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August 7, 2008 - 2 comments

Lol! F**kingNDA.com, Apple!

I know Apple is quite restrictive about information, but I was a bit surprised to see how far the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for the iPhone SDK goes: iPhone developers are legally banned from sharing programming tips, discussing code or asking questions of one another in forums or over e-mail!

From Webmonkey:

"F**KING NDA" has become a mantra on Twitter. Every time a developer posts about his or her latest run-in with the metaphorical brick wall that is Apple's NDA, the capitalized expletive is sounded off. "F**KING NDA" has become such a phenomenon, a website has sprung up at F**kingNDA.com to track the twisted tweets.

Apple's software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone is the primary set of tools for building apps for the iPhone, especially if the creations are to be included for sale in the device's App Store. The NDA, which must be agreed to before the SDK can be downloaded, prevents programmers from discussing the finer points of their code.

"There is no legal way for developers to talk about they are developing," Williams laments. "No way to post tutorials. No way to give code away. It's hard to interact with other developers and to write code without reinventing the wheel. Normally, you could post [a coding question] on Twitter and get an answer within minutes."

More info on why the iPhone NDA is no good:

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Internal Mechanism
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July 29, 2008 - Comments Off on The survey for people who make websites 2008

The survey for people who make websites 2008

A List Apart's second annual survey:

Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide.

I took it! And so should you. The 2008 survey for people who make websites.

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Programming Mechanism, The Thinking Mechanism

July 25, 2008 - 2 comments

NY Web Standards Meetup—Review of Google I/O

Review of Google I/O at the New York Web Standards Meetup Group 24 July 2008 Notes and links from last night's Google I/O review at the New York Web Standards Meetup Group. Thanks to everyone who made it!

Note—There's a "curated" selection of Google I/O videos posted on my blog at http://jeffreybarke.net/tag/io2008/.

PowerPoint presentation

Demos/tutorials

Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Programming Mechanism
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July 21, 2008 - Comments Off on NY Web Standards Meetup—Review of Google I/O

NY Web Standards Meetup—Review of Google I/O

The New York Web Standards Meetup Group will meet this Thursday (24 July 2008) at theMechanism at 7:00 pm.

Google I/O was a two day developer gathering in San Francisco, 28–28 May 2008, which covered building the next generation of Web applications with Google and open technologies.

Jeffrey Barke, senior developer and information architect at theMechanism - New York, attended and will talk about what he learned there, specifically focusing on Gears, Google App Engine and the Google Ajax APIs. Prior to the meetup, you can read a bit about his experience here and watch some of the videos he's gathered at JeffreyBarke.net.

24 July 2008 . 7:00 pm
theMechanism
440 9th Avenue 8th Floor
New York, NY 10001 [map]

RSVP now!

Please contact us if you'd like to present at the September or October meetup.

Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Programming Mechanism
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July 17, 2008 - Comments Off on ISOC-NY monthly meeting

ISOC-NY monthly meeting

ISOC-NY's July monthly meeting will take place tonight, 17 July 2008, at NYU.

Date: Thursday, 17 Jul 2008
Time: 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Location: Room 317, 251 Mercer Street NYC (SW corner of West 4th)
Note: Use the entrance on the west side since construction blocks the Mercer Street entrance. Must bring photo ID.

Agenda

  • Meet new members. We expect and welcome new faces!
  • By-laws reform. Needed but a drudge! How can we set about it?
  • Planning future meetings and events. Good news is we have just received a sizable grant from ISOC-NY for our Fall program.
  • ISXubuntu Linux project progress report. News from our trusty coders.
  • OneWebDay planning progress report. Washington Square Sep 22 event taking shape
  • Access advocacy program. Just an idea at present—the city needs some kind of central resource for those with connection difficulties.
  • ICANN. Tom Lowenhaupt will report on his experiences at the ICANN Paris meet in June.
  • Web standards. How can we make our own & OneWebDay sites W3C compliant?

Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Programming Mechanism
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July 15, 2008 - Comments Off on WordPress 2.6 now available

WordPress 2.6 now available

Version 2.6 "Tyner," named for jazz pianist McCoy Tyner, contains a number of new features that make WordPress a more powerful CMS: you can now track changes to every post and page and easily post from wherever you are on the web, plus there are dozens of incremental improvements to the features introduced in version 2.5.

Read about all the updates at the WordPress blog and download 2.6 here.

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Programming Mechanism

July 11, 2008 - Comments Off on theMechanism’s browser support

theMechanism’s browser support

theMechanism follows Yahoo!'s Graded Browser Support and agrees with the GBS approach:

In the first 10 years of professional web development, back in the early '90s, browser support was binary: Do you—or don't you—support a given browser? When the answer was "No," user access to the site was often actively prevented. In the years following IE5's release in 1998, professional web designers and developers have become accustomed to asking at the outset of any new undertaking, "Do I have to support Netscape 4.x browsers for this project?"

By contrast, in modern web development we must support all browsers. Choosing to exclude a segment of users is inappropriate, and, with a "Graded Browser Support" strategy, unnecessary.

The two principal concepts of GBS are a broader and more reasonable definition of "support" and the notion of "grades" of support.

Read more

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Programming Mechanism
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July 9, 2008 - Comments Off on Firebug extensions

Firebug extensions

As Jan Odvarko notes, "I was surprised how many Firebug extensions … exist out there." Check out his list of 12 extensions at http://www.softwareishard.com/blog/firebug/list-of-firebug-extensions/. All extensions include a brief summary of what they do, a screen capture and a link to the download page.

Two that I use are YSlow and Odvarko's own Firecookie.. YSlow analyzes Web pages and determines why they're slow based on Yahoo's rules for high performance web sites. Firecookie makes it possible to view and manage cookies within the familiar Firebug UI.

Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Programming Mechanism
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July 3, 2008 - 2 comments

CSS variables in WebKit

via Webmonkey:

Variables in cascading stylesheets are now available in the nightly WebKit build.

CSS without variables:
//Sets the background of the page and tables to the hex code for the color grey
body {
   background-color: #eceae1;
}
table {
   background-color: #eceae1;
}

With CSS variables:
//Defines "DefaultBGColor" to light gray
@variables {
   DefaultBGColor: #eceae1;
}
//Sets the background and any table on the page to the default background color
body {
   background-color: var(DefaultBGColor);
}
table {
   background-color: var(DefaultBGColor);
}

Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Programming Mechanism
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