07.03.10/Happy Birthday, @timer!
Back in the spring of 2007, I was introduced to Twitter and soon thereafter their API. At the time, I had little programming experience with third-party APIs, but was immediately taken by the simplicity and robustness of what Alex was building, and tutored by the growing community of Twitter developers.
For my first project, I decided to play with Twitter’s direct message feature. The idea was simple: send me a direct message that included a time (number of minutes) and a message, and I would reply with a direct message when the specified time had expired. It was a sort of alarm clock…an egg timer…a timer. In May 2007, @timer was born.
Three years later, @timer is still actively used, with over 16,000 followers (you have to follow in order to direct message). Happy belated birthday, lil’ buddy.
On a related note, I’ve updated @timer to use OAuth (as of August 16th, Twitter will be shutting of basic authentication). I suppose this is a the real reason for the post, but the birthday wishes seemed overdue and appropriate. So, enjoy the new and improved @timer…
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06.11.10/W3 Total Cache
If you’re looking to enable WP caching, and website performance optimizations, in one fell swoop, check out W3 Total Cache. It’s a fantastic plugin that will help improve your WordPress site’s performance.
On a related note, I wrote a memo on Weightshift that covers performance tips for client websites. It’s a primer into the type of things we do for our projects, and presented in a way that’s CMS-agnostic.
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06.10.10/Responses to an Informal Survey on Tequila
Last year, I sent out a request for Scotch whisky recommendations, and the results were fantastic. I spent a large part of the Fall and Winter sampling your responses.
Now that it’s getting warmer out, I wanted to switch to a Summer drink. So, I asked for your favorite tequilas. Here are the answers that were submitted. Hope you enjoy them as much as I’m sure I will.
| Distillery | Type | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| * Many thanks to Nick for pointing out an excellent tequila primer written by bbum. | |||
| Oro Azul | Reposado | ||
| Herradura | Añejo | ||
| Cazadores | - | ||
| El Tesoro | Blanco | ||
| Partida | Reposado | ||
| Los Abuelos | Blanco | ||
| Milagro | Silver | ||
| Centenario | - | ||
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06.05.10/Making WordPress Faster: Front-end Performance Tips
The slides from a presentation that I gave today, at WordCamp Chicago. Thank you to everyone who came, asked questions and laughed at my half-assed jokes.
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05.28.10/What Motivates Us?
A thought-provoking, entertaining presentation by author Dan Pink on what really motivates us in the workplace. In summary, it’s not money.
I recommend setting 10 minutes aside to watch this video.
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05.13.10/On Jetpacks
When we were young and imagined the future, we thought we’d be traveling to and fro in our personal jetpacks and flying cars. We envisioned astounding advances in transportation. We dreamed that we’d go places.
What we got instead was the Internet. Astounding advances in communication. Things come to us.
Not a bad consolation prize.
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05.04.10/Mobile Browsers: More Than Just WebKit
In the past couple of years, when we think of developing for the mobile web, we think of Mobile WebKit. And rightfully so. iPhone, Android, webOS and recently BlackBerry have all thrown their muscle behind the increasingly ubiquitous browser. But, what other kinds of mobile devices are people using to access the web?
A lot.
In 2007, Jeff Skinner and I launched the now-defunct Tappity, a site which helped people discover mobile-friendly websites. The other day, I was perusing the Tappity innards and came across something interesting: a database table filled with unique User Agent strings from devices that had visited our site. For those not familiar with User-Agent Strings, they are a sort of fingerprint which helps identify a browser, so the database table represents a large sample of mobile browsers which have accessed Tappity.
The list doesn’t represent every device, nor are the strings exclusively mobile, but it does give you an idea of the diversity that exists in the mobile universe. For example, here are some top manufacturers alongside the number of browser applications/version. Note: Minor version numbers are counted as unique:
Motorola: 357
SonyEricsson: 351
Samsung: 341
Nokia: 300
LG: 169
BlackBerry: 125
HTC: 45
The full list of User-Agents can be viewed on Google Docs. Note: There are two worksheets: one with the raw strings from the database table, and another containing my attempt to identify unique application/version numbers.
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04.30.10/Should You Develop an App or Mobile Website?
Before opening XCode or hiring a developer to build an iPhone/Android app, there are a few questions that you should ask yourself:
- Will my product require use of the camera, microphone or other device-specific hardware?
- Will it access the address book, media library or common user data?
- Will I charge for my product, using an app store as the payment processor?
- Will I send push notifications or need background processes?
If the answer to any of the above is ‘yes,’ then an iPhone/Android app may be right for you. If the answer is ‘no,’ you may want to consider building an HTML5 mobile website instead.
Mobile websites:
- Can access geolocation info.
- Provide offline caching and storage.
- Handle touch and gesture events.
- Are easily deployed (new versions and bug fixes)
- Are cross-platform (Android, iPhone, webOS, etc.)
Comments and discussion: #NotAnApp
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04.21.10/New Duds
Many, many many thanks to Naz Hamid for providing me with a new design for the site. I’m very lucky to be able to call him both a colleague and friend.
Want to see some more of Naz’s beautiful designs? Checkout the Weightshift portfolio.
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01.27.10/Concept: iPad Split Keyboard
Aesthetics aside…
It seems like the iPad’s keyboard, in landscape mode, leaves you no choice but to hold the device in one hand and hunt-n-peck with the other. What if the keyboard was split into two, and placed in the lower-right and left corners? Then, you could hold it with both hands, and type a la the iPhone.
It’d be a sacrifice to the key size, for sure, but it might be more comfortable and functional.
