Firefox 3 High CPU Use? Try This Fix. | GMG

Firefox 3 High CPU Use? Try This Fix. | GMG

BBC NEWS | Technology | Internet overhaul wins approval

BBC NEWS | Technology | Internet overhaul wins approval: "The net's regulator, Icann, voted unanimously to relax the strict rules on so-called 'top-level' domain names, such as .com or .uk.
The decision means that companies could turn brands into web addresses, while individuals could use their names.
A second proposal, to introduce domain names written in Asian, Arabic or other scripts, was also approved."

Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

Finally after years of rumour, Google launches its own operating system

"Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.
Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform."

Designing a blog with html5 | HTML5 Doctor

Designing a blog with html5 | HTML5 Doctor

John Resig says:

If there was ever a time to start playing around with the jump to HTML 5, now would be it. Since HTML 5 is a superset of the features provided by HTML 4 and XHTML 1 it ends up being surprisingly easy to 'upgrade': Just start by swapping out your current (X)HTML Doctype for the HTML 5 Doctype:

Here's a practical article on how to start from HTML5 Doctor, a new blog dedicated to the new web.

XHTML 2 language dumped in favor of HTML 5

XHTML 2 language dumped in favor of HTML 5: "The XHTML 2 Working Group charter, scheduled to expire at the end of 2009, will not be renewed. �By discontinuing the XHTML 2 working group and increasing resources in the HTML 5 Working Group, W3C hopes to accelerate progress of HTML 5 and clarify the organization's position regarding the future HTML."

W3C stops work on XHTML 2 - SD Times: Software Development News

W3C stops work on XHTML 2 - SD Times: Software Development News: "Jacobs said there were two efforts going on at the W3C: an evolutionary path to advance HTML, and a revolutionary path that did not deal with HTML. “We decided after lots of discussion that the future is HTML 5.”"

Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more: a browser prediction: the modern era of the web

Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more: a browser prediction: the modern era of the web

"Having said that, wouldn't it be neat if at the end of this year, IE 6 and IE 7 were both under 10% share? With IE 6 and 7 quickly disappearing, will we look back at 2010 and say "there began the Modern Era of the Web"?"

Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more: more on internet explorer's falling

Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more: more on internet explorer's falling

IE falling fast

And IE6 eclipsed by IE8

Writing Efficient CSS for use in the Mozilla UI - MDC

This is a very interesting article about the dos and donts of writing CSS. While it applies to CSS used in Mozilla user interface app, the rules do amke sense for ordinary CSS uses. avoid using tag rules like DIV { }, avoid descendent rules like DIV DIV {}. Use children rules if you have to. Use IDs because they are faster than classes and much faster than tag names. Keep your right most element in the rule very specific etc.

Writing Efficient CSS for use in the Mozilla UI - MDC: "How the Style System Matches Rules
The style system matches a rule by starting with the rightmost selector and moving to the left through the rule's selectors. As long as your little subtree continues to check out, the style system will continue moving to the left until it either matches the rule or bails out because of a mismatch."

JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit - Interactive Data Visualizations for the Web

JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit - Interactive Data Visualizations for the Web: "The JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit provides tools for creating Interactive Data Visualizations for the Web."

jQuery TOOLS - The missing UI library for the Web

jQuery TOOLS - The missing UI library for the Web: "jQuery Tools is a collection of the most important user-interface components for today's websites. This single JavaScript file weighs only 5.8 Kb"

How to detect if a font is installed (only using JavaScript)

How to detect if a font is installed (only using JavaScript)

Twitter’s “Don’t Click” prank, explained (dsandler.org)

Twitter’s “Don’t Click” prank, explained (dsandler.org)

Click jacking

BBC NEWS | Technology | Google tackled on e-mail security

BBC NEWS | Technology | Google tackled on e-mail security: "Google has been asked to explain why it is not making its Gmail e-mail service more secure.
In an open letter to Google boss Eric Schmidt, security experts, lawyers, and privacy advocates ask why Gmail users are 'needlessly' being put at risk."

The Meat Ship

Don't Look At This - No Matter What You Do.

Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more: theora video vs. h264

Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more: theora video vs. h264: "Firefox now has a pretty nice set of audio and video controls that are certainly ready for an initial launch. The DOM APIs, while not complete, are good enough that we built our browser controls using them and people are able to do some pretty cool demos and even final implementations with them. The Xiph QT Component, a tool that brings Ogg/Theora Vorbis to QuickTime-capable apps has just had another release that brings it up to speed with the Theora 1.0 release and fixes some key bugs. (And another release is expected soon.) Theora 1.1 alpha 2 has made some really big gains for video encoding quality.

And, we're about to ship these capabilities to 300 million Internet users.

So, what about quality. First, it's important to note that when we talk about video on the Web, quality has to be paired with size. So, what kind of quality can you get from Theora in a comparable file size to H.264 -- the latest and greatest of the not-Open video codecs."

QuirksBlog: State of the Browsers — IE edition

QuirksBlog: State of the Browsers — IE edition: "Basically, IE6 will continue to exist when IE7 has all but disappeared, and, contrary to what you might expect, this situation will create exciting opportunities for Microsoft’s competitors.

Besides, last week the news came that Microsoft is going to voluntarily de-bundle IE from all Windows 7 machines that will be sold in Europe, and I continue to have my doubts about that affair.

So it’s time for a special State of the Browsers IE edition."

Activity Streams | Google Groups

Activity Streams |
Google Groups: "An effort to develop an Activity Stream protocol for syndicating activities taken in social web applications and services, similar to those in Facebook's stream or FriendFeed."

