Babluit's shared items in Google Reader

What Chrome OS has on Windows that Linux doesn't

2009-07-09T11:00:00Z

Google's Chrome OS isn't the first operating system to challenge Microsoft Windows' commanding lead. But it's got an advantage that other rivals such as Linux lacked: the Web.

Any new operating system must attract the developers who produce the applications to make it useful. The trouble Windows challengers have had is matching the wide spectrum of software available for Windows already.

That software includes mainstream titles such as Microsoft Office, Quicken, Adobe Photoshop, games, but also innumerable programs for narrower niches such as genealogy. Although some people are happy if they have the handful applications they need, an operating system needs broad support to achieve mass penetration.

Canonical's Ubuntu version of Linux has a lot of buzz as a desktop operating system, but when April 15 comes around, TurboTax doesn't run on it. Multiply that by all software the world needs and the Windows incumbent advantage becomes clearer.

Chrome OS faces the same applications challenge as any other operating system, but it's rising to that challenge in a different way. It includes the Chrome browser running on a stripped-down version of Linux, but the applications won't run on Linux, they'll run on the Internet. Chrome is the conduit to the Web applications, and Chrome OS is the vehicle by which Google will get the browser installed on Netbooks starting in the second half of 2010, the company promises.

The Web is the OS
"For application developers, the Web is the platform," Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director, said in the Google Chrome OS blog announcement Tuesday.

That gives Google some real advantages. Everybody already is using the Web, including everybody using Windows. Adding Web applications to your life is a much more gradual shift than suddenly cutting over from Windows to Linux or Mac OS X.

Programmers writing Web applications can reach anyone using Windows--and Mac OS X, Linux, and even a lot of advanced mobile phones, for that matter.

And speaking of those programmers, there are innumerable Web developers already gainfully employed. Many of the advanced ones are headed in Google's direction of interactive Web applications rather than passively viewed, static pages.

Aside from Google's own Web applications, such as Google Docs and Gmail, there are online photo editors, personal finance tools, and games.

Then there are places such as Facebook that couldn't exist without the Web. Yahoo, Google, Facebook, MySpace and others are turning parts of their sites into vessels to contain others' Web applications, too, through foundations such as OpenSocial.

In short, while the Windows paradigm has been relatively static, the Web is blossoming as an applications platform. Even Microsoft is getting in on the action with its Web-based version of Office 2010.

Not so fast
So it's a slam dunk, right? Microsoft should just throw in the towel and sack everyone except the online Office team? Wrong.

The Web is increasingly useful, but it's got some big drawbacks as an applications foundation. Recreating the power and richness of applications that run natively on a PC with a Web application requires new technology and new expertise.

First, Web applications can't tap into hardware resources the way a native operating system can for reasons of security and technological limitations. Want to use that Webcam or burn your photos onto a DVD? Good luck using a Web app to do that.

Second, there's performance. Web applications run through a combination of standards such as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and JavaScript, where the Web programs actually run. Those standards are workable for basic chores, but computationally intense operations crawl compared with native applications, and user interfaces are often Spartan, too.

Third, there's that pesky issue of Internet connectivity. Web apps without the Internet are as useful as a sewing machine without thread. It's getting better, through 3G connections and whatever technologies will come later, but today you can't count on a network connection even in many high-tech regions.

Fourth, although there are plenty of Web developers at work, there aren't nearly so many who have the command over the necessary technology that they can write complex applications. That's even more the case when you consider applications often run differently on Chrome, Opera, Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, and the market-leading Internet Explorer. Programming tools will help--Mozilla this week offered its own gallery--but it takes time to learn new coding methods.

Tackling the problems
Google may be ambitious, but it's not naive. It's tackling many of the problems.

For example, it's been agitating for years for more pervasive Internet access, and it offers tools such as Google Web Toolkit to try to ease the chores of writing JavaScript that supports multiple browsers.

And Google is working directly on the browser, too.

Chrome sports a multi-process architecture that, while it consumes more memory, isolates what's going on in each browser tab for reasons of performance and security. And it's got the V8 JavaScript engine, which Google hopes to use to accelerate JavaScript programs. Finally, it's got Gears built in, a technology that permits offline access to Web application data. Gmail and Google Docs have varying degrees of support for offline access through Gears.

