WordPress, possibly the most popular blogging software out there, is set to heavily open source the design of its user interface this year.
WordPress is an open source blogging solution written in PHP and powered by a MySQL database backend. Code wise, it is entirely open source and licensed in entirety under the GNU General Public License (version 2), and as of typing this, it is used by over 200 million websites worldwide.
Design in WordPress has previously relied on contest to refresh the system’s administration section header, colour schemes and icon sets. This year however, the WordPress community are looking to heavily drive the concept of open source design, with a focus on many more design contests, a dedicated WordPress user interface design blog and significantly in the way of general communication about the direction the user interface is to take. To this end, there will be the new UI design blog, a newly created Wordpress UI IRC channel (#wordpress-ui on Freenode) and a more noticeable mention of WordPress design on the official WordPress mailing lists.
If you’re interested in helping to design the new user interface for WordPress, one of the most popular blogging platforms out there, see the original open-source design article on the official WordPress blog.
If you want more information on how you can use WordPress for your own website, or would like to see how we can integrate a WordPress powered blog into your existing website, feel free to contact us right now!
As web developers, we are using web browsers continually to preview and debug our web pages, dynamic web application and the website page’s we develop. However, many consumers are unsure of what a web browser actually is. Admittedly, for many, this can be very confusing as there are such a lot of Internet related terms flying around now that it can be difficult to explain exactly what a web browser is. This can be especially true where many web services, such as e-mail and search engines are so tightly integrated into the web browser and the web browsing experience.
Speaking of search engines, Google, which I’m sure you have all heard of, prepared an excellent video which demonstrates and explain the concept of a web browser and attempts to explain exactly what a web browser is, and indeed, what it is not. If you are in any way unsure, take a look at the video below.
At Rapid Web, our best work is in our websites and our dynamic web applications. If you wish, you can find out a bit more about us, our web design and some of the work we do.
Will Apple’s release of the iPad slow the surge past few years of mobile web development? Some people think so.
The release of Apple’s ever popular smartphone, the iPhone, back in mid 2007 caused a huge development spike in websites and dynamic web applications designed the mobile devices. Of course, the vast majority of these mobile website were developed specifically with the iPhone in mind, however the results were beneficial to pretty much all smartphones with the capability the browse the web and with some form of web browser application.
So, why do I think the iPad will slow this development in the mobile web market? The iPad is a mobile device itself is it not?
Well, perhaps not. Apple’s iPad does indeed use an operating system very similar to the iPhone, with backwards compatibility with almost all of the iPhone’s downloadable apps, and yes, it is mobile in the true sense of the word – it can be easily carried around unlike a full desktop computer and much more easily than a typically larger and much heavier laptop. However, the one aspect of the iPad which stands out is its native screen resolution of 1024×768. This means that, since most web developers design, template and style their websites for resolutions of either 800×600 or 1024×768, normal websites look fantastic on the iPad.
Why build an iPad specific ‘mobile’ version of a website when your existing site works perfectly, fills the screen and looks fantastic?
A lot of web developers will find no need to. However, sites that use heavy amounts of Flash content may be required to rethink their design and implementation strategy when it comes to Flash websites on Apple products. This is because the neither the iPhone or the iPad, at time of writing, support Flash in websites and so rely more so on the ever increasing use of interactive JavaScript elements via programming technologies such as AJAX.
If you’re interested in getting a design done for Apple products, be it the iPhone, iPad or just any Macintosh system, take a look at our website’s web design section. Hopefully it will spike your interest.
In a move that should help with mobile web design and development for Nokia’s mobile devices, the Symbian operating system which powers these devices has been made open source.
Nokia is releasing their Symbian operating system, which includes the Symbian web browser, under an open source license. Symbian is the most popular smartphone operating system, and its total code base is valued at “billions of dollars”. The open sourcing of Symbian hopes to allow for a greater adoption of the operating system and a method by which to increase the evolution and innovations of the various features of Symbian OS, the Symbian web browser and all its integrated components.
From a web developer’s point of view, the open sourcing of mobile web browsers is fantastic. Open sourcing the mobile web browser in Nokia phones will enable it to be made to comply more accurately with web standards and can allow for increased performance and functionality, which may not be possible or financial viable in a closed-sourced proprietary licensing model.
The search for intelligent life has been ongoing for decades; the thought that we are not alone in the universe is quite an exciting thought and has prompted many different forms of attempted message sending for just as long. We have thoughts of an alien race being friendly – benevolent even but what if they’re not? What if we actually contacted a tyrannical race of blood thirsty butchers I mean let’s not sugar coat it what would humanity have to offer a far superior race? It’s not like the human race as a whole is striving forward for the good of our kind; we are scared, suspicious creatures who seem to have lost the ability to help our fellow man. We’re still happy to march in file to fight and kill people we don’t even know for somebody sat behind a desk counting numbers because there’s an argument as to who owns the majority of the oil.
2 days ago there was a meeting held at The Royal Society in London Organised by Dr Martin Dominik and Professor John Zarnecki to discuss ‘The detection of extra-terrestrial life and the consequences for science and society’
“…Astronomers are now able to detect planets orbiting stars other than the Sun where life may exist, and living generations could see the signatures of extra-terrestrial life being detected. Should it turn out that we are not alone in the Universe, it will fundamentally affect how humanity understands itself – and we need to be prepared for the consequences…” we’ve know for a while that there are many gas giants, like our sun, that are able to support life but looking at them through a lens doesn’t get us any further to contact.
“Part of me is with the enthusiasts and I would like us to try to make proactive contact with a wiser, more peaceful civilisation. Given that the consequences of contact may not be what we initially hoped for, then we need governments and the UN to get involved in any discussions.” Dr Marek Kukula commented, public astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
“My basic argument is that, contrary to most neo-Darwinian thinking at the moment, evolution is much more predictable than people think. In particular, I would argue that the emergence, by evolution, of intelligence, cognitive capacity and all that stuff is an inevitability.” – Conway Morris, who gave a talk entitled; predicting what extraterrestrial life will be like and preparing for the worst. So I guess it’s yet another case of sit tight and let the big boys and girls sort out what’s best for us.
WordPress, possibly the most popular blogging software out there, is set to heavily open source the design of its user interface this year.
