Scott Mallinson | Web Designer
You may recall me asking you what was in your pocket a couple of days ago so when developing a mobile friendly version of this website I would know which are the most popular mobile devices, and what to test the website on.
Popularity: 4% [?]
To jump on the trend of the growing number of websites that are creating mobile-friendly versions of their content, I aim to do the same in the not so distant future. Looking at the stats gathered from Google Analytics, I can see that the largest number of mobile device visitors use the iPhone to visit this website.
Popularity: 4% [?]
The anti-IE6 squad seems to have been gathering some momentum lately; 37Signals announced that they are phasing out support of the aged web browser, as well as Facebook and MobileMe. Even a website has been constructed, IE Death March, to revolt against the web browser and highlight websites that no longer support it.
Popularity: 3% [?]
If you haven’t already heard of Google Chrome then you must have had your head buried in the sand. Available to download on the 2nd September 2008, it was a bungled release caused by mis-communication within the Google camp. It didn’t matter much though as there was a rapid uptake of the new web browser and the immediate response from the early adopters was amazement at the speed of the thing.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Following the criticism and perceived failure of Windows VIsta, the latest operating system from Microsoft, it has made me think about the direction in which Microsoft are going and how they fair against competitors in their markets.
Popularity: 7% [?]
I have been spending some of my time lately working on a application that will be partly used on mobile devices. The intention is to capture a photo and upload it from a mobile device. We are using Flickr to upload and store the photos through their APIs and to also retrieve them for a different part of the application.
Early on in the development of the application, to test the functionality we simply used the web browsers on our desktop computers, and we then tested the application in mobile devices once we were confident it met the requirements. We assumed that the web browsers on mobile devices wouldn’t be too much different from those found on desktop computer. We were wrong.
Popularity: 14% [?]
A handy application that I have come across recently is IETester. It pretty much says on the tin what it does; it allows you to test your website/web application in various versions of Internet Explorer; 5.5, 6, 7 and 8 beta 1.
Popularity: 4% [?]
I guess this really continues on from my previous blog article about Grid-based layouts. A number of CSS frameworks have emerged over the last few months making it somewhat easier for front-end developers deliver consistent interfaces across web browsers.
A personal favourite of mine is to use the YUI Reset CSS along with the 960 Grid System I mentioned in the earlier post. This ensures that all elements; type, layout, input etc. are stripped back to their basics across all browsers through which you build on to. It means that any browser-specific padding applied to elements such as input buttons are removed and by declaring your own settings you know that you are getting a true value across web browsers.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Yesterday, whilst working on a client’s Wordpress website I took the opportunity to implement a ‘quick search’ search feature. Using the OpenSearch standard, the ‘quick search’ is supported by Internet Explorer 7 and the latest versions of Firefox and the likes of Wikipedia, Google and Amazon already take advantage of the technology.
Popularity: 4% [?]
There has been a lot of buzz over the internet recently regarding Apple’s September Keynote where Steve Jobs announced the introduction of the iPod Touch and the revamped iPod Classic and Nano.
Whilst the Classic and Nano are in essence the same product with a few modifications; storage capacity, screen-size, interface enhancements, the iPod Touch is a different animal. It comes in two different sizes, 8GB or 16GB which make use of the latest advancements in flash drive storage.
Popularity: 3% [?]
I have long been a user of the del.icio.us Firefox plugin. Though I probably don’t use it as much as I’d like to I still find it handy for quickly bookmarking webpages that I’d perhaps like to revisit later or at home.
The development of the Firefox plugin has been steady with an update/bug fix of some form every month, the recent August 22nd update was the longest period between updates. I have encountered very few problems using the plugin and it makes adding bookmarks to your del.icio.us account so much easier than using the old browser buttons.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Today I built my first mobile web app. In fact I can’t take full credit for it as Dave coded the core functionality and I scripted the interface. It’s only something small; a simple two page web app that let’s you upload files and browse through and view the uploaded files.
Popularity: 3% [?]
I came across an interesting article today. It suggests that instead of embracing the sloppy way that IE6 handles CSS we shouldn’t provide fixes and let the end-user see the website in it’s ugly state. No hacks, no fixes, no more. They would either have to update their browser to the latest version or install an equivalent in which the website is known to look fine.
Popularity: 3% [?]
I have been using various office apps on the internet recently. For no particular reason other than it’s often easier to open up the app within an internet browser than navigate the complex and sometimes messy Windows directory structures. The apps that I have been using, in no particular order are Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Google Calendar and 37Signals Basecamp and Backpack.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Although still only a working draft the outlines look very appealing. In particular the fallback facility and the inclusion of more logical elements; l for a line of code or text in essence replacing the br element and nl elements intended for use where a navigation list appears.
Popularity: 3% [?]