Posted by Dan Romanchik on Jan 14, 2010 in
Web Development An article in today’s Online Media daily says that by 2013 there will be more mobile Web users than desktop users:
Mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access devices worldwide by 2013, according to a new forecast by research firm Gartner.
That’s an even more aggressive outlook than Morgan Stanley’s projection that the mobile Web will outstrip the desktop Web in five years.
Gartner estimates the combined installed base of smartphones and browser-equipped enhanced phones will surpass 1.82 billion units by 2013, eclipsing the total of 1.78 billion PCs by then.
But the firm warns that many sites still are not optimized for the mobile Web, even though cell users expect to make fewer clicks on their phones than on a PC. To successfully expand into mobile, publishers will have to reformat sites from the small form-factor of handheld devices.
This is why one of my goals this year is to learn how to program the iPhone.
Posted by Dan Romanchik on Oct 23, 2009 in
Web Development For a while, I’ve been thinking that I should start learning how to program mobile devices. Mostly, it’s been just a gut feeling. Now, however, there are some numbers—and they’re quite dramatic.
At the Web 2.0 Summit, Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker did a presentation of the economic and technology trends she’s been following. Her presentation this year spent a lot of time looking at mobile trends. Mobile, apparently, is the next “computer cycle” (think Mainframe, Mini, PC, Internet).
It’s time to learn some new skills, and it looks like learning how to program the iPhone is what I need to do.
Posted by Dan Romanchik on Oct 12, 2009 in
Web Development IE6 is really the bane of any Web developer’s life. Unfortunately, while many personal computer owners have upgraded, many businesses refuse to support anything newer than IE6. That means that guys like me have to support it, even though it means extra work and creating websites that are less that optimal.
There are moves, however to kill off IE6 once and for all. A recent article in IEEE Spectrum, “We Come to Bury IE6,” makes the case that companies are holding back their scientists and engineers from getting full value from the Web by forcing them to use outdated Web browsers. They also point out that running IE6 can actually be a security risk because it’s the browser that hackers love to hack.
The article also links to the website, IE6 No More. This website includes code that developers can use to alert users that they’re using an out-of-date browser. It also includes a page that discusses why corporations should upgrade.
Enough’s enough. Let’s move on.
Posted by Dan Romanchik on Oct 6, 2009 in
WPG Websites The Web Publishing Group and Mary Cronin are happy to announce that their latest creation, a website for the Institute for Professional Nursing (IPN) is now on-line.
The site will not only serve to inform members of the professional society’s events, but also help them manage their membership list. Current members can renew their memberships online and prospective members can join. Members will have access to an exclusive members’ section that will enable them to network with other members.
The Institute of Professional Nursing (IPN) was established in August 2006. Its mission is to be a premier non-profit nursing organization dedicated to promoting and sustaining the profession. IPN is the organization for all nursing communities where nurses can be involved in charting their future and strengthening their leadership skills.
Posted by Dan Romanchik on Jul 30, 2009 in
Web Development From the PHP Classes blog:
The number of Indian PHP developers has been growing at a large pace in the last few years, when compared to other countries. A few years ago, India was just one of the top ten countries with more PHP developers. Now India is number 2 and is almost surpassing United States, which is still number 1.
This article presents a reflection about why this growth happened just in the latest years, as well what it means for the PHP world.
Posted by Dan Romanchik on Jul 14, 2009 in
Other Cool Web Stuff Erik Sherman, a subscriber to one of my websites, FreelanceSuccess.Com, sent me a link to the article, “10 handy Firefox about:config hacks.”
Hack #5, “Open search bar results in new tab,” and Hack #8, “View source code in an external editor,” are the two best, as far as I’m concerned. Now, I can open up a page’s source code in Smultron, the text editor I use. Editing the file doesn’t let you test changes—as it does in Opera—but it still provides a consistent way of looking at source code.
One of the “features” that I always hated about viewing source with Firefox is that the default configuration doesn’t wrap long lines. Now, with Smultron, I get wrapped lines.
While poking around, I did find a way to wrap long lines of source code without loading it into an external editor. Search for the parameter view_source.wrap_long_lines and set it to true. That works like a charm, too.
