Steven Hughes http://www.stevenhughes.net UI, UX, Interactive Media, Web Strategy, Design + Code Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:32:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 type designers pay homage to Bowie http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/02/28/type-designers-pay-homage-to-bowie/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=type-designers-pay-homage-to-bowie http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/02/28/type-designers-pay-homage-to-bowie/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:05:30 +0000 admin http://www.stevenhughes.net/?p=681 The limited edition poster features typefaces selected or designed by Blam and leading artists and designers, screen-printed in matt white onto rainbow holographic paper via wallpaper

Graphic designer Blam – of Print-process and Blanka – recently tapped 100 design luminaries to render Bowie’s name in a typeface of their choosing or creation. The results have been gathered onto a limited release print in anticipation of the impending ‘David Bowie is’ retrospective at the V&A, opening on 23 March.

‘The changing faces of Bowie’ poster features contributions from the likes of Pentagram, Trevor Jackson, Anthony Burrill, Stockholm Design Lab and Wallpaper*, the fonts as stylistically eclectic as the musician they pay tribute to. The prints will be available to buy from the museum’s shop, priced at £45. Each artwork comes with a certificate and an insert with insights from the contributors on their submissions.

]]> http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/02/28/type-designers-pay-homage-to-bowie/feed/ 0 Desktop Notifications http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/02/20/desktop-notifications/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=desktop-notifications http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/02/20/desktop-notifications/#comments Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:07:46 +0000 admin http://www.stevenhughes.net/?p=670 Soon, I’ll migrate this blog over to my new site, TBA. The new blog will focus more on development, which will allow for this blog to be more general in nature, and hopefully even one day be a place for my photography.

via smartjava

Just a short article this time, since I’m kind of swamped with work and the start of a new book on Three.js I’m writing for Packt. In this article we’ll very quickly look at the state of desktop notifications. For desktop notifications there is currently a W3C specification, but there aren’t any implementations of this standard yet.

However, Chrome does have support for Desktop notifications, but for an old version (2006) of the specification. Nevertheless, there are a couple of sites out there that detect whether you’re running Chrome, and if so ask your permission to show desktop notifications.

Creating desktop notifications using this old Chrome API actually is very easy and consists out of two steps:

First, you have to ask permission from the user, whether this site is allowed to send notifications to the destkop

Simple Webkit notification example
If you’ve got this permission, you can create a simple notification using the API provided by Chrome.

I’ve created a very simple sample, that you can use to test this functionality:
To accomplish this you only need a couple of lines of code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Simple Webkit notification example</title>
</head>
 
<h2>First click the 'request permission' button</h2>
<button id="request">Request permission</button>
<h2>After permission is granted, click the 'show notification' button</h2>
<button id="show">Show notification</button>
 
<script type="text/javascript">
 
 
    document.getElementById('request').addEventListener('click', function() {
        window.webkitNotifications.requestPermission();
    }, false);
 
 
    document.getElementById('show').addEventListener('click', function() {
        showNotification();
    }, false);
 
    function showNotification() {
        // only show if we've got the correct permissions
        if (window.webkitNotifications.checkPermission() === 0) {
            // note the show()
            window.webkitNotifications.createNotification('images/email.jpg', 'Plain Text Notification', 'Notification from the browser!').show();
        }
    }
</script>
</html>

As you can see in the code, by first clicking on the ‘request permission’ button, we ask the user, through the requestPermission() call, to allow our site to create desktop notifications (as you can see in the previous figure)

As you can see in the code, by first clicking on the ‘request permission’ button, we ask the user, through the requestPermission() call, to allow our site to create desktop notifications (as you can see in the previous figure). Next we can click on the ‘show notification’ button and a simple notification will be shown:

Skitch

And that’s all you have to do! At least for those of you who run Chrome. If you run firefox you can still get desktop notifications, but you need an additional plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/html-notifications/

With this plugin, firefox will understand the chrome/webkit provided API and show the permission interface:

Simple Webkit notification example-1

And allow you to also send desktop notifications to firefox users:
GrowlHelperApp

]]> http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/02/20/desktop-notifications/feed/ 0 Yes, I want this… http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/01/08/yes-i-want-this/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=yes-i-want-this http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/01/08/yes-i-want-this/#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2013 23:47:40 +0000 admin http://www.stevenhughes.net/?p=629 Steve-opoly
Steveopoly

]]> http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/01/08/yes-i-want-this/feed/ 0 R.I.P. Bungee the Cat http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/01/08/r-i-p-bungee-the-cat/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=r-i-p-bungee-the-cat http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/01/08/r-i-p-bungee-the-cat/#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:47:24 +0000 admin http://www.stevenhughes.net/?p=624 R.I.P. Bungee the Cat

In October, 4 years ago, I inherited this awesome cat of 19 years, Bungee. She avoided me year after year and visit after visit to my parents’ house, but once we became roommates, we became best friends. We became so close that sometimes even my fiancee became jealous.

She was old, she seemed slightly grumpy to others at times, but she was an awesome cat. It’s weird working from home and not have her attempting to distract me in exchange for brushing. She did, however live a long and wonderful life. In life, we celebrate, Bungee the Cat!