Then there's work to improve performance even more. Native Client technology can let programmers endow a Web application with a downloadable module that runs directly on the processor, adding muscle to what can be done with relatively pokey JavaScript. And O3D, along with a related Canvas 3D project from Khronos Group and Mozilla, are designed to let browser-based applications take advantage of hardware graphics acceleration.

The problem isn't licked by far. But the Web shows no signs of diminishing in performance, pervasiveness, or sophistication. Google Chrome OS poses only a modest competitive threat to Microsoft Windows in the near term, but in the long term, it's a force to be reckoned with.

Google Drops a Bomb: Its Own Operating System

2009-07-08T12:22:04Z

Mere hours ago, Google did something that's pretty surprising, and that will impact the netbook, and maybe PC market: It announced its own operating system, Chrome. It's open source.

Google announced the news on its blog, setting a clear agenda for all to see. "The operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web," it said in the post, noting that Google Chrome OS--which will be based on the pretty successful Chrome browser--will be Google's "attempt to re-think what operating systems should be."

That sounds bold, but Google has a lot of brain power available to make it true. The OS will be open source, lightweight and have "speed, simplicity and security" at its core. The lightweight and simple aspects are clear from the fact that the OS is going to be initially targeted at netbooks--it's absolutely a separate project from Android, (which we guess puts to rest to some of those Android on netbooks rumors). And if you think XP and Windows 7, along with proprietary Linux installs, have too much of a stranglehold on that market, think again. Because Google's also said its in talks with OEMs and that you can expect netbooks bearing the Google OS from the second half of 2010.

As if that's not enough, the way Google appears to be re-thinking an OS is completely new. Chrome OS is designed to be instant-on, with a minimal interface and most of the user experience will happen via web interactions. Chrome will run within a "new windowing system" superimposed on a Linux kernel, and the whole thing will work like it's in a browser. Consequently "all web-based applications will automatically work" so developers will supposedly be able to write software that runs on Chrome, and in browsers on Windows, OS X and Linux machines. Chrome is also going to work on both ARM and x86 architectures, meaning everything from smartphones to smartbooks to netbooks to full-on desktop PCs. Yup...Google admits its got its sights on running your home PC.

How will Chrome OS work? I'm betting that some of the key components will be cloud-based, which is implied by the instant-on aspects of the project. If Chrome is extremely lightweight, and merely a sophisticated portal onto a cloud-based OS, then when you flip on your PC it'll be up and running swiftly, and ready to access lots of data on a distant server which is already on, and already speedy. I'm prepared to be wrong about this, though--Google could have more surprising tricks up its sleeve.

Needless to say this is dramatic news, and its repercussions for the netbook and even full-on PC industry could be significant. After all, Android has been a great success for Google on smartphones. Can Google produce a quality OS that people will enjoy using? A very positive sign in support of this is that Google appears to be ready to accept community input in the design of Chrome: "We're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision." Let's just hope that this designed-by-committee approach results in a racehorse, and not a camel.

The final question, of course, is "Should Microsoft be worried?" And the answer is probably not, assuming Windows 7 is a significant improvement on Vista. It's due this year, so will have a whole year's start on Chrome OS, during which it will seep into the public's consciousness, and no doubt be installed on billions of computers. Breaking into that market is going to be hard, as the average consumer tends to think of Windows first, and sometimes Macs second--a Google PC will sound somewhat alien. Similarly, it'll be difficult for Google to tackle what you could call the serious PC market, as its OS will be a complete unknown. But the battle is on.

newsletterPromo("Technology", "right");

[via Googleblog]

Google Chromium gains native theming support on Linux

2009-07-08T12:02:51Z

Chromium, the open source development version of Google's Chrome Web browser, recently gained support for native theming on the Linux platform. This reflects the growing maturity of the Linux port and demonstrates the extent to which Google is committed to making Chrome a first-class browser on the Linux platform.

When Chrome was launched last year, it was only available on Windows. Following the initial release, the developers began a porting effort to bring the browser to Linux and Mac OS X. We have closely followed Chromium prereleases on those platforms to keep up with the latest developments. In May, we did a hands-on review of Chromium on Linux using an alpha version. Google has made considerable progress since then and released the first Chrome-branded Linux and Mac versions last month.

