07.23.12 |
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Shawn Blanc reviewed the Nexus 7. He likes what he saw, but:
On a technical level, Jelly Bean is noticeable improvement over Ice Cream Sandwich. But I still do not see the appeal of an Android device over an iOS device unless your motives for using one are based solely on price, screen size, or a vendetta against Apple Inc.
For me, when it comes down to it, software will always trump hardware. When I’m using a device like the Nexus 7 I want to know where the details are. Where is the magic? The fun?
I’m a huge fan of Shawn’s writing, but I think he’s a bit too harsh on the Android tablet. I feel like lately there’s been some goal post shifting among big iPad defenders (myself potentially among them.) At first, the argument was that nobody could produce a quality tablet, and for years, that was the case. Now finally we’ve got a pretty universally praised device. Even the UI of Jelly Bean is rated as solid but…there’s still not enough good third party apps.
Give it time; I think the Nexus could finally be the device that Android developers are waiting for: a solid piece of hardware with good enough sales (we’ve yet to see this for a non-Apple device, but if I’d bet on any, it would be the Nexus) to really kick start better apps.
07.20.12 |
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Cool story over at Movies.com on how author Katie Calautti’s friend landed a bit part in the ultimate summer blockbuster:
Movies.com: So when did you realize it was for real?
AD: My agent said, “The paperwork looks legit!” And then I went in for a costume fitting and by then they were in New York. And then I was like, “OK – it’s totally legit” – because their offices took over an entire building and the costumes took over an entire floor. There were hundreds of Army outfits…
Movies.com: What was it like on set?
AD: They had hundreds of extras there, because in the scene there’s a lot of people yelling and screaming. Christopher Nolan shows up and he chats with Bale, Gordon-Levitt and the DP. Eventually Nolan asks me, “Do you know your lines?” And I said, “Yeah” and repeated them. And he said, “Alright, don’t worry about your lines, just get the point across.”
07.20.12 |
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Clever tutorial site focused on quick keyboard drills in the most popular text editors. They’ve got everything from Vim to Sublime Text 2 covered. Alas, it’s most of the site requires payment, but the initial free Sublime tutorial was so slick and simple I can see myself diving in for a membership at some point.
07.19.12 |
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Spike Lee, talking to Vulture’s Will Leitch on the recent popularity of Tyler Perry movies:
SL: I would not call it a syndrome. Thing is, those box-office numbers prove there is an audience for those films. Yet, at the same time, I think there is an audience that would like to see something else. At this moment, those other films have to be made outside the Hollywood studio system. This comes down to the gatekeepers, and I do not think there is going to be any substantial movement until people of color get into those gatekeeper positions of people who have a green-light vote…When I first started making films and I would have Hollywood meetings—and I know this for a fact—they would bring black people out of the mailroom to be in the meeting.
WL: That doesn’t still happen, does it?
SL: I do not know. But I will say the best chance of me meeting somebody of color is the brother man at the gate who is checking to see if I am on the list.
Great, revealing interview with a director who generally has a less than ideal relationship with the press.
07.19.12 |
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Seriously awesome interview with the notoriously private former Batman. A very loose, eclectic conversation here: Keaton discusses his rumored rejection of Batman 3, fly fishing in Montana, drunken escapades with Quentin Tarantino and much more. I loved his thoughts on playing the same Elmore Leonard character Ray Nicolette in two different movies (Jackie Brown and Out of Sight):
Keaton: Yeah, I’ve never seen that done — ever. And I hope I’m not getting too esoteric about this, but it was almost like postmodernism.
Daniel Kellison, Grantland: If people are still reading this far into this article, they’re obviously pretty big Michael Keaton fans — I don’t think you can get too esoteric for them.
Michael: What I felt was: It’s like he exists in the world. He might show up in your barbershop, you know what I mean? Different studio, different script, different story, different director. Everything is different, and all of a sudden, this guy shows up again. And I thought, Man, it would be cool — I’d just like to show up again somewhere else.
07.19.12 |
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Really smart work. Alas, this is probably the first and last time I’ll tag a post for both ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘web development’.
