One of the common challenges when designing responsive design for mobile is the navigation menu. If the site has many sections or pages, it gets challenging to squeeze all the items into a small mobile resolution. The navigation most likely ends up running into multiple lines or the buttons stacking on top each other.
New Pawn Shop Special amplifiers present a cool, unconventional take on amp design by evoking the enjoyably esoteric finds you might discover in a pawnshop or second-hand store.
These look really cool. I’d definitely like to try one of these.
MarsEdit is the best blog editing tool for the Mac and I’ve had it on my computer for years. It was updated to version 3.5 today adding all kinds of new features.
ABC News:
Apple Inc. has agreed to pay local governments $150,000 a year and get a 15-year property tax exemption for the data center it is developing in Central Oregon.In an agreement with Prineville and Crook County, Apple also commits to minimums of 35 jobs at the center, wages 150 percent of the county’s average wage and $250 million invested at its 160 acres of land.The city of Prineville and Crook County will have to work out how to split the $150,000 payment called a “project fee,” The Bend Bulletin reported Friday.
This will likely be the “twin” of the one in North Carolina.
Drum Werks XXII is our exclusive collection of Ska beats played by one of the top session players in L.A., versatile enough for traditional as well as modern interpretations of the ska genre.
Diablo Blog:
We’re pleased to announce the Diablo III open beta weekend, which offers open access to all players with a valid Battle.net account! Beginning this Friday everyone is invited to log in and help us put the game and servers through their paces in this three day stress test as we march toward the game’s release on May 15. You can begin downloading the Diablo III client right now!From Friday, April 20 at 12:01 p.m. PDT (noon), until Monday, April 23 at 10:00 a.m. PDT you’ll be able to log in, team up with friends, and play each of the five heroic classes to level 13 as you fight to save the world from the impending demonic invasion.
Thank goodness I’ve got a friend coming in to town this weekend. Otherwise, it would be completely wasted playing this!
Jim and Dan discuss Apple’s future growth potential, the influence of journalists covering tech, learning guitar through the fundamentals of AC/DC, and more.Sponsored by Hover, FreshBooks, and the One More Thing Conference.
The Irish Times:
Apple is to expand its presence in Cork, creating more than 500 jobs in what is being described as a “huge boost” for the country.The technology firm is expected to construct a new office block to accommodate the additional staff in the coming 18 months.Apple has based its European headquarters in Hollyhill. The technology firm employs about 2,800 people at its distribution, supply chain and back-office operation there.
Another huge boost will be in Heineken consumption when Jim Dalrymple arrives in Dublin next week.
TidBITS:
AT&T offers a way to report unwanted SMS/MMS messages, but I had to ask on Twitter for the instructions, as the steps are not obvious to those of us who don’t use SMS/MMS regularly. The free AT&T Mark the Spot app for reporting bad cell coverage or calls also includes a button for reporting SMS spam that explains, with too little detail, how to do it.Here are the steps for AT&T; I’ll add other carriers as I receive information, as AT&T is the only carrier I have an account with.
As everyone points out, this is an increasingly annoying issue that infuriates customers.
Chicago Tribune:
To the shock of most sentient beings, Facts died Wednesday, April 18, after a long battle for relevancy with the 24-hour news cycle, blogs and the Internet. Though few expected Facts to pull out of its years-long downward spiral, the official cause of death was from injuries suffered last week when Florida Republican Rep. Allen West steadfastly declared that as many as 81 of his fellow members of theU.S. House of Representatives are communists.Facts held on for several days after that assault — brought on without a scrap of evidence or reason — before expiring peacefully at its home in a high school physics book. Facts was 2,372.
A funny, if sad, commentary on our “Post-Facts Era”.
Many thanks to Scoople for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop. It’s an app I’ve been using for some time.
Cast your vote on the most relevant Apple stories of the day. Predict how others in the community will vote. Win when you’re right. Get the free Scoople app.
Rob Fahey for GamesIndustry International:
Yet there is actually a massive platform missing from that line-up – the “other” Apple platform, Mac OS X. With the exception of a handful of stand-out developers, perhaps most notably Blizzard, PC game developers have traditionally ignored Apple’s computers in creating their games.
