Inkscape

For more than a decade now my Vector Graphics Tool of choise as been the Free Open Source Software Tool Inkscape. And for good reasons too. Premium grade SVG editing features, zero-fuss cross-platform functionality and tools and extensions in abundance offer anything you’d want for professional vector-graphics work without strange subscriptions or bloated slow GUIs. Check it out.

Professional Web Analytics

One does not have to suck up to Google & Co. or try to apply some magic SEO-Snakeoil in order to be diligent about professional web performance and search-engine friendlyness. Google doesn’t like people trying to trick them into higher pageranking and they are fast at retaliation and downmodding ranks a few thousand points when it comes to that.

Professional Web Analytics weiterlesen

Kdenlive

It’s been a very long time since I’ve last thoroughly looked into the state of open source video editing software. And I have good news: FOSS video editing has matured at a professional level. Recently I’ve started a video project once again – the last one was 16 years ago or so. I started with Openshot, which is, for what I’m right now trying to do, a more easy-going hobbyist sort of tool and quickly hit its limits. This surprised me, as it has nothing to do with the tool but a lot to do with how deep I still am connected to motion graphics and quasi-professional video NLE.

Kdenlive weiterlesen

The Vala Programming Language

There’s no lack of programming languages, that’s for sure. The last two decades have seen a surge of sophisticated new-generation PLs that have rocked quite a few boats and have set the tone for an update of 90ies microcomputer programming. Purely functional programming has moved out of the niche and the academic world and become mainstream and joined declarative and OOP methods to open up a wider brave new world of software development. Vala is one of the lesser know languages, but it is none-the-less mature in the niche that it serves very well. So well, that I think you should look into it and want to tell you about it.

The Vala Programming Language weiterlesen

Stop using Java for Java development. Switch to Kotlin.

Are you doing enterprise development in Java? Then stop.

Don’t get me wrong, Java is neat, Java blazed the way for non-trivial cross-platform bytecode-based software development. Many systems that are not specifically web-centric continue to rely on Java these days and it’s been way more than a decade that countless programming languages have come to life that address the Java VM.

Scripting-centric PLs such as Groovy or Beanshell or modern, ultra functional ones like Closure or Scala.

Stop using Java for Java development. Switch to Kotlin. weiterlesen

Interesting Reads

Here is a selection of blogs and magazines on the web, IT and digital media industry in general. Some are not directly tech related but are very educational and enjoyable none-the-less. This is my personal selection that I consider worthwhile reading. Enjoy! … Disclaimer: May be filled up with things I forgot further down the road. Oh, and there a few podcasts there as well. This is the web and we’re digital, so no problem, eh?

Interesting Reads weiterlesen

Bootstrap is still going strong. And have you checked ReactStrap?

The VDOM craze may have you think that Bootstrap is dead. It isn’t. It’s as powerful as ever that the first-class citizenship of Popper.js and an ever evolving jQuery still make it the grandmaster of go-to toolkits for getting good Web-UIs done quickly. It also works very neatly together with virtual DOM libraries such as React. Check out ReactStrap to see how it’s done.