Estes Park & The Stanley Hotel

So we’ve spent almost the last week hangin’ with the fam here in Estes Park Colorado, and I have to say it’s probably one of the best places I have had the pleasure of vacationing. Nestled in the Rockies, right on the doorstep of the Rocky Mountain National Park, it’s scenic, laid back and a perfect mix of BFE and civilization. It’s been great.

Today I went on the ghost tour at the Stanley here in town, and it was pretty amazing. The history side of the tour alone made it worth far more than the $13 bucks they charge, but the experience I had on the 4th floor set me back quite a bit. For those who don’t know, Stephen King was inspired by his visit here t write the Shinning in the 70’s, and the Hotel has been amazing people for 100 years this Saturday. Built in 1909 by Freelan (F.O.) Stanley, the hotel is an amazing structure, built to make his wife happy during the 5months a year they would spend here in Estes Park every year.

I think the bit that struck me most was the fact that Stanley invented the modern process for creating film, and glass plate emulsions. Before this time, Wet Plate Collodion dominated the photographic world. The collodion plates are very difficult to work with, and are very slow, so Stanley inventing a gelatin based plate, that could be automated was a huge boon, and ultimately made him a multi-millionaire before he sold the business to George Eastman. The Stanley Steamer was also invented and produced by F.O. and his twin brother Francis, and some 10,000 steam powered cars were produced between 1902 and 1924.

Okay, so back to the hotel tour. We walked through the ballroom, and learned about the stage that was setup for the Shinning mini-series, and how Stephen King stayed in the Presidential Suite #217 when he was inspired for the book. Eventually making our way up to the 4th floor where the nannies and children were quartered, which also happens to be the most active floor with paranormal experiences. This is where I had mine.

We walked to the middle hall of one wing to a small square niche in the hall which used to be the play area. We were all then handed a piece of Taffy to hold out in our hand, to see if we could persuade a spirit to interact with it. When I extended my hand with the candy, it almost immediately became chilled in the middle directly around the Taffy. Maybe a 3-4 inch circle just around the candy; not my finger tips, and not my wrist. If I moved my hand, the chill would go away then come back, and after about a minute the sensation became quite a bit stronger and the best way I can describe it is that it was as if someone was sitting in front of my hand blowing on it with a straw, but with cold air. Very strange, and exciting at the same time.

This is he first time that I can say without a doubt that I have had a paranormal experience of any kind, and I would really like to go back to the hotel and stay a couple night to see if I could expand upon it; alas not this trip - but I will come back.

IE 8 Web Standards Support - exceptional fail

IE 8 has been a huge step forward for Microsoft in their browser development, and also a step back. But this latest bit of marketing drivel has to make you stop and go “hmmmm.”

So IE now supports web standards eh? Does that mean it passes the Acid 3 test? Surely it must, I mean it has a checkmark next to the Web Standards bit. Ummm. No. Not so much.

I think the guys on the marketing team for IE 8 need to stop drinking the bujiboo juice and figure out that they still suck in this department. Check out the results for the Acid 3 test. Not even close.

Now, to be fair Opera only hit an 85/100, and Firefox came in at 72/100 but both Safari (4 beta) and Chrome nailed it with 100/100. I’ve read that Opera should be at 100/100, but even the latest 9.6 download doesn’t get any higher for me.

Developers don’t really need another test to tell them that IE is not all that and a bag of chips, but the average web user doesn’t know any better. That’s the real problem; 67% of all of my visitors still use some version of IE, and that means I still have to code for 3 versions of it now. For all my work, I could care less, if you want to use IE 6 you deserve to get crappy web display - but from a business sense, IE 6 really can’t be ignored. Now there’s IE 7, IE 8, and even IE 7 compatibility mode (which differs from the real IE 7) in IE 8. Great one there Billy.

At least they’re on board with a new browser test application for Expression Web called SuperPreview, which, while still in beta, makes cross-version testing in IE moderately tolerable.  There’s an excellent write-up on the Expression Web team Blog, where there is also a download link.

Now if only we could get the IE team to follow along and play nice….

Mobile device support through JavaScript and CSS

If you are in the business of designing, building or maintaining a website these days, you should also be concerned with making sure the maximum number of people are able to view the content on those sites. Meaning that if you aren’t doing something to support mobile web browsing than you are a bit behind the curve. It’s really an accessibility issue, not too far off from the ideas implemented in making websites accessible to people with disabilities. We’re just talking device accessibility, so let’s take a look at a couple of really simple ways to get this done.

JavaScript

If you go the JavaScript route, I found this little gem some time ago, that covers both the client and server side detection using JavaScript and PHP. Here is an example page of what the output looks like if your detection should fail. If you are on a mobile device, the page redirects you to the root of FloggingEnglish.com. I know some older and low-end devices may not support JavaScript, but since it’s pretty freakin’ ubiquitous these days, so I think it’s pretty safe. There are other JavaScript solutions out there, but this is one is clean, simple and easy to update.

