Everything you need to know about the latest codeworks office chatter is in this window. You'll find out about the latest technology news, tutorials, suggestions and helpful hints as well as our latest news and company announcements. Each one of our team have the freedom to post whatever they feel might be useful to our friends and customers. Use the tags and archive on the right hand side to filter through all the posts.
UI: User interface. The means of communication between a person and some software. When designing an application, lots of question arise. How should it look? How easy is the interface to understand? What should the colour scheme and borders look like? I was having a conversation with a friend of mine recently who told me the secret to success is to give away your secrets and as it's my turn to write a blog I figured I'd give away some of my secrets!
First you need to take yourself away from the computer and sit down with a pencil and paper; even if you can't draw here's a little tip to help you get over your drawing fear. Lines. Draw a browser window on your piece of paper, but rather than draw a box, with each side of the box draw several lines on top of each other with quick strokes of the pencil. Sounds mental, but what you're trying to create here are ideas, and ideas come from sketches, and that's what you're creating.
Draw a basic layout of buttons, boxes and content suggestions with written titles inside the boxes. Being away from the computer will help you picture an innovative design inside your head. Draw down these ideas and if you come up witha few different ones then keep them. Who knows, maybe they will become handy later.
Once you have a general idea for the layout of your new software you'll need to head back onto the computer for interface inspiration and there're hundreds of websites which you can choose from. I like the websites with user submitted entries and one of my favourites is http://dribbble.com/ - its great because it only contains snippits of screenshots rather than the whole project which means you really do only take the inspiration from someone elses work rather than end up wripping it off.
If you have a spare 5 minutes today, check out Google Maps Quest if you haven't done so already!
You can do exactly the same stuff as on regular Google Maps but this time in retro 8-bit style. Even Street View appears in 8-bit! To use Quest, head over to Google Maps and simply click the "Quest" box in the top right corner.
Definitely one of my favourite Google's best April Fool's jokes!
Everyone at Codeworks would like to welcome you to our new office down Cardiff Bay! We moved in on Monday and are happy to say we've settled in rather well!
Our new address is 1 Mount Stuart Arcade, Cardiff Bay, CF10 5BB.
You may notice our subtly-branded shop front window whilst wandering around Mermaid Quay. Now that we are on view to the general public we've had to start dressing smartly. Feel free to come by and pay us a visit!
Recently there has been a lot of debate around the standard of IT education in schools. Many people think that people are leaving school with plenty of ability to use computers, but no idea of how to program them. We've had some experience of this, whereby candidates can have qualifications in IT or programming, but little knowledge of how to write a program.
There is no doubt that technology has advanced so much in the last 20 years, and become so much cheaper, that it has become part of almost every aspect of life. Young people are nearly all experts at using iPhones, iPads, PCs, much more so than any other generation. However, it seems that having all this power at their fingertips has not necessarily proved useful for the software industry.
The problem is twofold. Firstly, computers are now so easy to use that for the most part all anyone needs to know is how to wave their finger at a screen or in the iPhone's case, speak in a posh English accent at it. Secondly, the focus of IT eductation in British schools has been centred around the use of software packages, such as Microsoft Office. While this is no doubt useful to know, there aren't many children growing up today that can't simply play around with Office and work out how to use it themselves.
The focus, in my mind, needs to shift quite heavily towards programming. We need to be producing the next generation of Bill Gates's in order for the UK to stay ahead in this field. After all, we invented computers. Its great that the government is taking notice of this, and innovation such as the Raspberry Pi will make it much easier for people to experiment with programming, and hopefully increase the number of budding nerds that come out of our schools. (If we don't, China will!)
I've recently discovered Cufon and I think it's amazing! Cufon allows you to use non-standard font in your website. This is brilliant because it means you don't need to worry whether each person visiting your website has the font installed and you can be safe in the knowledge that your webdesign won't be affected by alternative/replacement font.
Head over to http://cufon.shoqolate.com/generate/ and try it for yourself! You need to download cufon-yui.js from their website and you'll also need the font file and the licence/permission to use it. Currently only TrueType (TTF), OpenType (OTF), Printer Font Binary (PFB) and PostScript fonts are supported. Upload your font and select your preferred settings. Your don't really need to change these but when selecting glyphs, I prefer to use Basic Latin and Latin-1 Supplement (for punctuation). Don't choose too many otherwise it'll take ages to load! Cufon will then generate a JavaScript file which you then save to your server.
