Fixing HTML Video on Mobile

Samir Zahran on how and why they built Whitewater, an open source video encoder and player for their site: Common HTML5 Video features such as preloading and autoplay are completely missing in some browsers. The scripting APIs are limited compared to what’s available on desktop. Worst of all, Safari on the iPhone (the most popular …

Real–world HTTP/2: 400gb of images per day

Michael Mifsud of 99designs: We began a small-scale rollout for static assets earlier this year. After building confidence in our new infrastructure, we began transitioning our static assets to HTTP/2. Surprisingly, some sections of our platform felt noticeably slower. This post will cover our investigation into the performance regressions we experienced by adopting HTTP/2. So, …

The mobile device lab at Facebook

Insightful post by the folks at Facebook on how they transitioned from testing their apps on a single device to a mobile device lab (holding 1000+ devices) at their Prineville data center. Having tried out several things, they eventually built their own custom racks which not only hold the devices, but also function as an …

Responsive Typography

Mike Riethmuller: It is possible to have precise control over responsive typography. Using calc() and viewport units you can create fluid type that scales perfectly between specific pixel values, within a specific viewport range. The formula used is this one: @media (min-width: #{$min_width}px) and (max-width: #{$max_width}px) { font-size: calc(#{$min_font}px + (#{$max_font} – #{$min_font}) * ( …