Jan. 26, 2013
Stylus Prediction

Prediction: within 3 years the stylus will be the killer feature of Android tablets.

I'm talking about true stylus input via induction, not those capacitive styluses you can buy for the current crop of tablets.

HTC Flyer, Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet, Asus Eee Pad MeMo, and Samsung Galaxy Note are at the forefront of this wave of hybrid capacitive + inductive (e.g. finger + stylus input in separate channels) Android tablets.

Pretty soon we'll all be wondering how we managed on tablets that only had capacitive/finger input.

Note: the most cutting edge versions of Android support full stylus support. Maybe this will be one of the rare times Android beats iOS to a killer feature.

I've long anticipated a logographic / hand drawn social network or micro-blogging platform where status updates come in the form of sketches. Maybe the upcoming stylus ubiquity will bring it about?

Jan. 17, 2013
How to Open a Coconut

coconut-times.jpg

This is a fairly solid instructable on how to open a coconut very easily.

Dec. 26, 2012
Xmas Billabong Times

IMG_20121223_154310.jpg

-- Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Dec. 10, 2012
Optimise HTML5 Apps For Mobile WebKit

  • Use zepto.js not jQuery.
  • Use -webkit-transition and -webkit-transform wherever possible.

Especially useful if you are developing with PhoneGap/Cordova on iPad and iPhone, or Android. Those webkit transforms saved my bacon on a recent iPad project. Here is the basic CSS you want to put on an element you want to optimise:

-webkit-transition: -webkit-transform 0ms;
-webkit-backface-visibility: hidden;

Try replacing $(this).hide(); with a transform that moves the element off screen like this (might need overflow: hidden on your body tag):

$(this).css("-webkit-transform", "translateX(1500px)");

Then when you want to show the element again do this instead:

$(this).css("-webkit-transform", "translateX(0px)");

I also had great success replacing jQuery UI drag-and-drop code with something hand-rolled:

$(this).css("-webkit-transform", "translateX(" + relativeX + "px) translateY(" + relativeY + "px)");

Hope this helps you!

Nov. 26, 2012
Crqlr

crqlr.png