Tag Archives: April 1st

How to Flip a Page Upside-Down with CSS

For April Fool’s Day this year, I decided to do an amusing CSS trick instead of my usual fake news story. I turned the entire web site on its head, using a simple CSS3 attribute, and added a bit of JavaScript to jump down to the bottom (or top?) to complete the effect.

The CSS is simple, though of course it won’t work for Internet Explorer, except for the very latest version.

#flipdiv {
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    -moz-transform: rotate(180deg);
    -webkit-transform: rotate(180deg);
    -ms-transform: rotate(180deg);
    -o-transform: rotate(180deg);
    transform: rotate(180deg);
}

Now you want to wrap everything inside your <body> element with a new <div>. (You have to style the div instead of the body itself, as you get some weird box model issues otherwise.) It would look something like this:

<body>
<div id="flipdiv">
...everything else...
</div>
</body>

If you want to automatically scroll down to the new top of the page, a.k.a. the bottom, you can use a little JavaScript snippet to bump it down.

<script type="text/javascript">
window.onload = scrollDownToTheTop;
function scrollDownToTheTop() {
window.scrollTo(0, document.body.scrollHeight);
}
</script>

Silly, but not bad for an April Fool’s joke. :)

BREAKING: Apple Acquires Sprint for $32 Billion

In a surprise press release this morning, Apple announced their acquisition of cellular company Sprint for $32 Billion. Sprint, known for its uncertain financial situation, reportedly agreed to an Apple takeover after a private bidding war between Apple and the search giant Google.

Apple has been seeking a way to escape the oppressive policies of the two larger cellular companies, AT&T and Verizon, for some time. The Sprint acquisition will allow them to offer the iPhone without carrier-imposed restrictions on things like tethering and data usage, and may very well lead toward cheaper plans.

In the announcement, Apple stated that they plan to offer unlimited data and voice for $30 per month, with SMS added for an additional $5. Adding additional handsets or other devices (i.e. the iPad) to your plan will cost an additional five to ten dollars per month, depending on the brand and model.

Details are still sparse, but we will cover the news here as it unfolds.

The Internet’s Best of April Fools’ Day 2010

April 1st has come and gone once again. This year’s turnout was pretty good, with Google being the most extravagant as usual. For posterity, I thought a roundup of some of the best would be in order.

Google Becomes “Topeka”

Referencing Topeka, Kansas’ changing of their name to “Google, Kansas” for a month, Google changed their name to “Topeka” for April Fools’ Day.

Continue reading →

Internet Explorer 9 to Render Pages with WebKit

In a surprising turn of events, Microsoft announced that the upcoming Internet Explorer 9 would render pages with WebKit, the open source rendering engine developed initially by Apple. (Google’s Chrome browser uses WebKit, as does Safari.)

CEO Steve Ballmer declared the move to be “a wonderful strategy that will finally place Internet Explorer solidly ahead of the competition.”

The change was unexpected, given the company’s long history of less-than-perfect support for web standards and general disapproval of open source software, though the move to WebKit may be the start of a new, friendlier Microsoft.

Web designers have been voicing their approval, though surprisingly there have been a few opposed to the change of rendering engine. One company in particular, a design firm known as Plaid Mango Design, claims that the move to WebKit will cost them 40% of their income, which is made primarily from the extra fees they charge to develop CSS hacks to enable Internet Explorer to render their designs properly.

Bazinga! April Fools!

Mozilla Announces Firefox For iPhone

Firefox Icon on iPhone Home ScreenMozilla has announced that Firefox will be coming to the iPhone soon, this summer if there are no major delays.

The browser, dubbed “iFox” internally, is a fairly full-featured port of Firefox with a full implementation of the Gecko rendering engine and the TraceMonkey JavaScript processor. It is extensible via an add-on API similar to it’s desktop cousin, and it is bundled with an exclusive mobile version of Flash.

Apple has been working with Mozilla to bring the app to the platform in a way acceptable to both parties. It will land in the App Store as a free application.

P.S. April Fools!