New Earth Online / Articles

PHPEM 3: Cocoa from a PHP perspective

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Whether you're a PHP or a .NET developer it's becoming increasingly likely that you will at some point want to adapt your web application or site into a native mobile application that people can carry around with them. The transition to a new language isn't always easy especially in the case of Cocoa if you've not dealt with a language like it before. This article aims to help by demonstrating how you would achieve some of the tasks you'd normally do in PHP.

Legacy Systems

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:03:07 +0000

A legacy system is one which is one uses old technology and is still in current use due to dependencies that often make it hard to move away from. When it comes to upgrading or adding additional modules to a piece of software this can often pose many problems which can then raise the questions of how to proceed in a way that is both cost effective and beneficial to the company.

Windows 7

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:01:09 +0000

After the generally considered failure of Windows Vista, Microsoft is depending on Windows 7 to be favourable in the eyes of those who shunned their last offering in favour of sticking with XP. The question though is what changes have they made, and is it really a better experience than the last upgrade.

HTML 5

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:10:37 +0000

HTML 5 is an emerging standard that is slowly being taken up by sites in favour of XHTML due to some of the new and useful tags that it introduces; but it's adoption has been marred by lack of support and an initial degree of misunderstanding over what the new standard means to developers. The aim of this article is to clarify what the new tags are and where HTML 5 stands in the grand perspective of the future of the web.

Adding Google Wave to your blog

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:50:12 +0000

Google Wave is the new sensational communication and collaboration tool that has recently been released in limited numbers to the public. In this article we take a look at how you'll be able to use Google Wave on your own blog and how to use the various APIs that are available.

Google Wave

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:01:11 +0000

Few products get as much hype surrounding them as Google Wave did around the time it entered into a "invite only" beta phase. For Google I think they couldn't have hoped for a better reception or for better marketing as thousands of people all eagerly awaited their own invites - some even making it onto eBay for silly prices. The question though of how good Google Wave is remains, and whether it can be a revolutionary product.

The Myth

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:34:23 +0000

The Myth is directed by Stanley Tong, but is produced by and starring Jackie Chan as both Jack Chan and General Meng Yi. Having been filmed in Hong Kong it never made it to mainstream cinema in the West and was instead relegated to a DVD / Blu-Ray only release.

Stargate Universe (SGU)

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:16:10 +0000

The third spin-off television series in the Stargate franchise has now hit our screens with a new take on the way Stargate stories are told. There has been a lot of criticism over the choices SyFy channel have made with this series, but now that we've seen it - is it any good?

Transfomers: The Movie

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:03:00 +0000

The second of Michael Bay's live action movies will soon be out on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK; but his movies were not the first Transformers movie - there was an animated movie back in the 1980's that told a very different story to what newcomers to the franchise are now seeing.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:05:21 +0000

The Dark Knight has been away from our consoles and PCs for a long time, and he's had a very bumpy track record when it's come to quality - just as most other superhero games has struggled with this. Could the Caped Crusader have finally taken a direction that is worthy of the mantle of the Bat?

Masters of Science Fiction

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:13:03 +0000

The Masters of Science Fiction series is a series of six episodes from writers such as Robert A. Heinlein, Harlan Ellison and Howard Fast and are presented in a format similar to The Outer Limits. It also features well known actors who fans of the genre will recognise such as Malcolm McDowell, James Cromwell, Terry O'Quinn and more.

iPhone Development: Custom Classes

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:08:18 +0000

Sooner or later you will have the need to be able to store data in your own custom construct. Creating your own classes in Cocoa is quite different to PHP or Java, but it's still fairly easy once you get used to the little nuances in the Cocoa language.

iPhone Development: Application Icons

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:03:40 +0000

It is a requirement of iPhone and iPod Touch applications that they have an icon of appropriate dimensions in order to submit your application to the AppStore. This article looks at the different sized icons required, and also how to create icons for use by Tab Bar applications.

Steamboy

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:54:06 +0000

After 10 years in production, and more money spent on it than any other Anime movie, Steamboy is movie that employs steampunk as an alternative history set in 19th century England during our industrial revolution.

Snow Leopard

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:40:23 +0000

Apple's OS X operating system has been updated once more to version 10.6 and with it comes a variety of performance and usability improvements with no real feature additions. Is it worth the £25 price tag, and what difference does it make to the average user?

