It's always important to know for developers what browsers they are developing for, who dominates the market, and what the current trends are.

I have gotten my hands on the Plaxo.com visitors' browser stats for December of 2009.

This information is valuable because Plaxo has a relatively general demographics, as it's not a site only geeks or only moms visit, and the statistics tends to not be skewed. Therefore,…

image As a backend developer, I don't get to work with JavaScript much anymore. However, from time to time, a project would come along that uses JavaScript (specifically, AJAX) to load some backend data on the fly. Of course, nothing works 100% right away*, so I would often have to tweak this JavaScript and massage it until it does what I need.

Here's where Firebug comes in with its JavaScript…

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Tip: Make Your Google Reader More Lively By Showing Favicons For Feeds


Posted by Artem Russakovskii on December 16th, 2009 in Google, Tips

image Well, this one almost escaped my attention but I'm glad it didn't: the best online news reader – Google Reader – just enabled favicon support for each feed you subscribe to.

Favicons are those 16×16 pixel tiny icons you see next to site urls in your browser and bookmarks. Not surprisingly, this was done as a 20% project, which is when Google developers get to…

Updated: December 16th, 2009

image It's not a secret that my Sprint HTC Hero has been having trouble keeping battery charge – by the time I came home from work, the battery level would oftentimes be at 10% or the phone would be simply dead.

One would give up and accept this futility but I had 2 reasons to keep trying to figure out why:

  • my co-worker's battery would consistently hold

Updated: September 8th, 2009

image Well, it looks like the wait is over. I have been waiting for almost 5 years for a new phone that is good enough to make the switch from Samsung A900 (which has free tethering). Don't even get me started on the iPhone and its outrageous monopoly with AT&T. Android and the growing multitude of devices running it is, however, completely different business. Android offers unparallel freedom and I…

image Peteris Krumins is nothing short of a technical genius. Every single one of his blog posts is so detailed, one can write a book about it. He blogs about Linux, programming, and other tech stuff on his blog http://www.catonmat.net/.

A short while ago, Peteris posted his very thorough experience interviewing at Google. Needless to say, the level of detail is astounding. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the…

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More On Android – A Mobile OS With A Clue


Posted by Artem Russakovskii on October 15th, 2008 in Technology

I’d like to share this relatively new video that shows Google Android’s mutli-tasking capabilities and the seamless integration of these capabilities. Hey, it’s got a copy/paste too (eat that, iPhone!). Android is an OS that’s got a clue. I applaud Google developers for thinking ahead.

Run Multiple Apps, All At Once on Android-Powered Phones

You can view more videos from the Android/Google developers here.

  • Share/Bookmark

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Thoughts on Google Chrome


Posted by Artem Russakovskii on September 3rd, 2008 in Technology

Updated: September 5th, 2008

So Google Chrome – Google's attempt at an open source browser, came out yesterday and I took it out for a spin. At its heart is the Webkit engine (also open source) and Google Gears, powered by SQLite (can MySQL rival SQLite in applications like this?). Here are my thoughts.

image

  • Fast – Chrome

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Google PageRank Update Happening Now


Posted by Artem Russakovskii on July 26th, 2008 in Beer Planet

Google PageRank As Matt Cutts (Google's SEO and search quality expert) wrote in his blog entry a few days ago, Google PageRank updates are underway. Google updates PR (Page Rank) quite rarely – every three months or so, and it's the most important thing a website operator should be concerned with when it comes to site promotion…

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Google Phone (Android) Demo Of Streetview With Compass


Posted by Artem Russakovskii on May 31st, 2008 in Awesomeness, Technology

Updated: June 1st, 2008

I think this is going to be really neat: you walk around the streets of San Francisco, for example, with your Android powered phone, en route to your destination 20 blocks away.

You whip out your phone, go to Google Maps, pull up the StreetView (remember this?), which zeroes in on your location using a built-in GPS, and then changes as you move the phone…

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Interesting Uses For Google Streetview (Video By Google)


Posted by Artem Russakovskii on April 29th, 2008 in Awesomeness, My Favorites

By now I think most everyone has used Google maps and seen the street view feature. Lately the maps team has been doing an amazing job covering the bay area, so now you can literally walk the streets for hours.

image

Virtual walking aside, there are some really creative uses of this feature posted in this video by the Google team today….

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Sun Definitely Developing A Phone This Year


Posted by Artem Russakovskii on April 21st, 2008 in Beer Planet, Databases, Technology

JavaFX_Mobile One thing that still springs to mind when I think of the MySQL User Conference last week is Sun's opening keynote. While talking about Sun's market penetration with open source software, Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's CEO, slipped in a short mention of the mobile market saying something along the lines of "Sun is going to be entering the mobile market later on this year". He…