Web Teacher » Web Apps

Useful links: Accessible New Year?, Responsive, App/Apple, Women in Tech

vdebolt — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:13:28 +0000

A Resolution for an Accessible New Year talks about the Fix the Web project and gives details and ideas about how you can participate in fixing the web.

The Goldilocks Approach to Responsive Web Design takes a different approach to the concept. Sure to be discussed widely, so go read it.

Understanding Apple is a review of the biography of Steve Jobs with lessons extracted and applied to app developers. Very interesting and worth considering if you are developing apps.

Emily Lewis decided to speak out about her experiences with the long-festering topic of ignorant male colleagues that plagues women in tech. It’s a part of her Here’s Hoping essay.

Useful links: ARIA Resources, Mobile Apps

vdebolt — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:59:44 +0000

Here’s a well-developed resource for ARIA information from MDN.

Mobile Apps headed for the dustbin of history at DevBeat is must reading for anyone interested in where the Internet is going.

I wish Twitter would . . .

vdebolt — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:25:17 +0000

I wish there was a way to select a series of tweets and then reorder them according to age – oldest to newest – so you could follow a series of tweets from someone about a topic or a conversation in chronological order.

There’s a filter tool in Tweetdeck that sort of does some selecting of tweets, but it’s limited. I think it would be good to go further than Tweetdeck does.

That wish has two parts: selecting tweets and reordering tweets.

How about it Twitter, can that be done?

Quora: Are you using it?

vdebolt — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:17:42 +0000

Quora announced a new iPhone app for Quora. I guess they are hoping to revive the project.

I don’t know about you, but I am completely over Quora. I never check it.

It was unbearably slow to load, navigation was not all that clear, and the system of promoting the questions and answers never really hooked me.

Did it hook you? Do you use it or are you over it like me?

Gamify Trash? Trash Tycoon Does That.

vdebolt — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:44:20 +0000

In what has been called the decade of games, in an era when Jane McGonigal is a thought leader, developers are rushing to find ways to gamify education and social problems. Wikipedia defines gamification as “as the integration of game mechanics or game dynamics into a website, service, community, campaign, or application in order to drive participation and engagement.”

There’s a new game at Facebook called Trash Tycoon that gamifies trash and recycling. It combines most of my key hot buttons – technology, education, and environmental responsibility – into a game. It’s made by social gaming startup Guerillapps and sponsored by upcycling company TerraCycle.

In describing the game at Tree Hugger, the Trash Tycoon team wrote,

Trash Tycoon is based around upcycling a variety of collectible trash resources into new productions and decorations, all in the name of restoring your city. The player starts out in a desolate, waste-dump of a town. Over time they can clean and upgrade buildings, collect trash, and recycle it into various products in order to complete goals and increase the greenness level of their city.

You can also cooperate with others to achieve these goals more efficiently! Players can help clean up other players cities, speed up the production of upcycled goods, and even chat and interact in real time. We also have programs with groups like CarbonFund.orgso that every-time you purchase anything in the game, 10% gets donated to the carbon offset project of your choice!

According to Earth 911, the game offers players a chance to make a real environmental impact. There are the already mentioned carbon offsets, but also,

Trash Tycoon will award special bonuses and gifts to players who upcycle in real life by participating in a TerraCycle Brigade.

At scribbal, they suggest you give the game a try and link to the Facebook app.

The fact that actions you carry out in real life, particularly actions that will help create a sustainable future for the planet, will have an in-game impact makes this a game worth checking out. Incentivizing players to participate in TerraCycle’s recycling programs by offering in-game rewards could help boost recycling levels and increase awareness of sustainability environmental issues.

You can check out “Trash Tycoon” for yourself by installing the game on Facebook.

I’m interested in any game that holds the potential to educate and create social good while giving players incentives and rewards for playing along, learning, and doing good. I hope this game will be a success. Do you plan to play?

Cross posted at BlogHer.

Review: HTML5 & CSS3 for the Real World

vdebolt — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:39:24 +0000

HTML5 & CSS3 For The Real World, written by Alexis Goldstein, Louis Lazaris and Estelle Weyl, is from Sitepoint (2011). This book takes on several topics that could fill an entire book individually, yet manages to serve each topic well. As you can tell from the title, the book talks about HTML5 and CSS3, but it also goes into complementary JavaScript/API topics like geolocation, offline web apps, web storage, Canvas, SVG, drag and drop.

