Posts in: Web Development & Programming
- Why ActionScript 3.0 should be your first programming language
- Last week, a Twitter friend asked about learning programming and where to start. I suggested ActionScript 3.0, but 140 characters isn’t enough to explain why. That’s what blog posts are for. ActionScript sounds like a weird choice, right? It’s client-side, not server-side. You can’t connect to a database or create files on the fly without [...] [23 Aug 2010]
- The HTML5 video progress event: Redux
- In my first post on HTML5 video and its progress event, I wrote: Only Firefox provides a means to calculate the amount of the video that has been loaded. The progress event object includes total and loaded properties that reflect the total size of the video file, and the amount the browser has retrieved from [...] [6 Jul 2010]
- JavaScript tip: Use a for-loop to reveal properties and methods
- I’ve been tinkering with the HTML5 video element quite a bit lately. However, it’s not the best-documented thing in the world. There are very useful properties in the video element’s events that aren’t so clearly explained in the spec. Developing a media player means you have to uncover these properties using a little bit of [...] [29 Jun 2010]
- Increment and decrement, prefix and postfix
- I created this example of the increment (++) and decrement (–) operators in action because I needed to see how they work in combination. I tested this example in Firefox, Safari, and later versions of Internet Explorer, but it probably works in Opera and Chrome as well. [18 Jun 2010]
- Links for 2010-05-17
- Two web development links for your enjoyment. FormData interface coming to Firefox An overview of the FormData object of XMLHttpRequest, and how you will soon be able to use it in Firefox. From Hacks.Mozilla.Org. Dealing With the Dreaded ‘Flash of Unstyled Text‘ Tips for mitigating, even eliminating the appearance of unstyled text when using @font-face. [...] [17 May 2010]
- To password mask or not password mask?
- That is the question Jakob Nielsen sparked with last summer’s column: Stop Password Masking. In this week’s A List Apart, Lyle Mullican discusses The Problem with Passwords, and writes: However, making such a sweeping change to a fundamental user interaction could present serious problems. Consider some contexts in which a password might need to be [...] [9 Feb 2010]
- Proposed File API specification
- Web applications should have the ability to manipulate as wide as possible a range of user input, including files that a user may wish to upload to a remote server or manipulate inside a rich web application. This specification defines the basic representations for files, lists of files, errors raised by access to files, and [...] [10 Dec 2009]
- Flash Player Errors and How to Fix Them
- Trevor McCauley posted two new tutorials today about Flash Player Errors and how to fix them. One covers runtime errors, or errors that occur while a movie is playing. The other covers compiler errors or errors that occur while developing and testing a movie. If you’re not using it already, may I suggest using Flex [...] [4 Dec 2009]
- Yes, you really do need to learn JavaScript
- From Ed Finkler‘s PHP Advent 2009 piece, You Really Need to Learn JavaScript: When I say “you need to learn JavaScript,” I don’t mean “learn how to copy and paste an example,” or “learn how to generate JavaScript with PHP.” I mean learn it as well as you already know PHP — or better. Why? Because JavaScript [...] [3 Dec 2009]
- Big Boston Warmup: Interactive Infographics done well
- Via @gsetser: The Big Boston Warm Up, an infographic presentation whose goal is to get you to donate a coat and help keep homeless people and families a little warmer this winter. The experience begins on the home page with a series of graphics that show the circumstances of Boston’s homeless. It’s a broad demographic [...] [13 Nov 2009]