Archive for the ‘Web’ Category
Google Apps to drop IE6 Support
Posted in Web, on February 2nd, 2010 by Carlos.
I received an email yesterday from Google Apps stating that as of March 1 2010, Google will begin to drop support for IE6 “as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers” starting with Google Docs suite and Google Sites editor. Later in 2010, Google Mail and Google Calendar will also drop support for the antiquated browsers. Google claims that it will be employing “faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5″ rendering older browsers useless.
I think it’s about time a major corporation such as Google is putting their foot down with support for browsers like IE6. Long known as the bane of every web designer and developer, IE6 still seems to have a chokehold on the Internet, even though its usage numbers are dwindling, As such, it is slowing down progress for the new technologies that make the Internet truly interactive, and perhaps more importantly, easier to develop for. Guiltily, I must admit that I even still insist that sites I design be IE6 friendly as you never know what browser a client or potential client is using. This announcement from Google, however, has me thinking that I will officially be dr0pping IE6 support as well. Given that it was released August 27, 2001 (according to Wikipedia), I think we are good to move on.
Do you still support IE6 for web projects, and if so why? Is it safer for interactive sites such as Google Apps to drop support for these browsers than perhaps a general information site?
Font Squirrel – 100% Free for Commercial Use Fonts
Posted in Web, on December 22nd, 2009 by Carlos.
For the most part I had given up on “free” fonts available on the web for use in my projects. Most of the time they didn’t offer enough styles/weights for a font-family and that was if I was lucky enough to find one that actually allowed commercial use. You see, a lot of free fonts posted on various free font sites stipulate that the fonts be used only in personal or non-commercial applications, which is unfortunate for those of us that want to use it in a project for a paid client.
Enter Font Squirrel. Font Squirrel has a collection of fonts that are actually free for commercial use, making it very handy for designers trying to get some fonts on the cheap (cheaper than cheap – free!). You can even find a fair number of them that have various styles and weights which is an extra plus. [Font Squirrel]
Browser Wars: Chrome Surpasses Safari
Posted in Web, on December 15th, 2009 by Carlos.
It looks like Chrome has sneaked past Safari as the 3rd most popular browser according to Net Applications. IE currently dominates at 63.6%, followed by Firefox at 24.7%, Chrome at 4.4% and Safari at 4.37%. Although I’m a fan of Safari, I’m glad to see that Webkit browsers as a whole are gaining popularity. [via Tuaw]
CSS: Best Practices to Improve Your Code
Posted in Web, on December 14th, 2009 by Carlos.
Webdesigner Depot has put together a list of 10 best practices you can use to help clean up your CSS code. While I don’t agree with all of them*, there is one in particular that I would like to highlight as it is very useful. They suggest including a commented section in your CSS file to list out your swatch colours that are used throughout the file. I usually have to jump around to different styles to copy/paste colour hex values (and usually copying the wrong one in the process), when you could just have them in one spot as an easy reference.
The one item I don’t agree with is that they suggest designing for Gecko-based browsers (Firefox, Camino, etc.) first, then Webkit (Safari, Chrome, etc.) and Internet Explorer. While I don’t disagree with the principal of it, I have found that designing for Webkit support first, results in less overall headaches later on. I’ve found if it works in Webkit, it works in Gecko. IE, on the other hand… well… you know. [Webdesigner Depot]
Forms Made Easy with Wufoo
Posted in Web, on December 11th, 2009 by Carlos.
If you’re looking to implement a form on a site for yourself or for your clients, have a look at Wufoo. It makes form creation and design extremely easy, giving you a drag and drop interface to build your form fields. What’s best is that the backend support for the form is completely handled by Wufoo so the most code you need to use is the bit of Javascript they have you add to your site. And because the form creation and editing is so easy, you can even have your clients modify their own forms and don’t need to worry about making changes to the site itself.
Wufoo also provides powerful metrics to see just how well your form is performing. They allow you to create custom reports to view your forms entries, activity and conversion rates and much more.
Wufoo has different tiers of service, with a Free option for 1 user, up to 3 forms, up to 3 reports and a maximum of 100 submissions per month. Its worth checking out as it makes a simple site even simpler when you don’t need to worry about setting up any code or backend for a simple Contact form. [Wufoo]
Google Chrome Beta for Mac Released
Posted in Web, on December 8th, 2009 by Carlos.
Google has made available a beta version of the webkit based browser, Chrome. I had downloaded an earlier release for some testing and it seemed to run well. I’ll probably stick to Safari though, only firing up Chrome when I accidentally click the wrong icon. My only hope is that Chrome becomes more successful on the Windows side of things so people move away from Internet Explorer. I have downloaded it and it feels pretty snappy and responsive, more so than FireFox even, but then again, I’ve always found FireFox to load up too slowly on the Mac compared to Safari. Go download it now.
Will you be switching?
Advanced CSS Type Techniques
Posted in Web, on December 5th, 2009 by Carlos.
1stwebdesigner has compiled a list of advanced CSS typography techniques to bring more style to your websites without having to use images. I’d be interested to see how these effects behave across the various browsers. I’m looking forward to trying these out in my upcoming site designs. [via 1stwebdesigner]
20 jQuery Image Gallery Plugins
Posted in Web, on December 3rd, 2009 by Carlos.
Check out this list of 20 useful image gallery plugins built using jQuery. [via speckyboy]
Google’s New Simplicity
Posted in Web, on December 3rd, 2009 by Carlos.
If you head over to Google.com you’ll notice a new super clean search page by the search giant. Until you move your mouse, nothing but the Google logo, the search bar and the Google Search and I’m Feeling Lucky buttons appear. Move your mouse and the rest of the text links and nonsense appear. Unfortunately they find this too advanced for us Canadians, and as such it isn’t showing up on google.ca yet. What do you think? Do you like it? I wish you could save an option so that even when you move your mouse none of the other clutter appears. [Google via Gizmodo]
Times Skimmer by the New York Times
The New York Times has launched the Times Skimmer – a new way to browse through their latest headlines. I always found the nytimes.com site to be on the cluttered side which is why I would often opt for reading their articles using the iPhone app (which in itself has had its history of issues). The Times Skimmer looks great though and employees some nifty stuff complements of HTML5. At present, clicking on an article will overlay a window taking you to the corresponding page on nytimes.com, so you will still eventually get to the standard nytimes.com interface. Still though, its a vast improvement for checking out the latest headlines in a very modern and elegant fashion. [via Daring Fireball]
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