Hello, internet! Whew. It’s been a busy week around the Krate office, but fear not – we still found time to gather up another batch of links for you. WIthout further ado:

• A great infographic about just what it is that’s keeping us glued to our phones 24/7 – interestingly, ‘making phone calls’ isn’t high on the list;
• Big news in the browser world: Opera moves to Webkit!
• Another round of ‘hey, wait, is this really a best practice?’ contemplation; this time, the spotlight falls on navigation and semantics.
• Useful find of the week: this excellent cheat sheet for developing for mobile and touch-sensitive devices. (Spoilers: in a future post, we’ll come back to this tech – and show you what we’ve been doing with it!)
• Last but not least: this site may not be the world’s fanciest guide to Mac and *nix command line use, but it’s a nice solid reference, especially if you’re new to the Terminal side of things.

See you next week! As always, if you’ve got links to share or ideas for a future post, send ‘em our way.

Lately there has been a rise in the use of two dimensional bar codes. The traditional one dimensional bar codes still have their place in groceries and checkouts, but lack the additional capabilities for more complex needs. Two dimensional bar codes provide much more versatility and uses. QR Codes (short for Quick Response) are a popular standard.

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Here at the Krate studio, all of our developers have migrated from iPhones to Androids. Though availability of apps leaves a bit to be desired (Sean is still waiting for a game worthy of downloading), here are five we find invaluable.

1) Google Goggles -  Glenn eschews the more popular Barcode Scanner in favor of this visual search engine. His reasoning? Call me paranoid, but when I looked at all the permissions Barcode Scanner requires, it freaked me out. I just didn’t think it was necessary. He uses Goggles primarily for scanning QRs, but of course, can use it to photo and search virtually anything else he can think of.

 2) Chrome to Phone – Use this app for its 1-click ability to push web content from your desktop to your Android. Jason’s application is mostly practical. He captures maps, directions and Yelp! reviews without the hassle of copy and paste. Quite the opposite, Glenn uses CtP as an ad hoc reader for articles and blog posts to browse during his subway ride home.

 3) Latitude - Evidently, Jason has a very active social life with some very directionally challenged friends, because if you ask him about this real-time location tool, he’ll rattle off ten recent examples for why, when and how this app has improved his social life. Latitude automatically allows your friend list (and vice versa) to see your every move in real-time, so choose them wisely!

 4) Gtask – Sean tried many task managers before settling on this one. He loves that it automatically syncs with all his Google Apps (Calendar, Mail, etc.), so there’s no need to export files or  fuss with your mail client.

 5) PDAnet - When DSL went down at the studio last week, everyone but our iPhone using leader was able to get online with this handy app. Bypassing your phone carrier’s $30 / month fee, PDAnet treats your Android as a modem, getting you online via a hard-wired USB connection.