martedì, marzo 31, 2009

Mozilla and the Khronos Group Announce Initiative to Bring Accelerated 3D to the Web

I thought this tidbit from the the Mozilla Blog might be of interest, especially to BH.

“Today Mozilla and the Khronos Group announced that Mozilla will be leading an initiative to bring accelerated 3D to the Web. Mozilla will work with the Khronos Group to extend the exploration process of what an initial take of 3D on the Web should look like to a wider audience.”

lunedì, marzo 30, 2009

Google's Data Fetish Drives Away Its Top Designer

I thought this article on Gawker.com was interesting. It supports my stereotype about Google being an amazing technical innovator, but a bit boring/confusing in the user interface realm.

“Yes, it's true that a team at Google couldn't decide between two blues, so they're testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can't operate in an environment like that. I've grown tired of debating such miniscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.”

giovedì, marzo 26, 2009

Silverlight 3 Beta

I was just reading about the new features that will be included with Silverlight 3. Although most of the new items have Flash equivalents, it’s still a very impressive list!

http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight3/default.aspx#whatsnew

Chrome Experiments

Google has posted an interesting showcase of JavaScript. Some impressive examples.

“We think JavaScript is awesome. We also think browsers are awesome. Indeed, when we talk about them, we say they are the cat's meow – which is an American expression meaning AWESOME.”

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

Of course, most of them don’t work in Internet Explorer (Heh. Although being able to rightly claim standards compliance, it feels like something Microsoft would do.)

giovedì, marzo 19, 2009

Revision3 - Internet TV

NR pointed out this site to me – pretty interesting!

http://revision3.com/

“Revision3 is the first media company that gets it, born from the Internet, on-demand generation. Unlike aggregators, mash-ups, and user-generated video sites, Revision3 is an actual TV network for the web, creating and producing its own original, broadcast quality shows.”

Microsoft Office Outlook Connector

Hotmail users might find this useful:

 

martedì, marzo 17, 2009

Simulate a Click Using JavaScript

document.getElementById("ID_of_the_object_to_click").click();

lunedì, marzo 16, 2009

Pandia People Search

Seems like a useful resource!

“You may use regular search engines to find people and names. However, you will often get more accurate results by using the resources listed on this page. “

http://www.pandia.com/people/index.html

 

venerdì, marzo 13, 2009

US-CERT Current Activity

US-CERT Current Activity

“US-CERT is charged with providing response support and defense against cyber attacks for the Federal Civil Executive Branch (.gov) and information sharing and collaboration with state and local government, industry and international partners.”

 

Adding a Web Part to the SharePoint Web Part Gallery

This is probably better documented elsewhere, but I’m making a note of it since it is so handy.

1.       Create your web part and save it. If you are simply customizing a content editor web part, or the like, you can generate it this way: Select the Site Webpart Menu (the small triangle in the right-hand corner of your web part) and select Export.

2.       From your Site Actions > Site Settings > Modify All Site Settings

3.       In the Galleries column, select Web Parts.

4.       Upload the web part you created in step 1.

5.       Voila, you have made your web part available in the Add Web Parts dialog box.

 

Fluid Grids

I was recently reading the article “Fluid Grids” at A List Apart. The author has a pretty lofty, but cool goal: to design a CSS framework that supports a grid AND is fluid to adjust to the user’s screen size (and/or device).

Free iPhone Ringtones

Apple may not allow this going forward, but…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5snb5ao3nag

mercoledì, marzo 11, 2009

Using a JavaScript Onload Event With an Image

The blog called “The Future of the Web,” has a nice explanation of using a JavaScript onload event with an image. I’ve added the resulting code excerpt for searching, but do check out his blog to get the full explanation.

var image = new Image();
image.onload = function() {
    // always called
    alert('image loaded');
};
image.src = 'image.jpg';

martedì, marzo 10, 2009

GE: Plug Into the Smart Grid Using Augmented Reality

I ran across an interesting update to the great article Brooks sent a while back about FLARToolKit. Using the toolkit, it is possible to detect a marker from an input image and calculate the camera position in 3D space. “ Well, GE now has a nice implementation of this technology:

Plug Into the Smart Grid - Augmented Reality

They have a video demo available, too.

lunedì, marzo 09, 2009

Zero Clipboard

I was doing some investigating on how to copy text to the clipboard and ran across a useful library called “Zero Clipboard” that provides this functionality using an invisible Adobe Flash movie, and a JavaScript interface.

It’s actually fairly simple to do this in Internet Explorer:

window.clipboardData.setData('Text',myJavaScriptVar)

However, Firefox and other browsers are a bit more strict. Since Adobe Flash also has a clipboard event, this library utilizes this capability using JavaScript.

“This library is fully compatible with Flash Player 10, which requires that the clipboard copy operation be initiated by a user click event inside the Flash movie. This is achieved by automatically floating the invisible movie on top of a DOM element of your choice. Standard mouse events are even propagated out to your DOM element, so you can still have rollover and mouse down effects.”

giovedì, marzo 05, 2009

JavaScript: Find and Replace Characters on the Page

Codingforums.com has an excellent find and replace script for changing characters on the page once it has already rendered. I’m replicating it here because it’s handy. J

 

<script type="text/javascript">

var txt = document.getElementsByTagName('span')[0].childNodes[0];

var textNodes = new Array();

 

walk(document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]);

replaceCharacter();

 

function walk(node)

{

if(node.childNodes.length > 0)

{

for(var i = 0; i < node.childNodes.length; i++)

{

walk(node.childNodes[i]);

}

}

 

if(node.nodeName == '#text')

{

textNodes.push(node);

}

}

 

function replaceCharacter()

{

for(var i = 0; i < textNodes.length; i++)

{

textNodes[i].nodeValue = textNodes[i].nodeValue.replace('*', 'Test');

}

}

</script>

mercoledì, marzo 04, 2009

Using JavaScript to Close the Parent Window Without a Prompt in IE7

Dotnetslackers.com has a handy tip for avoiding the prompt that occurs in IE when trying to close the parent window from JavaScript. How does it work? In IE7, you can't close a window unless it was opened by a script. However, you can make the browser believe that it was opened by a script.

window.open('','_self','');
window.close();

 

martedì, marzo 03, 2009

Reviews: Adobe RoboHelp 8 and Adobe Captivate 4.

The WritersUA site has posted some nice (albeit geared toward Technical Writers) reviews of Adobe RoboHelp 8 and Adobe Captivate 4.

lunedì, marzo 02, 2009

The Rise of Personal Informatics

I was just reading an interesting article at The Pop!Tech Blog: The Rise of Personal Informatics.

According to the author, personal informatics “is the monitoring and display of information about our personal lives, those activities we participate in daily or routinely.” He adds:

“A primary premise behind personal informatics is that people will change their behavior for the better if given accurate information about the state of things. This is a powerful idea, and rests on the assumption that people will do good if given the chance. Time will tell if knowing more about ourselves will set us on a path to righteousness, or whether it will simply add to the information overload we already have.”

He lists several examples and highlights Google Power Meter.

The Photographic Dictionary

Cute. The PD defines words via interpretations of photographs.

http://www.thephotographicdictionary.org/