Feb 7, 2011

Google Chrome Blog: A dash of speed, 3D and apps

we’re excited to bring several new features from Chrome’s beta channel to the stable build, including WebGL via chrome.blogspot.com

If you don't know what WebGL is, grab the latest Chrome and go check this out. I've been following/tinkering with it lately, as WebGL was available in Chrome's Canary build up to now.  WebGL is still very much in it's infancy, yet it's still quite impressive.  A browser based 3d rendering platform backed by one of the largest internet companies? My bet this is going turn gaming upside down in a few years.

Dec 21, 2010

Yesterday I found one of these much talked about CR-48s at my door. Thanks Google

First impressions... overall pretty cool. The trackpad is bad news, but thats hardware and not the os right lol? The thing loads fast, both at boot up and from sleep. Here's the deal though, I'm a programmer, and despite reading some ideas about making coding work on the thing there is just no overall solution.  Lots of early-stage online editors out there but nothing near the NetBeans level, which is what I'm very used to. So looks like that will keep happening elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about Google's efforts and I certainly think the cloud is the future but it's very new. I do look forward to see how much else I can use it, I'll keep you updated.

Dec 6, 2010

Viber | Free calls, free voip, free phone calls from iPhone

free calls to other Viber users using 3G or Wi-Fi via viber.com

This is huge! Voip over the iPhone as I have long suspected is possible. Right now, as I am the only one in my calling circle who uses an Iphone, it's not much use to me, but once the Android app comes it's game on. Viber will be groundbreaking, if they are allowed to hang around, expect many variations later...Google Voice?

Nov 2, 2010

Dictionary.com Opens Its API

I know it’s not exactly headline news, but I just think that Dictionary.com is in a fairly interesting position in the market right now via crunchgear.com

A dictionary.com api? Oh my. What devilish carnations or dare I say it, mash-ups, could be created from this? I know in the past I have looked for this on their site, but apparently it was just released 'publicly' late last month. Although not very public, the usage looks pretty specific, but maybe they approve apps like Ping.fm does hehe.

Oct 25, 2010

Introducing HTML5 Web Sockets

What we have needed, though, is a native approach, both on the client- and server-side to be able to have bidirectional communication. via css.dzone.com

Browser based apps are the future, you did know that right? especially communication apps and games. HTML5 web sockets will play a huge roll, give it a try, very simple(and short) way of doing it here. I like these kind of tutorials.

Oct 21, 2010

Nanosecond Scale Remote Timing Attacks On PHP Applications: Time To Take Them Seriously?

If we acknowledge that network jitter can be sufficiently filtered out to allow the measurement of very small timing differences then Remote Timing Attacks are no longer impossible via blog.astrumfutura.com

A great read about timing attacks, with a focus on it's impact on php applications. I've got to tell you, this is something I had never really even thought of. The resources needed to pull off an attack like this would be extensive. But it's very possible, and a very real threat if you run a site the bad guys want into.

Oct 21, 2010

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Optimizing sites for TV

Current sites should already work, but you may want to provide your users with an enhanced TV experience -- what's called the “10-foot UI” (user interface) via googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com

Key words here are 'should', 'may', and 'enhanced'. And I've just now friggin got down how current sites 'should' already work on phone browsers, but I 'may' want to provide users with an 'enhanced' mobile experience.

Oct 17, 2010

jQuery Mobile Alpha 1 Released | jQuery Mobile

a user interface framework, built on top of jQuery, designed to simplify the process of building applications that target mobile devices via jquerymobile.com

Just going through the demos and docs, it seems quite impressive for just two months since they announced the project. I was disappointed not to see grids yet, although I guess I didn't really expect it with the debut release either. Some of the initial concepts showed desktop integration, however looking at it with Chrome shows they're not quite there either.

Oct 6, 2010

PayPal for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

What's New in Version 2.7

• Check capture lets you snap a photo of a check and the amount gets added to your PayPal account
• History improvements make it easier to find past transactions with new search and filter options

via itunes.apple.com

not mentioned...check capture takes 7 days or more. great feature, maybe soon they'll get the deposit time knocked down some

Feb 5, 2010

Safe mailto links in Wordpress using CodeIgniter

Recently I did a half-way makeover of my site/blog that included removing the contact page that only one, count them, one person ever used. Now granted it was a guy from Microsoft I had recently met and contacted me about a job opportunity, I never the less decided to get rid of the whole contact page thing and simply put an email link in my about page. Wanting to obfuscate it from evil email harvesters, Wordpress by default doesn’t offer a easy way of doing this within a post. That’s where the Wordpress shortcode API and CodeIgniter come in.

Feb 3, 2010

How to start blogging, Part Hugh

In part Hugh of my series  ’How to start blogging’ I explain how to start a blog, progressively once a year change the design and then make a  post proclaiming your new change and the silly reasons you did it.  In this yearly post you should also mention apologies for not posting anything else except maybe one, and then state how you ‘plan’ on doing better.  After doing this for several years, including during all this  time change the urls to some of your pages including your RSS feed and you will successfully confuse anyone trying to follow your site. And that’s the Part Hugh of it.

Oct 21, 2007

Linking External Style Sheets In CodeIgniter

Having been working with CodeIgniter for about two years now, I have always struggled with how to structure my themes. This past week I came up with what seems to be such an obvious solution for external css handling in CodeIgniter, that I was surprised I haven't read about it elsewhere. Perhaps it's so obvious that most felt it need not to be mentioned, however I would have loved to come across something like this long ago.