Nicedream

Google Chrome Frame

Nina Richards — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:44:21 +0200

Google Chrome Frame brings Chrome's rendering and JavaScript engines to Internet Explorer via a browser plugin. The Google Chrome browser is based on WebKit, an open source browser engine. As Google puts it:

Fingertips Makes it into Webuser Magazine's Best New Websites

Nina Richards — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:57:40 +0200

Issue 219 of Webuser Magazine features the Fingertips website in its Best New Websites!

A Quick Update

Nina Richards — Fri, 22 May 2009 18:07:29 +0200

To say the very least, work has been pretty hectic over the last six months. I've been involved with some very exciting projects which I hope to detail here very soon!

Getting Things Done

Nina Richards — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:48:16 +0100

Despite the current gloomy economic climate, this winter looks like it's going to be a very busy one for me. So much so in fact that I've had to re-think much of my day-to-day workflow.

Google Chrome

Nina Richards — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:27:05 +0200

Google have released their very own web browser called â€œChromeâ€, which was announced just a couple of days ago on the Google Blog. The new browser isn't quite finished yet and has the inevitable Beta label, but it's now available for download. Only a Windows version is available at the moment, but Mac OS X and Linux versions are in development.

Article: Easy to Use, Hard to Make

Nina Richards — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:06:53 +0200

I've put together an article that discusses how the usability of a basic, unintuitive form can be hugely improved by thinking like the user. It uses a real example from a web-based application I recently developed.

Firefox 3 Sets Guinness World Record

Nina Richards — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:55:32 +0200

Firefox 3 had more than 8 million downloads in the 24 hours of Download Day. After careful review by the Guinness World Record people, it's official! They will be presented with the actual certificate next week in London.

Firefox Download Day 2008

Nina Richards — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:47:25 +0200

The Firefox 3 web browser will be officially released later this month. It will be available in over 45 languages on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1

Nina Richards — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:38:07 +0200

Firefox 3 has reached release candidate status, which means that it shouldn't be too long before general release.

While on the subject of colour...

Nina Richards — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:03:29 +0200

Here's a fun article that brought back a few memories:

Colour Reproduction on the Web

Nina Richards — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:37:26 +0200

I've written an article about web colour issues and a guide describing the best practice colour setup for web designers. My aim was to help clarify some of the Mac OS X vs Windows colour issues on the web and to provide details of a best practice setup.

BBC Interview with Tim Berners-Lee

Nina Richards — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:26:56 +0100

The BBC news website currently has an article and a video of an interview with Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.

IE8 Default Rendering Mode U-Turn

Nina Richards — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:34:10 +0100

A few months ago it was revealed that Microsoft's Internet explorer 8 browser would feature multiple page rendering modes. This controversial decision was made worse by the fact that the standards compliant rendering mode was not the default.

Firefox 3 Beta 3

Nina Richards — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:23:27 +0100

Firefox 3 Beta 3 has been release by Mozilla for development and testing purposes. The final version will probably arrive within a few months.

RSS Feed Added

Nina Richards — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:48:15 +0100

I've added an RSS feed for this blog. You can subscribe by using the link below or by using a supported browser.

IE7 to be Automatically Installed

Nina Richards — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:18:15 +0100

Microsoft will add Internet Explorer 7 to its auto-update system on 12th February 2008, and warns companies that want to stick with IE6 that they need to take action.

Sun Acquires MySQL

Nina Richards — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:32:12 +0100

Sun Microsystems has bought MySQL AB, the Swedish company that is the creator and owner of MySQL, in a deal worth $1 billion.

Summing Up 2007

Nina Richards — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 12:43:58 +0100

It has been a year since I decided to go freelance - how time flies. As it also coincides with a new year it seems like a good point to briefly sum up the past year and to look to the future.

Christmas Break

Nina Richards — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:26:24 +0100

Christmas is upon us again (I'm sure it happens sooner each year!) so I'm winding down for the break. I've finished normal project work and will be resuming on 2nd January.

