The Inverse Thumbnail Malfunction

Web development fail of the day: when the full-sized image is (much much) smaller than the thumbnail :)

Google+: View post on Google+

Apple: the ultimate troll, the first error

One hour and a half of presentation and they still haven't announced the name! :D

In the initial version of this post, i thought #Apple was trolling the internet. Minutes before the end of the iPad event and after the endless rumours on the name - #iPad3 , iPad HD, iPad RD? - and there was no mention of the name of the new iPad, except the descriptive "the new iPad".

And then, the event was over. And the name of the new #iPad is "the new iPad". Or "new iPad". Or something like that. Or maybe not.

In the first major product launch of the post-Jobs era it seems like Apple is doing it's first big #marketing error. It doesn't take much thought to see that calling a product "new" is problematic. For starters, you can't call it "new" forever, especially when we are talking about an electronic device where everything changes every six months. And of course, there is the issue of how are you going to call the next version. "Super new" sounds... strange.

Someone can argue that the "new" part will eventually be dropped and Apple will refer to as just "iPad". This doesn't make sense either as it would mean that for Apple there is not much difference between the original iPad (1) and the (new) iPad. Which would be disappointing for people getting a second-hand iPad1 and realizing that it can't do what the latest "iPad" ad shows...

Count me in the "confused" column.... :)

Google+: View post on Google+

Develop for mobile faster with Adobe Shadow

At least that's the promise of #Adobe 's newest lab experiment: Adobe Shadow

The official description: Adobe® Shadow is a new inspection and preview tool that allows front-end web developers and designers to work faster and more efficiently by streamlining the preview process, making it easier to customize websites for mobile devices.

In essence, Adobe Shadow adds an extension on Google Chrome on your Mac/PC and you additionally download an iOS or Android app on your mobile device(s). The #mobile and desktop devices are linked over wifi and whatever you browse on your desktop is shown on your mobile device(s).

You can get Adobe Shadow here http://adobe.ly/yATd0E
or watch the demo here http://adobe.ly/zoujVb

Google+: Reshared 1 times
Google+: View post on Google+

Portrait of a LinkedIn user

Power Formula blog contacted a survey among #LinkedIn users. If you are into social media #marketing, check out the results:

Google+: View post on Google+

Gantt charts with Javascript

I've been using an old #jQuery plugin called "jquery.gantt" with limited features and it was time for an upgrade. My search ended with JSGantt, an open source #javascript solution that covers everything you would want:
- Task, (collapsible) task groups & milestones
- Multiple dependencies
- Multiple formats (day, week, month, etc)
- Data loading through XML

Get JSGantt here http://bit.ly/wxeDbO
For an alternative, see dhtmlxGantt http://bit.ly/AEvOr8 (doesn't do multiple periods though, it's only on an daily format)

Google+: View post on Google+

MySQL ordering alphabetically with empty strings last

Here is a small #MySQL tip: Say you want to order your query results alphabetically, but keep the empty fields last, what do you do? If you do
SELECT string FROM table ORDER BY string;
You will get ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ’1′, ’2′, ’3′, ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’

But if you do
SELECT string FROM table ORDER BY ! ASCII(string), string;
You will get ’1′, ’2′, ’3′, ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘.

Tip found at www.wonkabar.org

Google+: View post on Google+

Social Media tracking with ThinkUp

There are various solutions (with varying paying options) if you want to monitor your #social network efforts but there is also an open-source solution. +ThinkUp, led by +Gina Trapani, is a web application that can provide you statistics on your #Facebook , #Twitter and #Google + accounts and pages. Included are likes, reshares and responses per posts, followers and page like per day, etc.

It is also a self-hosted solution, which means that you get to avoid giving access to your data to another corporation, or be subject to ads and marketing efforts. Plus it is a great way to give your clients an additional tool for their marketing efforts.

You can see an example of the output here http://bit.ly/wiWH4j , it is my Google+ profile (this is optional, you can keep your statistics private). See also Gina's twitter stats page http://bit.ly/xgVHzv If you want to test it out, I have also opened the registrations on my personal installation for the next few days http://bit.ly/yCaxcH

To install it yourself, you just need a web hosting account with PHP/mySQL (a quick Amazon EC2 solution is also supported although I didn't try it). Setup and installation is rather easy with quite clear instructions.

You can learn more about ThinkUp and download the code at the official site http://bit.ly/xMOw1e

Google+: View post on Google+