Artificial Intelligence Systems

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:42:38 +0000

In popular culture we see artificial intelligence in many movies and novels such as "The Terminator" and Phillip K. Dick's novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"; but our dreams of AI to that scale are still a long way off. In this article we look at what driving forces have led to humankind's desire for AI and what advancements we've made over recent years as we edge ever closer towards our goal.

IT and the Law

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 08:43:18 +0000

In most countries there are laws relating to the use of data and to the usage of computers. Those laws are not there to be oppressive or regulatory but to protect the interests on individuals as opposed to organisations. Here we take a look at some of those laws, what they mean and how they can affect you.

iPhone Development: Splash screens

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

For this first in a series of iPhone development tutorials we take a look at how you can create your own splashscreen for your application. It's easy to do and requires very little time to accomplish.

Watchmen

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 12:30:02 +0000

The Alan Moore written comic took a refreshing look at the superhero genre in a time when comics poked fun at themselves and manages to reinvent the genre as a struggle during the untrusting times of the Cold War. As a movie Alan Moore condemns the film and Hollywood as he has done many times before. Was this a fair judgement from the series author?

Stargate Retrospective

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 06:45:31 +0000

Fans of Stargate are awaiting the start of Stargate Universe with eager anticipation, though there are some who question it's place in the Stargate mythology. For those of you who have never really gotten into Stargate this is a very brief (and I mean very brief) retrospective look at what we've seen so far.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:15:42 +0000

The sixth in the series of seven books (or indeed of eight films), the Half-Blood Prince had a shocking ending for some, and for others it was a moment in the film which people had been waiting to see since having read the book. The question remains though whether the changes they made to the story were good changes, or whether they have managed to ruin another story.

Augmented Reality

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:58:09 +0000

Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the biggest buzzwords of today as we move towards what was previously only in the dreams of science fiction novels and movies. Augmented Reality is the technology which enhances our view of the world with useful information about what we see, similar to how a HUD works in military aircraft and in FPS video games.

Laputa - Castle in the Sky

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:41:41 +0000

The first of Studio Ghibli's films, Castle in the Sky follows the journey of two children as they search for the legendary floating city of Laputa. It is arguable that Nausicaa came first, however that one was not produced under the name of Studio Ghibli.

iPhone 3GS

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:31:28 +0000

WWDC 2009 announced the release of the new iPhone 3GS which was a faster, more powerful iPhone with video capabilities. After having used my iPhone for a week it's now time to take a look at it to see whether it was a good investment, or a waste of money.

Displaying AudioBoos on your site

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:45:34 +0000

Since the advent of Twitter's 140 character goodness, another tool often used with Twitter is becoming a new craze. That is the AudioBoo. Here we look at how you can use an AudioBoo Atom feed to display a feed of your own AudioBoos to your site.

Location Sensitive Programming

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:18:09 +0000

As we move into a world where social media is king we are inching closer to a change in paradigm where no longer will we need to say where we are, but our browsers will be able to tell a web application where we are (if we let it) and we can then be served content based upon this. With the iPhone OS 3.0 update it will be possible for the Safari browser to access the longitude and latitude information provided by the phone's built in GPS, in a web browser using JavaScript.

The Earthsea Quartet

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 23:10:58 +0000

The first four books of the Earthsea cycle are available as what is called "The Earthsea Quartet". This review looks at those four books as both a collection and as individual stories.

Tales from Earthsea

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 22:12:28 +0000

It's not the most well known of Studio Ghibli's movies, nor is it particularly praised but Tales from Earthsea explores the world of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea in a way very unlike the previous mini-series produced by the Sci-Fi channel. Unable to work on this one due to commitments to development of Howl's Moving Castle, this one was directed by Hayao Miyzaki's son Goro instead.

Coding Efficiency (Big Oh)

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Efficient code is one of the most important parts of software development, in fact the only thing more important than this is planning and testing. How efficient your code is determines how fast your application will run - and it is this that will have a lasting impression on your users. If the application takes ages to do anything then your users will quickly get fed up with it and ditch it in favour of software that works better. The best time to make the most of your code is during planning - by calculating the efficiency of functions you can calculate which option will be best by comparing the "Big Oh" notation for them.

Integrating Twitter, Vimeo and Flickr with your site

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:38:47 +0000

There are so many popular sites providing services these days that you're bound to want to integrate with them to display feeds of your own or others content on them. In this article we take a look at how you can achieve this in PHP to consume feeds from Flickr, Twitter, and Vimeo.