Jonathans Blog

Typography and the Web

Jonathan — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 04:00:58 +0000

How to Actually Make Text Look Interesting: Minimalist Web Design — Space

Ty pog ra phy is not merely the process of ar rang ing font on a page. It is a liv ing crea ture; it feels joy in an ex cla ma tion point, takes deep sighs at pe ri ods, grabs con scious ness with each bold strike and begs for under stand ing in the space be tween every italic. It has in tri cate rhythm and har mony, stac cato para graphs and legato head ers that blend into a melody of en light ened web de sign. Ty pog ra phy is an art as much as it is an es sen tial de sign process, and it is one that is best un der stood by fo cus ing on the con trast be tween tex tual el e ments in a given de sign.

(tags: text design minimalist)

Google instant image search available

Jonathan — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:01:10 +0000

Google Instant for Image Search

Google Instant for Image Search
Google Instant is now available for image search results, but only as an experimental feature. After you enable “Instant on Images”, Google will start to autocomplete your queries and show image results before you finish entering the query. It’s a great way to try different queries and see the results almost instantly.

(tags: google image search)

Gmail gadgets developers guide

Jonathan — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 04:01:01 +0000

Gmail Contextual Gadgets Developer’s Guide – Gmail APIs and Tools – Google Code

Gmail Contextual Gadgets Developer’s Guide
This document describes what Gmail contextual gadgets are, how to write them, how to install them, and how to diagnose and fix some common issues. Gmail contextual gadgets can be listed for sale in the Google Apps Marketplace or used within in-house applications installed through the Google Apps console.

(tags: google app apps)

Over 2,000 e-learning tools

Jonathan — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 04:01:09 +0000

Directory of over 2,000 E-Learning Tools – Free and Commercial

Using Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook 2010

Jonathan — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 08:37:38 +0000

Post from Google support for integrating Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook 2010

There has been a lot of interest in when a version of Google Calendar Sync would be released that supports Outlook 2010. As some of you have already noticed @salocorgan , we’re happy (Google that is…) to announce that support for Outlook 2010 is now available! This latest release (version 0.9.3.6) supports the 32-bit version of Outlook 2010 only. 64-bit turned out to be harder so we don’t have it ready yet, but we didn’t want to hold back the 32-bit-supporting version in the meantime.

We just posted the official announcement to the Gmail blog today:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/google-calendar-sync-now-supports.html

If you have any issues, please post them to the Sync section of the forum:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/label?lid=69ef18c8639e74cc&hl=en

Happy syncing!

Google Calendar Sync now supports Outlook 2010

Posted by Alice Brown, Google Calendar Team

Making sure that your calendar is available to you whenever and wherever you need it is important. That’s why Google Calendar works with a number of desktop applications and mobile devices including iCal, iPhone and iPad, Blackberry, Android, Nokia/Symbian, and Windows Mobile phones. Google Calendar Sync for Outlook is also available, but one thing was missing — until now.

Google Calendar Sync now supports Outlook 2010 — our top feature request. Outlook 2010 comes in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and currently only 32-bit is supported. To start syncing your calendar with Outlook 2010, download Google Calendar Sync version 0.9.3.6. Once you install it, a Settings window will appear. Enter your account’s email address and password, choose your sync optionand sync frequency, and you’re done! (Note: If you’re already using Google Calendar Sync, you’ll still need to download and install this new version in order to be able to sync with Outlook 2010. If you need help, take a look at our getting started guide.)

KompoZer – Easy Web Authoring – FREE

Jonathan — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:00:48 +0000

KompoZer – Easy web authoring

Easy Web Authoring!

KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing.

KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.

Key features of Kompozer:

WYSIWYG editing of pages, making web creation as easy as typing a letter with your word processor.
Integrated file management via FTP. Simply login to your web site and navigate through your files, editing web pages on the fly, directly from your site.
Reliable HTML code creation that will work with all of today’s most popular browsers.
Jump between WYSIWYG Editing Mode and HTML using tabs.
Tabbed editing to make working on multiple pages a snap.
Powerful support for forms, tables, and templates.
The easiest-to-use, most powerful Web Authoring System available for Desktop Linux, Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh users.

This great HTML editor is often used in conjunction with GIMP (THE opensource free graphics editor) to produce some great websites. If you are lucky enough to have a subscription to Lynda.Com (video tutorials) then you can watch a great tutorial on how to create a great website using pure .CSS by just using opensource tools (namely Kompozer and GIMP)

Using Adobe Captivate for iPhone Applications

Jonathan — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 04:00:49 +0000

Steps to use Flash iPhone packager to create iPhone app. from Captivate SWF

Further to Shameer’s post on “Publish to iPhone from Captivate and eLearning Suite“, here are the next steps to generate the iPhone app. from your Captivate SWF.

Publish to iPhone – From Captivate 5 and eLearning Suite 2

Apple’s recent announcement that it has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines has direct implications for the publishing options available from Captivate 5 and Adobe eLearning Suite 2. You can now author your elearning courses in Captivate and publish them as a swf to run on any Flash enabled device

A Twitter Based Alert System

Jonathan — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 04:00:50 +0000

A Twitter Based Alert System

We were in need of an alert system for our system in order to notify relevant parties of any errors which would occur in our production servers. There was already an email alert system in place but hey you have to admit no one is going to be checking emails 24×7 yea? … We needed a solution like getting an SMS to our support team’s phone, but we didnt have any SMS gateway available. This is a potential solution…

Org-mode – the extensible emacs add-on for outlining and project management

Jonathan — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 04:00:52 +0000

Org-Mode: Your Life in Plain Text

Org-mode is for keeping notes, maintaining ToDo lists, doing project planning, and authoring with a fast and effective plain-text system, and it’s FREE.

Org-mode is an add-on for the popular free EMACS editor (programmers editor) and adds a full outline and todo list. All the files are stored in standard txt (ASCII) format so can be edited by any software if required. If you have a dropbox account you can store your outlines on your dropbox account and edit them using any editor or use the EMACS add-on to see the proper outlining.

The author suggests that this wonderful outline tool can be used for GTD, planning, notebooks and web/pdf authoring. There is also extensive documentation. There are some good tutorials covering introduction and power users guides with a useful screencast overview (25 minutes).

The beauty of this product is that it is very extensible and can be adapted by power users to do just about anything that requires outlining and maintaining lists. The files can be published to HTML and XHTML plus other formats such as LaTeX and Gantt Charts for project management integration. There’s a very interesting tech talk from GOOGLE that discusses Org-mode (46 minutes) and well worth listening to.

Leo Laporte’s Podcast network has recently published a podcast that discusses and talks to the author (Carsten Dominik) about org-mode – well worth a listen (as are all the FLOSS podcasts)

Mobile Website Development

Jonathan — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:00:58 +0000

Mobile Website Development

Do you know how to create a mobile website? Or more importantly, do you know what a mobile website is? Domus Dish has covered this topic quite a bit, but in case you’ve missed it, a mobile website is what smart phone users see when looking at your webpage from their phones. There are many differences between mobile and traditional websites, which is why your website may not work for many smart phone users.