March 2010
38 posts
“obtrusive but necessary”
– Plugging the CSS History Leak. So true, on both counts.
Haml/Sass 3 Beta Released! →
I’ve grown rather attached to the old Sass syntax, but it looks like the new SCSS syntax is an improvement. Viva la revolución!
Apple - iPad - Guided Tours →
A great series of videos showing off the iPad’s built-in features, as well as iWork. I originally ordered an iPad primarily to develop apps for clients, but it looks like I may be able to get actual work done on this thing! Does this mean my next Mac might be a Mac Pro rather than a MacBook Pro? We’ll see…
“I don’t understand DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS RBL or why that would affect everything...”
– Sam Ruby: Inbox Failure. I’m guessing that this is why my recent emails to my accountant were never delivered, as her firm uses a crappy commercial product built on an outdated copy of SpamAssassin’s rules. Sigh…
“But then I saw the pixel-doubled version of my app in the simulator.
It...”
– Preview: Instapaper on iPad - Instapaper Blog. So true.
“And here is the most important point, indeed, the most important thing that...”
– Distributed Version Control is here to stay, baby - Joel on Software. Well put. Whenever I have to work on a project that uses svn these days, it feels downright Dark Ages to me.
Firediff 1.0 Released - In Case of Stairs →
Awesome. Yet another reason that non-Firefox browsers have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to supporting developers. (I don’t mean to boast on Firefox’s behalf here, since it actually makes me sad that I can’t yet seriously consider using another browser as my main tool).
“Here I’m using the HSLa color value, which I’ve found to be easier to tweak when...”
– Opera Logo with CSS · David DeSandro. Can’t believe I didn’t already know about using HSL in CSS! It would absolutely be easier to tweak when designing on the fly!
“We also hear, from the same people, about the impending “bankruptcy”...”
– In Defense of Deficits
Kindle for Mac →
It ain’t fancy, but it’s functional. It’s kinda sad that I haven’t used my actual Kindle in months, though I do find the Kindle iPhone app to be rather useful. I have high hopes for their iPad app, but in the meantime, this will do.
Articles - The Wikipedia App →
Try clicking the screenshots in Safari (ooh, smooth animations) and then in Chrome (kachunk, kachunk, kachunk). Man oh man, do I ever wish I could have Safari’s performance wrapped in Chrome’s user interface. Oh yeah, and I’d like to replace WebKit Inspector with Firebug too, please. And a pony, I’d like a pony, too.
By the way, Articles looks like a very nice way to read...
Coyote Tracks: Tim Bray in the Garden of Good and... →
Did you see what Bray did there? He talked about “the mobile Internet” and then about “the people who create the apps.” He’s equating “applications Apple approves for sale” with “the Internet.”
If your iPhone application wants to use an Internet protocol other than HTTP, or support a content type other than HTML/CSS/JPG/PNG/PDF/M4V/MP3, then the only way to do so is to build a native app and...
WatchClever visualization enables navel gazing to reach new heights (I kid, I kid.)
“The i’s usefulness makes the Smart Fortwo look even more stupendously dumb,...”
– 2009 Mitsubishi i AWD - Short Take Road Test - Car and Driver. Youch.
“I think I am going to heed Brandt’s warning.”
– This makes me extremely happy. You see, a few years ago I was half-assed about my backups (I kept only one backup copy and it wasn’t automated), and I ended up losing a decade’s worth of archives (almost all of the software I wrote between 1990 and 2000, gone in an instant). Helping...
“On the other hand, Microsoft’s refusal to switch to Webkit gives Apple and...”
– IE9 preview – Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report. Amen, brother.
Do your backups
This and this made me think that I too should give a little lecture about backups, for those of you who don’t do them (you know who you are).
YOUR HARD DRIVE WILL FAIL. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a year, maybe in three years, but it will fail, and on that day all of the data on it will be irretrievably lost.
PROTECTING YOUR DATA IS EASY. Buy two external disks that are each at least as...
“Microsoft is investigating new, public reports of a vulnerability in Internet...”
– (emphasis added) Microsoft Security Advisory (981374): Vulnerability in Internet Explorer Could Allow Remote Code Execution. Bravo to all those IT departments keeping their employees on IE6/7. Bravo.
Intel's Core I7-980X Six-Core Benchmarked →
Wait, how am I just now learning about Intel’s “Turbo Boost”? Since the MacBook Pro refresh will almost certainly include a processor with Turbo Boost (and be capable of using it), it’ll be my first computer with “Turbo” since the ’80s. Speaking of the ’80s, I may need to re-watch some Knight Rider, so that when I get my Turbo computer I’ll be...
“The fundamental problem with the quality of American medicine is that we’ve...”
– Annals of Medicine: The Checklist : The New Yorker. Excellent article. (But you’re gonna need Readability to get through it all.)
“In order to prevent an overloading of a single availability zone when everybody...”
– Matching EC2 Availability Zones Across AWS Accounts. Wow, I had no idea. And here I’ve been avoiding us-east-1a for just that reason!
“If you’ve got a model where revenue is tied only to web page views, switching to...”
– Daring Fireball: Attention Is the Real Resource. This reminds me of someone I used to work with, who (despite my being overworked) didn’t want me to become more productive because we billed by the hour, so a boost to my productivity would hurt the company’s revenue. It saddens me when...
“Under the circumstances, you would never know that Americans living in the...”
– (emphasis added) Fear Inc.. He goes on to a spot-on critique of Obama’s response to the underwear bomber.
Humble Pied. →
Nicely presented interviews (about design advice, but that’s not the point). They’re well put together visually (once you see it, it seems so obvious) and the format suits the content (short and to the point).
“HI. You’re using libxml2 version 2.6.16 which is over 4 years old and has...”
– Best error message I’ve seen in a while. Now if I could just convince my client’s hosting company to upgrade from Centos 4…
“When visiting encrypted pages, you have to allow Opera to get in the middle to...”
– The case against Opera Mini on the iPhone. As they say on 30Rock, that’s a deal breaker.
