Category: techno

Zooming with responsive design

Discovered something new tonight.

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1">

is a lot different than:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

When I started building out a responsive site for our organization, I ran into some snags with font sizes and such and kept running across “be sure to include” the top line of code when working with responsive design.

No one gave much explanation – just said it was needed.

You may have already figured this out – but it’s the last two attributes that make the biggest difference.

As I understand it now, initial-scale is the scale the site initial loads with.

Maximum-scale is the maximum size the user can scale the site to. So if you set a max of 1 – well there will be no pinch and zooming on your site.

Or if you set it to 2, 3 or 10, etc – that’s the max zoom a user can use.

So do us all a favor and leave that last bit (maximum-scale=1) off. Don’t limit your users. Let them navigate however they feel best.

Apple brings networks to their knees

This afternoon around 1 p.m. iOS 7 went live (in our area at least).

Shortly there after our organization’s Internet came to a crawl (or so I hear – I was working from home).

I dropped a quick email to our network admin:

iOS 7 anyone? 😉

(I’m at home so don’t blame me)

Sure enough – later tonight I got an email confirming my suggestion. iTunes was using roughly 400MBits or more than 40% of our organization’s Internet connection.

I think @Saddington was right to be impressed that Apple’s network could handle the load of all those downloads.

https://twitter.com/saddington/status/380396490990309376

Pressgram is coming…

thesearemypictures

Earlier this year, John Saddington launched a Kickstarter campaign to support his latest project – Pressgram.

And let me just say – I’m a huge fan (and backer).

What started as a personal side project for John has turned into a full-time job thanks to the Kickstarter support.

The FREE iOS app (Android planned to be released later) sets out with a sole purpose of freeing content creators from the often insane terms of service some social networks offer their users.

The app works similar to Instagram but instead of uploading your photos to a server owned and controlled by Facebook, users upload their photos to their own WordPress powered site (hosted or self-hosted).

Think about that – a super easy way to get the features you love in apps like Instagram (filters, social aspect, etc) but you get to own the content and bring traffic to your own sites – not someone else’s.

What better way for a business to drive traffic to their site than with an app that posts images directly to their site and then shares a link to it on Twitter or Facebook? No more sending customers to someone else’s site and hoping they click back to yours.

I can’t wait!

Personally, I’ve been trying to share most of my content here on my blog again – like the good ole’ days – and while the WordPress iOS app does a decent job of posting content to your WordPress blogs, the media manager/uploader leaves me wanting.

I have no doubt Pressgram is going to fill that hole the minute I get my hands on it.

Who knows… it may even be enough to get me to finally hit that delete account button.

deleteinstagram

—

What about you? Are you frustrated by the terms of service companies like Facebook and Flickr offer?

Would you delete your accounts and move everything to a self-hosted solution if the right tool was available?

Learning with Team Treehouse

Just over a month ago I decided to start buckling down a bit and learn some more programming. I don’t use a lot in my daily job but it’s sure helpful to know when I do – and even more so for freelance work.

I’ve taught myself HTML and CSS and even some PHP along the way but anything outside of that has been a lot of Googling for a solution and just cutting and pasting it into my project.

If I needed to customize the code in anyway it was a luck of the draw on whether I could get the code to work like I needed it to.

I’ve had a number of ideas that I’ve started and simply let slide because I couldn’t get the copied code to work just right.

In order to learn more, I’ve signed up with Treehouse’s online training. I’m just over half-way through with their Javascript fundamentals and the approach they use has really helped.

The concepts and syntax I’ve struggled with in the past are starting to click for once. Hopefully in the very near future I’ll finish this course and move on to more advanced HTML, CSS and PHP.

At $25 a month I can learn a new skill for a couple hundred bucks or less (depending on how quickly I can work through the videos).

If you’ve been thinking about learning to code (whether HTML, CSS, Javascript, iPhone apps, Android apps etc), give Treehouse a try. They say they can get anyone from zero to job ready.

For a little more inspiration check out these two videos that helped push me towards getting serious:

Finally, if you are interested in getting started, you can get 3-months free when you sign up for a year of training via my affiliate link.

Get 3-months FREE

The Secret War – NSA Snooping is Only the Beginning

INSIDE FORT MEADE, Maryland, a top-secret city bustles. Tens of thousands of people move through more than 50 buildings—the city has its own post office, fire department, and police force. But as if designed by Kafka, it sits among a forest of trees, surrounded by electrified fences and heavily armed guards, protected by antitank barriers, monitored by sensitive motion detectors, and watched by rotating cameras. To block any telltale electromagnetic signals from escaping, the inner walls of the buildings are wrapped in protective copper shielding and the one-way windows are embedded with a fine copper mesh.

This is the undisputed domain of General Keith Alexander, a man few even in Washington would likely recognize. Never before has anyone in America’s intelligence sphere come close to his degree of power, the number of people under his command, the expanse of his rule, the length of his reign, or the depth of his secrecy. A four-star Army general, his authority extends across three domains: He is director of the world’s largest intelligence service, the National Security Agency; chief of the Central Security Service; and commander of the US Cyber Command. As such, he has his own secret military, presiding over the Navy’s 10th Fleet, the 24th Air Force, and the Second Army.

…Stuxnet is only the beginning. Alexander’s agency has recruited thousands of computer experts, hackers, and engineering PhDs to expand US offensive capabilities in the digital realm. The Pentagon has requested $4.7 billion for “cyberspace operations,” even as the budget of the CIA and other intelligence agencies could fall by $4.4 billion. It is pouring millions into cyberdefense contractors. And more attacks may be planned.