Blog Stuff we're discovering, learning, reading, watching, enjoying...

As we all know, Adobe and Apple aren’t best buddies, so Flash isn’t appearing on the iPhone/iPad any time soon. In fact, probably never. Therefore, with Flash being the king of video on the web, there’s only one option for showing video in the browser to iPhone and iPad users: HTML5 video. YouTube and some of the other big video services are rapidly moving to HTML5 video on the web anyway, despite it’s fairly limited browser support. The effort is worth it though as it makes the task of preparing and delivering video on the web much easier once Flash is out of the loop, and supporting the iPhone and iPad (and other mobile devices) should be standard practice, not an occasional extra. There’s an excellent tutorial at Dive Into HTML 5, though for the finer intricacies you’ll also want to head to the Apple Developer reference on HTML5 video. Oh, and to save you some head scratching, if you think you’ve done everything required but it still isn’t working on the iPhone, make sure you’re using BASELINE encoding. The iPhone is much more picky about this than the iPad.

Whilst iPhone, Android and other rich devices continually raise the bar for the high-end mobile experience, it would be easy to overlook the persistent innovation and advance in low-end technologies such as SMS. Common have delivered a number of services which have relied heavily on SMS and we’ve usually been delighted with the “honesty” of the user engagement when any perceived technology barriers are removed and the user is able to focus purely on the content.

Similarly, although mobile applications are extending the reach of mobile services in some areas, mobile access to the internet continues to go from strength to strength. You only have to use the Guardian or BBC mobile sites once or twice and it’s immediately apparent that a carefully optimised mobile internet experience can be easy to use, well presented and allow you to find the content you want quickly. HP have just launched a service which aims to extend mobile access to the internet even further. It’s suggested that the service will primarily benefit developing countries where 3G and data access is limited or prohibitively expensive, by allowing users to “query” the internet using SMS. If the experience and the results are good enough though there’s no reason why this “retrieve a snippet of the internet” approach might not be just as successful everywhere.

OK, so I can’t guarantee that the Tweenies themselves could use this Tweener Documentation and Language Reference, but if like me you have only occasional need to use tweening functions and each time end-up going through a trial and error scenario of “what’s the difference between bounce out and ease out”, then it’s a very handy visual reference.

Browser testing, or QA as technical people call it to clients, or indeed “total bane of my life” as they call it to each other, is a necessary evil of web development these days. As ever, I’ve been looking at streamlining this part of our development and delivery process, and in doing so have come across the following resources which I thought I’d share for future reference. None of the following are tested or rated. Some have been used a little, some have been used a lot. Some not at all.

• Multi Browser Viewer
  Windows-based software, with extensive range of multi-platform browsers.
• Browsershots
  Web-based service, with free (albeit slow) option.
• Remote Desktop / Real VNC / Jollys Fast VNC / Chicken of the VNC
  We currently have some old basic PC boxes with a variety of Windows browsers installed, and then use VNC or Remote Desktop to connect to them for our Macs. Great for testing whilst in the office.
• Cross Browser Testing
  Basically this is a remote version of the VNC approach, with a range of boxes ready for testers to connect to.
• Adobe BrowserLab
  Very comprehensive offering that integrates with CS5 Suite. Excellent to use and very thorough results.
• xBrowse
  New web-based service, with limited range of browsers but very fast and covers main browsers so great for quick “cover the main issues” testing.
• IE Netrenderer
  A bit limited but easy and quick for a bit of IE testing, and let’s face it, that’s mainly what we need.
• Litmus
  Email testing only apparently, though the August issue of .NET magazine seems to suggest it also supports web browser testing.
• Mailchimp
  Actually a mass mail sending service, but with an excellent “Inbox Inspector” option for a small fee.
• Email on Acid
  Email testing, including iPhone and Blackberry.

Not a blog title I ever expected to write but I love the look of this Augmented Reality app this AR iPhone app and can see it being a big hit in Japan with it’s quirky but cute mass-user game approach. I think AR is still being mainly used just because it’s cool, but I guess increasingly both games and useful applications will come forth. And I’m not discounting the excellent where’s my nearest tube station app, but you’re never more than 50m from a tube sign in London anyway so I don’t find myself reaching for the app in practice.

I’m not exactly the first to notice, nor (obviously) am I involved in any way, but it’s hard not to be inspired by the Wired article about how Pixar built Toy Story 3. From the story itself through to the presentation of the article on the Wired site, it just feels like an exciting, creative project and indeed company that any creative mind would want to be involved in.

Maybe there are already lots of 3rd party software/website testing companies out there, but if so then I’ve not come across them. Therefore, when The Crowd/Software Testing Club started following me on Twitter I thought it worthy of a mention. It seems an obvious idea - a network of skilled people who can test software on a structured basis and feedback the results in a helpful and knowledgeable way. Or in The Crowd’s own words, “A directory of socially approved testers for hire”. Whilst we have NOT used the service so can’t vouch for their effectiveness yet, it feels like an interesting and hopefully successful approach to testing software and websites.

Ever wanted to use the semantically correct HTML SUP tag for superscript but not been able to get the styling right? Well if you thought you’d “just fix it during lunch-break” like I just did, but ended up still fint-tuning the presentation an hour later, have a look at this superscript fix. It’s basically a default over-ride, then styled relative to the parent text. Exactly what you’d want. And still leaves you time for lunch.

We’re looking forward to the forthcoming release of Wordpress 3.0. Continuing the excellent evolution path from blogging system to middleweight CMS, from a developer perspective it’s great to see that version 3.0 ignores some of the often requested improvements such as media management and focuses on fixing some of the core CMS framework issues that we all too often have to patch up using plugins or bespoke code. Features such as “Custom taxonomies” or “Menu management” might not excite the average user but they are fundamental improvements from a development perspective and will continue to ensure that Wordpress is a perfect solution for small to medium size web deliveries. Furthermore, the integration of WordpressMU in the form of “Multisite” and features such as “child themes” will further extend the suitability of using a single Wordpress install to deliver a suite of related sites.  Mashable have a good write-up of their 5 most important new features, or the full list can be seen on the Wordpress site.

Some interesting examples of how CSS3 could be used to create nicer looking (possibly more cross-OS consistent?) buttons. Firstly this blog goes into some detail about the process and then the idea is also taken up and  simplified by others. I think the best part about this is it shows how CSS3, far from being about whacking huge drop-shadows, skews and roundy edges on everything you possibly can,  does provide useful tools which can give designers a great deal more control over important interface elements. Particularly with buttons such as this it’s useful not always to have to rely on images.