You know how it is, you follow a few links and then you find something that blows your mind… This is how I ended up on Cartagen, following a link from Open Street Map Wiki.
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Render maps in HTML5 using Geographic Style Sheets
HTML & CSS validation
You can use WC3 Markup Validation Service to validate your html5.
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Exactly, what does a programmer do?
Recently, I got asked “exactly, what does a programmer do?”. This question came about when I explained that I had just registered for a BSc in Mathematics from the Open University (this confused that person, who thought I spent all day coding apps for Google Android).
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One year of Google Android development
Following on from my Six months of Google Android development post, it is now time for an update as it’s almost one year to the day since I published my first GA app.
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New blog design, with HTML5 tags and mobiles in mind
I have finally updated the Wordpress theme for this blog. Some of the tweaks I have made include using new HTML5 tags, such as header, nav and footer. Other changes include moving the site navigation to the top, which is designed to help viewing the blog on a mobile phone.
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How to reset canvas in HTML5
The excellent “Dive Into HTML5″ online tutorial by Mark Pilgrim mentions that to reset a canvas (= clear all its contents), all you need to do is set its width. It even says that you can set the width to be the same as the current width and gives the example below
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Google Android resource website for developers
Quite a few programmers are looking into developing apps for Google Android so I thought I’d point them out to the Tutorial & Sample Code page over at The Open Mob for Android. This is the most complete list of tutorials, development guides and sample code pages that I know of.
Google Chrome Web Store preview now up for developers
The developer dashboard for Google Chrome Extensions is now up at https://chrome.google.com/extensions/developer/dashboard.
I haven’t tested it yet but it seems that you need to pay a one-time developer registration fee of $5. The fee is said to be required to verify your account and at that value, I can’t really think that Google is expecting to make money off developers registering. In comparison, to register as a Google Android developer, the fee is $25.
Google Android Market wishlist
A discussion about the length of the description field in the Android Market over at Android Developers has led me to think about which features I’d actually like to be implemented in the market, so here’s my wishlist.
- A changelog.
- A way for developer to respond to comments (some comments are about bugs and if bug is fixed, would be nice to respond to that comment for example).
- Tagging (having to choose one category can be limiting).
- A technical note (where the developer could add any technical detail useful for user, for example known hardware issues).
Based on the current discussion, it seems that many developers want a longer description field, some have suggested using a “read more” option so the market layout could be maintained but the user has got the option to read past the first 325 characters (current limit of the description field). Other developers see a longer description field as a quick short-term fix while Google works on implementing more complicated features. What’s your take on this? What is your Google Android Market wishlist?
What is your CSS3 approach?
From my recent CSS3 research, it seems that there are two schools of thought when it comes to using CSS3 in your web design.
The first approach is to design your website without using CSS3 then to add CSS3 features to enhance the basic user experience of your website without any detrimental effect for those using a browser that doesn’t implement this specific CSS3 feature. For example, you can use rounded-corners for your menu because they look better – those viewing in a non-compliant browser will still be able to view your menu properly, albeit without rounded corners.
The other approach is to design for the most CSS3 compliant browsers and then to provide alternatives for browsers that do not implement a certain CSS3 capability. Note that this doesn’t mean designing for a specific browser, it is only about checking if the browser implements a certain CSS3 capability. For example, if the browser implements transitions and transformations, you can design a product area using these to show off different information about the product in a visually creative manner. If the browser doesn’t implement these, you can design the product area showing the different bits of information in a grid. This approach requires you to test if the browser implement a certain CSS3 capability then to provide two CSS codes.
Which approach do you prefer? Which approach are you currently implementing?