Microsoft Attitude Toward Web Standards
So then in 1997 to defeat Netscape Browser and Server, Bill made a promise to US Business Leaders – Microsoft in IE and IIS would implement all the W3C and other Internet standards. It is a promise he and Microsoft religiously never kept. Rather, he and his IE Troopers used outright sabotage [Java corruption; incomplete […]
Simple Tabs in jQuery
Simple jQuery Tabs I have been looking for leaner jQuery code for a number of widget apps. Here is a simple jQuery tabs implementation by Jack Moore. I have modified the CSS and minor changes to the script. Here is the JSFiddle: [iframe src=”http://jsfiddle.net/jbsurveyer/SD2R4/2/” width=”100%” height=”480″] And here is the standalone file with working code: […]
JavaScript and WordPress
JavaScript and WordPress go together like oil and water – they mix but only under certain conditions. True, WordPress supports Java Script and its many attractive frameworks like DHTMLx, EXTjs, jQuery, mootools, Prototype,, Scriptaculous and others. WordPress even puts a link to the core jQuery engine right into every header. So WordPressers using jQuery scripts […]
jQuery Image Display Toggles
A consistent need in web display is to be able to show selectively more details of an image+description triggered by either a click or mouseEnter/mouseLeave event. True, jQuery-powered lightbox and popups can deliver the same functionality; but many of these jQuery scripts are slow to fire up or may be complex to code. The following […]
NextGen Gallery Plugin Improvements
NextGen Gallery has had a very shaky start to its new 2.0 upgrade since Photocrati took over the plugin’s development. As previously reported the plugin was next to inoperable if you wanted to add new images or galleries in the 2.0 version. However, the following screenshot shows major fixes in the Add and Manage Gallery […]
Web Browser Market Share
Usage share of desktop browsers for June 2013 Source Chrome Internet Explorer Firefox Safari Opera Other StatCounter 42.68% 25.44% 20.01% 8.39% 1.03% 2.44% Clicky 38.92% 29.08% 21.22% 9.28% 1.17% 0.32% W3Counter 32.60% 21.70% 19.50% 15.40% 2.20% 8.60% NetApplications 17.17% 56.15% 19.15% 5.55% 1.58% 0.40% Wikimedia 46.02% 20.47% 17.71% 3.10% 5.45% 7.25% The following table is […]
Will the PC Not Just Revive But Prevail over Mobile Devices?
The world of computing has been turned topsy turvy by mobile devices – light, mobile, long-battery life and most important – touch screen operable. Smartphones and tablets from Apple have lead the way; but now the Wintel Empire Strikes Back with ultrabooks , convertibles and 2-in-one PCs. But what may shape this latest twist in […]
Nextgen Gallery 2 Beta
NextGen Gallery image using ScrollGallery plugin One of the better gallery plugins for WordPress has been Nextgen Gallery which uses the WordPress database as a source of information on the images stored and used in a WordPress blog. Users can create dozens of galleries and combine galleries into albums for display purposes. Plugin vendors have […]
Blackberry’s New Found Agility?
During most of 2011 and 2012 the Financial Aanlysts mark against RIM and its Blackberry phones and software was slowness in responding to changes in the market. The Playbook tablet update took 6-8 months to respond to the iPad onrush and fell far short. The smartphones were being hobbled by the update to the BB10 […]
Hulu’s Catch 22 Embed Code
Oh you have to love it when the online Gods Conspire to work against you. This error message does not appear in separate browser tab but replaces the original post and story. In presenting a story on the Daily Show’s savagely funny skit on the GOP’s scuttling of even background checks on gun purchases, ye […]
Is WordPress Losing its UI WYSIWYG Advantage to Webs and Weebly?
