Mediamatic Developers blog
Onze core en front-end developers delen graag hun kennis. In deze blog publiceren we over ons eigen werk en interessante items die we in de wereld tegenkomen.
Activity Streams in practice
What are they doing?
Atom and RSS feeds are typically used to support syndication of existing works, most commonly weblog entries. They are XML documents that provide a common representation that can be consumed by feed readers, unlike the HTML pages for such a work. ActivityStreams is a format for syndicating social activities around the web. Based on the Atom Syndication Format, it tries to provide a feed for activities, rather than existing works. This includes the act of posting a blog entry, but can also express activities typ...
NickCSS
Cascading Style Sheets and page layout
, 28 dec 2010, 12:45A small lesson into understanding the basics of Cascading Style Sheets and styling a webpage.
We learned about building the layout of an Anymeta website today, using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).
Firstly, on the top level of building the layout of a website templates can be used to access parts of code from the Anymeta folder. A template can be seen as a wrapper for code.
These lines of code can also access other parts of code, creating a possible network of different styling options for your website.
The standard Anymeta layout and styling options are also known as the common.
This approach to building the layout of a website works like a tree structure. This means that any code from a level further down t...
ChrisWeb traffic sources in developing countries
An analysis of traffic to the Puma Creative Arts network sites using Google Analytics.
, 26 okt 2010, 11:48The Puma Creative Arts network websites "creativecaribbeannetwork.com" and "creativeafricanetwork.com" are both aimed at the promotion of social networking within the Arts in developing areas of the world. They plan to bring people together by leveraging the power of networking and giving artists access to each other and to resources that they might otherwise not be able to obtain.
While developing these two networks and working on the third (the "creativesouthamericanetwork.com") the development team at Mediamatic has been trying to keep in consideration the technical abilities of its target audience, namely artists in developing countries.
By asking questions like "how much of our traffic comes from areas with low internet penetration" and "what sorts of browsers do our visitors use", we try to tailor the websites so that we can get the greatest coverage for all visitors, including those with slow internet connections or out of date computer hardware.
The Creative Caribbean Network
Visitors to Date: 25th October 2010
To date in 2010, the Caribbean network has been visited 32,658 times by 17,041 unique visitors with users spending an average of 5:30 on the site.
Of the 32,658 visits the percentage per browser breaks down as follows:
- Firefox - 11,558 - 35.36%
- Safari - 9,530 - 29.16%
- Internet Explorer - 9,407 - 28.78%
- Chrome - 1,819 - 5.57%
- Opera - 123 - 0.38%
(12 other browsers too minor to mention)
These statistics show Firefox with a clear ~5% lead in usage making it the most popular...
Jonathan, 18 aug 2010, 9:50De iPhone Alleycat applicatie is gebaseerd op de traditionele Alleycat races. Deze fietsrace moet via verschillende checkpoints worden afgelegd naar de finish. De route tussen deze checkpoints mag de racer zelf bepalen. Om deze race zo goed mogelijk af te leggen is niet alleen snelheid, maar ook de creativiteit en de navigatievaardigheid van de fietser belangrijk.
Dit artikel moet een beeld vormen van mijn flow/interactie ontwerp voor de iPhone Alleycat app. Onderaan dit artikel is er een link naar een clickable mockup.
Met dank aan Sara Kolster en Maarten Wolzak.
Hoe werkt het?
...
KerimHTML5 Training (Web Forms 2.0)
Research on enhanced forms
, 13 jul 2010, 10:48This part of the training looks at the advantages, disadvantages and use cases of web storage. Other parts available include research on drag and drop as well as the Web Storage API.
A greatly welcomed addition to the HTML5 spec are new input types, allowing future versions of browsers to validate certain input without having to use Javascript as well as providing users with soft-keyboards a more specialized keyboard layout.
general input types
The email input field provides the user with a soft-keyboard with a layout that highlights buttons that are required to enter email addresses most often:
The numbers input field, like the email input field, provides a specialized keyboard, this one foc...
HTML5 Training (Drag and Drop)
Research on Drag and Drop
, 13 jul 2010, 10:48This part of the training looks at the advantages, disadvantages and use cases of drag and drop. Other parts available include research on Web Storage as well as the enhanced usage of forms.
Drag and drop support in browsers, initially conceived by Microsoft's Internet Explorer team in 1999, is slated to become an official part of the HTML5 spec, as outlined by the W3C. Drag and drop enables users to utilize interfaces in a more human way, by allowing items to be both dragged and dropped, as one would do in real life to sort items or data.
drag and drop
Drag and drop is, according to Peter-Paul Koch, one of the most widely respected voices on HTML and related technologies, broken, stating that:
You MUST NOT use HTML5 drag and drop. Rely on old-school scripts instead....
HTML5 Training (Web Storage)
Research on Web Storage
, 13 jul 2010, 10:47This part of the training looks at the advantages, disadvantages and use cases of web storage. Other parts available include research on drag and drop as well as the enhanced usage of forms.
One interesting addition to the HTML5 spec is web storage, a (better) way of storing data, both for long- and short term use.
Web Storage consists of two items that share most of their feature set with each other: for long term storage, there is localStorage, for short term storage, sessionStorage ought to be used. Both solutions could be considered cookies on steroids, as they provide most, if not all, features cookies provide, while at the same time not being limited to an extremely low 4KB limit.
localStorage
localStorage enables a developer to store a large amount of data i...
De ikCam Alleycat is een race voor fietsers die bestaat uit verschillende checkpoints. De rijder mag zelf de route tussen deze checkpoints bepalen. Om deze race zo goed mogelijk af te leggen is niet alleen snelheid, maar ook de creativiteit en de navigatievaardigheid van de fietser belangrijk.
Het idee
Het idee van Mediamatic was om een Alleycat race in Amsterdam te organiseren met een verrassend spelelement, namelijk het gebruik van de ikTag en de ikCam’s. De ikCam’s worden gebruikt als start, finish en checkpoints. Het resultaat is een RFID-versie van een traditionele Alleycat. Om de race te rijden krijgt de deelnemer een ikTag en een manifest in de vorm van een spoke card uitgereikt. Daarop staan d...
Explaining the principles of resource sharing between websites using the publish/subscribe paradigm.
Over the last year you might have heard, either through me, Ralph Meijer or through the grapevine, about the stuff we do at Mediamatic related to the resource sharing technologies we're developing. This resource sharing is a part of our ongoing efforts to create a federation of social networks using a number of open web standards, the collective of which we've dubbed Open-CI. At Mediamatic, we impleme...
ArjanFosdem, the Free and Open-Source Developer's European Meeting, is held every year in Brussels. It's a free event, attracting thousands of open-source developers from all around the world. In this article I'll talk about the stuff I've learned during these two days.
Saturday
Arrived at 10 am at Brussels central station, meeting Ralph in his hotel with some of the XMPP gang. Nice seeing the folks whose blogs I read in Real Life (tm). Went on the bus to the FOSDEM site. Very impressed by the crowds! Fosdem's bigger than I expected: their slogen: "over 5000 developers, 200 talks, 2 days, 0 euros" really pays off.
Helped setting up the XMPP booth on the info market, and while I was at it, got my CAcert certification. They really should accept the CA root certificate into all browsers! Oh ...