Archive for the ‘IT & Tech’ Category
HTML5
A new article posted on CNET’s “Deep Tech” section outlines the W3C’s plans for officially making HTML5 the standard web language by 2014. Enforcing this standard may be tough since the W3C is more like the UN- lots of consensus but no real power.
HTML5 has some great new toolsets built specifically for new “web 2.0″ applications- easy forms and social implementation and a lot of universal built-in coding for video; so much that a lot of plugin aps are going to be a thing of the past. Sorry, Flash and Quicktime.
While I’ve dabbled with HTML5, without that compliance component, I feel the benefits are currently lacking. The same issues I have making my code work with every possible piece of web tech out there could potentially still exist with HTML5 if not every browser accepts it (or if folks don’t update). Fortunately I think the future date will give people plenty of time to upgrade their systems.
Read more about the W3C and their HTML5 Press Release.
Mobile Devices
Due to their growing popularity, mobile devices have become increasingly important to consider when designing for web.
Over the last 3-5 years, mobile devices have grown exponentially in their ability to work like a true computer. Heck, a modern Android or iPhone device has the same processing power as the computer I had when I first started this business. These devices now have real browsers instead of the paired-down versions of the past and as a result, standards are being created for mobile design.
VectorDefector has recently added design services for mobile devices – in fact, check out the site on your mobile device for a simplified version tailored to fit.
Want to find out how to get a site that is easy to manage and looks great on any screen? Contact me today!
XBOX 360 Elite
Recently, my XBOX 360 faced the dreaded red ring of death error and was rendered useless; much to my dismay on a bitter cold and low-work week.
After weighing my options, I decided to just replace my existing XBOX with an older, yet slightly upgraded Elite model since stock of their new cheaper model was supposedly sold out until March.
I have to say, transferring my data from the old XBOX to the new one was an absolute breeze. The original style hard-drives hot-swapped like a charm (just press a button to pop it out) and were easy to back up settings on a USB stick drive. Navigating through the menus to restore my settings, both user and Netflix, was equally easy.
Now if they could only get Windows working as smooth…
Net Privacy
G4Tv’s tech show, Attack of the Show, spurred an interesting discussion regarding the Dept. of Justice’s recent initiative to determine if ISPs should require data-retention.
What could that mean for us citizens? Essentially if this bill passes, your service provider (such as Comcast), would be required to keep a log of which IP numbers are associated with subscribers. If the Dept. of Justice happens to think you’re up to something malicious, they’d be able to utilize your ISP to link your web activity to your physical address to find out who you are.
As a developer who constantly fights with spammers drowning my customers’ blogs, I definitely see a plus side to this from a security standpoint. I’d love to nail a spammer or two to their activities, but this seems like a huge amount of resources that could be better used elsewhere. In my opinion, as a whole, the government has bigger and badder things to do than to track where my IP shows up.
After reading an amazing article at MediaBistro, I feel like I’ve had an insight into the future of mobile aps and social media. Detailed in the article, a Swedish tech company has developed software that integrates image mapping and facial recognition into a mobile application that allows users to link their face to their social media profiles. By using the camera on your smart-phone, you could then scan someones face and retrieve all of their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc data all at once.
I always feel like new technology like this is exciting and scary at the same time. At the rate information is indexed in our modern times, I often assume everything I’ve ever typed is open for public search- which can be somewhat jarring. On the flip side, our mobile devices now have 10 times the computing power ever imagined by Star Trek communicators taking place in the year 2250!
The future of mobile devices, mobile applications and social media will only continue to grow from here!
I’ve been reading a number of articles lately relating to the growing popularity of “agile” software development. This specific article entitled “Agile Software Development is Now Mainstream” on InfoWorld caught my eye a few days ago.
“Agile” and “Scrum” software development processes, in gist, are the idea of building short iterations that work to an overall goal rather than developing an entire piece of software specific to specification then refining it.
I find this whole notion rather amusing as I’ve always used a similar process which I’ve always thought was halfassed in comparison to a full-on development schema, often called Waterfall that involves lots of specifications and documentation, and was often brought on by lack of planning.
That being said, I do find working in short iterations and keeping the positive outcomes in a repository the best way for an individual to program- it allows more flexibility and lots of other great creative ideas can come out of the process, though its inherent problem with the theory is without a clear set of specs, the outcome can be disastrous.
However, I do enjoy that the “halfassed” process I’ve embraced for years has melded into an industry-wide accepted practice.
mental_floss
A long time subscriber to the knowledge oriented magazine, mental_floss, my girlfriend Kelly showed me a wicked cool ap from Zinio that comes with her subscription. Using a combination of Flash and Contentguard (for rights management), Zinio has made itself a very neat ap for view magazines and books digitally on your computer.
With a very short download for both the magazine/book and the ap (maybe only necessary to download the desktop version if you have Flash and only want to read your periodical in a browser), you essentially get the entire printed version of whatever magazine/book you want. A very well defined user interface allows you to navigate and scale to any article.
More and more its going to be key for publication companies to continue to offer these user-friendly digital alternatives to their books. I find this one to be an excellent solution as it doesn’t detract from the original printed version- both can exist and look and feel nearly the same.
So, I’ve recently become an addict to some of the new applications and games found on Facebook, and I have to say I’ve been very impressed with a lot of them. Using a mix of PHP, databases, Flash interfaces and access to Facebook’s database API, a number of companies and individuals have rocked out some massively complex games and programs.
A number of my friends and customers have asked me if I develop any aps for either of these devices/websites and up until recently, my answer has been: no. However, I’m posting this to announce that as of this month I’m going to start researching Facebook aps, and will very shortly be obtaining an iPod touch with the notion of developing some aps for it (my iPod finally died after almost 4 years of hard work running my car stereo!).
Stay tuned!
An article posted on Yahoo! tech news sparked my attention today, outlining some information indicating that the CIA is likely to use an open-source software for some of their search indexing. While they did not detail specifics about what would be searched, they did say they would utilize Lucene and Solr search platforms developed by the good folks at Apache (a very popular free platform for web servers).
I’m pleased to see more and more open-source softwares being used in a wider range of applications. Given the largest hold-out for big corporations and government entities is that open-source is lacking in big-business level support, but I think more companies are going to find the flexibility totally out-weighs that aspect.
Way to go, Apache!
As you may know from reading some of my other postings, I’m always a huge fan of people who use the internet to stand up for their beliefs. In an interesting article posted on CNN, reports show a large scale Iranian resistance to the latest political “election” over the internet.
I think its fantastic to hear people standing up against this crazy theocracy they call a government, and moreso great to hear of more middle-eastern countries using the internet as a protest tool.
While the government is doing a good job of cracking down on political discourse, online Iranians are holding to their convictions strongly. I support them – Iran could really show its colors in the middle-east right now!