The day has come. There is no need any more for floats or tables or other hacks to create page layouts on the web. CSS can do it. Finally, it has its own tools for laying out pages properly.
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Category Archives: Design
Reinventing Coupons with Valassis
Way back in 2012, Lady Gaga tweeted, “why do people look at me like I’m crazy when i use coupons at grocery or try bargaining at retail, IM FROM NEW YORK WHERE IS THE SALE RACK?” Why do people use coupons? I always thought that the only purpose of coupons was saving money. However, since joining Boyle Software’s new creative team working for our client Valassis, I’ve learned that this is not their only the purpose.
Yet Another Result Set Parser
Efficiently parsing SQL query result sets into the hierarchical data structures with which applications normally operate has been a problem for quite a long time. Numerous attempts have been made over what feels like the ages to solve the problem, the essence of which is that the strictly two-dimensional grid nature of what’s returned by a SQL SELECT query – those rows and columns – map very poorly to the tree. More generally speaking, they don’t suit the graph-like data structures utilized by modern applications to model the world. Continue reading
No More Tofu – NOTO
Noto stands for “No Tofu” or “No More Tofo.” While you might think it’s my latest frustration with a healthy diet, it’s actually the name for Google’s latest attempt to wrestle over 800 natural languages into a single, universal font.
Chatbots: a new paradigm?
It was desktop applications on PCs in the ’80’s, websites in the ’90’s, native mobile apps in the ’00’s. Will it be chatbots (aka ‘bots’) in this decade ?
Many would agree that instant messaging has become a big part of our online lives in the last couple of years .. especially with services like Skype, Facebook Messenger, Kik, Whatsapp, Viber, Telegram and Slack (for us techies). Now, with the advent of chatbots, pretty soon (if not already) instant messaging is likely to get a whole lot bigger and better.
Welcome to New Avon!
We are happy to announce that Boyle Software’s relationship with cosmetics giant Avon continues – now with the newly formed New Avon LLC, as the company’s North American division has recently been rechristened. It’s a privilege to lend technical expertise and support to a brand as universally recognized and respected as Avon.
Radar Online up for awards
American Media’s flagship website Radar Online is nominated for the MIN Best of the Web awards in three categories: “Digital Team of the Year,” “Editorial Excellence,” and “Use of Facebook.” A second AMI site, Muscle & Fitness, is also nominated in the “Content Marketing Program or Campaign” category.
AMP has arrived!
The announcement hit our inbox this morning: Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages Project – aka AMP – is officially out now. Previewed last October, AMP is an open source project for content creators who can now “create mobile optimized content once and have it load instantly everywhere.” Crucial stuff now as the Web’s primary viewership moves over to mobile devices!
Rant Alert: Websites are too fat!
Monday mornings are usually difficult, but today – with aching tributes emanating from all corners of the globe in the wake of David Bowie’s passing – is even worse then normal. So what better distraction than a good old-fashioned rant about the sorry state of website bloat???
AWS & HeartyHosting
There are many ways of implementing a high quality service to support high-load websites. Each of these methods has advantages and disadvantages. In building out our own HeartyHosting platform, we have explored many of these various solutions. Below I have tried to combine the advantages, simplicity, and affordability. You will notice that in all cases, we found Amazon Web Services (AWS) to be a superior platform – which is why it is so central to HeartyHosting!