Thoughts on Opera Unite | FactoryCity

Thoughts on Opera Unite | FactoryCity: "Okay, so I shit all over Opera Unite, but you can’t come out and promise all kinds of world-changing, freedom-enhancing goodness and then not deliver! — worse, to do so when their newest competitor (Google!) is schooling everyone with the perfect example of how to do it right (see: Wave)."

An introduction to Opera Unite - Opera Developer Community

An introduction to Opera Unite - Opera Developer Community

The time has come to raise the curtain on yet another exciting new Opera technology release. The drums are playing a low roll, which increases in intensity as the onlookers stare in antici … pation; the lights begin to come up, along with the curtain; the stage is all set for passion and the energy of today’s performance; the narrator spoils the mood by talking through it (that’s me…)

So what is Opera Unite? In a nutshell, Opera Unite is a collaborative technology that uses a compact server inside the Opera desktop browser to share data and services. You can write applications — in the form ofOpera Unite Services — that use this server to serve content to other Web users.

Why is this exciting? Well, it allows you to interact with contacts, sharing data and services without the need for any third-party Web sites/applications to be involved at all. Think of the possibilities:

• You could play games and chat to your peers directly using the service
• You could share photos and videos with peers, straight off your hard drive, without needing to use third-party Web applications
• You can work collaboratively with others on files such as data and images (think wikis or drawing applications), and then work with those files offline if you wish, before sharing them again at a later date
• You could even start creating some crazy hacks, like an application that controls a remote car across the Web (I’ve seen a rough prototype in action)

Itching to know more? Good. In this article I first present a tour of Opera Unite, with details of how to activate it, how to install a Opera Unite service, and how to use those services to collaborate with your friends and colleagues. If you want to find out more about developing your own Opera Unite Services, read our Opera Unite developer's primer.

How to please the customer

How to please the customer: "We have a tendency to focus on the easy comparisons and ignore those that may be more important but are harder.

Knowing this, salespeople often present us with a chain of carefully selected pairs of easy choices that lead us to the position they want to get us to."

URI Template

URI Template: Joe Gregorio from Google: "A URI Template is a compact sequence of characters used for the construction of URIs. This specification defines the URI Template syntax and the process for expanding a URI Template into a URI, along with guidelines and security considerations for the use of URI Templates on the Internet. The URI Template syntax allows for the construction of strings that are a superset of URIs, allowing an implementation to process any URI Template without knowing the scheme-specific requirements of every possible resulting URI."

Storm Alert � Good Vibrations

Storm Alert � Good Vibrations

an intertesting critical examination of the Wave specification and protocol.

Google's Wave of the future is genius, but will it work? :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Business

Google's Wave of the future is genius, but will it work? :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Business

Very good article about the use and potential of Google Wave

Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more: one year of internet explorer usage share

Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more: one year of internet explorer usage share

Internet Explorer 6 continues its long downward trend, dropping about 10 points in the last year and IE 8 has been cannibalizing IE 7 users at a strong pace for the last 3 months.

I expect that the next month will see IE 6 finally fall under 15% (and hopefully trending to fall under 10% by the end of this year.) That's good news for everyone.

We should also see IE 8 meeting IE 7 and crossing at about 25% each in the next couple of months.

HTML 5 and Web video: freeing rich media from plugin prison - Ars Technica

HTML 5 and Web video: freeing rich media from plugin prison - Ars Technica: "DailyMotion and Google are both experimenting with the HTML 5 video element and have strongly endorsed standards-based solutions for deploying video on the Web. Ars takes a close look at the state of open video and explores both the benefits and challenges of liberating rich media from the proprietary plugin prison."

Google Wave as infrastructure

Google Wave as infrastructure: "All of the things in the Wave demo are possible without Wave. The interesting thing about Wave is not so much the application, but the infrastructure, the protocol and the underlying concepts. Many limited collaboration apps have offered various subsets of the Wave functionality, for example, and the superficial functionality can be built using existing technology, without fancy new protocols and clients etc.

But that's missing the point. Wave is interesting because the infrastructure makes it extremely open-ended.

A lot of people have been comparing Wave to e-mail. That's missing the point too. Wave has the potential to be as important as the Web. I'm serious. Wave is taking the web and making it interactive, embeddable, recordable, and shareable on a whole different level than what we are used to. And like most great 'revolutionary' ideas it doesn't actually add all that much new"

Google Wave: What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today? - O'Reilly Radar

Google Wave: What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today? - O'Reilly Radar: "Lars and Jens Rasmussen, the original creators of Google Maps, will take the stage to unveil their latest project, Google Wave. As Lars describes it, 'We set out to answer the question: What would email look like if we set out to invent it today?'"

Google Bets Big on HTML 5: News from Google I/O - O'Reilly Radar

Google Bets Big on HTML 5: News from Google I/O - O'Reilly Radar: "'Never underestimate the web,' says Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra in his keynote at Google I/O this morning. He goes on to tell the story of a meeting he remembers when he was VP of Platform Evangelism at Microsoft five years ago. 'We believed that web apps would never rival desktop apps. There was this small company called �Keyhole, which made this most fantastic geo-visualization software for Windows. This was the kind of software we always used to prove to ourselves that there were things that could never be done on the web.' A few months later, Google acquired Keyhole, and shortly thereafter released Google Maps with satellite view.
'We knew then that the web had won,' he said. 'What was once thought impossible is now commonplace.'
Google doesn't want to repeat that mistake, and as a result, he said, 'we're betting big on HTML 5.'"

Google Wave Preview

Google Wave PreviewThis presentation is an hour and 20 minutes but an interesting view into collaborative systems. Google are positioning this as the future of email while merging with tools like Google Docs. A chain of emails is a conversation, which in Wave is a type of document, somewhat like a Wiki or a bulletin board. In essence it is a server hosted document tree collaboratively edited. Changes are made real-time like Google Talk (pushed through via Jabber-like XMPP)