Following the announcement of the new Adobe Air interface to Google Analytics yesterday, I decided to have a good look at Air for the first time and see what it could really do. My expectations were fairly high based on what I'd heard from Adobe but I was bitterly disappointed with the applications that are currently available.
Air applications are like widgets that are easily authored (apparently) using existing technologies such as HTML, Flash and Javascript. Using Adobe's development tools, you can build your own Air applications to do whatever you want (within reason).
Given the great potential of the Air framework, it is disappointing to see Adobe's sample applications and showcase including feeble applications such as an RSS feed of colours from their Kuler application, an application that lets you draw with a virtual marker pen on your screen and a web developer tool that displays the source and DOM of a web page with significantly fewer features than the excellent web developer extension for Firefox.
I honestly couldn't find a single Air application, whether developed by Adobe or by 3rd parties, that I found in any way useful. There didn't seem to be anything available that couldn't already be done a better way. For example, why would you want to run a seperate Google Anayltics Air application which provides you with the exact same features as the browser-based version. Or why would you fire up the Kuler RSS colour feed when you could just view it in your RSS reader?
Maybe as the framework matures and more developers come up with new ways of using the technology, something genuinely useful will emerge, or maybe I'm just missing the point, but for the moment:
Adobe Air = I don't get it.
26 September 2007
19 September 2007
Why mega-pixels don't always mean mega-pictures...
Over the past couple of years we've seen an increasing number of clients nipping out with the office digital camera when asked to provide a photo of a product or team member for their website or print campaign. All well and good - the photographic bang you get for your buck nowadays is pretty darned impressive, and snapping images yourself is obviously much more convenient and cost-effective than employing the services of a professional photographer.
Unfortunately the end result isn't always the pin-sharp masterpiece it could be, even when armed with the latest 10 Megapixel technological triumph. Obviously the magic of Photoshop means we can iron out some of the imperfections in many of the images we're provided with, but following a few basic tips can significantly improve the initial image quality, giving a better end result and (in the case of PR images) increasing the likelihood of publication.
Put simply, a sharp, high quality image is far more likely to be prominently used in a publication than a grainy snapshot!
Keep the noise down...
Digital noise is one of the most common problems. This is the grainy, multicoloured speckles within blocks of colour, particularly in darker or low-light images. Some of this can be digitally removed, but using a "median" technique, which reduces image quality. The best way to limit the amount of noise in an image is to experiment with the camera's ISO settings. Instead of the "auto" setting, try a slower ISO speed of 100-200. This effectively increases the amount of time the camera has to capture image data. The downside to this is that the camera needs to be held steady to avoid blurred images, which leads us to ...
... invest in a tripod...
Well, I say invest, but you can pick up a decent tripod from the likes of Amazon for £20, so it's hardly going to dent the finances. And the return on image quality will be immeasurable! A tripod means you can safely fiddle with all kinds of camera settings without having to worry about keeping a steady hand. Combine that with the increased number of cameras that now come provided with remote controls and you need never worry about camera shake again! This also enables you to work in lower or indoor light environments without resorting to...
...flash! ...
Unless you have a professional flash gun with a "fill" mode or a controlled secondary light source, disable the auto-flash mode! All this will achieve is washed-out colours, red-eye and ugly shadows, particularly if your subject is close to its background. While we can restore some of these, a harsh flash reduces the amount of colour information in the image, and we can't put back what isn't there! Better is to use the previously purchased tripod and a slower exposure. This will allow the camera to take in more natural light, and capture more image data. It's easier to make a good dark photo lighter, than a poor bright photo darker!
... keep it big...
It may seem like an obvious tip but if the camera is capable of taking 5MP shots, take a 5MP shot! Bigger is better in digital photographs, as the increased resolution makes it a lot easier to disguise imperfections when scaled down afterwards. Also if you have the option to take the image in an uncompressed format like RAW, then do so. Failing that, make sure any options that mention image quality or JPG settings are set to maximum. It will increase the file size, but this is preferable to heavily compressed images, which may be noise free and razor sharp but ruined by countless JPG artefacts. If email size restrictions cause a problem, use a large-file upload service such as http://www.yousendit.com.
Unfortunately the end result isn't always the pin-sharp masterpiece it could be, even when armed with the latest 10 Megapixel technological triumph. Obviously the magic of Photoshop means we can iron out some of the imperfections in many of the images we're provided with, but following a few basic tips can significantly improve the initial image quality, giving a better end result and (in the case of PR images) increasing the likelihood of publication.
Put simply, a sharp, high quality image is far more likely to be prominently used in a publication than a grainy snapshot!
Keep the noise down...
