I never thought I'd say this.
I like Internet Explorer.
Help me.
Well, I say I like Internet Explorer. In truth, I like the beta version of Internet Explorer 9, and for (in my mind) one reason: Its not Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 9 is a fresh, invigorated, fast browser, with a usable UI and is more or less standards compliant. For usability alone it far outpaces Firefox and Safari, although it still lags a little behind Chrome for me.
IE now passes the first 2 Acid tests, as well as performing better than Chrome on the third. For me this is a major milestone, as it shows that Microsoft, or at least the team behind IE are actually trying to pay attention to standards.
IE 9 is just the latest in a range of what seems to be departures from the norm for Microsoft. This change in culture; from bloat, non-compliance and ugliness to the status quo, looks like the future path for Microsoft. Gone are the failures of Windows Mobile 6, Vista and IE 7, and coming are the Triumphs of Windows 7, IE 9 and Windows Phone 7.
I wonder if this is a complete turn around for Microsoft, I for one hope it is.
Sunday 17 October 2010
Tuesday 12 October 2010
ASCII Tower Defence
I've mocked up a little something I might start working on at some point:
I'm calling it ASCII Tower Defence, and It seems like quite a nice little project I could work on on the side of all the school-work and revision I'm going to be doing over the next few months.
Although it doesn't really look like much in the mock-up, it should be a lot more appealing when moving, and when the design is a bit more final.
As a little aside about the mock-up: I designed it in the wonderful ASCII graphics programme ASCII Paint written by TIGSource forum member Melly. Try it sometime, Its great!
I'm calling it ASCII Tower Defence, and It seems like quite a nice little project I could work on on the side of all the school-work and revision I'm going to be doing over the next few months.
Although it doesn't really look like much in the mock-up, it should be a lot more appealing when moving, and when the design is a bit more final.
As a little aside about the mock-up: I designed it in the wonderful ASCII graphics programme ASCII Paint written by TIGSource forum member Melly. Try it sometime, Its great!
Monday 11 October 2010
Windows Phone 7
Wow. Windows phone doesnt look half bad!
I mean, that looks pretty good. It has a pretty nice interface, and it all seems pretty smooth. Everything seems easily accessible, and all the features seem really well integrated. The only worry I have is that the "bloatware" that comes with it (xbox live, netflix and all that) wont be uninstallable. I, and most people really don't need all that stuff, and I suspect that this will be the main problem with the os.
So yeah, I'm looking foward to it, but unless its VERY customisable, then I don't think I'm going to for it.
I mean, that looks pretty good. It has a pretty nice interface, and it all seems pretty smooth. Everything seems easily accessible, and all the features seem really well integrated. The only worry I have is that the "bloatware" that comes with it (xbox live, netflix and all that) wont be uninstallable. I, and most people really don't need all that stuff, and I suspect that this will be the main problem with the os.
So yeah, I'm looking foward to it, but unless its VERY customisable, then I don't think I'm going to for it.
Saturday 9 October 2010
Well now
I'm close to finishing a redesign of my website now. The old design, frankly, was a bit 90's; black background, white text. The only things that really redeemed it was the lack of green, and the html5 header...
In any case, the whole things undergone a complete redesign, from the ground up. The background is now white/very light grey, with dark grey text, and the whole thing is centred. I've also used a couple of new technologies whilst redesigning it and they both proved pretty simple to use.
First up is JQuery. This is a relatively small/big (depending upon what you judge it against) Javascript library with a LOT of functionality. It provides animation effects for the DOM of the page, as well as easy wrappers for AJAX calls, which have proved to be especially useful. I've redesigned the way content is displayed as well; instead of each link going to its own page, an JQuery now loads each content page into the main one using AJAX, then provides a nice animation to slide it in.
The second technology isint really a technology as such; more a way of simplifying columns in a webpage. Its called "The Square Grid" and it provides an easy interface for creating columns on a page, in multiples of 14 pixels.
Together theese two toolkits have saved me a LOT of work. The homepage has gone from 349 lines of HTML and javascript to just 75.
As for the rest of the site, I plan to slowly migrate the rest of the content across over the coming weeks, and hopefully get some new stuff up as well...
In any case, the whole things undergone a complete redesign, from the ground up. The background is now white/very light grey, with dark grey text, and the whole thing is centred. I've also used a couple of new technologies whilst redesigning it and they both proved pretty simple to use.
First up is JQuery. This is a relatively small/big (depending upon what you judge it against) Javascript library with a LOT of functionality. It provides animation effects for the DOM of the page, as well as easy wrappers for AJAX calls, which have proved to be especially useful. I've redesigned the way content is displayed as well; instead of each link going to its own page, an JQuery now loads each content page into the main one using AJAX, then provides a nice animation to slide it in.
The second technology isint really a technology as such; more a way of simplifying columns in a webpage. Its called "The Square Grid" and it provides an easy interface for creating columns on a page, in multiples of 14 pixels.
Together theese two toolkits have saved me a LOT of work. The homepage has gone from 349 lines of HTML and javascript to just 75.
As for the rest of the site, I plan to slowly migrate the rest of the content across over the coming weeks, and hopefully get some new stuff up as well...
Friday 8 October 2010
Getting (re)started
Now I've got a proper blog up and running, I can start to pump out sensible crap again... or not, as the case may be...
So far I've done pretty well at getting a jquery website built, its all gone relatively smoothly, with the only major hitches being slight differences between the 4 major browsers I'm testing it on, and their differing JavaScript implementations.
I'm particularly impressed with Internet explorer 9's efforts though, its more compliant (for what I'm doing) than any of the other major browsers; its great!
So far I've done pretty well at getting a jquery website built, its all gone relatively smoothly, with the only major hitches being slight differences between the 4 major browsers I'm testing it on, and their differing JavaScript implementations.
I'm particularly impressed with Internet explorer 9's efforts though, its more compliant (for what I'm doing) than any of the other major browsers; its great!
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