Modernizr is a Javascript library that allows client side detection of CSS3 and HTML5 browser features. It allows you to write CSS with conditionals through one of my personal favorite bits of CSS magic: classes on the body tag. It also gives you the ability to do the same in our Javascript.
A collection of open source (BSD) tools for generating and managing ePub documents. Adobe's Java based EPUBGen was just added. Tools now exist for conversion to ePub from Word, RTF, DocBook, TEI, and FictionBook.
"We plan to print a complete collection of Roger Zelazny's short fiction and poetry, in (most likely) six hardcover volumes. We expect to include all published fiction and poetry we can find, however obscurely published, and a number of unpublished works retrieved from Zelazny's archived papers. We also expect to include the shorter early versions of several novels, several novel excerpts that were published independently as short works and a few of Zelazny's articles on topics of interest to him."
A comprehensive guide to where the WordPress Plugin Directory pulls the data it displays. A must read for plugin developers. Especially important with the recent changes to the directory's search capabilities.
This Doctor Who Restoration Team article detais the process of restoring color to "Planet of the Daleks" episode 3. It was theorized some years ago that interference on the surviving 16mm B&W telerecording (made by essentially pointing a film camera at a TV) might contain some valid PAL color subcarrier information. Unable to get funding to investigate the idea (which sounds a bit more far fetched than Dalek's to me), the informal Colour Recovery Working Group was started up online. The group succeeded in recovering color information from the telerecording. Meanwhile the Restoration Team commissioned Legend Films to colorize the episode (a process that's come a long way since Turner, but can still look a bit flat in the end). The finished version blends these two sources together, then processes them via VidFIRE (the process of restoring the original 50 field per second interlaced image from a telecline, another process developed during restoration of Doctor Who episodes).
Writer/Podcaster J.C. Hutchins may very well be the king of turning life's lemons into lemonade. Who else would see a 6am wrong number as an opportunity to grow audience not just for himself, but for the caller as well?
The Internet Archive has a complete scan of this 1866 book by Benjamin Hobart, detailing the early history of the town where I grew up. Just stumbled across it by accident.
If your finding the newer/cleaner/simpler Google Reader look to be harsher/cluttered/annoying then give this userstyle a try. The changes are subtle, but really bring Google Reader back to usable for me.
Have you ever realized your Amazon.com order would qualify for free shipping if only you could find something cheap to put you over the minimum? Amazon Filler Item Finder lets you search for qualifying items by price for just this purpose.
Glassboth lets you see where each candidate stands in relation to the issues that matter to you through the used of a weighted quiz. Slick interface that I found very easy to use and understand. Even if you’ve alredy made up your mind I recommend you check it out.
If you use Google Reader, and you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch you should check out Phantom Fish’s Byline. Byline is essentially a Google Reader client that syncs so you don’t need a network connection at all times (and it offers features missing from Googles own iPhone interface, like an oldest post first view). It’s not perfect, but I find it a vastly preferable in most cases to the Google Reader iPhone web interface.
Seems to me that M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t exactly rule it out, but there’s no “it’s happening” in here. Still “Ubreakable” is probably in my top 10 list of films, and I’d love to see where it goes next.
Scott Brick, one of my all time favorite audiobook narrators, recounts the story behind his 1998 Comic Buyer’s Guide article “Who Killed Gwen Stacy?”, which delved into the creative decisions behind killing off Spider-Man’s girlfriend in 1973. Like most of Scott’s posts it’s also available in audio.
Ars Technica offers a nice JoCo primer, and how he succeded where the underpants gnomes failed.
“When I first started the important thing was audience: if I can reach enough people, that’s leverage, or power, and maybe that leads to something that does make money.”
Has some interesting thoughts on labels, and what may replace them in the future.
When Microsoft started adding some of the often requested features to their ASP.NET AJAX Client API they realized that jQuery (my personal favorite javascript library) already did what they wanted. Rather than reinvent the wheel Microsoft will be shipping the standard, as-is jQuery with full intellisense support in Visual Studio.
“For me, ideas stream through my head at a frantic pace. I feel like a bear trying to grab a salmon. If my paw misses its target, that salmon is gone for good. I don’t dwell on it. I just lunge for the next salmon.” Scott Adams (Dilbert) discusses ideas, and how he sometimes forgets he’s already used them.
Ajaxian brings word that John Resig is working an a new Javascript selector engine, which is expected to replace the one in jQuery. So far it’s less than 4k (but it doesn’t support IE yet). “4x faster in Firefox 3, 3x faster in Opera 9, 1.5x faster in Safari 3 than the other major JavaScript libraries.”
Tor books recently gave away a batch of free e-books as publicity for the new Tor.com. Many of the books were of the “first in series” variety. Some folks expected to be able to buy the sequels at Tor.com when it launched, and weren’t happy to find they could not. A representative from Tor responded, and it seems thing got a bit heated. An interesting look at an unintended side effect of “free” (be sure to read the comments).
I enjoy the heck out of “Garfield Minus Garfield”, but I assumed it would go the way of “Dylan Hears a Who”. I applaud Jim Davis and Ballantine Books for embracing the comic strip remix rather than issuing the standard cease and desist notice.
I always find Leo entertaining. I tuned into this a few times and was amazed at how even with numerous technical faults and no sleep he kept things interesting.
An interview with Steve Feldberg, content director for Audible’s science-fiction/fantasy line Audible Frontiers who have been releasing some very exciting audiobooks (including the upcoming release of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories)
IETester is a tool that runs the rendering and javascript engines from IE8b1, IE7, IE6, and IE5.5 in a single process so you can see how each one mangles your site in it’s own unique way (currently in beta).
While investigating line-height Eric Meyer used font-family: Webdings to display “Oy!” (Webdings doesn’t contain ‘O’, ‘y’, or ‘!’). Firefox 3 unexpectedly displayed “Oy!”, which, it seems, is technically correct, leaving him asking “which is less correc
One of those “that should have been obvious” suggestions. I’ve conditioned my brain to filter out most things that aren’t useful to me right now. This doesn’t mean I’m not interested in people’s anecdotes, and schedules, it just means I’m unlikely to remember them without some reminder.
Ah, IE6. I’m pretty good at getting it to do what I want, but it’s very existence makes most of the things I have to do harder than they should be. This tutorial deals with one of the harder issues, PNG transparency in positioned background images.
In the second part of the video Scott covers such diverse topics as Sci-Fi Channel’s lack of foresight and how when it appears he has made a mistake it is actually sabotage by J.C. Hutchins.
I’m not lucky enough to live near any of the book stores Scott Sigler was signing at, but luckily Natalie Metzger captured this video of one of the Q & A sessions.
This can only be good news. OverDrive has an interesting history with DRM. They have always claimed to be unable to work with iPods due to Apple’s proprietary DRM, while failing to make clear they were using Microsoft’s proprietary DRM.
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