A few days ago, I ranted about how chat apps have poor support for URI schemes. By "Chat Apps", I'm talking about the new wave of messengers - WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Wire, and the like. What do I mean by "URI Scheme"? You're probably familiar with: https://example.com The "scheme" is https - it tells the computer "Open the web browser and load the specified resource." You may also be aware of: mailto:me@example.com This tells the computer to open the email app and fill in…
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Recently, I've become obsessed with the speed and efficiency of my web sites. I'm in the middle of slimming down this blog - but I thought I'd take a first attempt at my contact site - https://edent.tel/ A few weeks ago, the .tel registry released their domain restrictions - users can now host their site anywhere. I'd already experimented with about.me/edent as a contact site - but even that seemed too weighty for my needs. Here's how I used CSS to craft a beautiful homepage, HTML5 to give…
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Many years ago, when Foursquare was still cool, I built an app to let people check into chocolate bars. You know, "@edent is eating a Wonka Bar classic. 4/5?" It was a quick and dirty hackday project. Ever since, I've had the hankering to build something a bit more generic. I currently use Untappd to check into beer and Vivino for wine. I'd like to be able to check in to: Artwork Boardgames Cheese ... Things beginning with "D"...? So, here's my half-day hack to make that happen. Code…
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Long time readers will know that the happiest day of my life was when I got married. Dressed as Darth Vader. The most expensive thing about our wedding was probably that Vader suit. After nearly 10 years of marital bliss, I got bored at having that gorgeous suit packed away in a box. So I bought a full-sized mannequin and set about dressing it up. Having a box of limbs delivered is a little disturbing. WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!?!? Beach Body Ready! After partial assembly, it was fairly easy to …
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