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Creepy CuteCreepy Cute, an exhibition of zany illustrated characters created by Alltraders graphics designer Cohen Gum and handmade jewellery from Minnette Michael, opens next week at Adelaide’s Urban Cow Studio.

Alltraders www.alltraders.com is an Australian software development company that specialises in creating and hosting websites and developing customised software applications. Alltraders uses the Joomla! Content Management System to design easy-to-use and maintain business websites.

In his spare time, Cohen Gum has created illustrations filled with vibrant colour schemes that border on the creepy side of delightful. His inspiration is clearly visible through the depth of work and the attention to detail is stunning.

Minnette has crafted exquisite jewellery for the exhibition inspired by Cohen's fictional characters. The combination of illustrative work and jewellery is sure to see this exhibition shine.

The Creepy Cute exhibition opens at Urban Cow Studio, 11 Frome Street, Adelaide, on July 6. More details at www.creepycute.com.

High school students studying construction skills in the South East are getting hands-on work experience by fabricating a key building for the Southern Hemisphere’s largest forest industries expo.

The three day event ‘AUSTimber 2012’ in Mt Gambier next March will showcase the latest in technology, machinery, products and services for the forestry industry. It is being held on a display area in the forest, 15 kms from Mount Gambier, the geographic hub of the largest plantation forest area in Australia.

The Expo over two days on 30th and 31st March 2012 will deliver a dynamic environment to experience the latest in precision forestry technology with live demonstrations, indoor and outdoor displays.

One of the schools developing pre-fabricated sections of an administration facility on the forest floor site is Naracoorte High School, where SA’s first female construction and trades skills teacher Emily Griggs is delivering the ‘Doorways 2 Construction’ program.

Emily, 23, is helping to train our future young ‘tradies’ with Year 10 – Year 12 students from Naracoorte and Lucindale Area Schools.  Emily last year did specialist building trades studies to qualify for the Construction Industry Training Board’s ‘Doorways 2 Construction’ program.

Wakanda logoThe first public version of Wakanda, an open source platform to develop web applications using just JavaScript, can now be downloaded by software developers from http://wakanda.org/download.

Wakanda is designed to appeal to software developers who build web applications, typically for business. The product’s emphasis is on the rapid development of web applications that have a rich interface and are easy to maintain. The benefit for developers is reducing the time and lowering the cost of developing and supporting web applications by using just JavaScript.

JavaScript is an object-oriented scripting and programming language that is quick and easy to learn. Widely used in the browser by many developers, JavaScript provides a single language in the full Wakanda stack, from server to browser, making it easy to both develop and maintain an application.

As well as building web applications, the Wakanda platform lets developers create HTML pages for desktop, mobile or tablet PCs, with widgets that are adapted for the "touchscreen" environment.

Wakanda is comprised of three components: Wakanda Server provides a super-rapid datastore, an HTTP server and a home for a Wakanda application's business logic; Wakanda Studio allows you to design datastore classes, create business logic and draw up a graphical user interface (GUI) - all visually; Wakanda Framework provides the widgets and the transactional layer to enable Wakanda applications to work across many browsers and mobile devices.

Wakanda is an initiative of global software company 4D, which for the past two years has backed a separate, young development team to build this innovative application development platform.

4D Australasia Managing Director Damon Carley said the Developer Preview version of Wakanda was still not in its final form. “It’s taking baby steps, so we ask developers to be gentle and not throw it into the workforce right away,” he advised.

Impress Media passes a major milestone today – May 27 marks the 20th anniversary of John Harris registering South Australia’s first PR agency to specialise in IT. Back in May 1991, John had the idea that there might be a crust in setting up a public relations agency that focussed in communicating the benefits delivered by technology.

He stuck his toe in the water by writing a first press release for QikDraw Systems, an Adelaide-based CAD software firm run by the amiable Peter Chan. After that, he did a survey gauging the industry interest in an IT PR service: Of the 100 local computer companies surveyed, an amazing one third actually replied.

In the subsequent two decades, Impress Media has seen the public relations industry transform from a typewriter and fax-powered industry to the cornucopia of communication that exists today. In that time, Impress Media has provided services for clients ranging from global companies including CA, Sun, Microsoft and IBM to Australian successes such as Internode, PCRange, EBS and Virtual Ark. John Harris also wrote the computer section for The Advertiser for six years and remains a technology commentator for ABC Radio.