Posted by Dan Romanchik on Jul 8, 2009 in
Website Advice This morning, I received an e-mail from a graphics designer who’d found me via biznik. She was interested in looking at my work, but when she went to www.webpublishinggroup.com, all she got was a blank page. This was very puzzling to me as this website is a WordPress blog, and I’ve never had any trouble like this with WordPress.
Fortunately, the admin screens were working. I first upgraded to version 2.8 (the new automatic upgrade feature of WP is really fantastic!), but that didn’t fix the problem. Next, I checked out the theme page. There, it was reported that my theme was missing the template file. I re-installed the theme, and it looks like things are working again.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that somehow the template file was corrupted or deleted, effectively taking my website offline. I notified tech support at my web hosting company, but I’m not sure that there’s anything they can really do about it.
What this points out is the importance of monitoring your website. If you’re like me, you rarely check to see that a website is up and running, but failing to do so could reflect poorly on you and your business. Worst case, you could miss out on business opportunities.
My priorities just got re-arranged. This morning, I’m going to research website-monitoring services and sign up with one that will make sure that this website stays online.
Posted by Dan Romanchik on May 22, 2009 in
Web Development Seth Godin has an interesting take on how to deal with freelancers. He says that you should either give them “a clean sheet of paper” and let them go to work with very little supervision, or to define their project as completely as possible.
Using the first approach, you could get something wildly creative, but the risk is that you get something that’s completely off-base, too. Using the second approach you’re more likely to get something that you can use, but it takes a lot of work on your part to give the freelancer the direction he or she needs.
The worst-case is when the freelancer is put in a situation somewhere between the two. That is, he or she is not given much direction yet expected to produce something that pleases the client. This rarely happens because the client doesn’t really know what he wants until he sees what you’ve produced.
That’s why I always try to work with a client before taking on a project to define the project as much as possible. If we can do that upfront, then both of us will be happy when the project is complete.
Posted by Dan Romanchik on May 5, 2009 in
Search Engine Optimization I find that there’s a lot of confusion about keywords and how to ouse them. Here’s a good article from Inc. that explains some of current thinking on keywords – “Keyword Density: The 9 Places to Put Your Keywords for SEO Power.” Note that keywords need to be in your site’s content, not just in the meta tags.
Posted by Dan Romanchik on Apr 3, 2009 in
Other Cool Web Stuff From the Stanford Report, April 1, 2009
BY DAN STOBER
Want to know how to write programs for the iPhone and iPod touch? Beginning this week, a Stanford computer science class on that buzzworthy topic will be available online to the general public for free.
The 10-week course, iPhone Application Programming, is a hot ticket. It begins today and videos of the classes will be posted at Stanford on iTunes U two days after each class meeting (http://itunes.stanford.edu). Copies of the slides shown in class will be available there as well.
The proliferation of third-party applications for Apple’s iPhone has changed the device from a popular cell phone to a miniature computer. The Apple App Store offers more than 25,000 titles, dealing with everything from maps to business tools, games, photography, fishing and restaurant recommendations based on your location.
“There’s a lot of interest in the iPhone,” said Brent Izutsu, Stanford’s project manager for Stanford on iTunes U. “This course provides an excellent opportunity for us to show the breadth and depth of our curriculum and the innovation of our students.”
There are applications that can turn your iPhone into a musical instrument and one that will measure G-forces on your body as you steer your car through a corner. Snap a photo of the cover of almost any book, CD, DVD or video game and—with the right software—get links to ratings and reviews. According to Apple, the download count from its App Store has passed the 800 million mark.
Online viewers of the Stanford course will see the same lectures as the on-campus students, but will not receive credit for the course (http://cs193p.stanford.edu). Some of the student-developed apps from the fall-quarter class, such as the Chinese-English dictionary Qingwen, are available at the iTunes store.
“For Stanford, working with Apple allowed us to focus our energy on identifying and capturing great content while Apple provided us the technology to distribute it globally,” Izutsu said.
The Department of Computer Science is part of the Stanford School of Engineering.
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