Psyked » Competitions

Feeling smart? Try Google’s Code Jam

James — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:30:16 +0000

Google Code Jam is a pretty much a coding competition. You can use any programming language you like, they’ll give you a problem, and you have to solve it. Sound fun? Well, you have between four and eight minutes to submit your answers, and you’ll get three to six problems per round. Still sound like fun?

Well, the 24 hr Qualification Round Begins on Wednesday July 16th, and you can register here.

I think I’m going to attempt the qualification round, but I have no illusions about the accuracy of my speed-coding. The guys at Google wouldn’t make things too difficult – would they?

Sandbox Design competition (results tomorrow)

James — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 22:00:09 +0000

Ok, so I didn’t get my ass into gear and enter the competition – but others did, and their designs are now available to view online. The results are announced tomorrow (being Monday) Check out the competition website.

I’ve had a mosey through the designs, and these are my favourates…

Blackbox

MIX

Sandpress

Shades of Grey

I’m pipping Sandpress for the win, with Shades of Grey and possibly MIX in the followup. Hands-down, Sandpress has the professional polish that makes all other entries pale in comparision. Shades is nice overall, with good structure, but lacks oopfh. MIX has a nice structure, but some nasty colours and graphics. Blackbox is a bit rough, but I like how different and bold the design is – but as for being adopted as a mainstream, bundled theme (which is what the competition is about), I don’t think there’s a chance.

WordPress design competition…

James — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:13:22 +0000

Apparently, there hasn’t been one like it since 2004, but now Scott of plaintxt.org is holding a “Sandbox design competition” (Sandbox being the name of the WordPress theme that it’ll all be based around)

Sandbox is, as you’ll see if you read the about section, a highly semantic theme for wordpress, dynamically generating a wealth of useful variations and classes, and effectively puts an unprecidented level of visual control into the CSS. Unprecidented vs. your normal WordPress theme, that is. 24,000 possible class selectors, apparently. Not that you’d use that many, I hope.

The competition runs until July 29th, with judgements made on the 6th August (when all of the entries will be released)

I’m gonna do my best to enter this one, and even if I don’t, the theme sounds like a promising new base for a redesign…