One common technique used on websites to add interactivity to a page involves rendering an image, or a set of images, in greyscale and switching back in a colour version when the mouse is rolled over.

This is typically achieved by using Javascript to replace the image inside a correctly positioned div. However, with the filter CSS3 tag having recently landed in webkit this is now an effect that it's possible to produce entirely using CSS.

Obviously having this functionality in webkit wouldn't usually be sufficient to roll this method out on the wider web, but fortunately both Gecko and Trident have broadly equivalent functionality to achieve the same effect.

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May the 4th isn't only (as Dave so subtly alluded to), Star Wars day, but also the FSF's International Day Against DRM.

DRM can be a huge problem for genuine, paying consumers across a range of media: computer software, music, video and even books. One of my personal bugbears is how difficult HBO make it to access their content online: their close links with the large US cable networks make it absolutely impossible to pay for HBO shows without signing up for a much larger package (in the UK, with Sky). DRM has been extended to such a point that it actively prevents some people for paying to access content.

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"We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil"

Donald Knuth

There are a raft of tools now available to help a developer to optimise a modern web application: either providing pointers for improvements and modifications of the code or changes that can be made directly to the server (such as enabling mod-spdy). Here are a few that I've found helpful:

Webkit's brilliant inspector

Webkit's inspector is a tool that every developer will likely have to hand, but that many won't know how to use to its full potential. The audit, network and resources panel can be a real help in optimising sites. Majd Taby has recently Read more... [Post Comment]

CSS3's border-image property is a brilliant tool that allows a developer to add flexible, resizable but highly designed boxes to webpages.

Without splitting a background image into a large number of elements and positioning them individually in a single div element. Other than being incredibly fiddly and difficult to update, this also breaks the sensible distinction between content/presentation that developers strive to maintain in modern sites.

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Having recently exceeded ten billion app downloads on the Android Market, Google recently announced a promotion where they discounted ten apps each day for ten days down to the price of ten pence. Clever that! Given the low price of entry, I picked up a fair few; and haven't tried quite a number of them out yet. Here are some brief thoughts on these, and a couple of other titles that have also recently been released to the market:

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There are a lot of solutions available online to help with making notes and organising, and I've been trying out several over the last few months.

Catch

Allows multimedia notes to easily include pictures or audio, Catch also has a fully featured mobile and well designed tablet app which sync immediately with their website. Notes are can be put into separate "streams" which can be shared amongst other users or used to categorise your own notes.

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Last month the British Android community gathered together (with a sizable international presence, including the Bangalore Android Group) for Droidcon UK, a huge conference in the Islington Design Centre to discuss all things Android.

Whilst a full breakdown of the two days of talks, barcamp and democamp is still forthcoming, I thought that one thread that ran through the whole conference, as well as the Labs hosted by Google the day before, was worth exploring separately.

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A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to travel to the beautiful Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes for an event called Over The Air, a community-run conference for mobile development featuring an overnight hack-a-thon.

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I was lucky enough last month to pick up a shiny new HP Touchpad in their firesale after HP announced they were withdrawing from the market.

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If you pay any attention to our Twitter account or News, you'll have noticed the launch of our most recent app - the Banksy Bristol Tour, in conjunction with Tangent Books.

We were delighted on Friday to find out that we have been featured by Apple as a "New and Noteworthy" app in their UK store, since when it has been one of the best-selling apps in the store: fourth in the Lifestyle category and consistently in the Top 200 across all categories.

Thank you to all of our customers who have contributed to this. I hope you enjoy the app!

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