The PlanetRecruit Blog

Video Killed the Interview Star

I posted on PlanetRecruit previously about Google Books now containing over five million books, which is pretty impressive. But even more impressive are YouTube’s growth figures, which have reached frankly terrifying levels. Every single day, YouTube receives and hosts another six years' worth of video. That’s 36.5 hours of video added every minute.

Start watching nothing but YouTube videos today and you’ll be five years, eleven months and 30 days behind before the end of the day. Tomorrow, you’ll be 12 years behind; the next day, 18 years. So perhaps we can all be forgiven for having missed the latest must-see viral sensation.

Video is everywhere on the web these days, in all kinds of formats and places. For instance, if you’re reading this then you’re probably a user of Skype or Oovoo or one of the many other VoIP (Voice-over Internet Protocol) services on the web. However, as the parent of two small children whose relatives live some on the other side of the world, I can personally vouch for the value of these services. VoIP joins the family together like no other technology I’ve seen before. Children today are growing up seeing nothing unusual in talking to real-time moving images of people on a screen when it’s late at night, even though it’s early morning here.

The UK Needs LTE

LTE – or Long Term Evolution – is the next generation in wireless internet. With speeds rivalling BT fixed broadband, the prospect of super high-speed mobile broadband may finally become a viable alternative to its fixed line counterpart. And for those who live in South Korea or the US you may well already been enjoying the benefits of LTE in your area.

Verizon has recently unleashed its 4G LTE network in the US, with blistering download speeds being reported at between 5Mbps and 20Mbps. In the UK, such networks would revolutionise the broadband market and would allow mobile devices to compete against fixed line networks. Increased competition would mean better pricing and further innovation...but us Brits may be waiting til beyond 2012.

So what is the hold up in the UK? Frequencies formerly safeguarded for analogue TV are now being repurposed for LTE signals. This process involves a government auction to the telecoms industry, where parts of the spectrum are sold off to each. The process is only due to start in 2013 when the Digital Switchover comes to a conclusion.

Exploring mobile device and app development trends

We've all been hearing the chatter about mobile applications. It seems 2010 has been an astounding year for development in mobile technology, both hardware and software. Apple’s iPhone & iPad along with Google’s Android OS and Microsoft Windows Phone all prove just how large the market currently stands.

Trends have been forming over the recent years which might show us where our future is heading. It’s clear the amount of mobile users are increasing daily, and there appears to be no sign of slowing. As an app developer or business owner these are some great trends to check out regarding mobile devices.

Mobile Software Industry

We can see a rise in the amount of users accessing the App Store every day. Apple checks each submission for quality and carefully searches for possible bugs. The Android development team has a similar application retail store, although not as developed and lacking a strong market share.

RockMelt: The social web browser launches

If I could hand out an award for ‘Browser Least Likely To Be Used In The Workplace’, it would have to go to RockMelt. This is the next-gen web browser that combines the framework of Google Chrome with instant access to all your favourite social networks.

It's like a one-stop shop for all your virtual needs. I can't imagine your boss will be letting you install it anytime soon.

I discovered RockMelt on Twitter. It seemed that most of my friends had been receiving beta invitations to test the software long before I had even heard about it. And in any case, what exactly is one supposed to assume of a programme called RockMelt? Good luck getting that name to catch on.

Widening the net

Chances are that as you’re reading a technology blog, you’re at least reasonably internet savvy, as is pretty much anyone and everyone these days. Except the 9.2 million adults UK adults who have never used the internet, of course.

It pays to occasionally remember that there are still a lot of people who don’t or can’t utilise the internet to take advantage of the invaluable information, services and skills it provides (as well as some of the not-so-useful but unfortunately still life-changing elements. Damn you, Zuckerberg). This is why 18-24 October has been designated national ‘Get online’ week.

Organised by UK Online Centres – a government-backed organisation to increase internet skills – a week of around 3,000 events across the country are planned to take place at libraries and community centres to promote wider digital inclusion, essentially giving people a chance to experience the wonders of the net, possibly for the first time.

30 CSS and Javascript Tabs Solutions

Tabs have been around for a long time. They are nothing new. But with so many sites (blogs, ecommerce sites, web apps…) needing to show as much content and navigation as possible, they have never been so relevant.

Tabs are the perfect web page tidying up solution for organising cluttered content in a space-limited web page. Separating content into tabs keeps everything nice and compact, clutter-free and the content is always at the ready should a user need it.

In this round-up from Speckyboy Design Magazine, we have a variety of easy to use modern tabs solutions, techniques, tutorials and plugins, most of them make use of a variety of Javscript libraries (MooTools, jQuery…), but you will also find some innovative pure CSS solutions as well.

Pure CSS Tabs Tecniques & Tutorials

Sweet Tabbed Navigation Bar using CSS3

Sweet Tabbed Navigation Bar using CSS3 →
Demo →

Illustrator template toolbox for web, mobile and app developers

Here's an extensive selection of UI templates, all in Illustrator format, and all perfect if you are a web, mobile or app designer who prefers to use Adobe Illustrator rather than the more commonly used Photoshop.

It was mildly surprising how difficult this post was to put together, I really did expect to find a lot more. What is clear from this is that generally most designers would not even consider Illustrator for UI design, which was an even bigger surprise. So, if you are a UI designer who does prefer Illustrator over everything else, then you may consider this post as your treasure chest.

iPad Wireframe Template (.eps)

License: This file must not be hosted on any other site but you are free to use it.

Essential Joomla! extensions

For those of you who might not know, Joomla! is an open-source content management system for websites. It allows people to quickly build medium-to-large sized websites and maintain them from within an administration interface.

I am going to look at one of Joomla!'s core strengths: its community developed extensions. For all the latest and approved extensions visit http://extensions.joomla.org, and for those new to Joomla! and who are looking to take their first steps, visit http://www.joomla.org/download.html.