About

about the 200ok weblog

header photos

You can see original versions of most of the header photos on Flickr.

tech

The 200ok Weblog is published using Blogger, since I am more interested in writing the blog than maintaining the blog tool. That in turn means the site is almost valid and could be quicker. Blogger unfortunately hard-codes some invalid markup and unnecessary resources.

200ok?

200 OK is the HTTP status for "The request has succeeded." (RFC 2616 10.2.1). Need I say more? :)

the stamp, and the logo

Red, square stamp with 200ok translated to Chinese

For a very long time my logo and avatar were derived from a stone stamp/chop, with "200ok" translated as closely as possible in Chinese. The top two characters are a direct translation of two hundred; the bottom two... well, it varies regionally, but generally it forms something like "you can" in the sense of "you have permission". That seemed like a reasonably close interpretation of OK. The translation and stamp were created by a lovely gentleman at the Paddington Markets in Sydney, around 2005/2006. The SVG version was created by a coworker. I used the stamp digitally but also created badges and stickers with the image - and they ended up all over the world!

In 2023 I decided to change to a new logo, with obvious design references to the stamp but not replicating it directly. I still love the original, and I still have the chop, it was just time for a change. Even if I don't use it again as an avatar, the chop is a powerful reminder of a time when my life and career brought me to Sydney; and to a shaded stall in Paddington on a Saturday morning.

about ben buchanan

I make some bits of the web. I taught myself web development while goofing off at university (I majored in Journalism and Philosophy) and published my first site more than 20 years ago. I worked as a copywriter for a while, but went full time as a web developer when I realised people were willing to pay me to stuff around with computers.

I currently work as an Engineering Lead for Quantium (Sydney, Australia). Previously I have worked for Ansarada, Bigcommerce, Atlassian, News Digital Media and Griffith University. If you need them, there are details on LinkedIn.

speaking

I was somewhere in front of the crowd at...

Web Directions Hover, March 2022.
SydJS, January 2020.
SydCSS, December 2019.
A11y Camp (Sydney), November 2019.
SydCSS, February 2019.
Web Directions Summit 2018 (Sydney), October 2018.
What Do You Know (Sydney), September 2018.
Design Systems Meetup (Sydney), September 2018.
A11y Camp (Sydney), September 2017.
Web Directions Code 2016 (Sydney & Melbourne), August 2016.
A11y Camp (Sydney), July 2015.
Web Directions Respond, March 2015.
SydCSS, December 2014.
What Do You Know (Sydney), April 2014.
SydJS - lightning talks, March and October 2013.
Atlassian Summit (San Francisco), June 2012.
Web Standards Group (Sydney), September 2011.
SydJS, May 2011.
Ed Directions workshop, Web Directions South 2009.
Edge of the Web (Perth), 2008.
Local Government Web Network Conference (Sydney), August 2008 (second day keynote).
Open Publish (Sydney), July 2008.
Web Standards Group (Sydney), February 2008.
Open Standards (Sydney), 2007.
Web Directions South (Sydney), 2006
OZeWAI (presented via VOIP from Brisbane to Melbourne, a curious experience!), 2005.
Organised the WANAU Brisbane Web Accessibility Forum (Brisbane), August 2005.
Web Standards Group (Brisbane), June 2005.

judging

Member of the judging panel...

writing

Contributed an article to Web Directions 'Scroll', Edition 4 (Code 2016).
Contibuted articles to the Opera Web Standards Curriculum, which has since been adapted as the W3C Web Standards Curriculum, which in turn has been incorporated in Web Platform Docs... in fact I really can't keep track of where that content ended up, nor how many languages it's been translated into.
Had an article published in the inaugural Local Government Web Network magazine.

you may remember me from such events as...

You can usually find me anywhere that web geeks have gathered in Sydney. I ordered the beer and pizza for SydJS for a couple of years (probably my best-received work of all time) and have helped run other events like SydCSS and SWAG. Ajay Ranipetra and I ran a few events under the banner 'Geeks On The Grass' before it was naturally subsumed into STUB and other meetups.

I was somewhere in the crowd at most Web Directions events from 2006 onwards, plus other conferences including ReactConfAU 2020, CodeHeartDesign 2018, Generate Syd 2016, UX Australia 2014, Web Essentials 2005 and OZeWAI 2004.

the 200ok weblog