By Terence Huynh / 4 July 2009 / No Comments
The latest revision to the code that makes up the entire Web is set to drop codec requirements that would set specific formats (codecs) on video and audio files that could allow people to distribute multimedia easier as browsers fight over which format should be the standard.
The main five browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera) have not been able to agree on the specific format that all browsers will support, according to the editor of the new HTML5 specification Ian Hickson from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Read More »
By Terence Huynh / 1 July 2009 / No Comments
From the new features comes new things for developers to play around and enjoy in the new version of Firefox 3.5, and because of this, TECHGEEK.com.au will now bring you up to speed what developers can now use in the latest version of the open source browser.
Read More »
By Terence Huynh / 20 June 2009 / 2 Comments
Since Microsoft is trying to regain some of its market share after losing more and more of it to rivals Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Google Chrome, it is no surprise that Microsoft would be looking to entice people back to their browser – and that’s what they have done, by debunking the “myths” of IE8.
Too bad they got it so wrong. Out of all four myths presented (IE is slower, IE is less secure, Firefox is more adaptable than IE, and IE does not play well with standards), all of their answers are all wrong – except for those comparing IE7 to IE8.
Read More »
By Terence Huynh / 18 March 2009 / 2 Comments
Apple has announced a multitude of new features on its preview of the iPhone OS 3.0, including several developer features that weren't available and will allow those who are registered developers will get their hands on the new OS before the rest of us could get one.
New features in the iPhone OS 3.0 include MMS (multimedia messenging system); capture and send audio recordings with a new Voice Memo application; landscape view in Mail, Text and Notes; and cut, copy and paste between applications - which was the most requested feature (and I guess Kevin Rose was right after all).
The Stocks App will now feature company news and current trading information, while Calendar will now be able to sync to Yahoo! Calendar, iCal or Google Calendar.
Stereo Bluetooth, pairing devices via Wi-Fi, turn-by-turn GPS, Anti-phishing and remembering login credentials on Safari, parental controls on music, TV shows and movies, HDTV streaming for audio and video, along with a new media player, and new search functionality from Spotlight also are features in the new OS.
For Developers, new integration of maps from Apple, push notifications, access to a user's music library, in-app purchases, and peer-to-peer connections are some of the 1,000 new features in the iPhone API, making it more flexible for developers to build applications on the iPhone.
By Terence Huynh / 7 February 2009 / No Comments
The leader of the open-source database group, MySQL, has announced his resignation from Sun Microsystems, and has said that he will be leaving the company at the end of March. The MySQL database group is one of the fastest-growing businesses at Sun.
Marten Mickos, who was chief executive at MySQL AB before being bought by Sun, will leave current role as senior vice president. He explained in a letter sent to other employees, “It's a personal decision that I made without anyone influencing me one way or the other (except perhaps my wife).”
“I feel that together we have accomplished the task set by the owners in 2001, and I am now stepping aside to let the strong managers of the group take over and continue the ambitious business ramp-up,” he added.
His resignation comes as the two co-founders of MySQL, Monty Widenius and David Axmark, announced their resignations as well.
Sun has also announced that it would be combining its database group with its software infrastructure unit to form a unified open-source product group that will be led by Karen Tegan Padir, who will become the vice president of MySQL and software infrastructure.
By Terence Huynh / 26 January 2009 / 1 Comment
WordPress is a great CMS and blogging platform, but theming for it is not equal. Like web designing, for every good or beautiful design, you will always have a design that we say that you should stay away. However, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t download them – we’re just saying that they suck, and that people would dislike your site even more.
So, here are the list of the top 10 worst WordPress themes that you should stay away from:
The design is supposed to resemble the iPhone, but it does a poor job of doing it. Why putting the icons of a few apps when they don’t even work, nor the one where “Navigation” looking like an app icon makes any favours. The sidebar’s background image is too small, as you can tell from the words going through it, and I still can’t believe it has been downloaded by over 2,000 people.
Read More »
By Terence Huynh / 25 January 2009 / 1 Comment
WordPress is a fabulous CMS and Blogging Tool, however, its default theme might not be giving your blog that “wow” factor that you want to impress your friends. You could always develop your own theme, but that would be silly if you have no knowledge on how to design one.
So, today, we will be bringing some of the 10 themes that we liked that you may want to use. And yes, all of them are free.
Coming in a light and dark version and designed by Evan Eckard, and released with Smashing Magazine, it brings a more grunge-style motif to your blog. It is a widget enabled theme, meaning that you can use WordPress widgets, and it is also supports Gravatars – so people’s comments will have a single avatar, no matter what blog they write on.
Read More »
By Terence Huynh / 11 December 2008 / No Comments
TECHGEEK.com.au has already upgraded to it, and so you should too. WordPress has unveiled version 2.7, or codenamed “Coltrane”, which contains a massive overhaul to the WordPress administrator functions, as well as some new features, including the ditching of manual updates and FTP uploads to plugins and the entire blogging platform itself, thanks to an automatic update system – which makes it a bit more attractive to first time users.
Like I said, there is a new administration design (which I reviewed when it was in beta), and all of the features are the same, including movable panels at the dashboard, sticky posts, etc. As well, since this is the newest version, it also brings in more template tags for those who are into designing themes for it, like me (which is great, because now I can fully integrate new things into the theme).
But what happened to WordPress 2.6? Well, because of a fake version of WordPress out there calling themselves as version 2.6, the creators of WordPress decided to jump to 2.7, to avoid any confusion and any problems with people downloading the fake version. But this does not stop there, there are also plans to tackle things in how WordPress handles audio and video, and integration on other Automattic (the owners) projects:
That said, we couldn’t be more excited about the future with regards to features. Now that we’ve cleared out more basic things, we are looking forward in the coming year to really tackling media handling including audio and video, better tools for plugin and theme developers, widgets, theme updates, more integrated and contextual help, and easier integration with projects like BuddyPress and bbPress.
Video is below (after the jump).
Read More »
By Terence Huynh / 5 December 2008 / 1 Comment
Developers of the Python programming language have released the final version of Python 3.0, also called Python 3000 or Py3K, which also sees a major reworking of the language, including making it intentionally incompatible with the Python 2 series of code, according to the founder Guido van Rossum.
The new changes was to simplify the development of the code and to remove the complexity that has been built up over time. Saying in a Linux.conf.au keynote in Melbourne, Anthony Baxter said that the release was “where we break all your code, but we're doing it for a good reason...Pretty much every program will need changes."
Some of the changes in the new version include:
- The print statement has been replaced with a print() function, and with keyword arguments replacing the special syntax of the statement.
- Unicode will be the default encoding in the code, so no more mixing non-Unicode and Unicode strings.
- Altering the models used for division and switching symbols for “not equal”.
- Some modules have been renamed or no longer have capital letters.
However, Python 2 will not be given the axe just yet, and will be maintain the version as long as there is some interest and need for the version of the language.
By Terence Huynh / 6 November 2008 / 1 Comment
WordPress, the most popular blogging tool out on the web, has released the first beta of its latest version, WordPress 2.7. While the full version was supposed to go out on November 10th, it was delayed – but they managed to give out a beta version of the software for everyone to try out. So, I took that opportunity to find out what has changed and what has been removed.
But first, I have to tell you that all images were taken on my local server and not on the main server. This was done to make sure the site is still up, during the review process.
Read More »