The authors specifically point to the growing mobile market, and that focus is reflected in the chapters included in the book. They say,

Mobile Safari on iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile, as well as the Android operating system’s web browser all provide strong levels of HTML5 and CSS3 support. New features and technologies supported by some of those browser include CSS3 colors and opacity, the Canvas API, Web Storage, SVG, CSS3 rounded corners, Offline Web Apps, and more.

The authors made a strong effort to be as up to date as one can possibly be in a hardcopy format. They mentioned very recent changes in HTML5. They knew what future versions of browsers were likely to support, and therefore, what vendor specific prefixes were no longer needed, or soon would not be needed.

The downloadable site adds valuable practical and hands-on experience with the examples in the book that many learners will appreciate. It gives you something concrete to grapple with in addition to the theoretical information behind what’s going on in a browser or other device. Since I tend to look at everything from an educator’s point of view, I think the downloadable files would be a real asset if this book was used to teach either HTML5 or CSS3 or both.

It’s a lot for one book, but it’s all handled well. Which makes this book a decent choice for someone who wants a single resource to guide them through the new technologies and tools that are available in and around HTML5 and CSS3. I wouldn’t recommend it for someone who didn’t already understand HTML and CSS, but it is certainly a valuable book for learning the latest information in those fields.

Summary: An all-inclusive resource for learning HTML5 and CSS3.

A review by Virginia DeBolt of HTML5 & CSS3 for the Real World (rating: 5 stars)

Apps Against Abuse

vdebolt — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:27:52 +0000

The White House has challenged developers to develop apps that help prevent abuse. The announcement at Challenge.gov is called Apps Against Abuse.

The challenge: Vice President Biden and Secretary Sebelius are honored to announce a challenge that encourages the development of applications that provide college students and young adults with the tools to help prevent dating violence and sexual assault. The application envisioned will offer individuals a way to connect with trusted friends in real-time to prevent abuse or violence from occurring. While the application will serve a social function of helping people stay in touch with their friends, it will also allow friends to keep track of each other’s whereabouts and check in frequently to avoid being isolated in vulnerable circumstances.

Information about the challenge, the prizes, the judges, and details for how to enter are all at the above URL.

Useful links: Bones, App Press, web fonts

vdebolt — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:28:06 +0000

This looks interesting. A WordPress theme developer that is meant to be customized. It’s called Bones and uses HTML5 Boilerplate, CSS3 and the 960 Grid system.

App Press is a tool that helps you build apps for iOS.

Web font hosting services – an overview is a huge grid showing just about everything you might want to know about web font hosting services.

With luckychic, you’re thrilled or you’re screwed

vdebolt — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:12:19 +0000

I got a PR email from a site called Lucky Chic. The email talked about getting iPads and other tech toys for almost nothing. They guarantee that their products are the real thing. When I look at the site, I saw bidding on items that looked like this.

I decided to register to check them out. Here’s what I learned.

The price isn’t really $3.90, it’s $3.90 X 6 or $23.40, which is, of course, still insanely cheap for an iPad. But who knows how high the bidding would go in the next 2+ hours.
You buy bid tokens for $.60 each. Each bid you place raises the price of an item $.10.
You must buy bid tokens in advance in multiples of 10, 20, 30, etc. You cannot purchase more bid tokens in the midst of bidding on something. You cannot turn in unused bid tokens for a refund.
If you don’t win the bidding war, the money is gone – spent. Once you fork over say, $18 for 30 bid tokens, the money is gone whether you end up with something or not. You pay to bid even if you don’t get the item.

I suppose if you are the person who wins the bidding and gets a fabulous tech toy for almost nothing you would be thrilled. The rest of the players are just screwed.

Really, lucky chic? That seems like a way to build loyalty and enthusiasm to you?

No thanks.

Useful Links: DIY Mobile, 5 questions, do not track, fan pages

vdebolt — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 14:21:52 +0000

DIY Mobile Programming: Get Started with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Good resource.

Five Questions with Zoe Gillenwater. An interview by Chris Coyier. It is impossible to say enough good things about Zoe Gillenwater. Awesome is a good place to start.

Google and Mozilla Take Steps Toward Do Not Track is a post of my own at BlogHer. I conclude that talk from the browser makers about Do Not Track is mostly smoke and mirrors. What do you think?

Compelling Facebook Fan Pages from Chris Brogan lists shows pages I never heard of and don’t find particularly compelling. But if you’re trying to accomplish something with a Facebook page, go check it out.