Web Standards, Accessibility & More » mobile

Other “Thoughts on Flash” from Apple’s Steve Jobs

Dennis — Sat, 01 May 2010 23:39:14 +0000

Steve Jobs recently published an open letter about Apple’s position on Flash which addressed the reasons behind not implementing Flash on the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. It’s very well written and has some great points, but contains many flaws as well. Apple is a great design company, and I understand they are indeed a company and must look out for their own interest; but that doesn’t excuse the act of misinforming and misleading people.

One of the first responses to the letter was byÂ Remy Sharp (@rem) who pointed out that:

HTML5 apps won’tÂ just work with touch devices, the code to handle touch events must still be written.
The H.264 video format is currently supported only by Safari and Chrome, but H.264 is notÂ supported by the two biggest browsers, IE and Firefox.

Remy’s tweet also points us to this video of a presentation from Jonathan Stark, App Store is For Suckers. Stark points out some not-so-good points about the Apple Store including the fact that they subjectively turn down many apps which applied to be in the store. For example, there are many games which including war and killing of animals, but a seal-clubbing app from PETA was rejected. (In response,Â PETA Sends Steve Jobs Vegan Chocolate Seals!)

Web accessibility veteran and friendÂ John Foliot of Stanford University tweeted these six “fallacies” from the letter:

The H.264 video format is closed & patent encumbered â€”Â not open.
WebKit is not the most widely deployed mobile browser; that belongs to Opera.
HTML5 is not finished & W3C anticipates a few more years before Ready For Prime Time.
WHAT WG (the incomplete HTML5) is not open either, it’s by invitation only: whatwg.org/charter
Two of the four major browsers do not support H.264. [see above]
If Apple is so open, why do they control IApp distribution with an iron fist? They don’t like your app? You’re toast. [see above]

What do you think?

Open Full-Time Tech Jobs in California

Dennis — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:28:53 +0000

Current job openings in California in the tech industry.

MySQL DBA in San Diego, CA. In the online gaming field.
Network Programmer in Foster City. Works closely with many game development studios on items like integrating middleware, services, and APIs. The team is largely C/XML based.
Mobile application programmer for top mobile company, Redwood City. Java, mobile, API experience.

Leave a comment or email me for more info.

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Attended Web 2.0 Expo in SF

Dennis — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:26:24 +0000

Last week, I attended the Web 2.0 Expo conference at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco. The sponsors included O’Reilly Media, Adobe, Microsoft, and eBay. Overall, it was a pretty good conference, with lots of discussion about mobile and geo-location, “Cloud Computing”, and of course, Twitter and Facebook. Here are some tidbits I picked up:

Mobile web usage doubled in 2008.
Nokia is the world’s largest digital camera producer (as they are the biggest mobile phone manufacturer).
App written by Google in HTML5 for iPhone and Android is sweet.
Mobilize Donâ€™t Miniaturize
Need to read up on the W3C Geolocation API
Since 2003, web page file size has tripled!
Only 1% of iPhone Apps are used long-term.
For usability testing, research only what is necessary.
Don’t put branding ahead of users.

The day before the conference, I took and vacation day and brought my wife and kids up from Cupertino to “the city” for a mini-vacation. We stayed at a very nice hotel for which we got a great rate through HotWire.com. Here’s a Flickr album of the family portion of the trip.

Computer nerd area

Exhibit Hall

Dennis at Golden Gate bridge

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Twitter-Related Apps and Articles

Dennis — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:02:13 +0000

Here’s a list of some fun, interesting, and (sometimes) valuable web sites and applications that provide extra services for your Twitter acount.

Web Sites & Applications

Accessible Twitter (my app): “Web 2.0″ has created even further concern with web accessibility. Twitter web site that is accessible for individuals with any type of disability or limited technology.
Tweet Stats: Lots of statistical information on your account and Twitter ‘user agents’.
TweetValue: How much is your Twitter profile worth?
Tweet Burner: Shorten, track, and share links.
Twitter Grader: Get a ranking of your account.
WordPress to Twitter: The WP-to-Twitter plugin posts a Twitter status update from your blog using the Cli.gs URL shortening service to provide a link back to your post fromÂ Twitter.
Free Twitter Designer: Design your page.
My First Tweet: ‘Nuff said.
Twitterberry: Twitter application for the BlackBerry.
Twitter’s mobile site: ‘Nuff said.

Articles

Here’s a good list of article about Twitter and tips on how to use it.

Tips for a transformed twitter (Boagworld)
WordPress to Twitter (Joe Dolson)
15 Useful Twitter Hacks and Plug-Ins For WordPress (Smashing Magazine)
How to Use Twitter Without Twitter Owning You – 5 Tips
Welcome to the Hive Mind; Learn How to Search Twitter
Twitter & the Law of Reciprocity
Twitter API Driving Twitter Apps Out of Business?

Addendum (March 30 and May 20)

Found more interesting ones:

TwitPwr: Short URLs for Twitter with Analytics and user profile pages.
Twooting: Daily podcast about Twitter.
twt.fm: Share music.
twitvidio: The easiest way to share videos on Twitter.
e-Penis: Always wanted to know how big your Twitter e-Penis is?
TweetBrain: Applies Twitter’s immense collective intelligence for Questions and Answers

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Trips to Toronto and Boulder

Dennis — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:35:37 +0000

So I went to the Toronto, Canada area almost two weeks ago and to Boulder, Colorado this past week.

During my 5-day trip to Canada (with my manager), I stayed and worked in a suburb of Toronto, Mississauga. I also spent a day in Waterloo, the home of my new employer RIM (Blackberry). It wasn’t terribly exciting, but it fun to be in Canada again, and to see the French plastered everywhere. And I sure lucked out with the weather; around 65F and sunny, which is amazing obviously for November.

Also, more importantly, I met many people that I’ll be working with from my office in Redwood Shores, which was very important. If a company has offices spread throughout a country or throughout the world, it’s very important for people who work together to meet face-to-face and build rapport.

I went to Boulder to speak at and attend a conference about web accessibility and assistive technology. (See the post Speaking at â€œAccessing Higher Groundâ€ Conference.) The first thing I noticed was that the Denver airport was really nice. It snowed the second morning I was there, which was neat since I don’t see snow much any more (but it melted by afternoon). The conference was good, met some good people, and I even got a free t-shirt from WebAIM. On Friday night, I ate dinner at Zolo one night, which I totally recommend. Then I met a couple old friends who now live in the area and went bar hopping on Pearl Street in downtown Boulder. Pearl Street is very cool.

Here’s the view from hotel room in Boulder, Colorado:

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New Job at RIM

Dennis — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 05:06:14 +0000

It’s been almost two weeks now since I started a new (day) job at Research in Motion (RIM), which makes the Blackberry mobile device. The office is located in Redwood City (well, Redwood Shores), California, and is strangely enough, just a few buildings over from my last job. I’m doing software development for Blackberry devices, so it’s a bit of a change from my work in front-end web development, and going well so far. It’s taking a while to get my application environment set up, but then again, I’m also documenting the process at the same time. RIM is actually a Canadian company, and I’ll be visiting offices next week in Mississauga and the headquarters in Waterloo, near Toronto, Ontario.

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