Click here to read the rest of this article

Balsamiq Mockups and iPlotz Comparison

2009-05-03T00:01:54Z

Update: For a comparison between Balsamiq Mockups and FlairBuilder itself, please see this post. FlairBuilder is rather different from these two tools, but still, in order to avoid any confusion I decided to write another comparison to make the differences more clear. The comparison is made against Balsamiq Mockups, but the arguments stand for iPlotz, too.

When it comes to paper prototyping made in a digital fashion, there are two tools that really stand out: Balsamiq Mockups and iPlotz. People often wonder how the two compare one to each other and since there is no comparison available I thought it would be a good idea for me to write one. So here it is.

I must say that the entire comparison is made from my perspective as a tool developer. I do also develop a tool that has many things in common with what these tools try to accomplish, so I got to the point where I am very familiar with all the tiny details of this kind of tools. Maybe most of the time people won’t even notice or bother but, nevertheless, those details may sometime make a huge difference when it comes to adoption. People that have certain expectations, set by other tools, well known and established on the market, those will feel uncomfortable when facing unexpected behaviors or incomplete features or things that simply don’t work.

I also can tell that developing a tool is one the most exciting type of software development, especially graphics tool development. But as exciting it is, it is also very challenging. Getting features done right and usable is very, very hard to do. I know that with the price of many, many nights and weekends that I’ve spent on my own FlairBuilder. Thus, all my respect and appreciation for both teams developers, for all their hard work and effort to build and deliver good software.

Balsamiq Mockups

Launched on June 19, 2008, has quickly become a very popular wireframing tool. Beside the popularity of the tool, Balsamiq also attracted lots of attention due to the openness of its founder, Giacomo ‘Peldi‘ Guilizzoni, about how the business was going on.

iPlotz

About 6 months later, “after 6 months of development”, iPlotz was launched. It started as an online wireframing tool, with basic project management features. Since then it also got down to the desktop as an AIR application.

Interestingly enough, Balsamiq Mockups started as a desktop application and very soon will go online in a SaaS version. On the contrary, iPlotz started as a web application and now also comes as a desktop application. iPlotz has some integration features between the two versions. However, I don’t know anything about what plans does Balsamiq have about their desktop/online versions integration. We shall wait and see. But for now, I have no other option but to compare only the desktop versions.

Now, lets dig in!

In order to get familiar with the applications I’ll just put in here the two short videos that briefly present them:

Working canvas, pages and master pages

As you probably have noticed from the video above, Mockups offers infinite canvas for design. Wireframes are pretty much single paged. Lately, a feature was introduced to let you link two mockups so you could simulate multi-paging. In order to define some kind of boundaries, you could use a Browser Window component or simply a rectangle as a background. Master pages may be simulated by using a background image, image that was previously designed and exported with Mockups. When importing an image into your wireframe, Mockups detects on disk modifications and reloads the image, so your changes on Master mockups will be detected on subsequent image export. Not a straightforward way to do master pages.

iPlotz wireframes are multi-paged by design, so you could define pages with specific size, assign master pages to them and so on. Pages may also be linked together as some components have the option to act as links to a web location or another page. Definitely a nice set of features.

Adding components to the stage

First thing you’ll wanna do when creating a wireframe is to add components to a/the page. Both products have a pretty comprehensive palette of components for web, desktop and iPhone applications. Still, there are some differences when it comes to palette design.

Mockups has a wide horizontal palette with large component labeled images. You could tell right away how the component looks like and if it is what you’re looking for.

There is also this Quick Add box where you can type in few letters of the component you’re looking for and Mockups will offer you several options that match your search. What’s also very nice about this Quick Add box is that subsequent search/adding will smartly position the components on the left side of the mockup, as seen in the presentation video.

iPlotz components palette is vertical, with small labeled icons for each component. While it is more traditionally positioned on the side of the working area, it definitely misses a filtering box. The only “Quick Add” feature available is double clicking a component in the palette. This will add the component to the middle of the page.

Properties editing

Balsamiq Mockups has in place editing for most of the components: buttons, text, links, tables etc., they all allow you to edit their text by double clicking them. Other property values are available for editing in a property inspector.

