Based on what I have read, the OnePlus One (OPO) is a very good smartphone at an unbelievably low price ($299 for 16GB or $349 for 64GB). The OPO has many of the same features as the flagship phones from other companies, and it comes with CyanogenMod (CM) installed. I’m a big fan of CM.  I have a rooted 2013 Nexus 7 with CM11 installed and I run nightly builds. However, while the OPO may be a “Flagship Killer”, it’s not going to kill many flagships if people can’t buy it. Since its introduction the only way to get an OPO has been through a rather strange “invite” system (the company has said it may launch a pre-order system in late October).

I have been reading the OPO forums and reviewers’ comments for months – thinking about buying the OP – and then Samsung announced the Galaxy Note 4. I have had a Note II for almost two years and I like the size and the features. One of our sons-in-law has a Galaxy S5 and I’ve been very impressed with his phone. The Note 4 appears to be a larger and improved version of the S5 with some new features added. Unfortunately, the cost of the Note 4 is about $750, although you can opt to pay T-Mobile in 24 monthly installments with no interest.  Also, Samsung is offering a $200 trade-in allowance for pre-orders. Still, the Note 4 is $200 to $400 more than the 64GB OnePlus One. Could I justify that additional expense?

After giving the matter a great deal of thought I pre-ordered the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 from T-Mobile. Why, you ask, am I willing to spend the extra money? Here are some of my reasons:

• Ability to pre-order and have a reliable delivery date.
• After sale support.
• Expandable memory.
• Fast charging and replaceable battery.
• Wi-fi calling.
• Better rear camera with OIS.

I’ll give you my impressions after I receive the phone (sometime after October 17th).

Easy CSS3 Generator allows you to easily generate useful snippets of CSS3 and copy them into your projects.  These free online tools take care of all the vendor prefixes. Elements include buttons, border radius, box shadows, text shadows, and CSS3 gradients.

Updated 04/30/2014 – According to a company forum post, the much-anticipated OnePlus One smartphone will reach general availability in June. You can read the CNET article here.

According to the specs and a hands-on review from Engadget, the OnePlus One, due in late May, is a top-tier smartphone at a bargain basement price.  The retail price for the phone will be $299US for the 16GB model and $349US for the 64GB model.  Keep those prices in mind when you review the following specs:

• Qualcomm’s latest SoC, the Snapdragon 801 with a quad-core 2.5GHz CPU
• Adreno 330 GPU and 3GB of RAM.
• JDI’s 5.5-inch 1080p IPS LCD panel protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
• Built-in 3,100mAh battery.
• A speedy 13-megapixel f/2.0 camera (Sony Exmor IMX214 sensor with a 6-lens module and dual LED; 4K video; 720p slow-motion at 120 fps).
• A 5-megapixel wide-angle selfie cam.
• Loud stereo speakers (tuned by JBL) and tri-microphone with noise cancellation.
• NFC, dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1 plus GPS radios.
• Support for LTE bands 1/3/4/7/17/38/40, as well as WCDMA bands 1/2/4/5/8.

The phone is powered by the popular CyanogenMod 11, based on Android 4.4.

About the only features lacking are microSD expansion and USB 3.0.  The phone should work with most US carriers except Sprint and Verizon.

You can expect the phone to be hard to get, at least for a while.  It won’t be sold through carriers but only direct from OnePlus using the OnePlus Invite System. According to a post on the OnePlus forum:

With an invite, you can be 100% sure that you’ll actually be able to buy it, and it ships within a few days. In contrast to staying up in the middle of the night trying to buy one along with 20,000 other people. So in the true spirit of the OnePlus name, a good product gets spread by word of mouth, shared among friends for that extra personalized touch.

So how do you get an invite? Invites will also be made available through friends, contests, and on this forum (you have not been forgotten). We value thoughtful contributions from active fans. Once you’ve bought a OnePlus One, you’ll also become eligible to invite your friends in the future.

As soon as we can get our hands on a OnePlus One we’ll give you our complete evaluation. In the meantime, go to the OnePlus One website for more information and sign up for an invitation.

I saw the following post on a web development forum:

I am not a CSS purist.  Several years ago I switched from tables to CSS layouts, but I must admit that there are times when I find it quicker and easier to use a table.  Recently, for example, I needed to place two image links on a page, centered horizontally.  I used a table formatted with the following CSS:

I’ve used the free version of NextGEN Gallery on several websites but I’ve never been completely comfortable with the plugin because it uses its own gallery instead of the standard WP gallery. This morning I downloaded all the photos from the NextGEN galleries on this website and deleted the NextGEN plugin.  I then uploaded the photos and created WP galleries.  Next, I decided I wanted a better slideshow so I used the “Enable [ gallery ] replacement – show [ gallery ] as slider” feature of the ATW Show Sliders plugin to display the WP galleries as slideshows. You can view the slideshows using the submenus under “Photos.”

We are convinced that the combination of WordPress and Weaver II Pro is the best way to develop websites. Weaver also offers WordPress themes and plugins through Aspen Themeworks, and they have just released two new plugins, ATW Show Posts and ATW Show Sliders.

We have tried both plugins and we think they are the best way to add image or post sliders to a site. The “Site News” slider on the home page was developed using these plugins, as was the image slider on our business site. Check out the free Show Posts and Show Sliders plugins. There is also a Pro version of Show Sliders available from Aspen Themeworks.

I just learned of a new validator for (X)HTML5:  http://html5.validator.nu/

I’m putting the final touches on a website promoting an upcoming film, Fatherless, inspired by the true story of Ken Johnson, Chaplain for the Indianapolis Colts. The site uses the Weaver II Pro WordPress theme and the Moderno subtheme. The site, which should be responsive, can be viewed here.

As an experiment I added Google’s Website Translator to this site (see the language selector below the left end of the menu bar). To keep things simple, Spanish is the only language choice other than English.  There seemed to be little or no interest in the translation feature so I removed it from the site.

I have used iGoogle as a Web portal since it was introduced in 2005 but, much to my disappointment, iGoogle is being retired as of November 1, 2013. I have looked at all the alternatives I could find, but I finally developed my own portal (http://pittstop.com/home/). A visitor commented that “startme.com is great!” so I decided to take another look. It has some bugs and the developers don’t respond to emails, but it does have potential. You can see an example here. Here are links to the iGoogle alternatives I could find:

ighome
NetVibes
Protopage
My MSN
My Yahoo!
iGoogle Portal
uStart
PortalPanel
Startific
StartMe