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Responsive.

17 days ago
Thursday January 19th, 2012

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It’s been a few days now since WordCamp and everything has begun to sink in a little. Here are my main bullet points from the event:

WordPress is huge.
It’s no longer a pain in the ass to run on Windows.
Responsive web design is the way to go.
Plugin development is something I’d like to dive deeper into.
I discovered the distraction free writing feature.

In the short term, responsive web design was the presentation that triggered me the most. I’m familiar with response web design and use a lot of responsive sites. Even this site is somewhat responsive, it’ll remove some white space on a device with a smaller screen, for instance a tablet device. Now I want to make the site’s design even more responsive and better looking on mobile devices. WPtouch is a great plugin, but when it’s possible to get the site to look familiar even on small screen, there’s really no need to use it.

One option would be to make the current theme more responsive, but that will probably be a lot of work for someone like me. Also, from past attempts to do my own redesign from scratch, I know my limitations. So my best bet is what I always do: Find a nice looking, free theme and hack away!

I’ve been looking around a little, and at this point Renova seems like a good option. But I’d prefer to have two columns, not just one. That can probably be arranged, though. It might take a while, but I’m positive the next design will be responsive. For more responsive goodness, have a look at the Media Queries showcase.

It’s WordCamp!

22 days ago
Saturday January 14th, 2012

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WordPress

Here we are. It’s the 14th of Januar and the first of what will hopefully be annual WordCamp Norway. The event is sold out, the presenters look sharp and judging by the attendees list, the crowd is good looking. Even though no one is reading this, I intend to update with pictures throughout the day. I’m using the Android WordPress app, and I have to admit I’m struggling a bit with it. But we’ll send how it works out.

At least I managed to ~~write~~ wrestle through this entry and schedule it yesterday!

09:53 CET: After a good morning walk I’m at Thon Hotell Opera. I’ve got my name tag and t-shirt (another one of them convention t-shirts you never use) and the main room is starting to fill up, but it’s not crowded enough for a picture yet. I’ve seen one familiar face, one of the presenters – who looked somewhat hung over. There’s public Wi-Fi, by the way. I’m not connecting.

I’ve been trying to use the Android WordPress app to update, but holy crap, the thing is unstable when handling images: Crashes, XML parsing errors, disappearing updates. The WordPress app has them all. So I fell back to using Opera Mobile, which works, but it’s not ideal since the WordPress admin GUIDE isn’t exactly exactly made for mobile.

11:25 CET: After Hanni Ross’ opening remarks I know now even more ways how to contribute to WordPress. Not sure where she got the percentages on the Norwegian translations of WordPress, though, because they don’t match the ones on translate.wordpress.org. And now: “Writing a plugin” by Morten Hauan. Title in English, presentation in Norwegian. Trailer fraud?

12:08 CET: Hauan gave a great introduction to plugin writing in WordPress. I’ve only touched the surface of plugin development in WordPress myself, and got some ideas on how to change wp-days-ago with what I learned. Next up: “Responsive Web Design” by Wilhem Joys Andresen. Voted best dressed this evening.

12:38 CET: Woah, that was fast! Wilhem, former Opera Software employee, now independent consultant, briefly took us through media queries. Nothing new and groundbreaking, but the more you talk about it, the greater the chance designers around the world will see the light. It’s the future, man (and it started way back in 2001). Unlike 99% of other presenters, Joys Andresen finished twenty minutes before schedule. Soon it’s time for lunch and a room packed with nerds awkwardly socializing.

13:57 CET: We’re back from lunch and I’m happy to report that there will be no pictures of food. But the lunch was nice. Next Marko Heijnen will tell us how to create native apps with WordPress. Rumors have it that the hipster phone will be involved. Maybe Marko knows something about the bugs in the Android client as well.

14:31 CET: And Marko is done. Must have been a nightmare for the interpreters to handle that one. Not as much native focus as I’d hoped, but gave a good introduction to how you can use WordPress while thinking way out of the box.

14:52 CET: I don’t know about you, but I just had a powernap. Feeling fresh an ready for Josh Holmes, who will tell us how to run WordPress on Windows. My experience: Noooooo!

16:01 CET: Josh is done and I’m not scared of running WordPress on Windows anymore. The rest of the pack is preparing for lighting sessions, while I’m heading out to do some errands. Back at 17:00 sharp for Zé Fontainhas’ keynote.

