(NOTE: Like many of my other ongoing lists, this post is primarily for my memory – rumor is it’s the first to go with age.)
I’ve been fortunate that to date – and been able to maintain a very omnivorous diet. Surpassing 35 has brought with many changes. Most notably – I now have a list of foods that make me feel worse that I did before I ate them.
The list so far:
Here’s the standard complaint about using @font-face in a website:
“Windows XP doesn’t seem to do anti-aliasing very well,
and even with Clear Type enabled, the custom fonts can look jagged and rough.”
Here’s my standard reply:
With the Fontue web font server open sourced, I’ve done the same for the workflow scripts I use to to generate the fonts for @font-face use.
It’s a pair of scripts that pipe fonts in and out of other conversion programs like FontForge, sfnt2woff, Batik, and EOTFast. Along the way, doing a little clean up of the font file itself.
These workflow scripts are now included in the Fontue source code.
I’ve talked to a number of people and organizations that want to start adding web fonts to their websites – but aren’t comfortable relying on a third-party service for something so integral to their online presence.
With that in mind, I’m pleased to announced that Kernest‘s underlying web font serving engine – dubbed Fontue – has been released under the MIT License.
Fontue is designed to be the lightest, fastest way to serve web fonts to @font-face supporting browsers while saving bandwidth and keeping CSS clean and readable.
Get more information at Fontue.com or download the latest version from Github.
Inputing anything on the iPad more complex than – ‘I want that’ – is frustrating, even moreso with the keyboard.
The thought of taking notes on the iPad during meetings is still ridiculous. And I started wondering how people quickly took notes before we all became such proficient touch typists.
The idea of a single gesture representing a word (or series of words) rather than a single character is very appealing. And with a Javascript library like Raphaël, this could even be a web-based app.
Shorthand has least as much of a learning curve as QWERTY.
Dave Slusher’s clambake from April 6 2009 accompanied me on my between meeting drives today.
Yes, you read that correct – 2009.
A podcast he recorded more than a year ago.
It’s a great listen. He discusses how the people publishing to services like Twitter don’t own their own words. The company does. And the company – rather than the community – decides on the direction to take the service. Offline – there’s even a name for this type of arrangement.
Following that thread, Dave works through the burn out of being on the receiving end of a firehose of continuous ephemera – for a year. Or longer. And how publishing tiny bits continuously hampers publishing bigger, more substantial bits.
Dave also includes a cover of Daniel Johnston’s ‘Walking the Cow’ by Kathy McCarty. It’s a song fIREHOSE introduced me to. Mike Watt‘s ambling bass line has an immediate calming effect on me – not unlike disconnecting from the real-time stream.
It’s one of my all time favorite clambakes. Thanks Dave.
the title of this post references an even earlier Evil Genius Chronicle
Ironic given the internet’s origins as a national defense project.
Though, the same problem exists with our nation’s highway system.
Back in art school – I built a table that fell apart when anything was placed on it. No, that project was not funded by DARPA.
If you’ll recall, back when the iPhone was first released, Steve Jobs declared the best way to build apps for it was to build websites.
To which John Gruber replied:
Since then, Apple released the App Store, an iPhone Developers SDK, and has made “there’s an app for that” so popular it became its own meme.
And despite Apple’s restrictions – the $99 Developer registration fee, faxing your business incorporation agreements to sell as a business, only using Objective-C and Apple development tools, Apple needs to accept your app & subsequent updates – there’s huge demand for building native applications in the iPhone.
But there’s big money to be made selling native apps! Well, maybe [1].
All of Apple’s restrictions are disincentives to build native apps.
And I’m confident Apple knows it and is encouraging it.
If you’ve spent enough time within the iPhone (or iPad, iPod Touch) you’ll notice some very interesting inconsistencies between how native apps behave (especially Apple’s own) in contrast to Safari. Inconsistencies that make me think Apple would still prefer you just built web sites.
The biggest example:
You just put an item (a web page) that lives in Safari on your iPhone’s home screen.
If the web site publisher included <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes" /> in the header of the web page, it will display full-screen when you click it. Just like a native app.
Now, load up Music, Videos, Photos, Mail, or Maps and figure out how to put one of the items on your home screen.
Yeah, weird, huh?
Makes complete makes sense if Steve Jobs is true to his word – the best app for the iPhone is web-based one rather than native.
There’s no downside to releasing an SDK with all its restrictions and taking developers’ money. At worst Objective-C receives more attention, few more Macs are sold as development boxes, and the membership fees pay to keep Apple’s crazy restrictions in place.
Notice as well, that Apple still permits Javascript-based apps in their App Store.
It’s like we can’t take a hint.
1. In a recent survey of 100 iPhone developers:
“But app developers want to make money, and Apple benefits most when they don’t. – Andrew Benton”
“Half of all [iPhone] developers will earn less than $682 per year.” – Tomi T Ahonen
In fact – Apple benefits from little to no app sales in the same way Google benefits from little to no AdWords clicks – no need to pay out.
Elsewhere: