Today I received the highly praised book “Introducing HTML5″ by Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp. I was pretty surprised, when I opened it and found out that this book must have come from the future. The first page tells me that its copyright is from 2011. How is that possible? Is that a typo or is that just due to the futuristic nature of the topic? Is it safe to read it now or do I have to wait till next year?
Update: I just received word from Peachpit, saying that any of their books published after June carry the next copyright year. Thanks. That was quick.
When I opened Google Mail this morning (the first thing I do on a work day), it greeted me with a new look and some info about the visual changes. The GMail team has moved “Contacts” and “Tasks” further into the forefront. I haven’t had to use these features in the past, mainly because of GMail’s automcompletion when typing the recipient’s address. This might be a huge improvement for some users but not for me, as of yet. I might look deeper into what “Contacts” could do for me but because I mainly use “Things”, I have no need for “Tasks” in Google Mail.
They also decreased the size of the header and thereby moved the list of messages up by *drumroll* 16 pixels. Should I care about this? I’m not sure.
But what I really like is that they shed (most) rounded corners. Although such a visual feature is nice, it’s nothing more than pure eye candy with no practical use whatsoever. I assume that the Google Mail team threw these rounded corners overboard in favor of overall performance and I congratulate them for this step.
It’s been a pretty tough decision to make. But due to the current work load and moving from Burgthann to my new apartment in Zirndorf in early March, I figured it would be best not to overload my calendar and my synapses. I’ve been to SXSW Interactive in 2006, 2008 and 2009, and always had a blast, meeting great people talking about very interesting stuff.
I wish everyone who’s going a very inspiring time; may the headaches be bearable.
See you again in 2011.
After downloading and installing Firefox 3.6, I went back to my learned browsing behavior and opened tab after tab. But when I opened a link, using the beloved Command-/CRTL-click, I was irritated and at first couldn’t find the newly opened tab. While previous versions of Firefox opened these links in a new tab after all existing tabs, Firefox 3.6 now opens thes links in a new tab right next to the active tab.
Since it’s always hard to unlearn learned behavior, I looked for a way to fix it and looked at the configuration (“about:config”). There I found the parameter “browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent”, which is set to “true”. Changing that value to “false” switches Firefox back to behaving like it used to. I’m not sure which behavior I’ll use in the future but at least now I know that I have a choice. That’s what I love about Firefox.
Winding down from a very inspiring SXSW Interactive 2009, I only went to a few panels and book reading on day 5:
- 11:00 AM Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? (Susan Weinschenk)
- 12:00 PM Universal Design for Web Applications: Web Applications That Reach Everyone (Wendy Chisholm – UW/Indie, Matt May – Adobe)
- 03:30 PM The Mobile Web for Good: Hype or Reality? (Daniel Appelquist – Vodafone, Erica Kochi – UNICEF, Merrick Schaefer – UNICEF, Tatsuki Tomita – Opera Software, Katrin Verclas – Mobileactive.org)
Can’t believe that I only bought two books this year (unfortunately the book “Neuro Web Design” was sold out):
So I guess now it’s time to read all the books I haven’t yet read and are piling up not only on my desk at home. But before I return home, Peter and I will take a four-day road trip through southern Texas.