See my example code below on how to use it. Oh and don't forget to add <script type="text/javascript"> Cufon.now(); </script> for Internet Explorer!
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<script src="cufon-yui.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="Angelina_400.font.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
Cufon.replace('h1');
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
Cufon.replace('.changeme');
</script>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This text will be shown in Angelina.</h1>
<p class="changeme">This text will also be shown in Angelina.</p>
<p>This is a standard font. No changes here!</p>
<script type="text/javascript"> Cufon.now(); </script>
</body>
</html>
I've used various tools to help organise who's working on what, how many jobs we have waiting in the sides and how much of a project is left to complete. But no software has managed to organise an office in such a way, in such a short space of time than Trello has.
We started using this nifty bit of kit around 4 weeks ago now and I can honestly say it has turned our organisation around on its head! I'm a stigler for wanting to know exactly who's working on what, if they've finished yet, and how much of the job is left to complete, and Trello does exactly that - and more! It's a simple strategy, one that is pretty much adaptable to anything. It's a system that uses Lists and job cards, something that doesn't sound very thrilling, but watch the 7 minute video on their homepage and you'll become hooked!
To do lists, comments, notes, voting, colour schemes, assigning, drag and drop, unlimited lists and unlimited possibilities!
I've recommended this software to loads of my clients in such a short space of time and they've all come back to me with the same comments, it is a massive hit! The only reason I came about it was because I but out a tweet a few months asking for organisation systems and someone that lives in my apartment stopped me in the lift and asked had I tried this! Here I am four weeks down the line, busier than I've ever been, but with one difference - very organised (even if a little stressed!).
Video Below!
Firstly, everyone in the office has been feeling guilty that nobody has created a blog since before Christmas. So I've given Sarah the task of making sure someone blogs at least once a week and she's in the process of delegating to the masses. To start everyone off, here's my first blog of the year about something I came across while browsing the technology news that's set to launch imminently.
The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spread sheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. The creators want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming in schools and as a hobby.
Their idea is very simple; to see cheap, accessible, programmable computers everywhere without spending hundreds of pounds on a PC. They want owning a truly personal computer to be normal for children.
I honestly think the device is an insanely excellent idea, the possibilities are endless! You could even go as far as making a robot with this credit card sized computer. I know that this probably isn’t for the faint hearted, but starting at £15 + VAT what more could you buy at that price that could offer as much fun!? Let’s all become programmers!
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK registered charity – For more information visit their website: http://www.raspberrypi.org
I recently noticed a spout of emails coming into my inbox that have background images!? As many developers know background images in outlook are non existant, unheard of, a miricle!
So as any self respecting developer would do i jumped straight onto google with the string of keywords "when did outlook start supporting background images". Well, as it turns out a backround *image* does work, its background *images* that do not.
I came accross a blog that then explains that background images do not work in Outlook (thank goodness im not going crazy!) - but what will work is one single background image that sits in the body tag! There is one little snag that you will need to deal with (as if a Microsoft product would just work!). While every other client seems to gracefully assume no-repeat for the second part of the repeat line, Outlook does not. Take a look at the css code below and boom, you'll have body background images working.
OK, maybe not. But I did do a little happy dance when I started my job here at codeworks as a Junior Developer. My name's Sarah and I've recently moved from Oxford since graduating from Oxford Brookes.
For the last few years I've worked as a projectionist and have witnessed first hand the digitisation of cinemas from 35mm. I now cannot wait to begin my career in what is the exciting world of software development with such a fantastic team :D
I love festivals and have rocked-out at Wacken, Amphi, Sonisphere, Mera Luna and Download with many more planned on the horizon.
I also hold the official* record for the "biggest baked bean found in a tin". Picture of proof to follow....
*official in the sense I googled it and couldn't find any pictures of large singular baked beans
Here's another top tip from the Codeworks camp. Often Jquery is used to animate a particular element on a page after the user has clicked on something. For example, a news box could slide open if you click a certain link.
Problems can often occur if a user is a bit keen on clicking, or impatient, and ends up clicking the link repeatedly, before the animation has taken place. Browsers can often 'queue' a backlog of clicks so that things keep happening long after they should have ended! This can also cause unexpected behaviour which can make the user think that the website is 'broken'.
But fear not, there is a simple solution:
At the start of any click event in jquery, which may look like this:
$('.element').click(function() { ....
Simply add the following:
$('.animatedelement').is(":animated")){
return;
}
This will check if an animation is running, and if it is, put the brakes on any other events until it is finished.
Hey presto!
Call us for a chat on
