Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Hulu Plus – It’s amazing how much people budget for TV/movies. One can only assume, Hulu Plus will actually be successful. / text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; / Web fonts at the Crossing / A jQuery based solution for customized checkboxes and radio buttons I’m using in a current project and am quite fond of. / artsy iPhone and iPad wallpapers / jQuery Fundamentals a large ‘must-read’. / Simple, multiple gmail from addresses on iPad / iPhone without setting up a bunch of email accounts. Just like your desktop based Gmail! / The 101 Best Sandwiches in New York / Bing Destination Map: Automatic Napkin Sketching of Maps = cute maps. / The Geotaggers’ World Atlas – cuz art is nice.
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Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Find the best pint of Guinness / Run IE7 inside of IE8 via Developer Tools / Interlopers on the Skyline / Search free icons / LastHistory Graphically Visualizes your Last.fm History Through Time / NetBalancer Prioritizes Network Traffic by Application / Google Is Working On Letting Users Link Their Gmail And Google Apps Accounts / Recently, I’ve found that using CalDav on your mac and iPhone is the best way to keep your calendars in sync across your devices/apps/web. / NYC Restaurants Required to Post Cleanliness Grades / Hands down, the best way to validate forms with jQuery/Javascript. I’ve been using this for quite some time and fall more in love with each implementation. / Hex is sooo PRE2K, Working With RGBA Colour
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Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Font Squirrel appears to be a great font generator that will create the various formats needed for the cross-browser use of @font-face. Some colleagues and I have recently been waxing poetically on the legality of using purchased fonts using this CSS2 based method of font embedding. Especially when deployed for clients, in a commercial environment. While @font-face is a bit overdue to go mainstream (A List Apart was touting it as the next big thing in 2007), now that the browsers are coming of age, the tipping point is near. It will dominate other options that are currently bridging the gap, like http://typekit.com. However, we have come to the conclusion that now is the time to pay more attention to a fonts use policy. Some will explicitly forbid the designer/developer from exposing the font file online. Some will encourage it, and I assume,many more will not mention it. This means web shops should start gathering and using libraries filled with the fonts that encourage the use of @font-face. Here’s where I’m starting. As linked in the previous ALA article: Dieter Steffmann offers up a slew of freely usable fonts and I’m sure several more lists like this, @font-face and 15 Free Fonts You Can Use Today, exist.
Here’s a great explanation of the licensing issue we’re facing with @font-face:
…foundries don’t actually claim copyright in the typefaces themselves. Instead they claim copyright on the .ttf file (or whatever) as a piece of software. Then, when you buy the right to use the software, they make you click “Agree” to an EULA which prohibits you from uploading the file to your website. If you want your users to see your font over the web, then you need to send them that file, and the EULA says you can’t.
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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Recently I mentioned Facebooks great walls are holding back garbage, with regards to a must read Wired article titled Great Wall of Facebook: The Social Network’s Plan to Dominate the Internet — and Keep Google Out.
Facebook’s personalized search, widely accepted as their best path towards maximum monetization, is becoming increasingly less relevant as our real social connections, both online and off, now have the ability to rise to the top of the most coveted spot online; Our search results page. Google Social Search is a just launched, opt-in experiment within Google labs.
“It’s strongly connected to Google Profiles and Gmail. For example, if you add a link to your Twitter page on your Google profile, Google will find the people you follow and the content they produce: blogs, photo albums, videos, reviews. If your query returns useful results from your social connections, Google will display the results at the bottom of the search results pages.” Also Included in your search results are items from your Google Reader subscriptions and websites, public profiles, and other content linked to from your friends’ profiles.
Social search includes results from the public connections of your immediate circle of friends. In other words, friends of friends are counted as members of your social search. Think of them as ‘friend of a friend’ recommendations that take place in the real world more often than we may realize. Your trusted sources are also being included in your social circle via the content you’ve chose to subscribe to in Google Reader.
What makes Google’s approach to personalized, or social search, more relevant than Facebook’s is that Google is using content of a much higher value. Content that your immediate circle and extended circle are creating and trusting on the rest of the internet. Add this wide network to your search and you’re looking at seemingly limitless, very high value, and pretty damn relevant, search results.
