June 30th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
Although they doubled the number of people let into the club last week, the progress seems painfully slow- at least to me. Sitting on the outside, looking in, it seems like an eternity.
Especially since I expected to be well under way at this point. I'm really surprised that they didn't ramp it up much sooner, in order to have a little more app momentum for the launch of the Pre. I know that WebOS is a long-term project for Palm, and an all-in bet on the future of the company, so I can understand them being cautious and trying to get things right. That understanding doesn't ease my frustration with the wait. To be honest, I thought I'd be in beta by now, with the device already a month old. A bleary eyed, sleep deprived beta 
, but a beta nonetheless. As it stands I'm staring at a leaked version and checking my inbox for the official invite.
Maybe I'll be one of the people who doubles this size of the program this week and all of this vague griping will be a prelude to my first look inside the SDK.
Anyone out there had any luck getting in?
Has anyone from the dark side had time to play with the leaked version?
June 24th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
While I'm not a library guy in my day to day (more on that soon, I promise,) I do have some experience with YUI and featured it in my JavaScript library evaluation and talk in April, so it's definitely of interest when a major new release is pending. YUI is mightily impressive. Style-wise, the code is a little stiff/verbose for my liking, but the documentation, executions speed, logic and features of YUI are basically unmatched amongst the libraries I've evaluated. I'll be interested to see if 3 continues that trend and improves upon it.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 24th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
In a post entitled, "Let's Make the Web Faster," Google launches wholeheartedly into the dialog about web performance. They've already offered up Page Speed, which is a welome addition to the page performane toolbox, but starting a high profile dialog helps people like me in a big way. Personally, I would love to find a demand for page performance consulting, as I'd be just the guy to fill such a demand and it would be very rewarding work. Making sites faster means users are happier. I like happy users.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 22nd, 2009 by Rob Larsen
I'm doing a presentation at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University. I'm doing the JavaScript Library Comparisons presentation I did in May once again. I'm going to tweak it a little bit to skew towards more beginners.
Should be fun. Hope to see some of you there.
I'm hoping I can get it filmed so I can put it on the Internet for all to see. We'll see how that goes.
Calling all designers, developers and anyone with a desire to learn about working with JavaScript – join us at CDIA for a fascinating talk with Rob Larsen!
TUESDAY, JULY 14: ROB LARSEN TALK
6:30pm Rob Larsen, Principal Presentation Engineer at Cramer, will demonstrate the differences between coding a single task in raw JavaScript and several popular JavaScript libraries. Comparing metrics like the amount of code written, the size of the codebase, execution time as well as more subject factors like "fun factor" and quality of documentation, Rob will shed some light on the differences between the pure JavaScript API and four of the most popular libraries- Dojo, jQuery, Prototype/Scriptaculous and YUI.
ABOUT Rob Larsen
Rob Larsen has more than 10 years of experience building and designing web sites and web applications. Currently, he's the Principal Presentation Engineer at Cramer. At Cramer, Rob and his team use Javascript, HTML and CSS to produce standards-compliant, accessible and SEO-friendly sites and rich media applications.
Prior to joining Cramer, Rob worked for several years as a consultant for clients like Compete, Duracell, Gillette, the Museum of Science, PC Connection, RSA Security, State Street Corporation and Webex.
Date: Tuesday, July 14
Time: 6:30pm
Location: Studio C
FREE
June 18th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
My good friend Tom Okeefe was interviewed over at Fireworks Designer
(yes, he worked Spymaster into the interview)
Where do you work and what keeps you busy?
When I’m not at Langley training for my next mission I’ve been working at my studio on interactive design, application visual design, mobile phone apps, user interface, logos and yes brand identity. Lately I’ve been designing Flex apps with my friends over at Twin Technologies.
Read the rest of the glorious interview
June 17th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
Between home (getting this place into shape and looking forward to my personal site redesign), freelance (helping out with Tom's blog once again) and work (three separate, concurrent, WP projects) I think I'm going to a bit mental with Wordpress. Good mental. Hacker mental. But mental nonetheless.
Why mental? It's rare for me to do so much server side coding. I've always done it- in moderation. This is absolute gluttony. All kinds of custom features, complicated, multi-template themes, etc. It's all there. All I'm missing is a plugin and I'll be working the full Wordpress experience.
Which isn't to say it's all PHP all the time for me. As anyone who's worked with Wordpress knows, it's a serious mix between server side code and good-old HTML + CSS and JavaScript, so I'm still able to push some boundaries with my core competencies- even while I'm stretching my brain with some semi-serious PHP.
Now if I could just work some Python into the mix, I'd be all set
I'm dying to share some of the work I'm doing. I'm super happy with the results so far.
Anyone out there doing any similar cross-training? I find it helps keep things interesting and ends up making me a better programmer when I get back to my home turf.
You?
June 13th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
The following is a handy list of the things I'm currently thinking about and/or working with as well as a few things that are coming up around the bend. I'll do this kind of thing from time to time. Mental housekeeping.
One with it.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 9th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
I have two technology goals over the summer.
One is to finally do some meaningful Python work. I've been sniffing around Python for a couple of years now and still don't have any real experience with it under my belt. Hopefully I can change that this summer.*
The other, more on-topic goal is to absolutely devour HTML5. I've had my eye on it from the dawn of the whatwg, but I've missed the recent opportunity we've been presented (in the form of browser support) to play with some of the new toys in a hands-on manner. That'll change this summer.
And I'll be sharing what I find, here.
See how well that works for all involved?
Read the rest of this entry »
June 6th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
Check it out:
Google Page Speed
Beyond the plugin itself, the rules are definitely of interest:
Read the rest of this entry »