Month: October 2010

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links for 2010-10-13

  • 50 New Useful CSS Techniques, Tutorials and Tools – Smashing Magazine
    These are great times for front-end developers. After months of exaggerated excitement about HTML5 and CSS3, the web design community now starts coming up with CSS techniques that actually put newly available technologies to practical use instead of abusing them for pure aesthetic purposes. We see fewer “pure CSS images” and more advanced, clever CSS techniques that can actually improve the Web browsing experience of users. And that’s a good thing! In this post we present recently released CSS techniques, tutorials and tools for you to use and enhance your workflow, thus improving your skills. Please don’t hesitate to comment on this post and let us know how exactly you are using them in your workflow. However, please avoid link dropping, but share your insights and your experience instead. Also, notice that some techniques are not only CSS-based, but use JavaScript, or JavaScript-libraries as well.
    (tags: reference tips magazine web-developer web-developer/css)
  • Family Photos – Imgur
    This family is a bunch of Star Wars fans.
    (tags: fan funny images photography star-wars)
  • On Set: Empire Strikes Back | Vanity Fair
    Out this month, the slick coffee-table tome The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back chronicles the complete tale—from pre-release to blockbuster success—of what’s become the fan favorite of the Star Wars series. Released in 1980, George Lucas’s Episode V pushed the boundaries of special effects and left audiences with one of cinema’s most epic cliffhangers. To mark the film’s 30th anniversary, VF.com presents an excerpt from the book: rarely seen photographs from the Empire Strikes Back set, annotated with behind-the-scenes details. Plus: Read Mike Ryan’s interviews with the book’s author, J. W. Rinzler, and the man behind Boba Fett’s mask, actor Jeremy Bulloch.
    (tags: magazine photography movies star-wars/episodev star-wars)
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    links for 2010-10-12

  • The other alternate reality of ‘Back to the Future’ | Need to Know
    This month marks the 25th anniversary of  Robert Zemeckis’ classic film, Back to the Future.
    (tags: movies video movies/back-to-the-future history funny news via:pbs.org)
  • Star Wars facts – infographic » This Blog Rules | Why go elsewhere?
    This amazing infographic was shared by School Grants Blog and specially made for ThisBlogRules as we are big fans of Star Wars.
    (tags: movies star-wars blogs star-wars/episodeiii star-wars/episodeiv star-wars/episodevi star-wars/episodev star-wars/episodei star-wars/episodeii)
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    links for 2010-10-09

  • Smarter Than You Think – Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic – NYTimes.com
    MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Anyone driving the twists of Highway 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles recently may have glimpsed a Toyota Prius with a curious funnel-like cylinder on the roof. Harder to notice was that the person at the wheel was not actually driving.
    (tags: technology technology/hardware technology/automotive 😀 news science google)
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    links for 2010-10-08

  • Google Shuts Down 1-800-GOOG-411
    Google just announced that it plans to shut down 1-800-GOOG-411, its voice-powered directory assistance service, on November 12. GOOG-411, which launched in 2007, was the company's first foray into voice-powered search. According to Google, GOOG-411 "provided a foundation for more ambitious services" on smartphone platforms like Google's own Android and Apple's iPhone. Interestingly, today's announcement also notes that Google plans to put all of its resources "into speech-enabling the next generation of Google products and services across a multitude of languages."
    (tags: 🙁 google google/voice news disturbing :O cellphone technology internet community)
  • Caught Spying on Student, FBI Demands GPS Tracker Back | Threat Level | Wired.com
    A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do. It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back, the student told Wired.com in an interview Wednesday. The answer came when half-a-dozen FBI agents and police officers appeared at Yasir Afifi’s apartment complex in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday demanding he return the device. Afifi, a 20-year-old U.S.-born citizen, cooperated willingly and said he’d done nothing to merit attention from authorities. Comments the agents made during their visit suggested he’d been under FBI surveillance for three to six months.
    (tags: technology technology/hardware technology/security news politics)
  • Aviary – Creation on the fly / blog / Tip Tuesday – Texture Fill
    You can quickly create a seamless background texture in our online image editor Phoenix. First import, and select your seamless tile with one of the selection tools. Next use the "Define Pattern" functions under the Select menu to set it as the foreground fill. Then use the paint bucket tool to fill the canvas with the new pattern.
    (tags: art graphics images art/tools via:aviary.com)
  • The 28 Hour Day
    Did you ever feel like there just weren't enough hours in the day? Have you ever stayed up late because you weren't tired enough to go to bed? Have you ever felt like you didn't get enough sleep and it was, too soon, time to get up? Have you ever wished for more free time to pursue different activities and goals? If you can relate to these feelings, you will be interested in the 28 Hour Day. Under the 28 Hour Day system, the current week would remain at exactly 168 hours. (24×7=168) However, this 168 hour period would be divided into six 28-hour days rather than 7 24-hour days. Some of the benefits of extending the length of the day are relatively clear: you would simply have more time to do the things you wanted to do. Everything you do now in a typical day could be done for a little longer: you could sleep longer, work longer, spend longer blocks of time with your family and friends, and have more leisurely meals.
    (tags: funny news news/health disturbing)
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    links for 2010-10-07