The property inspector has been very finely tuned up so, as much as possible, it won’t stay in your way while working. It becomes visible only when one or more components are selected. While doing anything else that doesn’t require the Property Inspector to be visible, it will nicely fade away. (Some may find the fade in/fade out a bit annoying, but overall it proved to be useful.)

At the time of this writing things are in a continuous development at iPlotz. The application is changing and improving. There may not be as many options available in the property inspector (yes, iPlotz has a similar property inspector) for some components but things are surely moving fast. Here is, for example, a component that seems pretty customizable.

On page components handling

In both applications, quite naturally, you click on the canvas and then start dragging to select one or more components. When handling the selection, both application behave pretty much the same way with two notable exceptions:

1. In iPlotz you have to click and drag one of the selected components in order to move the entire selection. I’ve seen that other apps have the same behavior (OpenOfficee, InkScape are two that I’ve tried… don’t know about others). It doesn’t quite feel natural to me but I can’t exactly explain why. In Mockups you may click and drag from anywhere inside the selection bounds. UX experts out there, share your thoughts on this little detail!

2. Resizing the selection is or, I should better say, feels a bit more “live” in Mockups. On the other hand, I just noticed that from version 1.2 to 1.5 iPlotz improved a lot on this matter. I am absolutely sure that this is an aspect that’s under active development.

Well, let me just another point that comes into my mind right now: when moving things around in Mockups, dragged selection will snap to common common position relative to the margins of other components. Being that iPlotz and Mockups are “paper” prototyping tools, not having this feature may not be so much an issue for iPlotz. However, those that are somehow used with pixel perfect positioning will be tempted to position components properly aligned one to another.

iPhone support

Apparently, Mockups has fewer components than iPlotz. And it does in fact. But on the other hand it does offer more options for those few components. For instance, the iPhone component itself may be also viewed in landscape mode. The iPhone menu has lots of customization options, not in the property inspector but rather in a custom syntax, very flexible and capable.

iPlotz has a larger set of separate components allowing you to build iPhone mockups by putting together the many piece.

Anyway, one thing that clearly makes a difference between Mockups and iPlotz is the look of the components themselves. Mockups keeps the same hand-drawn, sketchy look that is consistent with the rest of the application components. On the contrary, all iPlotz iPhone components are in fact pieces of iPhone pictures, with a very polished look. Given the fact that iPhone application do have a very common look, I’d not see this as an issue, but rather as a design difference. After all, many of the components in iPlotz have a sort of mixed look’n'feel, half sketchy, half polished with straight lines and clean coloring.

Export/Import

As for exporting the wireframe, Mockups offers you PNG export option, either to clipboard or to files. Haven’t tried this myself as these features are available only in registered version. iPlotz offers PNG, JPG and PDF export. Both applications have printing support.

Conclusion

Mockups is a bit older on the market and clearly is a bit more mature. It obviously was driven forward by the large community that adopted it as wireframing tool. iPlotz is growing and, as I said, things are moving pretty fast.

While Mockups also comes as a plugin to several other tools like Jira or Confluence or XWiki, it is pretty much a very focused product. It doesn’t try to do anything else than wireframing. Just lately it got a small but highly requested prototyping feature: linking mockups together. It seems that it was easy for them to implement but they haven’t done so until now just because they don’t want to step away from what Mockups is right now.

iPlotz, on the other hand started with a different approach. It was released as an hosted application, with all the burden that comes with: user management, user rights, collaboration, etc. It also has basic project management features. The look and feel the application itself looks much more polished, letting me know that time and effort was also invested here. Clearly, these are marketing aspects and it takes what it takes to go in one direction or another. There is clearly a trade off and a price to pay for going either way.

Soon Mockups will also have an hosted version and then both will compete on both fields. I’ll try to get back with another comparison when that happens. Until then, back to FlairBuilder hard work!

Pirate Party comes to Canada

2009-07-07T06:36:10Z

Robbo sez, "With the CRTC [ed: Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Canada, analogous to Ofcom or FCC] holding hearings on network management, the arrival of the Pirate Party movement in Canada can only be welcome news to those of us participating in the copyfight. While it's not likely they will have much clout within the halls of parliament, the conventional rules of *mis*representation don't apply when a party, political or cultural movement is driven by such a focused issue. It is enough to acheive the means by which it can be raised in debate - not just in parliament but also the media and the streets - so as to ensure public awareness of the actions of elected representatives and to subsequently steer them to the public's will and not be merely (and silently) beholden to the influence of corporate lobbies. Arrrrr, eh?"

