On a recent project, I spent the better part of an hour (okay, maybe longer) fighting with what I would learn is an interesting anomaly in the way that Firefox (4 and 5) deal with CSS3 shorthand transition notation. What baffled me was the fact that the other players, Webkit (Safari and Chrome) and Opera browsers, worked properly (or least what I thought was proper) with the exact same code. The premise was to have an area with a fixed height, set to overflow: hidden, but then allow the site navigation to scroll (transition) to the proper anchor, resizing the content box’s height to accommodate the contents while keeping the other contents hidden.

To illustrate the problem, have a look at this simplified example:

The two columns of text each have a transform: translateY(-100px); applied to them on :hover. Additionally, they are both set to transition the effect – thereby “scrolling” the text up by 100px. Simple enough. And if you are looking at this in anything other than Firefox, both columns behave the same. (more…)

If you are as big a geek as I am, then you probably find yourself consumed by gadget envy at least 2-3 times a year — usually around a certain “fruit” company’s announcements, or, as was the case last week, the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. This year’s CES could easily have been dubbed the “Android Electronics Show”, as Google’s operating system was literally everywhere. Almost every major, and minor, hardware manufacturer had some new piece of electronics sporting the Android OS. It’s no secret that I am very excited by the Android platform, and personally have 4 Android-powered phones, as well as 2 Samsung Galaxy Tabs and a Google TV around the house. So, all of the excitement of CES was even more exaggerated for me — to the point where Stephanie was quickly annoyed with my constant “ooooh, look at that!” proclamations at each live-streamed press conference.

I love my Galaxy Tab, but I am also eagerly awaiting some of the other new tablets. This is going to be a slugfest for sure. (more…)

I actually had this post written right before my vacation this summer (the reason for not posting here for 6 weeks!), but somehow managed to lose it. But oh well, the topic is just as hot as ever, as witnessed by several blogposts recently from the likes of the BBC and YouTube. My favorite quote from the YouTube article is “Today, Adobe Flash provides the best platform for YouTube’s video distribution requirements, which is why our primary video player is built with it.” I think that basically sums it up.

For all the excitement surrounding HTML5, it seems that the idea of “replacing Flash” for video delivery is the one that gets everyone going. But, as is pointed out in those two articles (and numerous others), it’s just not that simple – especially as long as there is a hefty majority of users on Internet Explorer 8 and below. If history is any indication, it will be many, many years before those browsers will disappear. (more…)