Over the past 3-5 years one of the key selling point for WordPress has been the ability to say to clients that editing Pages and Post is WYSIWYG easy to do. The selling line has been “if you can edit an email or Microsoft Word document, you can easily create and edit WordPress Pages and […]
My Kingdom for a Good Diff
With all the coding playpens, browsers powerful Element Inspectors and the availability of great debuggers in Eclipse, CodeLobster and NetBeans, one can easily forget how useful a Diff file comparison utility can be. And now that JavaScript and SQL, and CSS code starts to run into hundreds of lines and team connections can mean several […]
jCanvas: jQuery Plugin for Canvas
One of the surprises in web development has been the slow rate of adoption of both Canvas and SVG. For example, among the nearly 23,000 plugins at WordPress.org users can find only one plugin each for Canvas and SVG. Contrast with the hundreds of plugins that use jQuery. Yet both tools provide a wide […]
Python Renaissance
Python is enjoying a sort of renaissance – and I am not talking about all those foundling pet pythons in the swamps of Florida. This open source, cross platform programming language has been popular in academic circles for its simple syntax but robust functional programming. Here is the the key philosophy of Python: “PEP 20 (The […]
Web Design: Full Page Slider Splash
Big commanding full page slider as LibreOffice’s home landing page This is a new trend that is picking up steam as sliders become ever more accomplished. Instead of being used for special events or short term splash pages, these full page-width slider are becoming the landing home page[s] for more sites. And why not? Make […]
IE 10 for Windows 7: Cursed Again
This is a story/review told in pictures of the new IE10 for Windows 7. Here is the major reason for switching out of IE9 -its abysmal HTML5 compliance: IE9 scores 138 while the leading browsers score well over 400 points For example, Google Chrome is at 468 out of 500 on the HTML5test.com benchmark. As […]
Leap in 3D UI Development?
Microsoft and Apple are racing to implement the next UI breakthru – 3D gestures. These are are already of course available in various implementations of Nintendo Wii and Microsoft’s Kinect. Microsoft’s announcement today of its intentions to miniaturize its Kinect hardware for laptops. It comes at a strange jumcture in time – no big announcements from major […]
WordPress Slider Usage
Now that sliders for WordPress and general Web Development have become rich and varied in their features and reliable in their performance, it is worthwhile reviewing how sliders can be effectively deployed in your WordPress websites. Two Standard Usages First, because most sliders readily handle captions and live links for each page, they are usefulttools […]
Free Online Web Testgrounds
Over the past year, three online Web testing “playgrounds” have emerged which can be quite useful to WordPress and Web developers alike. All three allow users to register and then save their work for later review at no cost. Here are the test environs: JSFiddle – allows testing in 3 panels: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript […]
WP Sliders: M-vSlider
jQuery based image slider plugins for JavaScript and WordPress have gotten so good that there are now at least 50 slider plugins that would easily pass our laundry list test of slider attributes. By the way, just 6-12 months ago, this was state of the art for the best features for WordPress slider plugins: Slider […]
Whose Muckier – Windows 8 RT, Apple iOS, Google Android?
Google Plus is a great place for discussing technology trends. Here is an example: ZDNet’s Steven Vaughn-Nichols picks up a Wayne Rash post who in turn is commenting on how eMail support may be one of the reasons behind Windows 8 Surface RT [the ARM version of Windows hardware ] flagging sales and relatively high return […]
Chinese Hack Attack Super Highway
The spate of recent Chinese hacks into major US media at NYTimes and the Wall Street Journal among others are a cogent reminder of how vulnerable US organizations and institutions are to Chinese Hack attacks. The underlying problem is the Chinese hack attacks on Google in 2009-2010 revealed that the Chinese hackers likely have the complete Internet Explore […]
The Economists Superfast Broadband Webinar – Mushy at Best
The Economists’s Intelligence Unit sponsored today a free webinar on Superfast Broadband with telecom equipment provider Huawei. The instant grade for the webinar is Mushy and not because of the telecom delivery. On 3Mbs Rogers Cable in Canada, the reception was on the whole quite good – maybe 4-6 dropouts, but to my surprise no […]
Metamaterials Change Telecommunication
