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Did you know that there are approximately 1.5 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide? The number is growing everyday and with that the number of people who use their handheld devices to browse Internet is also rapidly increasing. Imagine the number of visitors you can get to your website if you have a website designed for mobile devices. Your normal website will not look as pretty on a small screen as on a desktop screen.

You need a version of your website optimized for small screen devices. Certainly, building a mobile website requires time and effort. Interested in a mobile website but do not have resources to develop? Here is good news for you.
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Referencing external JavaScript and/or CSS files from a web page considerably increases the load time.

As a rule of thumb remember that each external file requires additional HTTP request by the browser, hence the time to render a page will increase. Every web developer worth their salt should make optimization their priority. Fortunately, since this is such a common issue many people have thought about it and came up with solutions.
Below is a list of few of these solutions to optimize your website by compressing JavaScript and CSS files.

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A nice little tool to create rounded boxes for your website.

You can choose the background color for your box. The tool will generate the CSS code and a sample HTML page. Generating rounded-box has never been easier.
CSS Rounded Box Generator

Christian Heilmann compiled a list of seven rules for unobtrusive JavaScript. I think it is a must read for beginner JavaScript developers. Even if you are a highly experienced JavaScript developer this article may give you few tips to improve. To me the most important rule is this article is the first one, “Do not make any assumptions”. I have learned this the hard way. Don’t assume that if it works in one browser the code will work just as well in all other browsers. Even more important, do not assume that every user will have JavaScript enabled. I recommend that you read the full article and try to follow the tips.

The seven rules of unobtrusive JavaScript

Someone mentioned following two websites that are streaming live cricket between Pakistan and India. I don’t know how good and authentic these sites are I am just listing the links if you want to check them out.

Link1
Link2

You can also sign up with Willow TV to get a paid but better quality streaming.

Sometimes it is nice to jazz up your website by giving text some graphical looks without actually using images. The CSS2 text-shadow property allows you to create shadow for your text. Unfortunately so far the only browser that supports this property is Safari. You can find tutorials on the web that show you how to create CSS text shadow but usually they only deal with one or two browsers. I stumbled upon this nice article that explains cross-browser compatible CSS text shadows. It has CSS code to handle all major browsers.

Creating Cross Browser Compatible CSS Text Shadows

Have you heard about the pink cricket ball? I bet you were probably amused by the news that ICC will use a Pink ball in some limited over matches. Are we turning cricket into a “girly” game .Seriously though I don’t think this is such a bad idea. White color was picked because it was thought that it will be visible against most of the background colors and especially during day and night matches. But white balls do not keep their color for very long and they are hard to see in dim light. In fact they are now automatically replaced after 34 overs of a one-day match. Traditional red color is also not easy to see in bad light conditions. So it is time to search for a suitable color to replace white ball.

“We have tried white and orange balls and perhaps pink ones will last longer. This is a very interesting and very wise development and a colour might have been found that is easier on the eye.”
Mike Gatting

You might ask why they picked pink, why not orange or yellow or some other bright color? The idea is that a fluorescent pink ball will be more easily seen by a batsman, especially in poor light. This will also makes life little easier for the fielders in the outfield. I am all for trying out new colors as long as it does not diminish the quality of game and does not offer unjust advantage to either bolwers or batsmen.

You have designed a beautiful website. But you still do not get a lot of loyal visitors. The problem may not be your design, it may be the static content that is turning the visitors off. If you do not update your website regularly chances are people may not visit your website. Why would someone visits a site if it has the same content from last week or even yesterday. One way to jazz up your website is to display RSS feeds from other relevant and reputable websites. Don’t know how to incorporate the RSS feeds into your website? Well, all you need is some basic JavaScript knowledge. Probably you don’t even need that if you know how to cut & paste and can do a little bit text editing. Yes it is that easy and thanks Google for this convenience. What is once considered a tedious task Google made it super-duper easy. Google developed an AJAX based API that you can call from a JavaScript method.
The API returns the content of the RSS feed that you specify. And then you can display that content on your own webpage.

For a detailed description of the API and how to use it on your website visit JavaScriptKit.
They have some easy-to-follow examples that you can use on your website. Just change the feed URL in the JavaScript to the ones that you want to display on your website.

For official documentation and examples from Google visit Google AJAX Feed API documentation.

Want to save money but keep forgetting to deposit cash to your piggy bank? Consider buying yourself the new Exploding piggy bank by Tomy CO Ltd. This innovative piggy bank shakes, shines, and even ‘explodes’ to remind you to feed it daily. If you do not deposit money every day it reminds you on an hourly basis by vibrating and making noises. If it fails to get your attention it finally ‘explodes’, spilling all your savings. Alas, this piggy bank will only be available in Japan from next week.

 

Thanks to Younis Khan’s first every ODI century against India and some spectacular blitz by Shahid Afridi Pakistan defeated India in the 2nd ODI in Mohali. The series is now tied at 1 game each.

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