]]> http://www.stevenhughes.net/2013/01/08/r-i-p-bungee-the-cat/feed/ 0 rebuilding chernobyl – cleaning up a nuclear disaster http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/12/27/rebuilding-chernobyl-cleaning-up-a-nuclear-disaster/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rebuilding-chernobyl-cleaning-up-a-nuclear-disaster http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/12/27/rebuilding-chernobyl-cleaning-up-a-nuclear-disaster/#comments Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:40:05 +0000 admin http://www.stevenhughes.net/?p=620 Rebuilding Chernobyl

via designboom

‘rebuilding chernobyl – cleaning up a nuclear disaster’
all images © volodymyr shuvayev, igor kostin/sygma/corbis, european bank for reconstruction and development

26 years after the reactor explosion at chernobyl in the ukraine, an effort to confine the radioactivity at the disaster site has proven
to be successful despite the dangers involved in containing the scattered deadly materials. using remote controlled equipment,
the ruins are dismantled with plans for permanent storage, sealing the site for over 100 years. with infrastructure valued at
over 2 billion USD in place, MIT has documented a look at the processes involved in cleaning up one of the world’s worst nuclear
disasters.

since the most recent nuclear disaster in japan, designboom has covered an emergency robot by toshiba, capable of withstanding
high radiation and working in nuclear environments for situations like these.

26 years after the reactor explosion at chernobyl in the ukraine, an effort to confine the radioactivity at the disaster site has proven
to be successful despite the dangers involved in containing the scattered deadly materials. using remote controlled equipment,
the ruins are dismantled with plans for permanent storage, sealing the site for over 100 years. with infrastructure valued at
over 2 billion USD in place, MIT has documented a look at the processes involved in cleaning up one of the world’s worst nuclear
disasters.

since the most recent nuclear disaster in japan, designboom has covered an emergency robot by toshiba, capable of withstanding
high radiation and working in nuclear environments for situations like these.

]]> http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/12/27/rebuilding-chernobyl-cleaning-up-a-nuclear-disaster/feed/ 0 google chrome canary – for developers http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/26/google-chrome-canary-for-developers/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-chrome-canary-for-developers http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/26/google-chrome-canary-for-developers/#comments Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:41:35 +0000 admin http://www.stevenhughes.net/?p=599
Google Canary has been released and “promises” to be a useful tool for developers. I’m still on the fence but since you can run Google Chrome and Google Canary side by side, I see no risk.

What’s all the hubbub, bub?

Chrome Canary is like of a mash-up mix of the Google Chrome developer build and Chromium snapshot builds. Also, Canary can run alongside your current Chrome install, which is a new feature. This means that it isn’t linked to your other Chrome application and will run alternate profiles, themes, apps, and use different configurations.

]]> http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/26/google-chrome-canary-for-developers/feed/ 0 Heaps Decent – Hey Hey Hey, Wilcannia, September 2012 http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/19/heaps-decent-hey-hey-hey-wilcannia-september-2012/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=heaps-decent-hey-hey-hey-wilcannia-september-2012 http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/19/heaps-decent-hey-hey-hey-wilcannia-september-2012/#comments Tue, 20 Nov 2012 02:08:05 +0000 admin http://www.stevenhughes.net/?p=587 Heaps Decent – Hey Hey Hey, Wilcannia, September 2012.

]]> http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/19/heaps-decent-hey-hey-hey-wilcannia-september-2012/feed/ 0 feathered piranha by julien salaud http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/11/juliensalaud/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=juliensalaud http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/11/juliensalaud/#comments Sun, 11 Nov 2012 21:30:17 +0000 admin http://www.stevenhughes.net/?p=569 via designboom
french artist julien salaud is well known for his confronting taxidermic assemblages – using a ‘mixing and matching’ approach by combining various parts of animals. ‘vieux piraï emplumé’ could be considered the acme of this unusual craft, where salaud embeds budgerigar feathers into a specially preserved piranha – carefully arranging the plumage to reflect the original patterning along the fish. merging the features of flighted and subaqueous creatures, salaud has created the quintessential frankenfish – corroborating humankind’s ability to manipulate nature and remain at the top of the food chain.

the fish prior to intervention

beginning the 'feathering' process

beginning the ‘feathering’ process

the project corroborates humankind’s ability to manipulate nature and remain at the top of the food chain

the complete 'piranha-bird'

the complete ‘piranha-bird’

]]> http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/11/juliensalaud/feed/ 1 DJ AM http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/11/dj-am/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dj-am http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/11/dj-am/#comments Sun, 11 Nov 2012 19:23:24 +0000 admin http://www.stevenhughes.net/?p=554 R.I.P. DJ AM
]]> http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/11/dj-am/feed/ 0 Will Ferrell will do anything… http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/05/will-ferrell-will-do-anything/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=will-ferrell-will-do-anything http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/05/will-ferrell-will-do-anything/#comments Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:10:10 +0000 admin http://www.stevenhughes.net/?p=544
via egotrip

[video]http://www.youtube.com/v/6rGaE5je7vE[/video] ]]> http://www.stevenhughes.net/2012/11/05/will-ferrell-will-do-anything/feed/ 0