Hench Archives

We’ve been working on a new site for an iPhone developer, and ran into some performance issues with Safari and Chrome. Looks like Webkit has trouble with text-shadow..

Safari and Chrome have a bit of trouble with text-shadow..

So there I was, merrily developing a new site for a client.

The three product panels were fine, but I wanted to add a little animation to reveal further information, so I turned to my favourite javascript library, jQuery.

Using jQuery to move things around, fade them in and out and generally spice things up is pretty common these days, so I was surprised when I ran into a few performance issues testing the site in Webkit-based browsers Safari and Chrome that I hadn’t heard about. Both were having a big problems with all the motion and fading, with some serious and unacceptable lag. Firefox and IE didn’t share these problems, so I wracked my brains trying to work out what might be the cause.

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A run down of some of our favourite Wordpress plugins, hacks and functionality.

Hench ♥ Wordpress.

At Hench we’re massive fans of Wordpress. In fact, the majority of our client sites are built on the Wordpress platform. Why? Well for one thing Wordpress is free, so the saving is passed directly on to our client.

But we don’t use it just because it’s free.

Wordpress is a brilliant CMS backbone for any small-medium sized website in it’s own right. It has an intuitive user interface, it’s easy to implement, and you can pretty much build anything imaginable thanks to the extensible nature of the platform. On that note, let us introduce you to a few of our favourite Wordpress customisations and plugins.

›    Continue reading “Top-notch Wordpress plugins and hacks.”

Innovation on a simple idea is something that most people appreciate. When it’s done well it can give you that horrid moment of realisation where you think to yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Enter the folding plug, an innovation created for the very purpose of making every single user of the standard UK plug hide with embarrassment and shame, in the knowledge that they didn’t think of it before.

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The announcment of the iPad was littered with hyperbole from Apple CEO Steve Jobs, calling it “the best way to browse the web”. We look at how, with current web interfaces, that’s all talk.

iPad: the web isn't designed for it

I’m an iPhone 3G owner, and, it has to be said, a happy one. It makes calls. I can send text messages, email (somewhat dodgy) photos, and catch up with people on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

I can also use it to browse websites, but I’m under no pretences that the experience is anything other than lacklustre in comparison with my 23” LCD screen and a mouse.

›    Continue reading “iPad, touch and the new interactive frontier.”