Other celebrations include a range of 10 stamps by the Royal Mail which will show the Underground from its early days as a steam locomotive on the Metropolitan Line in 1863 to the opening of Canary Wharf station in 1999.

London Underground in partnership with the London Transport Museum is celebrating the tube’s birthday with a range of events and activities throughout 2013.

The tube was also recently described as Londons “key strategic weakness” (circa 1960). in the recent Doctor Who Christmas special (as shown on a vintage 1960’s lunchbox emblazoned with the map of the day).

The post London underground’s 150th birthday celebrated in a Google doodle first appeared on Chris Walton.

Ive, who grew up in North London has been recognised by the Queen for ‘services to design and enterprise’ and been given a Knighthood.

Ive’s who owns 400 patents was previously awarded a CBE by the Queen, who has revealed she owns an iPod along with numerous other awards an honors. In 2003 he was named Designer of the Year by the Design Museum in London and was given the title Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts. He has also won the prestigious Industrial Design Excellence Award in the USA.

Ive’s has said “To be recognised with this honour is absolutely thrilling and I am both humbled and sincerely grateful”

The post Jonathan Ive becomes a Knight of the Realm first appeared on Chris Walton.

Create your own website in minutes

Let’s take the technical hassle out of website creation. After all, who wants to be a computer geek? With InstantSite, anyone can design a website. That’s right, no boring web code or paying out for costly web designer fees – just a great looking and easy to manage website.

It didnt take too long for a minor backlash from some of the “geeks” who use their services and as one pointed out web designer fees may be “costly” but for a great number of their customers it pays the bills and who really wants a boring template site.

To some this will suggest that 123 dont appreciate their bread and butter customers, yes there will be businesses wanting to get themselves online without dealing with a web company or freelancer, but they dont tend to be repeat customers.

Waiting to see how long it takes before they post an apology for alienating the majority of their customer base and whether anyone else picks up on it.

The post When getting social goes wrong first appeared on Chris Walton.

Coming only hours after the first major product launch since his official resignation as Apples Chief Executive, the already much debated iPhone 4s, Jobs will be a public figure that will be missed my Tech lovers and the general public alike.

News and technology websites around the world have commented on Jobs passing as have world leaders including Prime Minister David Cameron President Barrack Obama, emphasising the importance of a man known as a technology visionary and providing an insight into how he through his products have impacted nearly every person on the planets lives, be it through Apple or Picsar. Below are a few of the examples of memorials accross the tech world to Steve Jobs.

Apple.com has altered their homepage into an elegant photo tribute, which seems fitting to both Jobs and Apples aesthetic philosiphy, a black and white photo with Steve Jobs 1955-2011 next to it, the photo links to a message of dedication.

Google have also placed a simple dedication on their homepage, anyone visiting the  Search Engine giant today will see their tribute just under the search field.

Bill Gates (founder of Apples competitor Microsoft if you dont know) has released a personal statement on the death of his long time professional rival (and most importantly friend);

I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work. Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives. The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come. For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.

Steve Jobs was the greatest inventor since Thomas Edison. He put the world at our fingertips.

Director Steven Spielberg

We’ve lost a unique tech pioneer and auteur who knew how to make amazingly great products. Steve fought a long battle against tough odds in a very brave way. He kept doing amazing things in the face of all that adversity. As someone who has had his own medical challenges, I couldn’t help but be encouraged by how he persevered.

Paul Allen,Microsoft co-founder

People sometimes have goals in life. Steve Jobs exceeded every goal he set himself.

Steve Wozniak, Apple Co-founder

An illustration of how websites with usergenerated content really cant be relied on was Wikipedia this morning, which already had been updated on Jobs passing however an image supposedly showing Apples tribute incorectly displaying a Google Doodle from a couple of weeks ago.

Where Apple go from here will be interesting, although Jobs legacy will undoubtly continue for many years under the control of those who have worked with him since the reinvention of the iMac in the late 90s.

Personally I will try to take on board a phrase Steve Jobs has been heard to say time and time again about Apple products, and in my opinion is something others miss the point of especially when trying to be creative

It just works

Steve Jobs (RIP)

The post Steve Jobs dies aged 56 first appeared on Chris Walton.

Some of the new and improved features in Firefox 5:

• Better standards support for HTML5, CSS3, MathML, XHR and SMIL
• Better visibility for the Do not track header preference
• Stability and security improvements
• Better tuned HTTP idle connection logic
• Improved canvas, JavaScript, memory, and networking performance
• Improved spell checking for some locales
• Improved desktop environment integration for Linux users
• Better WebGL security (WebGL content can no longer load cross-domain textures)
• Background tabs have setTimeout and setInterval clamped to 1000 ms to improve performance

The use of the ‘Do not track’ setting so users can ‘opt out’ of websites being able to track their movements with both the EU and the US discussing users web rights. It does make you wonder how SEO boffins will respond to sites they work on no longer pulling in accurate information on who visits.

The post Firefox 5 is here first appeared on Chris Walton.

The Edison doodle is a little simpler than Vernes earlier in the week, no interactivity this time only a glowing light bulb and some moving machinery.

The post Another Google Doodle this time for Thomas Edison first appeared on Chris Walton.

Verne wrote stories about space and underwater travel decades before either were considered practical and is known as one of the greatest (and earliest) science fiction writers in history.

Google have changed their home page ‘doodle’ to represent a series of virtual submarine windows in the shape of the word Google with a joystick that lets you drive the submarine under the sea.

Shows that Google will put time and effort into making their homepage different and interesting for users for just one day to mark a specific anniversary or date.

The post Google goes Jules Verne for the day first appeared on Chris Walton.

They have also built a bold website to showcase the logo which includes some nifty CSS3 techniques and @font-face

The post W3C reveals HTML5 logo first appeared on Chris Walton.

Along with the flowers was a note which said

Thanks for the good times, IE6. See you all @ MIX, where we’ll show a little piece of IE heaven. Internet Explorer Team at Microsoft.

Even though I have recently been taking a different view when it comes to designing and building websites with IE6 in mind, and instead of moaning about it instead working with its limitations with graded browser support, its a shame that the companies who refuse to update their computer systems so we no longer have to worry about websites being broken, and they dont have to worry about the security of their computers.

Hopefully with more and more companies ditching IE6 either for a newer version or on of the other much better options we as web builders can start concentrating on the important aspects of accessibility and user experience.

I dont know what was bigger news, that there is a new version of Internet Explorer on the horizon or that someone from Microsoft have a sense of humour!

Check out the ie6funeral.com website and pictures taken at the funeral on Flickr..Rest in Peace IE6 gone but not forgotten.

The post Microsoft sends flowers to the wake for IE6 first appeared on Chris Walton.