David Emery OnlineWhole New Way - The Horrors
Not quite on probably-best-album-of-the-year-or-at-least-close-to-the-top ‘Primary Colours’, and you can sort-of see why – not because it’s not good, because it is (very), but because it just wouldn’t fit:
Visit ➔Introducing Google Chrome Frame
Recent JavaScript performance improvements and the emergence of HTML5 have enabled web applications to do things that could previously only be done by desktop software. One challenge developers face in using these new technologies is that they are not yet supported by Internet Explorer. Developers can’t afford to ignore IE — most people use some version of IE — so they end up spending lots of time implementing work-arounds or limiting the functionality of their apps.
With Google Chrome Frame, developers can now take advantage of the latest open web technologies, even in Internet Explorer. From a faster Javascript engine, to support for current web technologies like HTML5’s offline capabilities and <canvas>, to modern CSS/Layout handling, Google Chrome Frame enables these features within IE with no additional coding or testing for different browser versions.
I’m really torn on how I feel about this; on the one hand, more people using WebKit is undoubtedly a good thing. On the other, embedding a browser inside another browser just feels plain wrong on a bunch of levels (what about things like memory usage, for example?) and seems like a pretty extreme way of enabling better HTML5/CCS3/JS support in IE.
Also, does it really help that much? I can’t help but think that if someone is persuaded enough to download plugin (and hence has the Administer rights to do so) then it would be better to persuade them to download a different browser instead…
Visit ➔Thin Text in Safari with Snow Leopard
Safari has a not-so-lovely way of bulking up text using sub-pixel rendering. On previous versions of Safari, this was fixed with a text-shadow declaration, but since Snow Leopard that method no longer works. Fortunately, I’ve found an alternative.
Very useful – my only thought is that I wonder how this affects Safari on pre-SL and on Windows.
Visit ➔New Julian Casablancas - "11th Dimension"
It’s a lot better then I thought it would be – Strokes + electronica + Ratatat + pop = goodness:
Visit ➔Vampire Weekend - Contra
File under “what I did today”. Also, check out what happens when you resize…
Visit ➔Girls - Album
You can now listen to one of the best debut albums for quite a while via this handy SoundCloud-based player:
Visit ➔Gil Scott-Heron
In early 2010 Gil Scott-Heron will release a brand new album entitled ‘I’m New Here’ […] Here are four excerpts from his first album of new material since 1997; ‘A.M.’, ‘I’m New Here’, ‘Me And The Devil’ and ‘I’ll Take Care Of You’.
We’ve just launched this little site and I’m really happy with the way it turned out; nothing too crazy, just trying to sweat the details and make it right.
Visit ➔Google News: A Payment System and A New Search Bar
Google is developing a micropayment platform that will be “available to both Google and non-Google properties within the next year,” according to a document the company submitted to the Newspaper Association of America.
A Google Checkout powered micropayment system could be really quite interesting – not many people have the scale, infrastructure and reach to (finally) make micropayments work, but Google certainly could.
Visit ➔