Posted in interweb, tech / 2 Comments
Friday, October 23, 2009
Apple has patented CSS transforms and CSS animation properties! Since Apple has decided to not support the latest unified Flash Player this would make it seem they’re going their own route with the mega popular iPhone. Wow, this is pretty darn ballsy. I wonder the implications this will have on webkit and non-webkit based browsers alike, and of course, the future of Flash on the mobile platform. This will certainly garner the attention of big media in the near future. For now it’s low on the radar. | View an example of CSS animation and CSS transforms if you’re using a recent build of Google Chrome or Safari.
The Awesomeness Manifesto made the Twitter rounds a couple of months ago. I’m ready to talk about it now: Point taken, innovation should include “Ethical production, Insanely great stuff, Love and Real Value”. But to apply overarching economic theory to such low levels of the goods and services creation process is kinda silly. Re-branding “innovation” as “awesomeness” adds very little value, in my opinion.
Nice Flickr photostream | I adore these bookshelves, just as soon as my baby girl’s balance improves and the square footage of our apartment increases. | Google PowerMeter’s first device partner – Making Google Power available to everyone, currently on backorder. | The flu is really only a problem if you watch cable news, right? Have a look at Google’s Flu Trends. Legitimate concern, or is the tail wagging the dog? | The illustrations of Meg Hunt | James Bond squirrel- Mission Peanuts | ualuealuealeuale | How to use tabs in Google Chrome
Thursday, October 15, 2009
A few months ago Wired Magazine wrote a piece about the potential of Facebook surpassing Google search in Great Wall of Facebook: The Social Network’s Plan to Dominate the Internet — and Keep Google Out. Their largest argument to make this point:
“At press time, [Facebook] was also planning to launch Facebook Search, allowing users to scour one another’s feeds. Want to see what some anonymous schmuck thought about the Battlestar Galactica finale? Check out Google. Want to see what your friends had to say? Try Facebook Search.”
The future of search most assuredly involves your network of friends, family & peers, but the spot for that search will not be Facebook. Their largest hurdle is that Facebooks Great Wall is holding back a Great Mound of useless garbage.
I’m convinced that the content within Facebook will never rise to a level of usability required to dominate the internet in the fashion Wired believes. Facebook, or someone else specializing in this type of content will always thrive, but will remain as they are today; a completely separate, much less useful version of some other kind of web.
Posted in interweb, tech / 6 Comments
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
My new family is preparing to find a place we can really call home. We’ve been scouring the web taking in as much real estate knowledge as humanly possible and are prepared to commit to a buyer’s agent. We’ve even weeded out a local agent who stands a bit taller than the rest.
What I’d like to do before we commit, is compose a tweet summoning local buyer’s agents to contact me. Similar to brands that are alerted of mentions of themselves in the Twitosphere, I’m assuming a real estate professional using Twitter would follow specific keywords, perhaps even zip codes. They can then follow up with the twitterer, offering their services.
When I went to compose this tweet, I realized I don’t know the twit vernacular that will maximize my exposure. I’m thinking keywords would be a start. I’ve also seen tweets precede keywords with the pound symbol. For example, “#skate”. I assume that is to get themselves bunched in with some kind of keywording group?
This is what I’ve come up with. Any advice on maximizing my tweet?
In search of a buyer’s agent. North NJ, NY Metropolitan area. Real estate 07086. DM if that’s you.
Posted in happenings, tech / 4 Comments
Monday, April 06, 2009
just make awesome stuff that gets people excited
The killer feature is overlay layout: it allows you to stack a partially transparent browser on top of a design mockup or any other browser… The full version of SuperPreview appears in the next release of Microsoft Expression Web.
Included in Expression Web? I take that link back. SuperPreview looks like something I’ll never use.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
This multimedia mirror may work for women. I’ll go days, if not weeks, without seeing myself. If something’s terribly amiss, my significant other will point it out for me. Although she won’t mention the current temperature afterward.
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