Dec 27, 2007 · 1 minute read
General
One of my friends just sent me this and I felt I had to share it! I think it's actually scarily accurate: ![Time Breakdown of Modern Web Design][1] [1]: http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a89/karlosio/web-design.gif
Dec 24, 2007 · 1 minute read
News
Some good news from browser makers today to put a cap on a great year for browser development and innovation. First, IE8 will drop the use of hasLayout, meaning there should be a bit more consistency in renderings between browsers and less need to resort to conditional comments with IE-specific CSS. (It doesn't help with current versions however.) Second, WebKit now includes an implementation of getElementsByClassName, joining Firefox 3 and the next Opera version for support for this highly desired function.
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Dec 24, 2007 · 1 minute read
General
Merry Christmas to all! For those of you who do not recognise the holiday – happy holidays! [International Talk Like A Pirate Day][1] was a few months ago so we Pastafarians have got our celebrating out of the way already. [1]: http://www.talklikeapirate.com/
Dec 22, 2007 · 1 minute read
General
CouchDB is a (relatively) new database option for development that focuses on documents, rather than generic relational systems like most databases do. I think the concept is appealing and support for things like automatic versioning and distributed processing and storage could mean a lot fewer headaches that trying to get a custom system going yourself. Also interesting is the JSON storage format, which would make this ideal to use in many asynchronous web applications as the data returned can be used straight away on the browser.
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Dec 20, 2007 · 1 minute read
Tips
If anyone has attempted to watch H.264 video on an older PC you know what a frustrating experience it can be due to the ridiculous amount of CPU the decoding eats up. CoreAVC is a Windows codec that dramatically reduces that load. Being a Windows codec we Linux users are left in the cold (we're getting used to it) – but I just discovered a project that rectifies that situation! The aptly named CoreAVC for Linux is a set of patches for mplayer, etc to allow them to load the CoreAVC codec through DirectShow emulation.
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Dec 20, 2007 · 4 minute read
Reviews
I've recently been developing a web-based application (a RIA one might say) and, after initially trying to get it working right in jQuery, I decided to have a go at using [ExtJS][1], a JavaScript library I've been meaning to try for a while. Basically, it is a JavaScript library that includes a ton of things for building web application other libraries don't – not surprising considering it started life as an add-on to YUI.
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Dec 18, 2007 · 1 minute read
Asides
The next season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has had some details posted, including a hint as to which plots will be covered from the light novels. In typical "hardcore fan" style there are a few hoops to jump through to get to the information (which adds to the fun) but if you don't understand Japanese it's slightly difficult. Thankfully the ANN post reveals the details for us English-speaking fans.
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Dec 17, 2007 · 1 minute read
Asides
This is kind of cool. It seems a company in America has come up with a way to transfer power of fibre optic cables. So, the converse of Broadband over Power. If you can't be bothered reading the article, the method used involves pretty much what you would expect – using high-powered lasers to transfer photonic energy which is then converted back to electricity by photovoltaic cells.
Dec 16, 2007 · 1 minute read
News
Another Linux distribution looks to be hitting the net in the next few days, dubbed PyroLinux. The site looks impressive but I'm seriously underwhelmed by what I'm reading about the OS itself. For starters, it's based on Ubuntu and seems to have just added some packages in by default, including non-free drivers and codecs (a la [Mint][1]) and some "fancy" apps like Avant Window Navigator dock. Whilst I'm all for diversity in Linux distros I would prefer if people actually had something to show, or at least had a semi-original idea, before submitting their distro on Digg and trying to build hype.
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Dec 14, 2007 · 1 minute read
News
Seems like Auran is in a bit of trouble. The developer of the new MMO Fury, as well as classic RTS [Dark Reign][2], is in a bit of financial difficulty and look to be pinning their hopes on changes to Fury (new content and payment model) to get them out of it. Hopefully they do recover – the Australian games industry just keeps running into obstacles and a prominent developer shutting down cannot be a good thing.
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