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Browser Compatibility Circa 2011

August 9th, 2011

Skunkworks Creative Group

Browser Compatibility Circa 2011

Building websites for professional firms, one of our ongoing challenges is browser compatibility. What looks gorgeous on one browser may be disjointed and glitchy on another. The classic problem being drop-down menus. As a lawyer at a web design company, its interesting to look back with nostalgia on the earlier days of Netscape vs. Internet Explorer.  Monopolistic behaviour made testing websites comparatively easy.

The browser market is now thriving and we are increasingly faced with the question of which browsers we will support. This doesn’t mean that unsupported browsers won’t display the site, only that we won’t be testing on them. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Apple, BlackBerry, Google, JetPack Websites, Law firm websites, Microsoft, Mobile, Technology, WordPress Websites | Add a Comment »

Smartphone Musings.

February 16th, 2010

Skunkworks Creative Group

Smartphone Musings.

A long time ago (early 2000′s) before Google was a powerhouse and Apple was a mass market media darling there were two major players in smartphones – Microsoft and Blackberry (Ok, maybe Palm to a certain degree as well). They had the marketplace covered and produced solid smartphones which had quite a few of the features of the modern day devices (cameras, calendars, apps, contacts, instant messaging) although the experience was a little mundane and uninspiring (and non-touch).

Fast forward to the year 2007 when Apple crashed the party and upended all that was peaceful in the staid smartphone market with their touch-enabled device, the iPhone. Now, Apple weren’t the first to the smartphone party, nor were they the first to introduce touch, but they did meld their usual user-friendliness and marketing savvy to upend the entire market and introduce a more consumer-friendly device. The iPhone, and the whole touch phenomenon changed the landscape for smartphones. Out with the old and in with the new!

Fast forward once more to 2009 when Google bust down the door of the smartphone party with their introduction of an touch-enabled open-source OS called Android. Not the sexiest interface, nor was it the most user-friendly but what it lacked in pizazz it made up for with the promise if being open to the people and having Google’s backing, which would ensure it would become bigger and better as time went on. So far, the flagship android device seems to be Google’s Nexus One.

Also in 2009 Palm came back fighting by introducing the much-hyped Pre smartphone. Unfortunately for palm it’s quite a bit smaller than any of the other companies and it’ll be tough to move the numbers that the other big players can. Have to give Palm props though as they’ve developed a beautiful phone with a very slick interface utilizing touch capabilities and a slide-out keyboard.

Since the introduction of the iPhone and all the other touch devices the Blackberry brand has held it’s own, even introducing it’s own touch device which never really caught on with the mass market. Microsoft, however has taken a severe beating in market share and as of yesterday has essentially pulled the plug on it’s old smartphone operating system. Microsoft haven’t given up however, the new Windows Mobile 7 series looks to be a complete departure from anything they’ve ever introduced before and my hunch is it’ll be a gamble that will pay off.

It seems every few months someone introduces a phone/OS combo that makes me really want to trade in my trusty Blackberry. What stops me? Well, I know that in another 3 or 4 months there will be another phone that will make me glad I waited. And now, with the unveiling of the new Microsoft mobile OS I think I’ll hold off a bit longer just to see how things play out. The battle for our mobile dollars is heating up and there’s never been the amount of competition we have today.

My blackberry does all that I need for now, but the grass is always greener on the other side in tech land.

Posted in Apple, BlackBerry, Google, Microsoft, Mobile, Technology | Add a Comment »

Nineteen Ways To Open a File (Mac) =]

April 7th, 2009

Skunkworks Creative Group

Nineteen Ways To Open a File (Mac) =]

I seem to like how-to lists a lot, and Macworld comes in handy. They have recently published this post on nineteen ways to open a file (in a Mac computer) – which at first sounds like useless information, but can help you save little bits of time or even just make the task of opening a file feel more interesting…

From now on is just copy + paste, but you can go to their site and give the props to them, not to me. =)

by Kirk McElhearn, Macworld.com

You may content yourself with double-clicking on files to open them, but depending on what you’re doing, there may be a quicker or more convenient option. Here are 19 different ways to get the job done:

1. Double-click on a file.

2. Select a file and press command-down arrow.

3. Select a file and press command-O.

4. Click on a file in the Finder sidebar.

5. Drag a file onto a program icon in the Finder, in the sidebar, in the Finder toolbar, or in the Dock.

6. Open a file using an Open dialog box by selecting the file and then clicking on Open or OK.

7. From an Open dialog box, drag a file onto a program icon in the Finder, the sidebar, or the Dock.

8. Drag a file, or a file’s proxy icon (in the title bar), from the Finder to an Open dialog box, and then select it and click on Open or OK.

9. Control-click, or right-click, on a file and then choose Open or Open With. In the contextual menu, select an application. This is a good way to open a file with a program you don’t usually use (for example, with Adobe Acrobat instead of Preview). This works for files in Finder windows or in the sidebar.

10. If you have a stack in the Dock, click on the stack to display its contents, and then click on a file to open it.

11. Select a file in the Finder, press command-I, and then double-click on the file’s preview. (You may need to expand the Preview section of the Info window.)

12. If you’re in Column view, double-click on a file’s preview in the Preview column, if it’s visible.

13. If you’re in Cover Flow view, double-click on a file’s Cover Flow preview.

14. If you’re viewing a file in Quick Look, double-click on it, and then press command-O or press command-down arrow.

15. Search for a file in the Spotlight menu (press command-space bar to activate it, and then type your search term), select a file in the list, and then press return or enter.

16. If you’ve used a file recently, select Apple menu: Recent Items: filename..

17. In Terminal, run the following command: open filename. Make sure to include the path to the file with its name, for example: /Users/kirk/Documents/my_file.

18. In Terminal, run the following command to open a file with a specific application: open applicationname filename. With this command, include the path to the application and the file—for example: open /Applications/TextEdit /Users/kirk/Documents/my_file.

19. In Safari, type a file’s path using the following format, and then press enter: file:///Users/username/Documents/filename.

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25 Terminal Tips Every Mac User Should Know.

March 5th, 2009

Skunkworks Creative Group

25 Terminal Tips Every Mac User Should Know.

I have recently come across a very interesting article from Mac|Life about the Terminal – Apple’s MS-DOS kind of thing – and I finally felt a little bit less dummy regarding this built-in command-line application.

The tips that stroke me the most:

5. Make All Links In Safari Open As New Tabs

7. Show Hidden Files in The Finder

8. Change The File Format For Screenshots

9. Disable the Dashboard

10. Compress And Password-protect A File or Folder

11. Fix File Permissions

12. Securely Erase Free Space On Your Dard Drive

19.  Compare The Differences Between Two Text Files

22. Backup In A Snap

25.  Snap superior screenshots

Click here to read the full article and find out how to pull off these useful tricks using the Terminal.

And don’t forget to leave a comment with your impressions in case you give them a try!

That’s all folks!

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Posted in Apple, Technology, Things we like | Add a Comment »

 

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