Archive for the ‘www’ Category
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A web app in 10k? I didn’t think it was possible, but it is!
I was amazed at how much you can achieve with only 10k to work with. I’ve just submitted my entry into the 10k Apart competition. Drawing inspiration from the new Fliboard iPad app the 10k Feed Board uses YQL to retrieve content from both Flickr and Twitter and populate multiple canvases that you can navigate around. You can configure each canvas with your own search terms and these are persisted using modern browsers’ localStorage feature so you can come back time and time again and view your results.
It’s compatible with Firefox 3.6, Chrome 5, Safari 5 and IE Dev Preview - I’m afraid it will be disappointing in any other browsers!
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What is Twitter? And what’s all the fuss about?
With Twitter becoming more and more popular with celebrities it is now getting some very public coverage. Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) was interviewed by the Beeb recently and explained very neatly and succinctly what Twitter was for him. He was also a guest on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross (@wossy) which has helped Twitter further reach the masses.
Accordingly last week I was posed the question by my mother: “What is Twitter? And what is all the fuss about?”. Now, my mother is a bit of a luddite when it comes to computers and the internet, even referring the mouse as a ‘rabbit’! So imagine my difficulty in explaining Twitter to her!
Fortunately some of my collegues at Made By Many along with BBH labs have put together a beautiful slide share presentation on what Twitter is all about. It is released under the Creative Commons license so free to use it in any presentations about Twitter - all they ask is that you give credit where credit is due.
Twitter… what’s all the fuss about?View more presentations from madebymany. -
Custom fonts in your webpage using Cufon (canvas and VML)
For years designers have wanted to use custom fonts in their web page designs, this however has been problematic. Until now there’s only really been one option - sIFR - which unfortunately requires the Flash plugin. It also comes with its own set of problems, aside of requiring the Flash plugin, too many sIFR objets on the page have been known to cause problems in the browser - not to mention how tricky it can be to set up. Now, however there is Cufon - from Simo Kinnunen.
The main aims behind Cufon were to avoid proprietary software in favour of the open standard <canvas> and VML. Essentially Cufon acts as a web interface to fontforge to create an a JavaScript version of your font. There’s also a neat little online genertaor that allows you to upload your own font and generate the required JavaScript.
It’s incredibly easy to use, once you’ve created your JavaScript version of your font simple reference it along with the Cufon js (making sure you load cufon first!) then apply it to the element you want rendered. The following will render the text in an <h1>:
<script type="text/javascript"> Cufon.replace('h1'); </script>For full instructions and downloads visit Cufon on Git Hub.
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Move on, there’s nothing to see here (yet!)
Too busy! Though I thought at least a preview of what will be.
Code
- XHTML/CSS tricks
- jQuery plugins
- General rambling on the state of front-end technologies
Food
- Recipes: from my catering years and family cookbooks
- Reviews and opinion: places I like to shop and eat
Oh, and of course a rather un-conventional approach to building a website.