07.18.12 |
Web/UI Design |
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Like many web developers, rapid CSS development is an integral part of my office workflow. I spend a large part of my day in “CSS tweak mode” where the focus is on smaller changes: alignment, IE bugs, consistency. Yet, as any developer can tell you, little CSS problems can drive you crazy and become a major time sink. You’re staring at a page and can’t figure out why that one element keeps dropping down in IE8. Or you’ve got a nested navigation that on mouse over pushes one element out of alignment by a few pixels.
As I’ve matured as a web developer over the years, I’ve moved faster through the tweak period thanks to my growing CSS experience. Yet often the right technique can be just as important.
I call one of my favorite techniques the magenta test. I open up the web inspector and add a custom CSS property of background: #f0f to adjacent misaligned CSS elements. Magenta blocks pop up on screen and in many cases, the root problem jumps out right away. I’ll usually make a quick edit on one of the elements until the magenta blocks line up. Problem solved. In more complex issues I’ll find the parent container of the magenta block elements and set its custom background as well, albeit to a different color.
This approach is often much faster than your usual use of the web inspector, where mouse clicking and scrolling predominate. Inspectors place the basic metrics (e.g. width, padding, margin) in one area, with the raw CSS attributes usually far away; either you’re forced to scroll to the top (Chrome, Safari) or flip to another inspector tab (Firefox) multiple times. This problem is compounded when comparing multiple elements; an inspector places a highlight box around only one element at a time.
Compare this with the magenta test. Adding custom properties so that they are in one place in the web inspector. You select an element, add the attribute (for even faster results, copy and paste the background: #f0f snippet), and repeat for all remaining elements. There’s no thought process, no scrolling and no tabbing–it’s just drawing a few magenta boxes. It’s also cross browser friendly. Web inspectors in Chrome, Safari and Firefox have a slightly different layouts, but since adding a magenta background is so quick, a context switch between browsers is pretty painless.
Bonus technique: Buy a measurement tool, assign to keyboard
The magenta test is slick for big, fairly obvious alignment problems. But when you are making that last pass for polish, it’s hard to pinpoint elements off by a pixel or some other tiny amount. Go to the Mac App Store, and buy a measurement tool like SnapRuler or xScope (which is a suite of web design tools; you’ll be using the dimensions tool.) Assign a keyboard shortcut to toggle the tool on and off. Draw a measurement between items–I like going from edge to edge of boxes or the baseline of two text elements. You’ll see a misalignment immediately.
07.18.12 |
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Jolie O’ Dell, Venture Beat:
Mayer told press that the title didn’t matter to her and that she really only cared about the products she was working on; however, Google stopped showing off Mayer’s work as well. While she continued to be a fan favorite at tech conferences, she stopped appearing at the company’s press conferences and developer showcases, including Google I/O, where the company displays its most important products of the year. When she showed up at the Crunchies, Silicon Valley’s self-congratulatory awards show, she was acting as a distinguished alumna, presenting an award rather than receiving one — that honor went to Gundotra for his Google+ work.
Excellent article and a forceful rebuke to all the “why would Meyer take such a downgrade move to Yahoo” vibe that I’ve seen elsewhere on the web and my Twitter feed (I admittedly jumped in at one point.)
I don’t question Meyer’s judgement on this any more and wish her the best; it’s also great to see more women in corporate leadership positions. But can she turn Yahoo around? I doubt it.
07.18.12 |
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I’ve lately been giving the cross platform to-do list app Cheddar a run through it’s paces. Bottom line, it’s a well built app, one I’ll write more about in the future.
For now though, if you use keyboard launcher Alfred, there’s a new Cheddar extension developed by Chris Vaughn. It’s simple but solid and should make entering new list items much faster in my workflow.
07.17.12 |
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Web sites depend on a lot of images, and with higher resolution displays, their size will only increase. Yet website performance is critical as well; you want a great looking image in as small a file size as possible.
That’s where TinyPNG comes in handy. Cut your png of choice and use the site’s drag and drop uploader. TinyPNG will strip colors and compress pngs down to 8 bits while still retaining 100% transparency. I’ve used it on a few recent projects, and every thing I send to it reduces the file size by at least 50% with no noticeable image degradation.