To educate, inform, inspire

Unicode characters

April 17, 2013 - Technology , Who knew? - by Mark - No Comments

Have you ever seen Twitter updates/ tweets with unusual characters included in them? Perhaps you have received an email message with an airplane in the subject line? Have you wondered how thus was done? Yes, these capabilities have been around for some time. However, I have been asked recently by […]

2013 Illinois Web Design Contest

April 15, 2013 - Technology , Web , WOW - by Mark - No Comments

Now that the 2013 Illinois Web Design Contest is history, I thought it might be appropriate to share some thoughts and observations. First, congratulations to everyone who participated (in either the secondary or post-secondary contest). You took the extra effort to grow and learn. Those who are taking classes in […]

Visual QR Codes

April 10, 2013 - Technology , Who knew? - by Mark - 5 Comments

I never cease to be amazed at how fast technology changes. I suspect this is mostly old news for most, but you can do some pretty impressive things including images in QR codes. Yes, you can generate default values within tools like Adobe Acrobat (I covered that in a previous […]

Adobe MUSE Fundamentals

April 5, 2013 - Adobe , Technology , Web - by Mark - 18 Comments

I am giving a webinar on April 9 covering the fundamentals of Adobe MUSE for educators and needed to prepare some slides and demonstration materials. In reviewing my weblog entries, I realized that I have not included a post on this tool. I thought it might be helpful to provide […]

Photoshop Touch for Phones

March 18, 2013 - Adobe - by Mark - No Comments

Adobe released their Photoshop Touch app for both iPhone and Android phones on Feb. 27, 2013. Since I already have the tablet version (and created a cheatsheet for its use), I wanted to briefly review this new version for phones. Given that most of us have a smartphone readily available, […]

Adobe Brackets Revisited

March 11, 2013 - Adobe , Technology , Web - by Mark - No Comments

Last July, I examined the Adobe Brackets tool (for editing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files). That version was Sprint 10. I am now working with Sprint 20 and think it is about time to review the tool again. A lot has changed. Many thanks to Ray Camden for recently providing […]

Windows 8 apps with HTML, CSS, and JS

March 4, 2013 - Technology , Web , Windows - by Mark - No Comments

I recently spent a little time investigating what it takes to develop a simple app for Windows 8 using only HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Obviously, one needs Windows 8 to start and to test the resulting app. One should also have a copy of Visual Studio 2012 (this seems to […]

Edge Reflow – the code

February 25, 2013 - Adobe , Technology , Web - by Mark - No Comments

Last week, I examined the recently released Adobe Edge Reflow tool itself. I thought it might be worthwhile to examine the generated code. For reference purposes, the file I created last week is the one I plan to examine in this current weblog post. As mentioned last week, these generated […]

Adobe Edge Reflow – first look

February 18, 2013 - Adobe , Technology , Web - by Mark - No Comments

Responsive design (where content is modified to display on a given device) is easy to discuss and sometimes difficult to implement. Not only should your text be positioned properly for various devices, but images and fonts should respond accordingly. The days of having a website which can be only viewed […]

Book review: 31 Days of Twitter Tips

February 12, 2013 - Technology - by Mark - 2 Comments

31 Days of Twitter Tips: Grow Your Online Influence, 12 Minutes at a Time by Becky Robinson is a useful book for those just getting started with Twitter and for those who have been using Twitter for some time. As many readers know, I use Twitter (some would say a […]

LESS CSS

February 4, 2013 - Technology , Web - by Mark - 1 Comment

CSS files can become quite large/ cumbersome. Additionally, there are some issues with CSS. These include: not having an ability to use math (for example take current border width and add 5 pixels to it), not being able to reuse common styles not being able to modify existing values not […]

Mac tips

January 28, 2013 - Apple , Technology - by Mark - 6 Comments

Since I obtained a MacBook Pro in 2012, I have been accumulating various tips and tricks to customize the environment. I thought it would be appropriate to share some of these with readers. If you are aware of others and would like them included, please place your thoughts in the […]

Node.js Server

January 21, 2013 - Technology , Web , WOW - by Mark - No Comments

Now that we have some understanding of some of the capabilities of Node.js, it is time to investigate its true strength – as a web server. Recall that many reseller accounts will not allow Node.js to act as a server as it is viewed as a long running task (and […]

Markdown and Node.js

January 14, 2013 - Technology , Web , WOW - by Mark - 1 Comment

I realize that not everyone wants to write HTML. Tools like Dreamweaver make it much simpler, but there are times (particularly when taking notes) that an alternative might be more appropriate. Markdown has been around for a number of years. Essentially, you markup your document in plain text and can […]

Node.js

January 11, 2013 - Technology , Web , WOW - by Mark - No Comments

Node.js uses JavaScript to run a web server – yes, JavaScript on the server. One of the main benefits is that a single language is used on both the client and server sides (JavaScript). I know some would argue that JavaScript is not a “true” programming language since it is […]