Flickr releases “liquid” layout – joins “responsive design” trend

We’re releasing a new “liquid” layout.

Flickr’s “liquid” design adjusts the photo page and image size based on the size of your browser window. With that your photos will look great on a laptop screen, and look even more stunning on larger screens.  With the new design:

  • The biggest photo size is shown depending on your browser window
  • There is absolutely no “upscaling”, and we try to avoid downsampling as much as possible.
  • The title and the sidebar are visible without scrolling on landscape oriented photos. (which are the vast majority of photos on Flickr.)

via Flickr Blog

 

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And, from Webmonkey:

Web developers, take note: Flickr’s new layout isn’t just eye-catching, it’s also somewhat responsively designed — adjusting to the myriad screens on the web today and displaying the best photo possible without clogging your tubes with huge photo downloads. Flickr does stop short of scaling pages down to phone-size screens — for which there is a separate mobile website — but it resizes nicely to handle tablets.

That’s right, Flickr is the latest (and perhaps the largest) website to embrace not just a mostly responsive design with a liquid layout and media queries, but also a responsive approach to images.

 

Are we seeing a new development in design, the – “take into account the iPad” ?

 

// Thx – Jon Jensen

Foursquare integrates check-ins with Facebook Timeline Map

If you use foursquare to check-in to your favorite locations and share those notifications on Facebook, then you’re in for a treat.

Foursquare has announced that your foursquare check-ins will now populate your Timeline map. Before, only actual Facebook check-ins as well as location tagged images would populate that map. This is a pretty nifty update.

When you visit someone’s map on their Timeline, you can see pins of all of the places that they’ve been without you having to dig through their actual profile to find location-style updates. Adding foursquare check-ins will certainly make this a more enjoyable experience.

via The Next Web

 

If you’re wondering about all your past check-ins, I only show about two months worth of history on my Facebook map. This could mean that only the check-ins since Foursquare integrated with Facebook Timeline are included.

 

Verizon is bringing 10x speed increase to cities – 100Gbps networks

Verizon already has 100Gbps (gigabit-per-second) connections over its optical core networks across continents. Now the carrier is bringing that speed to its metro networks, which enterprises tap into for high-speed data connections. The metro networks so far have been limited to 10Gbps or 40Gbps.

Though the carrier doesn’t expect many customers to start ordering 100Gbps connections soon, it is preparing for the future.

Verizon’s 100-gigabit U.S. backbone technology forms the basis of a high-speed, low-latency network for financial trades that was inaugurated between Chicago and New York last month. It can complete a stock trade in as little as 14.5 milliseconds, according to the carrier.

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Verizon said it has begun to use the same general architecture for high-speed land-based networks that it already uses for its connections across oceans. That architecture, based on a mesh of cables, gives traffic across its core network more alternate routes to take if one cable breaks. This is a step up from a ring architecture, in which the network recovers by sending bits the other way around the ring if one spot on it is damaged.

Verizon already has mesh networks across the Pacific and across the Atlantic, each with eight alternate paths.

via Network World

 

// Photo – sz.u.

The art of Joe Hodnicki – official artist of the San Diego Surf Film Festival

Handplane Art.

 

Program Cover for the Festival.

Continue reading “The art of Joe Hodnicki – official artist of the San Diego Surf Film Festival”

Water friendly gardens

All across America you can find beautiful front lawns with green grass and sprinklers. Even in places where water is scarce, like Southern California and Arizona. Those areas import water at a great expense and in some cases dry up the source.

In response, many living in these areas have developed new ideas about front lawns. There are many plants that require a fraction of the water that grass does, and can still be as green. Or, in some cases provide a variety of colors, shapes, and designs.

Most of these plants are called drought resistant, meaning they don’t want to be watered. I have a few of them growing in pots and they wilt when I water them. So far, the occasional rain that comes has satisfied their needs.

Here are a few photos of these new types of lawns:

Stepping stones edged with succulents.

Continue reading “Water friendly gardens”

Reagan National Airport expands flights to West Coast (Portland, SF, LA, Austin)

The Department of Transportation has approved four more long-distance flights from Reagan National Airport.

– Alaska Airlines will fly to Portland, JetBlue Airways will fly to San Juan, Southwest will fly to Austin and Virgin America will fly to San Francisco.