Digital noise is one of the most common problems. This is the grainy, multicoloured speckles within blocks of colour, particularly in darker or low-light images. Some of this can be digitally removed, but using a "median" technique, which reduces image quality. The best way to limit the amount of noise in an image is to experiment with the camera's ISO settings. Instead of the "auto" setting, try a slower ISO speed of 100-200. This effectively increases the amount of time the camera has to capture image data. The downside to this is that the camera needs to be held steady to avoid blurred images, which leads us to ...
... invest in a tripod...
Well, I say invest, but you can pick up a decent tripod from the likes of Amazon for £20, so it's hardly going to dent the finances. And the return on image quality will be immeasurable! A tripod means you can safely fiddle with all kinds of camera settings without having to worry about keeping a steady hand. Combine that with the increased number of cameras that now come provided with remote controls and you need never worry about camera shake again! This also enables you to work in lower or indoor light environments without resorting to...
...flash! ...
Unless you have a professional flash gun with a "fill" mode or a controlled secondary light source, disable the auto-flash mode! All this will achieve is washed-out colours, red-eye and ugly shadows, particularly if your subject is close to its background. While we can restore some of these, a harsh flash reduces the amount of colour information in the image, and we can't put back what isn't there! Better is to use the previously purchased tripod and a slower exposure. This will allow the camera to take in more natural light, and capture more image data. It's easier to make a good dark photo lighter, than a poor bright photo darker!
... keep it big...
It may seem like an obvious tip but if the camera is capable of taking 5MP shots, take a 5MP shot! Bigger is better in digital photographs, as the increased resolution makes it a lot easier to disguise imperfections when scaled down afterwards. Also if you have the option to take the image in an uncompressed format like RAW, then do so. Failing that, make sure any options that mention image quality or JPG settings are set to maximum. It will increase the file size, but this is preferable to heavily compressed images, which may be noise free and razor sharp but ruined by countless JPG artefacts. If email size restrictions cause a problem, use a large-file upload service such as http://www.yousendit.com.
12 September 2007
Free web graphics
Birmingham based web developer, Mark James, has kindly put together a free set of cool web icons that are very well designed and look a little bit Web 2.0:
There's around 1,000 icons in this set altogether so they cover pretty much everything you could ever want on your website or blog.
There's around 1,000 icons in this set altogether so they cover pretty much everything you could ever want on your website or blog.
04 September 2007
Which is the most popular web browser
Yesterday I went through a ton of data from one of my personal websites DoYouRemember.co.uk , a site mainly about 80s toys, 80s movies and 80s music. I was reading the traffic analysis reports using the fabulous free Google Analytics software (if you're not using this yet, you should be) and was interested to see the latest figures on browser market share. The market has shifted substantially since this time last year.
The figures for August 2007 are as follows (with August 2006 figures in brackets):
74% (82%) - Internet Explorer
20% (11%) - Firefox
4% (3%) - Safari
2% (4%)- Other
And if we break down the Internet Explorer figures a bit further:
55% (96%)- Version 6.0
44% (2%) - Version 7.0
1% (2%) - Older
It's clear from this data that Firefox is becoming a more important player and seriously threatening Microsoft's dominance of the browser market (yay for Firefox!). But what does this data mean for web developers?
Well, the obvious conclusion is that we need to continue developing cross-browser compatible websites and make sure we are still testing on the big three as a minimum - IE6, IE7 and Firefox. Between them they account for 98% of all Internet traffic and much of the remaining 2% will render webpages the same anyway. It's still useful to have a peek in Safari or Opera, of course, since they have their own quirks.
My prediction for August 2008:
66% - Internet Explorer
27% - Firefox
5% - Safari
2% - Other
21% - Version 6.0
79% - Version 7.0
1% - Older (or newer - who knows, maybe they'll get a version 8 out next year!)
The figures for August 2007 are as follows (with August 2006 figures in brackets):
74% (82%) - Internet Explorer
20% (11%) - Firefox
4% (3%) - Safari
2% (4%)- Other
And if we break down the Internet Explorer figures a bit further:
55% (96%)- Version 6.0
44% (2%) - Version 7.0
1% (2%) - Older
It's clear from this data that Firefox is becoming a more important player and seriously threatening Microsoft's dominance of the browser market (yay for Firefox!). But what does this data mean for web developers?
Well, the obvious conclusion is that we need to continue developing cross-browser compatible websites and make sure we are still testing on the big three as a minimum - IE6, IE7 and Firefox. Between them they account for 98% of all Internet traffic and much of the remaining 2% will render webpages the same anyway. It's still useful to have a peek in Safari or Opera, of course, since they have their own quirks.
My prediction for August 2008:
66% - Internet Explorer
27% - Firefox
5% - Safari
2% - Other
21% - Version 6.0
79% - Version 7.0
1% - Older (or newer - who knows, maybe they'll get a version 8 out next year!)
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