This would be a good solution to incorporate into a Flash site as well, especially since the iPhone doesn’t support Flash yet. I know the iPhone is not the most widely used device, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider that too. With the output from the example you could place special tags or content based on the type of device, offer alternative viewing solutions for your visitors, or simply redirect to a CSS based solution for faster viewing.

CSS

Working a well written CSS style layout into your site is always an excellent option whether you’re primarily concerned about mobile devices or not, but with CSS 3 it’s becoming easier for developers to target mobile devices accurately and reliably. Media Queries are relative newcomers to the CSS scene and they are becoming more supported and in the case of Apple, the way they recommend you target the iPhone. They are currently Supported by all main stream browsers that are standards compliant, and supposedly IE is even on board with this one, but Opera, Safari and Firefox all support media queries.

So what is it then?

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”/includes/css/mobile/screen_320.css” type=”text/css” media=”screen and (min-device-width: 320px)”>

Yup. That’s it. The above code would target any mobile device where the viewport measures 320px or wider, like the iPhone for example. Granted that’s a simplistic example, but you get the idea. Dean over at Bushido Designs posted a great article Bulletproof Mobile device detection. In fact that example doesn’t really convey the strengths of media queries and how flexible this method really is. If you take a look at the W3C recommendation, you will see the following features:

• width
• height
• device-width
• device-height
• orientation
• aspect ratio
• device-aspect-ratio
• color
• color-index
• monchrome
• resolution
• scan
• grid

So you can begin to see the strengths of this method and how it could be the key to blissful mobile CSS support. Using the color feature for example would allow you target a specific stylesheet for devices capable of rendering in color, while using aspect-ration you could target 16:9 devices as well, like the PSP (480 x 272).

Of course none of this would be an issue if Apple and Opera hadn’t decided to ignore the handheld media type with their mobile browsers. With the two biggest mobile browsers off the tabel, that pretty much renders the use of handheld useless. A move that is decidedly Microsoft-esque.

iPhone frustrations | dev problems and general WTF?

I am going to preface all of this by saying I love my iPhone. I do, it’s awesome. That being said, there are few things that really make me wonder just WTF they were thinking.

On top of my WTF list is the process involved in retrieving images sent to my phone from other mobile devices. I would really like to meet the brain child who thought it was super user friendly to have to make me go to a website, and enter in, not one… but TWO alphanumeric strings to view the image that was sent to me. All from a device that is incapable (for now) of copy and paste. This has to be one of the most retarded things i have ever come across, and the rocket scientist who dreamt that nightmare should go back school and learn about usability. Given the fact that the images are not stored permanently there, why they just wouldn’t create a linking system like twitpic is beyond me. Just tack a freakin’ GUID on the end of the URL for Pete’s sake! Gah.

Another thing that plagued me this afternoon was setting multiple devices to enable my iPhone to accept my almost completed app. I went through the setup process of adding the device only to get a code signing error. The same error that hundreds of other developers have gotten. Luckily for me all I had to do was go under Project > edit project settings and then change the Code Signing Identity to the right profile, and viola! I was in business. This seems really clunky to me, and left me wondering if there was abetter way Apple could handle this. If this happens to you, and the Xcode UI options doesn’t fix it, there is a manual process described here, and other places.

Today has been quite frustrating as far as my Apple Developer stuff goes. In general I have accomplished very little. I was unable to open a business checking account because the po-dunk chuckleheads in town decided to make up their own rules in regards to what I need to open an account. Rules contrary to what other banks say, and what the legals dudes who set up my LLC say. The gal on the phone actually said to me, “well, here at bumf$%#! bank, we have our own set of rules…”, well you can guess who she was talking to after that morsel of knowledge. That’s not to say there aren’t any folks in town who know what’s what - but this old biddy was playing with a box of rocks as far I could tell.

It seems like this is the longest, most arduous process available to get this all taken care of, and it looks like it will probably another 3 weeks before I will have my app in the App Store. I hope it goes faster, but I’m not holding my breath…..

Xbox Natal - does it mean “not at all” real?

What seems like something that could be right out of every gamers fantasy, Microsoft has concocted the idea of hands free, body sensing gaming and put it to pixels on the project website. The videos portray several scenarios of advanced game play and interaction, and I’ll be the first to say that if they could do it well, I would be on it like a Frat boy on a Cheerleader - but as is usually the case with vaporware; it just winds up looking cooler than it ever is. Especially since it never emerges. I know, I’m a pragmatic type of guy - what can I say?

Given the relative ease at which I can fubar the connection of my Wii-motes, the idea of this working really well in a brightly sunlit room seems very far fetched. Since not all gamers (just the serious ones) live in their Mom’s basement, normal folk don’t always have the ideal setup for their consoles, so it would seem to me that this is an idea that is destined to be problematic at best.

Just the same, it looks super cool in fake-o-vision setup on the Natal project site, and is exciting to think that I could roundhouse my own way through Street Fighter 87. Take a look though, it would be super freakin’ awesome. You can also file this under “man I really want to go to E3!”