17:01 CET: Let the keynote commence!

17:38 CET: Aaand we’re done. Zé took us through the history of WordPress and took a quick look into the future. Certainly interesting stuff, followed by a good Q& A session.

I’m coming back next year. Given that there will be a next year, of course.

Pictures after the break. Continue reading "It’s WordCamp!" →

Machinarium.

23 days ago
Friday January 13th, 2012

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Computer Games, Reviews

When it comes to games, I’m not much of a puzzle guy. But since I got LIMBO a few months ago and enjoyed it quite a lot, I decided to give Machinarium a try when it was on sale on Steam a while back.

Machinarium is a point-and-click adventure game with heavy use of puzzles and brain teasers. It’s created by Amanita Design, a small, independent game developing studio based in the Czech Republic. The game was released in 2009, but that something is “old” doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad. “Old” in this case means that us patient gamers can get it on sale. “Old” in this case also means that the game is written in Flash, but we’ll come back to that later. Machinarium tells the story about Josef, a little robot who finds himself dumped on a scrapheap. After re-assembling himself he sets off towards the city to look for a friend. The story, which is told without the use of text or dialogue, unfolds as you play, and even though it’s not the most intriguing and creative story I’ve seen – you’ll probably feel it’s very familiar – it’s very well told.

Continue reading "Machinarium." →

The Sad State of Personal Wi-Fi Security.

24 days ago
Thursday January 12th, 2012

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Internet, Technology

If you have an internet connection at home, there’s a good chance you also have a wireless router set up to give you a wireless internet connection. Many people are happy with the default settings when they turn on their wireless routers for the first time. In some cases, if the router is provided by an ISP that gives a crap, you have a router with good encryption and a decent password. If you’re not that lucky, the default settings mean you’re sharing your internet connection and everything you do while online with anyone with a little knowledge of how Wi-Fi works.

Encryption is the key to safe wireless internet usage and while all wireless routers available today support a range of different encryption standards, many are configured with no encryption or very poor encryption by default. As an example, let’s have a look at the wireless access points that are visible from my apartment.

No less than 16 wireless access points are in range of my computer. I found them by using a tool called inSSIder, which anyone can download and use to scan for available wireless access points. It basically does the same as your operating system when it searches for wireless networks to connect, but the information collected from the networks found is displayed in a very convenient way. The main point of interest here is the Privacy column, which tells us what kind of encryption each network uses. There is one network with no encryption at all, 6 with WEP encryption, 3 with WPA encryption and 6 with WPA2-AES encryption (displayed as “RSNA-CCMP” in the table). As you can see, the WPA encryption comes in two flavors; WPA-AES (WPA-CCMP) and WPA-TKIP.

Initially, the network without encryption seems like an interesting one: It will give you free internet access by simply connecting to it. Personally, I get a little nervous when I see an open wireless network like this. It might be tempting to use it, but in some cases it’s a trap!. Someone might have set up this honeypot to lure you to connect to it just to record everything you do while connected. And by everything I mean everything: usernames, passwords and credit cards numbers – every single piece of data that is transmitted between your computer and the internet. Remember that free wireless internet you use at the coffee shop and the pizza place? It might be that you are connecting to a honeypot, not the free wireless network. And even if you are connecting to the coffee shop’s network, anyone can eavesdrop on the connection as long as the connection is unencrypted. This is the reason why I never connect to an unencrypted network and neither should you.

Continue reading "The Sad State of Personal Wi-Fi Security." →

January One-liners.

25 days ago
Wednesday January 11th, 2012

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One-liners

A new year is upon us and the one-liners just keep coming.

“I don’t need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.” — Stephen Fry
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” — Steve Jobs
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” — Steve Jobs
“Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.” — Steven Wright
“All warfare is based on deception.” — Sun Tzu
“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” — Sun Tzu
“Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“The reason fat men are good natured is they can neither fight nor run.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“When you’re at the end of your rope, tie a know and hold on.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.” — Thomas Alva Edison
“I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.” — Thomas Alva Edison

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www.vegard.net

Responsive.

It’s WordCamp!

Machinarium.

The Sad State of Personal Wi-Fi Security.

January One-liners.

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