  • How to become a freelance web developer | Ryan Waggoner
    I graduated from college in 2006 and moved to San Francisco where I landed a job as a product manager at CNET, working on GameSpot.com. It was a fantastic job, great place to work, and I learned a lot. But being an employee just isn’t me, and I quit after 11 months to start doing freelance web development work full-time. I didn’t have much experience and had done very little client work up to that point, so the transition was rough. The first couple years were hard, and I almost caved several times and just got a job. But going into 2010, things started to really shift in a perceptible way. I’ve had enough people ask me for advice that I figured I’d write up a quick guide. These are a few of the things I’ve learned along the way; hopefully you’ll find them useful as well.
    (tags: financial employment web-developer blogs)
  • Did you love XWing, TIE Fighter, and/or XWing Alliance? Play them again, with improved graphics! : gaming
    Every few weeks I see a post on Reddit about how great this series was, and inevitably there's a lot of moaning and gnashing of teeth that we can't play them anymore, if only LucasArts would re-release them with new graphics… Well, STFU. There's a great modding community out there for these games, and updated models are available for most of them. So download them (they're in the public domain now, so it's legal to download), and try out these awesome updates!
    (tags: via:reddit.com technology technology/software download star-wars video-games video-games/pc video-games/pc/star-wars star-wars/collecting star-wars/x-wing)
  • GiveBack10 | USO
    USO | GiveBack10 encourages every American to take 10 minutes to learn about the issues facing wounded warriors, tell 10 friends or give 10 dollars. They gave. Let's all give back.
    (tags: news donate)
  • Honeybee Killer Found by Army and Entomologists – NYTimes.com
    Since 2006, 20 to 40 percent of the bee colonies in the United States alone have suffered “colony collapse.” Suspected culprits ranged from pesticides to genetically modified food. Now, a unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two. A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One. Exactly how that combination kills bees remains uncertain, the scientists said — a subject for the next round of research. But there are solid clues: both the virus and the fungus proliferate in cool, damp weather, and both do their dirty work in the bee gut, suggesting that insect nutrition is somehow compromised.
    (tags: science science/biology news)
  • The Paper Triangle Football Game | burakkanber.com
    Click and drag downwards to "flick" the ball across the table–try to get it to straddle the goal line for a touchdown. To kick a field goal after a TD, click the football to get the moving bar as close to the green zone at the top, then click again to hit the green zone at the bottom.
    (tags: video-games video-games/pc video-games/web funny history)
  • The Loud Few – 7 Web Development Sites You Must Bookmark
    Just over a year ago, web development was a completely new concept for me. I started off wanting to build something for fun and it turned into something I actually get paid to do! Not quite turning my love of basketball into a position in the NBA, but I’ll take it. As with any new endeavor, I hit my stumbling points. I started out with a respectable dent in my bank account and reduced space in my apartment because of the massive amount of web-related books I bought at Borders. Don’t get me wrong, one of them was great (yeah, one). I soon learned the best tool was free. The online community quickly became the mentor I needed to help me understand web development, which is why I would like to share the seven most valuable web development websites in my arsenal.
    (tags: web-developer web-developer/css web-developer/tools firefox firefox/tools download reference blogs)
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    links for 2010-10-03

  • fíam » Your content is distracting your users from the ads
    A couple of days ago I noticed one of my apps was producing an usually high amount of revenue via ads. When something like that happens I'm really interested in finding what's causing it. So first thing I did was logging in to AdMob and examining the reports for this application. This is what I found:
    (tags: web-developer web-developer/promotion marketing business)
  • Periodic Table of the Elements – Josh Duck
    The table below shows the 104 elements currently in the HTML5 working draft and two proposed elements (marked with an asterisk).
    (tags: web-developer web-developer/tools reference)
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    links for 2010-10-01

  • Mario Piano Sheet Music – Original Quality
    Piano player eager to learn how to play those long-cherished Mario themes and sound effects, your quest ends here! A few months ago, I too was looking for quality sheet music of the original Super Mario Bros from 1985, and after frantically searching the web for days and closely examining the Mario sheet music available on dozens of popular results, I came to the realization that there simply was no definitive score of Koji Kondo's masterpieces. Nintendo has never published an official version, and high demand for Mario sheet music has led a number of fans to release their own amateur transcriptions, none of which succeeded in doing justice to the original Koji Kondo creation; while some of these attempts were fair approximations and captured the gist of the tunes, they were often simplified or interpreted versions, with missing or extra notes, inaccurate rhythms and poorly-chosen notation; furthermore, they hardly looked good when printed on paper sheets,
    (tags: music music/piano music/notation video-games video-games/nintendo video-games/nintendo/classic video-games/nintendo/super-mario)
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