RIM, of Blackberry fame, has retained the lead in this spring period, but dropped from 42.1% to 41.7% of market share. The biggest point difference was for Microsoft, who went from 15.1% to 13.2%, while Apple experienced a point drop of 1.9, falling from 25.4% to 24.4%.

Although Android has retained its original position as the 4th largest smartphone provider, it grew much faster than any of the competition during spring and indications suggest that this trend is likely to continue.

Source comScore

Here are 5 useful features of CSS3:

Rounded corners
-moz-border-radius: 20px;
-webkit-border-radius: 20px;
border-radius: 20px;

Drop shadow
-webkit-box-shadow: 10px 10px 10px #333;
-moz-box-shadow: 10px 10px 10px #333;
box-shadow: 10px 10px 10px #333;
(x-offset, y-offset, blur, colour )

Text shadow
text-shadow: 5px 5px 5px #333;
(x-offset, y-offset, blur, colour )

Transparency
background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5);
(Red channel, Green channel, Blue channel, Alpha channel)
or
background-color: #fff;
opacity: 0.5;

Custom Web Fonts
Using the @font-face rule allows you to call fonts from an online directory:
@font-face {
font-family:’Charlie’;
src: url(‘/images/Charlie.otf’) format(‘opentype’);
}
And then use them as you would normal fonts:
h1 { font-family: ‘Charlie’, Helvetica, Sans-Serif;

Its worth bearing in mind that not all browsers are quite there in terms of supporting CSS3 so if you’re using these techniques, not all your users will have a consistent experience. IE7 typically will not support these features. IE6 definitely will not (shock). Firefox 3.1+, Safari and Chrome should handle these CSS3 features without any problems.

There are many different approaches to project management, some of which you may be familiar with: PRINCE2 (the project management system formally known as PRINCE), Scrum, Agile and Waterfall to name just a few. PRINCE2 is the mainstay of the Public Sector and Governmental Bodies, while Scrum is a great process for software development.

However, the fundamentals of a project never change. My favourite way of looking at this is the Time, Cost, Quality Triangle:

[image here]

Pinning down the client’s key goals in relation to these areas is absolutely essential for the planning of a project- so it is essential for the whole project. In some cases, the priorities are going to be clear cut- for example- quality comes to the forefront when issues of health and safety are at stake. At One Result, our clients often prioritise quality because reputation is important to them. If the project needs to be done within a tight budget, you need to make sure resources are allocated to the most important areas, in the most cost-effective way.

The thing is, once the priorities are decided, the course is set and work gets underway. If later in the project, it is decided that the finish line needs to be brought forward, for example, this has to be accomplished by compromising on other aspects of the triangle. One can either invest more, or reduce the quality of the output, in order to balance the new time constraints.

This isn’t the end of the story, though, because the Time-Cost-Quality Triangle is really a tetrahedron . The fourth point on the triangle is reserved for “scope”. If unplanned additions come into the project, which really do need to be made (the infamous “scope creep”) this can be achieved only by altering the original project ambition. More often than not, this means reducing the breadth of achievement for the project, but delivering value, and the highest quality, on the areas that are covered.

Food for thought, and a very helpful thing to keep in mind at brainstorms and briefings…

Here we are several years later and HTML itself has not really evolved.   A couple of extra tags here and there, but on the Whole an img tag is still an image tag.  What has changed is the JavaScript and CSS approach to the WebDesign.  Allowing for things like JQuery to really take the web development world to another level.    As computers have become more powerful and able to run really complex client side scripts, so the scripts have become better and better.  Combined with a good clean way of separating style from markup.

Is Flash still needed.

No.  90% of the flash on the web is used these days for small adverts with a couple of animated elements to it.  All of which can be done in JavaScript.  Trouble is you have a large developer/designer following of web guys that know Flash. Adobe have made some great tools that will prevent it dying in the short term.  It’s easier to create such an animation in flash than using javascript and css.

Silverlight

Microsoft have a habit of backing the wrong horse.  Adobe have a large market share with Flash, so they go and create technology to rival it.   If Microsoft really wanted to get ahead in this market, they need to create some great HTML5 tools. Just like Adobe where challenged todo recently by Steve Jobs.  The world does not need another type of plugin for rich web applications.

What developers need

Flash has some great tools to aid it’s creation.   In order for HTML5 to get the backing of the designers, we need some great HTML5 creation tools.   Easy to the point where a designer can do a point and click with a bit of artwork.

Over the next year or so things like SmokeScreen  (http://www.smokescreen.us/demo) will become more common.  I’ll make a bold statement here that in  5-10 years time frame, flash will lose more and more market share.  To the point where it will be completely ignored in main stream sites.

In the mean time, so you need a fancy bit of animation done for your website that works well for the iPad or iPhone get in touch.

OneResult can help.

Apple recently launched the iPad in the UK. This is likely to have a major impact on your clients and how they will market products and services in the future. Your clients will be approaching you for advice and solutions. One Result is offering a limited number of early morning Technical Briefings for agencies in the Midlands. This will provide you with enough information and knowledge to help your clients. The meetings will be held at our offices in Tanworth In Arden, near Solihull. After the success of our 1st session we now have 2 further sessions planned for the 24th June and 1st July. We are also looking to run a briefing at our London office later in July.

The briefings will include:

If you are interested in attending an event other than on the date provided, please contact us and we will forward a number of dates available for you to choose from.

The video is basically a parody of Jay-Z track Empire State of Mind with Alica Keys but rewritten for tech geeks alike, which is probably why it is such a big hit with everyone at OneResult HQ.

Anyway check it out below….