Pirate Party of Canada

Free music, movies for all? Copyright-fighting Pirate Party comes to Canada. (Thanks, Robbo!)

Previously:

Une nouvelle version du plug-in Gmail pour BlackBerry

2009-07-07T09:07:02Z

Research in Motion serait actuellement en train de tester une nouvelle version du plug-in pour le webmail de Google. Il apporterait de nouvelles fonctionnalités comme la gestion des étiquettes et des étoiles et surtout la prise en charge du mode de présentation spécifiques des emails.

Firefox stability to get a boost with multiprocess browsing

2009-07-07T13:38:59Z

Mozilla has launched a new project called Electrolysis that aims to bring multiprocess browsing to Firefox. According to Mozilla, splitting up the page rendering workload into multiple processes will improve the browser's performance, security, and stability. The developers have already assembled a prototype that renders a page in a separate process from the interface shell in which it is displayed.

Mozilla has explored the possibility of adopting a multiprocessing approach for Firefox in the past, but the idea didn't gain serious traction in the Firefox developer community until it was implemented by Google and Microsoft in their respective web browsers. Google's Chrome browser uses a separate process for each page, an architectural approach that facilitates much more effective security sandboxing and prevents page-specific rendering glitches from crashing the entire browser. Chrome even includes a process manager tool that can be used to see the status and resource consumption of each page.

Click here to read the rest of this article

Google Scrubs Apps Clean of Beta Labels

2009-07-07T15:20:11Z

Google is removing the beta label from Gmail and other beta components in Google Apps.

Watch Out Low-End Digicams: Here Comes the iPhone

2009-07-07T14:22:09Z

Two new steadicam-like grips designed for the iPhone have surfaced. Beyond their immediate utility, the fact they exist drives home an interesting point: Low-end digital cameras should beware--the iPhone is about to steal your job.

The first unit is a prototype from a new company dubbed Optical Widgets for Life Enhancement, and it's a two-handed gamepad-like grip designed to make the whole business of holding the iPhone for taking photos and video much easier. Since the plastic bulk of the device obscures the phones ports, it has a plug-in front-facing microphone that uses the headphones port. And, fantastically, it sports a proper 37mm camcorder lens to boost the phone's field of view. A full production run of version one of the device should be complete by the Holidays, and it'll cost somewhere between $30 and $50.

But that's not all--thanks to the enhanced plug-in comms power of the updated iPhone firmware, OWLE plans that the next generation of their mount will connect via the 30-pin iPod socket. That'll give the device stereo mic capability and may even allow for the phone to trigger an external flash, when using the right app.

Compared to this design, the Zgrip iPhone Pro from Zacuto sounds positively low-tech: All it does is steady your grip on the phone to make for less wobbly video footage. But there's a plethora of adjustments so you can secure the phone at almost any angle to get a shot. And the sheer metal mass of the grip will act as an intertial damper, squashing many of the bumps and jerks that would otherwise create shaky film. For all this, and that "pro" label, you'll have to pay more though: $295. If you're not into pro-level iPhone shooting, then you'll have to wait for a lower-spec consumer version.

The oddities of these two designs aside, they're both proof that the iPhone 3G S has an interesting future ahead of it. Selling in the millions it'll compete with many low-end digital cameras. And faced with a choice of filling your pockets or purse with a camera and a phone or just taking the phone, many people will choose the latter--making it the de facto digital camera of choice for quick moment-grabbing snaps or some video footage. That's just the amateur angle too: There's at least a couple of music videos that have already been made on the iPhone ("Play" by BJSR is shown below), and it's just a matter of time until someone shoots a whole movie on one. If only Apple unlocked the phone's full 720p recording capability--think what would happen then!

[OWLE, Zacuto via Crunchgear, TUAW]

Facebook Users Are Getting Older. Much Older.

2009-07-07T12:46:12Z

Analytics company iStrategyLabs has examined the demographics stats from Facebook’s Social Ads platform, and they’ve reached some very interesting conclusions. Facebook’s userbase, as a whole, is getting much older very fast.