Internet Explorer 7 Tries and Fails

Nina Richards — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 18:54:21 +0100

Web developers that follow web standards can often be heard muttering obscenities very near to the words "Internet Explorer" or the letters "IE".

Amazon Kindle - Redefining the Book?

Nina Richards — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:24:21 +0100

Amazon believes they have redefined the book. Later today they are expected to unveil their own-brand of e-book reader hardware and associated service.

Ruby on Rails Inspired PHP

Nina Richards — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 13:36:21 +0200

I came across this article during one of my tech news binges a few weeks ago. It's a short account of a 2 year effort to rewrite a 100,000 line PHP project in Ruby on Rails. Despite hiring one of the best Rails programmers to undertake this effort, it didn't quite go to plan: they eventually reverted back to PHP to do the rewrite in just 2 months.

Too Many 3.30AMs

Nina Richards — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:40:10 +0200

It's been a quite a few weeks since I last made a post, terrible I know, but I have a good excuse!

PHP 4 - End of Life

Nina Richards — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:49:40 +0200

I've been waiting a while to drop PHP 4 and move completely to PHP 5 for the projects I'm involved with but there is a problem with getting hosting companies to upgrade or to provide the means to switch between PHP 4 and PHP 5.

New Article: MVC Performance and AJAX

Nina Richards — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 15:02:04 +0200

Being in the midst of developing a lightweight framework that has MVC capabilities, I thought I'd write a short article considering the performance issues.

Portfolio Updates Soon

Nina Richards — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:10:58 +0200

At some point soon I'll be updating the Portfolio area of the site. The updates will include both brand new work and some old, archived work that I think deserves to be there.

Restored

Nina Richards — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 09:46:05 +0200

As some people know, I like to make music in my spare time, so here's something that I'm currently working on. Still a work in progress but I'm pleased with it so far.

Bad Luck

Nina Richards — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:02:00 +0200

Some plain bad luck occurred when someone crashed into my car while it was parked. Well, perhaps more precisely: some idiot crashed into another unfortunate person's car with such force that its wheels buckled and it smashed into mine. Then they sped off, leaving the scene of the accident. Someone thankfully got their number plate.

A Solemn Note

Nina Richards — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:00:00 +0200

It has been an eventful couple of months to say the least and I really haven't been posting to this blog as much as I would like to.

Survivalism

Nina Richards — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 22:00:14 +0200

It has been a little while since I made an entry here but things have been getting a little busy recently, which is great news for my self-employement.

Nine Inch Nails

Nina Richards — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:09:15 +0100

Managed to see Nine Inch Nails play in Manchester at the Apollo on Sunday. Just one word - Amazing!

Initial Portfolio Now Live

Nina Richards — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:28:15 +0100

The Portfolio section is now live with a few examples of my work. I'll be tweaking and adding more soon but it's a starting point.

Frameworks

Nina Richards — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:32:00 +0100

I've spent the past few days looking at various PHP web development frameworks. I need something flexible and lightweight but I'm not 100% happy with any of them. Don't get me wrong, a lot of thought has gone into some of these frameworks, but I want something that can scale without compromising speed of execution at any size.

In Development

Nina Richards — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 12:00:00 +0100

I wanted to get so much more done on this website before putting it live but I could wait no longer. I'll be expanding the site whenever I get a spare moment, quite heavily over the next couple of weeks if all goes to plan.

Self-Employed

Nina Richards — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:00:00 +0100

After six and a half years working for a web development agency it was my time to move on. In November 2006 I finally handed in my resignation. This came as a bit of a shock to my colleagues. I timed this carefully to give myself a good break over the holiday period to clear my head and think about what to do next.

It's About Time...

Nina Richards — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:00:00 +0100

I've just looked at the dates of the original Photoshop files and they reveal that I started this site about two and a half months ago. A couple of days after that I had it all nicely coded and it even had some content.