– Four dominant carriers were granted permission earlier to extend long-distance flights. United now flies from National to San Francisco. Delta was given approval for service to Salt Lake City, American to Los Angeles and U.S. Airways to San Diego.

via Washington Business Journal

 

// Photo – Nicola since 1972

Photos of Prince Edward, Agatha Christie surfing in the 1920s

An autographed photo of Edward, Prince of Wales, surfing in Hawaii in 1920 has been unveiled by the Museum of British Surfing.

Prince Edward – later to become King Edward VIII before abdicating to marry American Wallis Simpson.

This is considered the first photo so far of a Briton standing on a wave.

via Surfer Today

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On his first official trip to Waikiki in April he was taken out in an outrigger canoe, then later in the day was coaxed into standing up on a surfboard to ride the waves for the first time by the great Olympian and father of modern surfing Duke Kahanamoku.

However, the future King Edward VIII was so stoked on surfing that he ordered the royal ship HMS Renown to return for 3 days in September just to surf! On this secret surf trip he hooked up with Duke’s brother David Kahanamoku, and along with his great friend Lord Louis Mountbatten, they went surfing every day. The photos were signed by the Edward and Louis as a thank you to their hosts.

Mountbatten was taught to surf by Prince Kalakaua Kawananakoa, the only son of Prince David Kawananakoa who had surfed in Bridlington on England’s east coast in 1890. One of the photos in the gallery below shows the foursome taking a break from surfing and resting on their surfboard.

HMS Renown was even late leaving… because the prince was still out in the surf! As you can see he got quite good in a short time – and remember the surfboard he was riding was a finless, solid wooden plank of native Hawaiian koa weighing around 100 pounds.

via Museum of British Surfing

From left - David Kahanamoku, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince Edward, & Duke Kahanamoku.

Continue reading “Photos of Prince Edward, Agatha Christie surfing in the 1920s”

Music Video: Blue Sway by Paul McCartney – with amazing underwater scenes of surfing

Paul McCartney recruited award-winning surf filmmaker Jack McCoy to create a music video for his previously unreleased track “Blue Sway.” Written nearly 20 years ago, McCartney’s never-before released song, “Blue Sway,” is available for the first time…

Jack McCoy has been capturing the surfing vision in a truly unique way. Using a high powered underwater jet ski, the filmmaker found that he was able to travel behind a wave, creating underwater images that have never been seen before.

Over the past couple of years, McCoy set out to capture footage for his surf film, A Deeper Shade of Blue. During the editing process, McCoy put one of his surfing sequences to a song off McCartney’s The Fireman album. A mutual friend, Chris Thomas, saw the footage while visiting McCoy in Australia, and when he returned to the UK he gave McCartney a copy of the sequence.

“Paul was pretty stoked with what I’d created. He immediately thought my images might be suitable to go with his unreleased song “Blue Sway.” said McCoy.

McCoy spent the next six weeks creating the music video, while also working full days on making A Deeper Shade of Blue. McCoy compiled and edited footage that he filmed off Tahiti’s Teahupoo reef to create what became the “Blue Sway” video.

“When I saw Jack McCoy’s underwater surfing footage put to the soundtrack of “Blue Sway” I was blown away,” said McCartney.

Microsoft implements “carbon fee” – to push the company into carbon neutrality

Beginning in fiscal year 2013 (which starts this July 1), Microsoft will be carbon neutral across all our direct operations including data centers, software development labs, air travel, and office buildings. We recognize that we are not the first company to commit to carbon neutrality, but we are hopeful that our decision will encourage other companies large and small to look at what they can do to address this important issue.

In addition to our commitment to carbon neutrality, the part I’m most excited about is our plan to infuse carbon awareness into every part of our business around the world. To achieve this goal, we have created an accountability model which will make every Microsoft business unit responsible for the carbon they generate – creating incentives for greater efficiency, increased purchases of renewable energy, better data collection and reporting, and an overall reduction of our environmental impact.

To put this into action, we’re creating a new, internal carbon fee within Microsoft, which will place a price on carbon. The price will be based on market pricing for renewable energy and carbon offsets, and will be applied to our operations in over 100 countries. The goal is to make our business divisions responsible for the cost of offsetting their own carbon emissions.

via – Making Carbon Neutrality Everyone’s Responsibility

 

// Photo – ToddABishop