11 Jul 2012
The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.
10 Jul 2012
We’re so very proud and excited to announce that our project with partners iKare has launched! An idea that was more than a year in the making, the FamilyLink connects families and friends to their loved ones through a device that shares photos, videos chats, messages, but more importantly provide an ease of mind.
10 Jul 2012
Empathy – and realizing that the other person is actually a whole separate person, not an actor in your own production of Me: The Play! – is the core thing in every human communication difficulty.
but... but... as far as I can see, the world revolves around me.
10 Jul 2012
Planet Argon recently helped launch FamilyLink, a device and service that enables caregivers and family members of older generations to interact with and monitor their loved ones remotely, while also maintaining the senior’s ability to live independently at home.
9 Jul 2012
Our hosting partners, Blue Box, up to the north of us1 have recently published a series of articles about managing larger Ruby on Rails applications titled, Managing Real World Rails Apps at Massive Scale (also see parts 1, 2, and 3). These posts came out of a few interviews at RailsConf 2012. Definitely worth reading through to get a few ideas on how best to monitor and evaluate application performance.
1 We’ll forgive them for being fans of the Seattle Flounders (Sounders). ;-)
5 Jul 2012
The Portland area has emerged as a leading center of mobile-application development, a field Apple essentially created with its iPhone and iPad. A recent study credited the app development industry with about 6,000 local jobs.
Even I was a bit surprised to read these numbers. There's heavy competition in Portland!
29 Jun 2012
Recently, Google released their Building Smartphone-Optimized Websites recommendations. Within these pages, Google briefly describes the different techniques for implementing mobile-optimized sites and, of course, how to ensure that the horde of Google robots recognizes the relationship between your desktop and mobile sites, and index them accordingly.
28 Jun 2012
In a controversial move, online travel agency Orbitz has started driving Mac computer users toward more expensive hotels. This bold strategy is based on the website’s tracking research, which indicated that its Mac customers spend up to 30 percent more on travel than its Windows clientele.
A user’s platform is just one metric that is being utilized to present the most effective marketing experience to browsers.
27 Jun 2012
17% of cell phone owners do most of their online browsing on their phone.
Crazy! A bit more math and we can determine, since 88% of U.S. adults own a cell phone, that <strong>15% of American adults are using their phones, more than any other device, to browse the web</strong>. 88% is a significant increase even since April, when I pegged that same statistic at 83% in my <a href="http://blog.planetargon.com/entries/2012/4/11/mobile-web-statistics-short-and-sweet">Mobile Web Statistics article</a>. This percentage is even larger for young Americans- 45% of 18-29 year olds who access the internet on their phones, compared with 31% for adults in general, use their phones for the majority of their web browsing. What does this mean? For web professionals, mobile should most definitely not be an afterthought. Yes, many people are using their phones as an additional web-capable device but, as these numbers reveal, tons of Americans are using their phones as their <strong>primary</strong> internet device. The landscape is changing- whether we're ready or not.
20 Jun 2012
Media queries, the cornerstone of responsive design, have now earned an official W3C recommendation. That means all browsers will be expected to support them from here on out. This brings responsive design from an interesting technique to a working web standard. Go forth and make your site responsive.
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