The Bondi Beach Home Page

The Bondi Beach Home Page is maintained by Brian Robson. This home page aims to provide fast, useful, enjoyable information about Bondi without the clutter seen on most web pages.

Instant bio: Brian has lived in Bondi for over 30 years. In his other life he writes databases for the NSW Heritage Office and for archaeologists.

If you have a suggestion, a question or just want to say hello, send an email from this form. You can read Brian's rant about Linux on the Desktop (written June 2002) or a more recent article about automatic testing of web sites (written December 2004) if you like that sort of thing.

Brian's interests, other than web pages, databases and the Internet generally, include fringe and cult movies, alternative country and western music, the use and abuse of the English language and counteracting the effects of advertising. He prefers cats to dogs.

This web site began in March 1996, with original design and writing by Nicos Souleles and Claire Pillar.

Many thanks to all those who have made suggestions along the way, especially Marie for the Fashions Page, Pat Darby for taking photos during 2002, Dan Byrnes for his ongoing support and many a cheerful discussion, Erica for organising the pictures of Bronte, and finally Nicos and Claire for the timely concept and the enduring simplicity of the design.

Film cameras from 1999 to 2003 by Konica and negative film by Kodak, prints by Fuji, processed on Bondi Road. Thanks to Carol for use of the Hewlett Packard 5300 scanner and the endless cups of coffee, good judgement and words of encouragement. Scanning of photos was mainly at 150 dpi, giving an initial image size of 600 by 900 pixels, and a file size around 1.5MB. This is reduced and/or cropped to 620 x 413 with a thumbnail of 120 x 80. Since August 2008, a HP C-6280 All-in-One scanner has been used, with scanning directly to a memory chip.

Photo manipulation using PaintShopPro Version 3 (yes version 3) from 1995, plus PaintShopPro version 7 and The Gimp. Pat's digital camera by Kodak.

Brian's digital camera starting from August 2003 by Olympus, models C-5050 and C-5060. Note that Olympus cameras take pictures with an aspect ratio of 4:3, the same as a standard TV set or an old movie (pre-widescreen). Digital pictures for this web site are currently taken at a resolution of 5.5 megapixels and then reduced and/or cropped to the required size, most often 620 x 465. The thumbnails are usually 120 x 90 and are now made using EZ-Thumbs from the www.fookes.com/ezthumbs web site.

Given the widespread usage of broadband connections and larger monitors, the picture sizes have been increased to 160 by 120 for thumbnails and 770 by 577 for the large images.

HTML programming has been performed entirely without that dreadful FrontPage program. For Quality Assurance and usability testing, this site uses the Firefox Web Developer toolbar add-in plus the W3C on-line HTML page validator, the webmaster tips pages and the on-line Link Checker all from the World Wide Web Consortium at www.w3.org (see under Validators).

Sunnies were not worn and no bottled water was drunk during the making of this web site. However, everyone here in Bondi exists on a diet of just Cappuccinos and Sun Dried Tomatoes on Turkish Bread, although on the weekend, we have Bagels as a special treat.

This site is dedicated to Vincent Flanders and Jakob Nielsen whose contributions to the Internet still remain in the mists of history yet to be written.

Last updated: 20th June 2009.
This site's URL: http://www.bondivillage.com