The Graphic Mac: OSX and design-related community - Web

NBC dumps Silverlight; returns to Flash video

James — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 09:09:12 -0600

NBC dumped Microsoft Silverlight for NFL game streaming in favor of Adobe Flash. The results after the first game of 2008 this past Thursday night was a disaster. Choppy, unwatchable video was all users got.

I love Adobe, but I think this was a huge mistake. I watched a few Olympic events on NBC.com and was completely taken by surprise at how great Microsoft Silverlight worked out. I had to download the plugin, which took just a few seconds, and install first, but it was no problem at all. The video quality was superb, and I never experienced choppy, unwatchable video. Not once.

Flash, on the other hand, virtually guarantees studdering, grainy, generally poor quality video. At least in streaming content.

I realize that it really comes down to the quality of the encoding work, but I can't help but to think that the technology used in Silverlight is just better.

Digg toolbar for Firefox

James — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:48:48 -0600

Digg.com has released it's initial Firefox toolbar. The Firefox 3 toolbar allows you to submit, Digg, and view the Digg count for any site you surf to.

What bandwidth addiction will cost

James — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 07:10:10 -0600

Americans today spend almost as much on bandwidth – the capacity to move information – as we do on energy. A family of four likely spends several hundred dollars a month on cell phones, cable television and Internet connections, which is about what we spend on gas and heating oil.

15 million ideas for finding inspiration for your blog design

James — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:27:36 -0600

This article lists a ton of links to blog collections and showcase sites. If you're having a difficult time coming up with a design for your blog, this is a great place to start!

A Small Study Of Big Blogs: Further Findings

James — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:22:39 -0600

Survey of popular blogs reveals interesting information and findings regarding navigation placement, use of footers and sidebars and more. If you're a blogger, this is an interesting read.

Cut and paste one line of code to make any website editable

James — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:02:06 -0600

Have you ever wanted to edit the web pages of another website? This simple line of code makes it possible.

Of course you can’t actually edit the actual web page but you can edit the page as you see it on your screen.

This is one of the ways scammers create fake screenshots, fake Adsense & affiliate earnings and even fake Paypal transactions.

2012: The year the Internet dies

James — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:21:25 -0600

Net neutrality activists apparently have information confirming that all major ISPs are conspiring to make the Internet a subscription-based service by 2012.

I don't know if I buy into this, or if the ISPs could even pull it off, but it's interesting nonetheless.

You suck at Web design

James — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:04:28 -0600

“You Suck at Web Design” is a humorous (attempting to be, that is) writing project about life as a web designer in our current flurry of web acronyms, standards compliance, WYSIWYG, style sheets, hacks, digging, 2.0-this and Ajax-that. It’s mostly a commentary on the life of a freelancer, and a horribly lop-side disdain for the corportate world and it’s micro management.

The site looks fantastic and has plenty of visual goodness in the form of videos and more.

Music 2.0 file format

James — Sun, 25 May 2008 08:13:14 -0600

Korean computer engineers are introducing a new digital music format that has separate controls on the sound volume for each musical instrument, such as guitar, drum, base and voice -- an ideal tool for music lovers of different tastes as well as karaoke fans.

The new format, which has a file extension format of MT9 and a commercial title of Music 2.0, is poised to replace the popular MP3 file format as the de facto standard of the digital music source, its inventors say.

Use CSS to do anything

James — Thu, 22 May 2008 06:32:25 -0600

CSS can powerfully open the doors to a lot of rich and unique techniques. Today we are presenting a round-up of CSS coding, creative approaches and techniques. Definitely worth taking a very close look at! We also included some basic techniques you can probably use in every project you are developing.