Creating Database-driven Apps with Sinatra
20 August, 2010
Sinatra itself has useful help pages, but (so far) this the best tutorial I’ve found.
Sheep Dip
Sheep Dip is where I dip my hooves into the murky waters of the internet and pluck out an interesting, useful or just plain whacky titbit for your delectation.
Web Designer’s Checklist
18 July, 2010
An up-to-date set of comparison tables for browser support of CSS3 selectors and HTML5 properties. It doesn’t include IE9, because they have a whole separate page of tables previewing IE9 support for HTML5 and CSS3.
YUI Graded Browser Support
25 June, 2010
This page has been around for a good while. I’m flagging it up now because I’m trying to build up a sort of toolkit and primer for colleagues managing websites; the rather unsophisticated ‘every user should have exactly the same experience on our website’ is – sadly and surprisingly – still a common attitude.
This explanation of Graded Browser Support and ‘progressive enhancement’ from Yahoo! is well put and, coming from Yahoo!, adds credibility to our arguments for it.
Arguments for open local data
3 June, 2010
One of the challenges facing proponents of open data is persuading others of its value; particularly persuading the custodians of data that making it publicly available is a valuable thing to do, and is in their interest to do it.
Dan Slee (Walsall Council) and Stuart Harrison (Lichfield District Council) and myself have compiled some arguments for open local data for people to use when faced with making the case for it.
We’ve also put together the Local Data wiki, so that this work can be continued collaboratively.
A Beginner's Sinatra Tutorial
31 May, 2010
In my desperate attempt to grapple with Ruby people keep introducing me to new and 'better' ways to use it, before I've had a chance to understand what I was doing with the previous one they lauded. Currently under my nose is Sinatra, which would probably be great if I understood what I was doing. Anyway, this tutorial seems to make more sense than Sinatra's own help pages.
HTML5 Readiness
19 May, 2010
This is a very nice demonstration of what HTML5/CSS3 is capable of, and shows how ready the various browsers are for it.
Education Eye – Mapping Innovations
Education Eye is a pretty tool from Futurelab, showcasing online educational innovations.
“Education Eye is a free, engaging and easy-to-use online space that gives access to a wide range of useful and relevant innovations across educations’ varied communities. Connecting people with innovative uses of digital technology, new resources and new approaches to teaching and learning to help inspire further innovation in education.”
Nibbler – take a taste of your website
29 March, 2010
Nibbler is a free online tool for testing websites. Give it a URL and it will test five associated pages against a range of criteria. It's still in Alpha, and I haven't looked closely to see how it actually works, but it could be very useful as part of a web developer's toolkit.
Building Britain’s Digital Future: ‘a chance to reinvent deliberative democracy for the modern age’
22 March, 2010
In response to Gordon Brown’s speech on ‘Building Britain’s Digital Future’, Ben Whitnall of Delib asked if interested parties would like to group together to take a lead:
‘let’s get some interested people together and help design the future of digital deliberative democracy for the government. It’ll be faster, better and, with any luck, more pubby’.
As you know, I’m very interested in looking at how we can be using the internet for effective citizenship; so I’m definitely up for this. If you are too, please leave a comment on Ben’s post.
Google Reader – Play
19 March, 2010
This appears to be Google's belated answer to StumbleUpon, which has been around for ages. It claims to find cool stuff on the internet based on your interests. I quite like it, but it's bloody hard to find. There was a temporary message in Google Reader shouting 'Try it now!', but that's now gone and I can't find any link to it in my Google profile. Hence this bookmark.
