This is a symbol or little picture that illustrates in the simplest way what it stands for. This prevents us from having to use loads of text and verbal information. Other places where you can see lots of these symbols are airports and on road-signs.

There is a nice book written by Rayan Abdullah and Roger Hubner about pictograms. They have taken photos and collected lots of symbols and written the book: Pictograms Icons and Signs. (A guide to information graphics)

I have made a very typical symbol for rest-rooms this time. I made the background red to give it some extra visibility. The man and woman symbols have to be alike but still tell the difference, in a clear way, between gentlemen and ladies. I think this button kind of pictogram with the white reflection gives you an extra feeling for pushing it. So it could be made into a door-handle at the same time. I have made some signs for a company working with information-boards – these will of course be some of the symbols that I, or they, will use. This is a project that spans over some time so I might show you some more pictograms later on in the near future.

Some time ago I created a so-called Google Gadget. A Google Gadget is a simple HTML and JavaScript mini-application served in an iFrame that can be embedded in webpages and other apps. It can also be put on your personalized Google page, i.e. iGoogle, if you have one that is. Gadgets can also be used on for example Google Maps, Orkut and docs.

My gadget gets the latest content from IBM developerWorks. This site contains a lot of material for several different categories and therefore I made it possible to choose which category to display, how many items to list and the option to display them with or without a summary.

The gadget is not really made as a sidebar blog-widget, but rather as a gadget for iGoogle. It can however be adjusted to fit in for 180 or 200 pixels on a blog and still look ok. Copy and paste the code below to your blog for this purpose. However this will display the 4 most recent articles on latest content with no summaries. If you want to show anything else you have to adjust it yourself here. The gadget can always be found in the gadget directory where you can choose to add it for iGoogle or to your webpage.
<script src="http://gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://niklas.waller.googlepages.com/dev_works_lib_view.xml&up_choose_library_view=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibm.com%2Fdeveloperworks%2Fviews%2Fjava%2Frss%2Flibraryview.jsp&up_show_summary=0&up_num_entries=4&synd=open&w=200&h=240&title=developerWorks+technical+libraries&border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999&output=js"></script>

Here is how it looks like when you add it for iGoogle.


When used on iGoogle you can as mentioned above easily adjust what to display. Do this by clicking the little arrow in the header and choose "edit adjustments". This little box will open up where you can tune what to display.


If you are a Lotus Notes/Domino person there is a category for that. There are also categories for Java, XML, Web development and much more.

Behind all this is some XML and JavaScript development, not too advanced though and you will get a lot of help from the Google Gadget API Overview. You can also look at the code behind existing gadgets to get ideas on how to do certain things.

I have of course ideas on how to make cool gadgets for Wohill on design or development topics which will be published here when that time comes. Feel free to post any questions that you might have and I will help you or guide you in the right direction if I can - to speed up the development process.

I think I have ended up in a dragon-craze this week. Felt like sticking to this subject once again, but with a bit of a different approach. In tattooing there have been different trends and designs going on for ages. Something very graphic is the tribal tattoo or tribal patterns weaving in text or just making nice shapes over skin and body. The previous dragon was more of a detailed design. This one takes almost as much preparation but feels more like a symbol or pictogram. The swaying body of the dragon and its claw-like legs and feet resemble and are inspired by “tribals”. I made the claws almost like fire and clouds to get that into the design without making them separately.

If you are on your way to a local tattoo-artist to get the tattoo you have been thinking about for a long time - get one that symbolises you and the stage and place you are in today. Maybe get one symbolising a good thing in life that you have right now. Like a celebration of the day or person you want to honour. A lot of tattoos symbolise someone you miss or have lost. Today – get one that makes you feel good – a symbol of strength – the dragon!

When developing a web form where you want the user to type in a date, you will have to validate the input so that it is on a form that fits the system needs. This will require the user to understand which format to use and it will require the system to validate properly and to give feedback if the format was wrong. This is not a very good solution and it does not look that good either. A neat solution is to use a date picker instead. This way the user can't make a mistake and it will be very easy to use.

I found this solution made by Julian Robichaux, the host of nsftools.com. He is a very talented developer and if you browse his site you will find lots of good free stuff to use. His date picker came in handy to use for me and I will explain how it works and how to install it here.

We have a text field in which we want to put a date chosen by the user and it has to be on a specific format. First we set the text field to be disabled so that you can not add any text to it. By pressing the button "Select date" a date dialog opens from which the user can choose a date. When clicking on the date it is pasted on a specific predefined form into the text field. This is done by using a JavaScript function which allows for different formats, which can be read more about in the JavaScript comments. Go ahead and try, click the button below!



Add this css-file and this JavaScript-file to the head section of your web page.
After that all you need is this little piece of code and you're on:

<input name="theDate" id="publishDate" disabled="disabled"> <input value="Select date" onclick="displayDatePicker('theDate', false, 'ymd', '-');" type="button">

See more information about the datepicker on nsftools.com.

There are several strong symbols and figures used through time to give us feelings of belonging and creatures to identify with. Many of these symbols have been drawn on walls – caveman painting and carving in stories and pictures from years ago - up until today when graffiti is a well-known art form. These different or similar, if you wish, ways of expressing feelings and symbols of strength have also been used in tattoos. The eagle is a very common bird used as a symbol of strength… So is the dragon, which I have used this time, with its twirling up and stretching out of its tongue and huffing and puffing flames and smoke. I have been inspired by Asian art to make this tattoo. I started out drawing it in black and white to get the shapes and feeling right. I might show you a coloured version later. So back to the dragon - it has many scales and a flame-like tail as many Asian dragons have. I think that this tattoo is meant to give you a resemblance from the past and still feel like an up-to-date modern tattoo theme.

So if you get the possibility or chance to get one made by one of the great tattoo-artists in the world you might want to use this as inspiration - or even ask me to design a tattoo for you. (Maybe even tattoo you.)

Check out the wallpaper to see the hole dragon.

Time to get up for some coffee and breakfast in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. I was visiting Florida about a couple of months ago and came across this sunrise view almost every morning when I came down from my room for breakfast. I naturally went for a swim and a stroll along the beach. All these elements, sun, wind, and the surf hitting the beach really gives you, or me anyway, lots of inspiration and good vibes. This was the same trip when I had the pleasure to pass by Benihana and have a great dinner.

Nic and I had a talk about more things coming up on Wohill. One of them could be the following: something we both do is to take a lot of pictures, on our travels, or adventures wherever we go. Even just a spin on the town can give great opportunities for a nice picture. So we are adding some photographs when we get the chance. Maybe one of us could interest you too. Well - that might come next time we post a picture.

A photograph can actually give lots of inspiration and ideas. So enjoy this shot from Florida and dream away to the sunrise and see what this day can bring.

If you would like to translate a text or an entire site from one language to another you should try Google Translator. I tried it on a few sites and it's not the best result but quite understandable.

There is also a dictionary from-to several languages and a little gadget which you can add to your webpage. We have added it to Wohill as well as you can see to the bottom left (at least for some time).

Add this script code to get the gadget:
<script src="http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/translatemypage.xml&up_source_language=en&w=160&h=60&title=&border=&output=js"></script>

You can make some personal adjustments by changing the querystring in the url:

up_source_language=en&w=160&h=60&title=&border=&output=js

The gadget on Wohill looks like this (in swedish):


When you choose to translate a site, either via Google Translator or via the gadget, your site will appear with a different address and a different language but otherwise look (almost) the same. This is how Wohill looks in german:

When you move the mouse over any text a popup window appears (as in the picture above) which shows the original text and a possibility to contribute to a better translation if the one provided was poor.