In an earlier report, TheOpenSourcery advised readers that a major revolution in WiFi services was arriving with new 802.11ac and then 802.11ad wireless standards reaching ratification. The key to this order of magnitude improvementsover the next 2-5 years is that underlying WiFi providers already prepared to deliver major improvements in routers and delivery while client […]
Google Doodles in HTML5 Canvas
The Google Doodle today is an animation in honor of Frank Zamboni’s 112th birthday and his hockey arena fixture the Zamboni ice surface smoothing machine. Warning to Google Doodle collectors – it does not appear universally on Google search engine URLs. Goto google.ca for a currently appearing Doodle. But what the Doodle does do is […]
802.11ac : How 5G WiFI Is Fast Emerging
Wifi over the next 3 years has two technologies which will treble and then treble again WiFi performance; however there are some caveats. But lets see how this plays out with the existing standards: 802.11n – is the basis for 4G WiFi networks. Its improves range and speed over earlier 3G 802.11 WiFi Standards. 802.11n […]
Windows 8’s Three Android Advantages
Windows 8 will have 3 advantages derived from Google’s Android and two homegrown ones. The first is below: Lenovo’s 360 pivot convertible – use as a tablet or a laptop. Google’s Android leads the smartphone market [53%US market share to Apple’s 34% according to Comscore] because it has many hardware suppliers and Google has periodically released […]
Powerpoint Presentations on the Web
Now use Scribd shortcode on a WordPress Blog. Powerpoint on WordPress self-hosted webblogs First try is with WordPress [ embed ] statement Note the Powerpoint Presentation on Scribd has been made public. Ooops – no cigar for a live embedded Powerpoint; but the link will take you to the proper page. Second try using iPaper […]
HTML5 Latest Recommendations
If you are frustrated with the US Congress and its proclivity to kick burning issues down the road – take a look at what the W3C HTML5 Working Group is doing. This blog has been warning users and developers that HTML5 is facing major issues. So that if you want to use HTML5 for example as […]
PCWorld’s Bogus Browsers Test
PCworld’s Nick Mediati has done one of those flawed reviews that commits huge errors of omission. This occurs when comparing the three most popular browsers – Google Chrome 21, Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, and Mozilla Firefox 15. The review is so incomplete it does browser users a disservice. If you take a look at the […]
WP Sliders: Nivo Slider
Image sliders are becoming de rigeur for many WordPress powered websites. And the basic jQuery-powered slider technology that has a solid reputation is the Nivo Slider with its many features including some nifty transitions between slides. However if you search on the WordPress plugins page for Nivo Slider you will get more than 2-dozen plugins listed. […]
Computing’s Big 3 and the Continuing Dissatisfaction with Microsoft
When proposing that Windows 8 would be a smash hit, the highly negative reaction to Windows 8 I discovered on commentary sites like Reddit and Digg was a bit surprising. Many of the reactions to Windows 8 were pure scorn. It appears that Microsoft has a lot of make-up still to do for such sore points as […]
Windows 8 Will Be A Smashing Hit
For the past half year I have secretly held the notion that Windows 8 will be a smashing hit. But the problem has been that my access to full multi-touch screen Windows 8 test machines has been limited. But not so for multi-touchpad and touch mice equipped Windows 8 PCs which I, clients and many Windows […]
Reddit’s CrowdTilt Group Funding
Reddit, the Slashdot/Digg clone, has a new web app devoted to group funding called CrowdTilt. Currently CrowdTilt is only available in the US but Crowdtilt promises to expand into foreign markets. The concept is really quite simple. One or more people organize a campaign to collect money for a group event, charity or cause. Druring […]
Google Dart Update
Google’s Dart has been designed to shore-up JavaScript for large scale programming. Google argues that by tuning up the syntax of JavaScript and borrowing C-like contructs Dart can be made to scale and perform better than JavaScript.. The current version of the Dart Editor: Note there is no UI objects or Visual Editor for Dart […]
Ultrabook Touchscreen Scam
Its the dog days of summer, PC sales are flat or declining, and Windows 8 is a long 3 months away for retailers. So what is the latest scam – selling Ultrabooks with admittedly much improved battery life, improvements in weight and size, mixed improvements in performance as the PC steal deal. Minor problem. Many […]
Challenging Sports Web Design
Imagine you have to report on an event which is moving through the countryside often at 40km/hr with nearly two hundred participants constantly jostling and taking new positions while a global audience of close to half a billion fans wants to know the latest. That is le Tour de France. As a fan I have […]
The Nature of Open
