Among the new features of Apple’s latest iPhone is its ability to shoot and edit HD video. This short film is a great example of what someone with the necessary skills and talent can do with this remarkable device. After watching it, I’m inspired to go out and shoot my own. How about you?

Auto-Scroll Demonstration

This video demonstrates the effect achieved by the JavaScript I include in this post:

The Code: VibrantCMS Auto-Scroll JavaScript

To make the featured images auto-scroll in your VibrantCMS theme, you’ll need to add the following code to /vibrantcms/includes/js/featured.js:

Before jQuery(document).ready(function(){ add:

var scrollcount = 1; // a global var used to setup counting between transitions
var scrollinterval = 7000; // time in milliseconds between transitions
var transinterval = 1000; // time in milliseconds for the transition between featured images

function autoscroll(){
	var buttontotal = jQuery('#steps ul').children().size();
	var marginleft = scrollcount * -960;
	jQuery('.widearea').animate({
		marginLeft: marginleft + 'px'
	},transinterval);
	scrollcount++;
	if(scrollcount == buttontotal) scrollcount = 0;
}

After jQuery(document).ready(function(){ add:

autoscrollID = setInterval('autoscroll()',scrollinterval);
jQuery('#steps li a').click(function(){
	clearInterval(autoscrollID);
});
jQuery('.buttons').click(function(){
	clearInterval(autoscrollID);
});

Once you are finished, the complete file will look something like this:

var scrollcount = 1; // a global var used to setup counting between transitions
var scrollinterval = 7000; // time in milliseconds between transitions
var transinterval = 1000; // time in milliseconds for the transition between featured images

function autoscroll(){
	var buttontotal = jQuery('#steps ul').children().size();
	var marginleft = scrollcount * -960;
	jQuery('.widearea').animate({
		marginLeft: marginleft + 'px'
	},transinterval);
	scrollcount++;
	if(scrollcount == buttontotal) scrollcount = 0;
}

jQuery(document).ready(function(){
		autoscrollID = setInterval('autoscroll()',scrollinterval);
		jQuery('#steps li a').click(function(){
			clearInterval(autoscrollID);
		});
		jQuery('.buttons').click(function(){
			clearInterval(autoscrollID);
		});
		// WooThemes auto-scroll code goes here...
});

For those of you who have been hunting for this type of solution, I hope this helps!

Note: I’d call myself an intermediate JavaScript novice. If you see any improvements that can be made in my code, please share them in the comments.

Get your client's browser details via findmebyIP.com

Whenever I’m troubleshooting a problem on the web, nine times out of ten, it’s vitally important that I know what web browser the end user is using. However, getting this information can often be like pulling teeth. A lot of web users don’t know what web browser they use much less their browser version. That’s why it didn’t take long to sell me on findmebyIP.com.

After you signup for your free account, you’ll be given a URL that you can send to your clients. All they have to do is click on the link, and findmebyIP.com will generate a report that features information on their:

• Browser
• support for CSS3, HTML5, Forms 2.0 and CSS3 Selectors
• and IP Address & Geolocation

Check out the service yourself and get more details at http://findmebyIP.com.

The Medinteract homepage

I was recently contacted by Medinteract, LLC to do a quick redesign of their corporate website. As the project took shape, it ended up being a casebook example of me taking a pre-existing WordPress premium theme, modifying it to my client’s specifications and completing the project in a very short timeframe.

The Cushy Theme by WooThemes

For this project, we selected the Cushy Theme by WooThemes. Clicking through to the theme, you’ll see that it comes with a somewhat “airy” feel.

While it was close to what we were looking for, in order to achieve a more corporate aesthetic, I adjusted the theme’s color palette to match the Medinteract palette and I changed the background images from grunge textures to smooth gradations of color.

Finalizing the Content – A Collaborative Effort

Once we had the general look-and-feel in place, I worked with the Medinteract staff to finalize the site’s content. Using WordPress as a CMS proved to be a valuable time-saver as my client was able to easily add new pages and edit existing ones.

During this process, whenever my client came across a layout option that wasn’t built into the theme, I was able to either adjust the overall code in the theme or create a page template to give them their desired functionality. As an example, I coded a page template which lets a page author easily feature a video simply by adding a video’s URL to a custom field.

A Fast Turn-Around

This project ended up taking approximately ten business days, and we were able to finish it just prior to Medinteract receiving a lot of local and national media attention for their flagship product: ALZselftest. Rather than spinning our wheels trying to come up with a “100% custom designed site,” using a premium theme as a base allowed us to quickly build a website that captures their corporate look-and-feel.

Now, instead of still being in development, Medinteract is able to reap the benefits of a newly redesigned, search-engine optimized website.

Instapaper Lets You “Read Later”
Signing up for an account at Instapaper lets you add a “Read Later” bookmarklet to your browser. Now, any time you come across something you want to read later, simply click “Read Later” in your browser bookmarks, and the article is added to your queue at Instapaper. You can choose to have Instapaper send your unread articles to your Kindle daily or weekly.

Some of My Favorite Instapaper Reads
As an example of some of the content that reads great on a Kindle, here’s a rundown of some of my favorite recent reads on Instapaper (In addition to queuing articles I come across, I also recommend checking out the Instapaper homepage as I found many of these links there):

• The Essential Man – Esquire – “It has been nearly four years since Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw and his ability to speak. Now television’s most famous movie critic is rarely seen and never heard, but his words have never stopped.”
• How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America – The Atlantic Online – “The Great Recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably just beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults.”
• The Comedy Circuit: When Your Brain Gets the Joke – New Scientist – The neuroscience behind humor.
• The Interpreter – The New Yorker – “Dan Everett believes that Pirahã undermines Noam Chomsky’s idea of a universal grammar.”
• One Woman’s Abortion – The Atlantic Online – “Each year for hundreds of thousands of American women there is a wide gulf between what the law forbids and what they feel they must do. The author of this article, whose credentials are trusted by the Atlantic, is a college graduate in her forty-sixth year, the mother of three children, living with her husband and family in one of the many commuter communities in the East”

Who doesn’t want to be taken out of the boredom or sameness or pain of the present at any given moment? That’s what drugs are for, and that’s why people become addicted to them. Carr himself was once a crack addict (he wrote about it in “The Night of the Gun”). Twitter is crack for media addicts. It scares me, not because I’m morally superior to it, but because I don’t think I could handle it. I’m afraid I’d end up letting my son go hungry.

See the full piece for more. (HT Justin Taylor)

via Stop the World: Interesting Times : The New Yorker.

Given that I design and develop websites for a living, you may be surprised to learn that I didn’t design this theme. Rather, this theme is Social Life from Jason Schuller‘s Press75 premium theme store.

“Why would you purchase a theme?” you ask. Well, I’ve been wanting to overhaul this site for the past couple of months; however, a heavy client load has taken all my time. Therefore, when I saw this theme with its focus on all my favorite social media tools, it didn’t take long before I was sold. What’s more, I’ve had the urge to write some posts lately; however, I just wasn’t feeling it with my old theme. Now that I’ve got this site’s aesthetics covered, the desire to write again is trickling through my fingertips.

For those of you who were fans of my “Old West” design, here’s a look at the site just before I pulled the trigger with this new theme:

Dear Google Apps admin,​

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology.  This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5.  As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010.  After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser.  We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience.  We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,
The Google Apps team

290 lbs plus one glass backboard equals some shattered glass and a 52 minute delay. (HT: Yahoo! Sports)

How in the world did I miss this?! Coming out earlier this year, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus stars Debbie Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas. This has got to be one of the best B-movie trailers I’ve seen since Snakes on a Plane.