Most of Fahey’s observations are old hat to Mac veterans who only too well understand the economic, logistical and historic reasons why Mac gaming isn’t a thriving industry. And a lot of this inside baseball is eye-glazingly boring to consumers who are new to the market who haven’t the slightest interest in playing games on their Macs, even though they gleefully drop 99 cents at a time for the latest iOS novelty app.
But Fahey either willfully or ignorantly misses the fact that there is a Mac game market, comprising companies like TransGaming, Feral Interactive, Aspyr and others, who license games from major publishers and produce Macintosh versions of them. You can go poor trying to keep up with their new releases. There are also a ton more casual games on the Mac platform than there used to be.
Apple gave this moribund market new life with the introduction of the Mac App Store, and it’s growing organically and sustainable. As the Mac’s popularity grows, the Mac App Store’s influence – along with other Mac software download services – will continue to positively influence the growth of games on the platform.
I doubt that the Mac will ever achieve equilibrium with other platforms when it comes to gaming. But that hardly seems to matter now. Gaming has evolved, and soon we’ll be seeing even richer, more sophisticated games on the iPad that will rival console games.
Rock on kid!
They say silence is golden – but there’s a room in the U.S that’s so quiet it becomes unbearable after a short time.The longest that anyone has survived in the ‘anechoic chamber’ at Orfield Laboratories in South Minneapolis is just 45 minutes.
Bryan Larrick:
The downfall of newspaper publishing is not something to shrug one’s shoulders at, like with Blockbuster falling apart. It is a genuine tragedy.
John Gruber:
I agree with one thing: sustaining high profit margins is difficult. But where Denninger goes wrong is in assuming that competitors can easily or quickly copy what Apple is doing.
Copying the look of a piece of hardware is one thing, but copying the experience that Apple delivers is almost impossible.
Infowars:
A bill already passed by the Senate and set to be rubber stamped by the House would make it mandatory for all new cars in the United States to be fitted with black box data recorders from 2015 onwards.Although the text of legislation states that such data would remain the property of the owner of the vehicle, the government would have the power to access it in a number of circumstances.Given the fact that the same bill also includes a controversial provision that would empower the IRS to revoke passports of citizens merely accused of owing over $50,000 in back taxes, stripping them of their mobility rights, could the mandatory black boxes or a similar technology be used for the same purpose?
The story gets a little hyperbolic with nightmare scenarios but some will still find this bill worrisome – I do.
New York Times:
On Wednesday morning, three vintage warplanes were trussed up and hoisted over the port side of the ship for a barge ride up the Hudson River to a museum near Schenectady, N.Y. They had to go to make way for the new star attraction: Enterprise, the prototype for the space shuttles that is due to arrive in New York City next week.
Those lucky enough to live in Washington DC saw the Shuttle Discovery fly over earlier this week. The Enterprise will do her own New York City fly over on Monday, weather permitting.
Jordan Golson for MacRumors:
Apple CEO Tim Cook didn’t visit Valve headquarters according to company co-founder Gabe Newell. The rumor, originally reported by AppleInsider, was squashed by Newell in a podcast interview.
Anyone else getting a “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” vibe? Or are the drugs making me paranoid?
Alex Heath at Cult of Mac reported “exclusively” that Apple is working on a gaming console device of some kind and implicated Valve in the plan, attributing the information to “sources.” I feel dirty linking to the post; click on it at your own discretion.
That snapping sound you hear are my eyes rolling back in their sockets as I go through a full-body spasm of incredulity.
New York Times:
All 32 sports at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London will be streamed live at nbcolympics.com.“The hot topic is always, ‘Why don’t you show all your sports live?’” said Rick Cordella, vice president and general manager of NBC Sports Digital Media. “We wanted to take care of that.”During the London Games, nbcolympics.com will be able to handle as many live streams as there are live events. “Whatever is on schedule that day,” Cordella said, “if cameras are on it, we’ll stream it.”
Great news for those of us who like sports that aren’t considered marque events. I’m a big fan of little or never shown Summer Olympic sports like Fencing, Judo and Velodrome Cycling.
April is Autism Awareness Month and while more children than ever are being diagnosed with Autism, many are finding a bit of relief by using some form of modern technology, like Apple’s iPad.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), approximately 1 in 88 children are diagnosed with Autism. That’s a 78 percent increase from just a decade ago. However, the tools to help people with Autism have also grown in the last decade.
