There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding devices like the iPad, Kindle and Nook, and it seems like everyone I talk to is singing the praises of the e-reader of their choice.

“It’s so easy to read, and you can even make the font bigger so you don’t have to squint!”

“It’s smaller and lighter than a book, so I can take it with be anywhere.”

“I can buy a book as soon as I think of it.  No more late night trips to Borders.”

People aren’t just talking about e-readers, they are buying them.  The Nook has led Barnes and Noble to a 21% revenue increase and Amazon’s Kindle 3 is the fastest selling version yet.  And Apple’s iPad sold over 3 million devices in just the first 80 days of being on the market.

I’d say that proves e-readers may very well be the future.

Think about it, how convenient would it be to finish "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and instantly be able to download “The Girl who Played with Fire” so you can start part two of Stieg Larson’s trilogy?

And it would be much easier to carry around a little one pound device than the 6 books currently sitting on my nightstand (so I have a problem finishing books, don’t judge).  There is even talk a mini iPad may be available by Christmas, which would be even easier to transport.

But after reading e-mails and looking at websites on the computer all day, there is something so refreshing about just picking up my paperback copy of “The Help” and unplugging from technology for a little while.  (Well, I’m not completely unplugged…I obviously still have my cell phone handy.)

Ah.  I just can’t decide!

If you have an opinion or advice, please share.  Have you taken the plunge and purchased an e-reader or do you prefer a good, old-fashioned hard back?

I’ll admit it, having a smart phone has lead to an increase in my procrastination.  No longer do I look up directions, hours or even a phone number before I’m out the door on my way to a restaurant.

Prep time has gone from a 5 minute search on my laptop to a quick look at the mobile site before I pull out of the driveway.

According to a recent report from Nielson, I am not alone in my use of a smart phone as 25% of US mobile phone users have a smart phone.  That number is expected to increase to around 50% by 2013.

Now more than ever, users are looking for simple versions of their favorite websites for their phone.  They don’t want to get bogged down by all the extra bells and whistles a laptop can support, just a streamlined design that is easy to navigate on a small screen.

So how does your mobile site stack up?

If a consumer is looking for you their smart phone, are they automatically redirected to a mobile friendly version?  Or five minutes later are they still waiting for your full site to download?

It seems a little silly to make it hard for your customer to find you…but maybe that’s just me.

As you may have heard by now, Internet Explorer 9 is currently in development and is expected to be released sometime in 2011. Microsoft has added several new features with IE9, the most exciting of which are support of CSS3 and HTML5 technologies.

Though Internet Explorer is still the most widely used browser, it has steadily declined since Safari, Google Chrome, and Firefox have been quicker to support these newer technologies.

Now with IE9, Microsoft is playing catch up. For a casual user, IE9 will likely run faster, but most of the upgrades are behind the scenes. For developers, this opens up the world of CSS3 selectors, like border-radius and text-shadow, as ways to deliver great looking content without using "heavy" imagery.

Though any release of a more modern browser is generally good news, most web developers hope that with the development of IE9 we can begin to sunset the support of IE6. Here’s to hoping that the added features in IE9 will be compelling enough to the IE6 user to make them want to upgrade. Wait, didn’t we say that when IE7 and IE8 came out?

Until then, all we can do is hope to see IE6 users drop to the point where we won’t have to continue the full scale support of 4 Explorer versions, Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome. At least this is another step further down the road for Microsoft.

FYI, you can download a trial version here: http://en.softonic.com/s/internet-explorer-9

We’re always looking for new ways to extend the reach of the web world, and we’re very excited about the potential concerning 2d printed codes. These codes allow mobile users (with the right scanning application) to point their phone at a code and immediately visit a URL, call a number or send a text. 

Who will win the top spot in terms of acceptance across the US and international sites? QR codes already have a head start in Japan and Google has added QR codes to their map world allowing people to scan a code and identify it as a favorite place.

Both have strengths and weaknesses. Here are just a few of our findings so far:

• QR codes support a higher variety of code types (email address, sms, geo coordinates)
• MS Tags can be printed significantly smaller
• QR codes are an open standard, so you can make a variety of different kinds of tags
• MS Tags have analytics built in since they all go through a single data system
• QR codes can be read by a variety of readers already deployed across many platforms, while MS Tags can be read by a single reader (developed by MS but available on major phone platforms)
• The detail in a QR code can cause issues with phones that have weaker cameras, while the simplicity of the MS Tag allows it to be read under tougher conditions
• Both can be integrated into applications for on-the-fly code generation and rendering

It’s hard to tell which one may end up being the industry standard, even though QR codes have a nice head start. We will keep watching and playing to see how this can enhance the overall experience for you and your customers!

With the use of smart phones steadily growing, developers have become increasingly aware that the future of the Web may very well be in our pockets and purses and not on our desks. This has led to the need for applications that are lightweight and optimized for smaller screens and touch screens.

This year at SXSW Interactive, I attended a jaw-dropping session that explained how to make an iPhone application using only basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Speaker Jonathan Stark, a mobile and web app consultant, began coding in very basic HTML as a class full of developers and designers looked on with feigned interest… it was all code we've written a hundred times before. Then he explained the use of jQuery and jQTouch, JavaScript specifically for use on Apple iPhones and waited for the gasps…

By adding this JavaScript, his simple HTML code was immediately rendered on an iPhone as a really cool looking app: the buttons took on the iPhone format, the touch screen functionality was enabled and animations were activated when moving from one screen to the next. He went on to explain the capabilities of this script as the room sat in amazement.

There are many different ways to build applications, and sometimes you do need more complicated code to achieve more complicated design or function, but the bottom line of the session? "If you can build your app with HTML, CSS and JavaScript, then you probably should."

Stark’s discussion is a great example of what we can hope to see for the mobile web’s future: developers working together to dream up new ways to easily bridge the gap between standard web design and mobile devices. 

Part of being on our technical team is looking for more efficient processes that we can employ. Lately, we’ve been looking very closely at ways to stop “rehashing” the same code over and over. We’ve noticed areas where code tends to be very similar across many websites. Why re-write it for each one?

We’re looking into two types of tools to aid in this process: ORM and dynamic code generation.

Object Relational Mapping (ORM) allows us to generate the basic code needed to store and retrieve objects from a database without having to physically write a line of code. There are many more pluses to these set of tools, but this would lead to much more efficiency for our technical team. Some of the ones we’ll be learning more about are:

• Subsonic: http://www.subsonicproject.com
• Entity Framework: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa697427(VS.80).aspx
• NHibernate: https://www.hibernate.org/343.html

Our other option is simply pure dynamic code generation. I’ve been researching T4 templates (Text Template Transformation Toolkit) and love the possibilities! The idea is to create a template that represents a coding structure you write often, then have the system use that template to generate a code base for you. These templates are being used by many companies in order to increase efficiency and productivity. In fact, the ORM Subsonic listed above uses T4 templates when generating code to represent a database.  

You can learn more about Microsoft’s MSDN page for T4 templates here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb126445.aspx.

As always, we’ll keep you updated as we continue to work on more efficient, repeatable processes for our projects.