This Ted talk by Don Tapscott on the fundamental attributes of Openness is illuminating: [iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/jfqwHT3u1-8″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen] Don waxes highly hopeful, but Spain and much of Southern Europe and the MidEast have 20% or much greater unemployment. The crux of the problem is also covered in the lecture. Note how much his GoldCorp […]
The Big 3 in Computing – Apple, Google, Microsoft
The Big 3 in Consumer Computing for the next 3-8 years have declared themselves all in. Just as in the auto industry from 100 years ago, the consolidation in computing has begun and the OS software makers have emerged as the top 3. Each has approached the hardware side of computing from different angles because […]
On the Verge of Greatness – LeapMotion’s 3D Touch Tool
TheVerge gadget website finally caught onto to what theOpenSourcery readers have known about 3 weeks ago. The next dynamite NUI-Natural User Interface that is going to sweep the Consumer Computing scene is LeapMotion’s SuperKinect, 3D pointer tool which will hopefully do away with both the mouse and all variety’s of trackpads in the near future.. […]
Mozilla WebMaker Project: Thimble
Thimble is the Web Page creation tool in the Mozilla WebMaker Project, a learning experience for fledgling Web Developers. This is very worthy project to foster web development skills. But Thimble is well named because for an ambitious project like WebMaker, Thimble is a)way too underpowered and b)too annoyingly intrusive during page development. I had […]
Mozilla WebMaker Project: Xray-Goggles
Mozilla WebMaker Project is an endeavor to get more people programming and using the Web in a variety of ways. It is generally well intended but has some mixed software made available to budding web developers. I will have a separate write up on Thimble for creating Web pages. But the Hackasaurus Xray-Googles is review […]
SQLFiddle:Demo and Testing for SQL Databases
Previously, JSFiddle was featured here as a very handy JavaScript demo and testing environ on the Web. I use it when I don’t have my own machine but want to test out a Web Page that has JavaScript code. Well now the same testing capability has been created for SQL – and its called SQLFiddle. […]
Windows 8 and Microsoft Surface : Linux Last PC Opportunity?
The DOJ-Department of Justice when it won its Antitrust case against Microsoft also lost it at that moment because the officials involved had not agreed on a remedy for controling Microsoft. In the end it was $3 billion in fines and kid glove supervision by the Bush DOJ for 5 years. However, one remedy which […]
Consumer Computing Monopolies Surface
With the announcement of Microsoft’s Surface, Consumer Computing has surfaced 3 Big OS vendor monopolies. Apple, Google and Microsoft have become the Consumer Computings monopoly vendors.By the fact that their OS are vital to both software and hardware vendors plus their ownership of increasingly vital hardware and software companies, the Big 3 OS Vendors now dictate […]
Google Blockly, MIT Scratch, and Google to MIT App Inventor
There is a family tree here its just not obvious who inherited exactly what. Lets Start with App Inventor, the Google program developed with the Media Lab at MIT. App Inventor is designed to allow anyone, including people unfamiliar with computer programming, to create software applications for the Android operating system (OS). It uses a graphical interface, drag and drop operations […]
Google Blockly Winners, Losers
First and foremost, lets consider the winners from our last Google Blockly posting … err the Google Blockly Maze Problem Winners – Jon Henson and Uncle Bear. Jon’s Solution does not use Wall to Right or Wall to Left tests UncleBear’s Solution Its hard to say who got the Maze finished first – I should […]
Google Blockly – A Visual Programming Language
In a week when Apple continued to go thermonuclear against anything Google and Microsoft continued to steer Windows 8 astray, Google announces Blockly a visual programming language and computer programming learning tool. Here is a screenshot of Blockly in action: The Blockly demo of a Maze solver is a wickedly tough programming task because users […]
Ballmer on Weed
Just to make things interesting, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is predicting that by the end of 2013 there will be 500 million units of Windows 8 sold – that is 500 million in about 15 months. Whew! Talk about living dangerously. And here is why: The Guardian newspaper has been following total Worldwide PC Sales and noting […]
Windows 8 as a Repeat of the Vista Disaster
There is mounting evidence since the release of the Final Release Preview that Windows 8 is shaping up to be a repeat of the Vista Disaster. The basic ingredient is that Redmond feels it can do a Steve Jobs – and force its users to accept wholescale changes that they might not normally agree with. […]