Internets finds #2

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Second round-up of interesting finds of last few weeks:

  1. A Closer Look At Font Rendering: all about font rendering you ever wanted to ask
  2. Opera confirms WebKit prefix usage: why Opera made this decision and why it is understandable
  3. Google Drive vs. Dropbox, SkyDrive, SugarSync, and others: a cloud sync storage face-off: comparison of most popular cloud storage services
  4. CSS WG Blog: news about CSS related W3 standard in more user friendly way
  5. How to Become a Blogging Superstar: how to blog successfully
  6. Interesting Trends in UI Design: about UI trends

Opera ending support for Unite applications and Widgets

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Opera got always kicked around about not having any system for extensions or browser addons. Back in dark ages the only option of having something extra was writing a custom menu with your own functions. At one point Opera devs got fed up with whining of users and over the time introduced not one, not two but three (and a half if counting speed dial extensions) ways to create extensions for Opera.

At first, there were widgets – standalone mini applications running on Opera’s core. Widgets brought games, tools, news. Later, when Unite was introduced, things got more serious. Unite was small revolution that advocated a shift from server centered web to user centered one. Unite allowed to create a webserver inside browser that could be used to share files, stream music, chat and much more.

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Internets finds #1

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Because I forgot a lot if I am not taking notes I’ll be doing regular-ish internet finds roundup to store interesting urls & stuff.

  1. Responsive.is: online testing tool for your responsive or responsive-wannabe designs
  2. My HTML/CSS coding style by Harry Roberts: Harry Roberts shares his coding style and practices. Good read for HTML/CSS coders.
  3. Why We Shouldn’t Make Separate Mobile Websites: article explaining why separate websites for mobile devices are not that great idea. While I mostly agree, I am not sure this can be generalized.
  4. 30 Fresh Free Fonts for Your Designs: 30 free fonts
  5. Valentina typeface: An antique Spanish didone typeface

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Star Trek Ipsum

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You could say I am medium level sci-fi geek. Although I am not wearing uniform at home (or during Cons) I spend considerable amount of time watching and reading this particular genre. Perhaps the most intriguing part of sci-fi is the technical background created by its authors. Especially in Star Trek. Despites it is usually a sheer nonsense, when the Enterprise crew is talking about Warp core, phazers and force fields in various colors it is quite fun to listen to.

Inspired by Samuel L. Ipsum I realized, that this techno-bable would make a great placeholder text. Unfortunately I had some free time and… So, behold! My Star Trek lorem ipsum generator.

Paragraphs are predefined and handcrafted from ST: TNG tv show dialogues. I spiced it up with two extra options: you can choose whether your text should start with legendary “These are the voyages…” and if you want, you can end it with some Borg stuff.

star trek ipsum

Put your CSS on a diet

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In times of fiber-optic internet it’s quite easy to forget about sizes, load times and traffic. Even if we optimize we work on backend code and javascript. But CSS can and should be optimized too.

Let’s take a look at some heavy duty methods first.

#1: Watch out for iterations

Iterations of design or function can really mess up the CSS. Artifacts (unused selectors, definitions that are commented out, test values) will make your code harder to understand and read. This may result in you trying to do a quick change or a dirty update just because you don’t have time to understand what’s already in there. And the mess piles up.

Stop doing quick changes/additions to your code and do instead a refactoring when updating styles.

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Adobe Shadow

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Debugging web pages mobile platforms can be a bit of a pain. To see any change on your local server you have to manually refresh each device you are working with. Also you rarely have a debugging console (if at all) directly on the device so you cannot really tweak anything or play with CSS and JavaScript. Thank to Adobe’s new product called Shadow this is about to change.

What is the Adobe Shadow?

Here’s the official description:

Adobe® Shadow is a new inspection and preview tool that allows front-end web developers and designers to work faster and more efficiently by streamlining the preview process, making it easier to customize websites for mobile devices.

And now you know everything.

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Opera Mobile 12

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New version of Opera Mobile for Android and Symbian just came out. Why is this important? Opera for mobile devices has quite a huge market share (look here), so if you are building responsive webpages you should know what your dealing with.

Whats new then?

  1. Ragnarök – new HTML5 parser
  2. ECMAScript 5.1
  3. Orientation Support
  4. For Android only, support for
    camera use in the browser using the same, newer,
    getUserMedia syntax as Opera desktop Labs.
  5. CSS3 radial gradients and the fabled
    -o-double-rainbow.
  6. CORS (cross-origin resource sharing).
  7. For Android only, hardware-accelerated
    WebGL for all things 3D and web. With WebGL on mobile, it’ll be even easier to make and distribute games that work cross-platform.
  8. Improved Speed Dial of Opera Mobile (e.g. unlimited entries)