The history of the “Three Finger Salute”

by | Aug 1, 2014 | Blog |

Bradley worked on everything from writing input/output programs to troubleshooting wire-wrap boards. Five months into the project, he created ctrl+alt+del. The task was just another item to tick off his to-do list. “It was five minutes, 10 minutes of activity, and then I moved on to the next of the 100 things that needed to get done,” he says. Bradley chose the keys by location—with the del key across the keyboard from the other two, it seemed unlikely that all three would be accidentally pressed at the same time. Bradley never intended to make the shortcut available to customers, nor did he expect it to enter the pop lexicon. It was meant for him and his fellow coders, for whom every second counted.

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Versionpress – version control for WordPress in development

by | Jun 13, 2014 | Blog |

Possibly the best thing about WordPress is how simple it makes most tasks. Just log in to the administration, click here and there and boom, you have three new plugins installed, a new theme activated etc. People love this, and we do too.

There’s a flip side to it, however. Once the site is deployed and used by real visitors, those buttons actually become sort of a threat to the site because they make all the changes irreversibly and straight in the production. That is a problem because 3rd party plugins sometimes have bugs, are incompatible with each other, the theme might need updates etc. There are ways to deal with it but it’s a tricky job – so tricky that over 70% of WP sites in Alexa Top 1 Million gave up on updates.

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Computer becomes first to pass Turing Test in artificial intelligence milestone.

by | Jun 8, 2014 | Blog |

A programme that convinced humans that it was a 13-year-old boy has become the first computer ever to pass the Turing Test. The test — which requires that computers are indistinguishable from humans — is considered a landmark in the development of artificial intelligence, but academics have warned that the technology could be used for cybercrime.

 

Apparently a milestone in computing has been reached according to the Royal Society in London.  The Independent reports that a Ukrainian team has built a bot that has convinced 33% of the jury that it was human… (more…)

Typographical twins: 20 perfect font pairings

by | May 29, 2014 | Blog |

Contrast, as the name implies, is about finding totally different, but still complementary typefaces that are each fit for their intended application. Traditionally, this involves pairing a serif with a sans serif. Typefaces will generally conflict if they are too similar: two ever-so-slightly different serifs or sans serifs rarely play nicely together.

As a designer, the important thing is to establish a clear hierarchy. This could be as simple as varying size and weight of the same typeface, but where the typeface varies, that’s where careful pairing is crucial. If you have a display face packed with unique personality, you’ll need something more neutral to do the hard work.

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The Importance of Visual Content

by | May 26, 2014 | Blog |

An very interesting article from The Next Web talking about visual content in web design.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to capturing your audience’s attention, you want to take full advantage of every chance to communicate your message. Short attention spans have made lengthy explanations less effective?

So how do you keep interest?

– Show, don’t tell….

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A great success story: Migrating 15,000 PC’s from Windows to Linux

by | May 9, 2014 | Blog |

This was an interesting read from the Linux Voice site – how the city of Munich in Germany migrated 15,000 PC’s from Windows to Linux, and saved money in the process.   Even Steve Bullmer got involved pleading to make them stay with Microsoft!

Steve Ballmer tried to convince our mayor that it would be a bad decision to switch to open source, because it’s not something an administration can rely on. But some members of the city council said: what are we, if one member of a big company simply comes here, and he thinks he can just switch our opinions?

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Computing has changed in 50 years

by | Apr 7, 2014 | Blog |

A very interesting article in Ars Technica today – a look back at 50 years ago to the time when IBM created the mainframe that helped send man to the moon. It’s incredible how things have changed since then, and almost unimagineable what the next 50 years will bring us. (more…)

Jasper – voice control for Raspberry Pi

by | Apr 7, 2014 | Blog |

Now here’s an interesting project – Jasper is a voice control platform powered by the Raspberry Pi.  My immediate thoughts are extending my Music server to have voice commands – I like the idea of saying “Pi, play music” to my living room for an instant response.  (more…)