A new study, conducted by David Niemeijer, Ph.D., CEO of AssistiveWare, and done in conjunction with Prof. Anne M. Donnellan, Ph.D. (University of San Diego) and Prof. Jodi A. Robledo, Ph.D. (California State University at San Marcos), explored Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), and the role of iPads, iPod touches and iPhones.
The survey polled 232 people: 17 AAC Users, 98 family members, caregivers and friends of AAC users, and 117 professionals working with AAC users.
The study’s findings include:
“One of the most exciting results from the survey is that an overwhelming majority – as many as 60% to 80% of the AAC users and families – are seeing real-life benefits of this technology,” said Niemeijer. “Improvements not just in communication, but also in independence, behavior, atmosphere at home and general wellbeing are observed since using Proloquo2Go. This is a great source of inspiration.”
As you would expect, the ubiquity and affordability of the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch have brought AAC apps to a larger segment of users than ever before.
According to the survey, some users still combine their iOS device with a dedicated device, like those from Prentke Romich and Dynavox. However, more than two-thirds of caregivers say they rely solely on iOS devices.
What’s even more encouraging is that the adoption of iOS devices for Augmentative and Alternative Communication is increasing — over one-third of respondents started using an iOS device less than six months ago.
It is uses like this that should make us all appreciate what Apple and its developers have done with the iPhone and iPad.
Tempted to try out the much talked about Instagram app? Well, be careful where you get it from – as malware authors are distributing malware disguised as the popular app.
It’s great to be open.
Alec Saunders, Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry, talking to YouMail CEO, Alex Quilici:
Alex, one (former) CEO to another, one entrepreneur to another – I think it’s time to hang up the spurs cowboy. From where I sit, it looks like YouMail needed to pivot five years ago to remain relevant, and you missed the window.
Nobody at RIM can ever talk to any company about missing the opportunity to be relevant.
[Via Curious Rat]
Nathan Brookwood:
Android and iOS tablets do a yeoman’s job when it comes to consuming content, but lack the software tools and hardware features needed to create content. Windows-based tablets, which have been around since 2002, have always included the features needed for content creation, but lacked the easy to use interfaces needed for content consumption. The Metro User Interface in Windows 8 supplies these missing elements, and thus positions Win 8-based tablets as the only ones suitable for those who want to both create and consume content on a single device.
Bullshit.
Because it’s Apple, I think a lot of security companies tried to make the most of it, but users and Apple certainly have to be more aware in the future. This day has been coming for many, many years.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has announced that its popular Midway Arcade iOS game collection is compatible with the iCade, a retro arcade cabinet designed for the iPad. It’s a free update for users of the app, which is available for 99 cents from the App Store.
Midway Arcade brings back classic coin-op arcade hits of the 1980s including Spy Hunter, Rampage and Defender – with some unlockable as in-app purchases, including Gauntlet and Gauntlet II.
The iCade is a miniature arcade cabinet sold by ThinkGeek. It holds the iPad in a portrait orientation and incorporates a joystick and buttons that communicate wirelessly with the iPad. It costs $99.99.
Public-Key Cryptography, created in the 1970s, is a matched-pair encryption/decryption standard. Using this method, the sender and recipient share public encryption keys, thereby establishing a relationship of trust. After that occurs, files can be encrypted by one and decrypted by the other without using passwords. While Public-Key Cryptography can use a variety of levels of security, DropKey uses the 256-bit method, a well-established industry standard.
I talked to DropKey’s CEO Ian Schray, and what impresses me about the app is that it only takes one extra click to encrypt a file and send it in an email, than it does if you didn’t encrypt the file. I’ve tried file encryption software in the past and it was a real pain, but this looks really good.
Update: 5/8/2015 This product is no longer available.
Some great pics of one of the greatest cities in the world.
Time Machine in the cloud and so much more. Extra space, file sharing, & all-in-one backup for people who love their Mac.
This looks really cool. Syncing, backup, cloning capabilities for a few dollars a month. It’ll be interesting to see how this does.
The Next Web:
This video is from the Danish TV show Dumt & Farligt. It takes a Phantom Flex, a camera that can run anywhere from $50k-$150k, and applies it to some of the silliest and most awesome 2500 Frames-per-second slow-motion footage I’ve seen.
Talk about “fun with explosives and a high speed camera”!