As you can see in the chart below, the overall number of users between 18 and 24 years of age has grown only 4.8% between the fourth of January and the fourth of July of 2009. In comparison, the number of users aged 25 – 34 has grown 60.8%; the number of users aged 35 to 54 has grown 190.2%, while the number of users older than 55 years has grown a tremendous 513.7%.

If the iStrategyLabs numbers are correct, Facebook, simply put, is not a young site anymore. Most of the users (20,3 million, or 28.2% overall) on the site belong to the 35 – 54 age group. Compare that to the age group that was once Facebook’s bread and butter – the 18 – 24 group – which is now in third place with 18 million (25.1%) users, behind the 25 – 34 year old group, which makes for 25.2% of Facebook’s user base with 18.1 million users. The number of users aged 55 and over has grown from negligible 950,000 to 5.9 million in mere six months.

Now, although it may seem like the number of young users has declined, this is not true. The overall number of users of all ages is growing. But they are growing at very different speeds, and therefore the percentages have changed significantly; on a site like Facebook, which lives on advertising, this is a big deal.

However, although the number of young users has increased, the number of high school and college students has declined by -16.5% and -21.7%, respectively. This can indicate several things: first, that the data that iStrategyLabs is incorrect or very rough (which is a possibility, since Facebook doesn’t guarantee that the data provided to advertisers is absolutely accurate); secondly, it’s possible that Facebook users simply don’t think that their education, or the school/college they’re in are very important so they’re simply not entering the data. It’s probably a little bit of both, but it’ll be interesting to see and compare Facebook’s own demographics data with these numbers.

In any case, these are significant changes. If you show the same ads to Facebook users now, they will react vastly differently than they would have half a year ago. If you’re an advertiser on Facebook, you should take these changes into account and react accordingly, because your campaign might not be as effective as it was a couple of months ago.

Reviews: Facebook

Tags: demographics, facebook

Mozilla Aims To Centralize All Open Web Tools In One Directory

2009-07-07T13:27:19Z

Mozilla says there’s no central index for tools built to help web developers do their jobs (and/or hobby projects) better, so it set out to build one of its own. Located at tools.mozilla.com and dubbed the Open Web Tools Directory, the organization is taking a swing at building the most extensive and comprehensible index of tools that modern-day web developers can use.

The first thing you’ll notice when you visit the website is the unorthodox - and relatively confusing - design, as you can tell from the screenshot above.

Explains Ben Galbraith on behalf of the Developer Tools team on the Mozilla Labs blog:

We went with a “space” theme to emphasize the sheer size of the tool ecosystem (though at the moment we only have a small fraction of the tools available listed). And, frankly, we just couldn’t do another table-based master/detail database application; we wanted a directory that would be fun to use (and perhaps a bit of fun to create as well).

Luckily, there’s a search box at the bottom that allows you to browser for applications based on its name and category (Design, Code, Debug, Test, Deploy and Docs) which seems to do a decent job at weeding out the right applications from the directory.

Note that you need the most recent browser versions (Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Chrome 2, or Opera 9) to explore the site, but I take it our readers will probably have at least one of those installed already anyway.

According to Mozilla, this is just the first step, and for now it’s inviting developers to submit tools for inclusion in the database themselves. The Mozilla team will review incoming entries and put them up asap. On the roadmap: social features and fresh display options.

(Hat tip to MoMB)

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Even Consumer Reports Finds Smartphone Ratings Are Tough

2009-07-07T13:15:00Z

In its smartphones ratings,Consumer Reports rates the iPhone 3G S as its top choice, but recognized that personal taste factors in.

Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

2009-07-05T20:33:40Z

The increasingly competitive browser market has at last created an environment in which emerging Web standards can flourish. One of the harbingers of the open Web renaissance is HTML 5, the next major version of the W3C's ubiquitous HTML standard. Although HTML 5 is still in the draft stage, several of its features have already been widely adopted by browsers like Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. Among the most compelling is the "video" element, which has the potential to free Web video from its plugin prison and make video content a native first-class citizen on the Web—if codec disagreements don't stand in the way.

In an article last month, we explored the challenges and opportunities associated with the HTML 5 video element. One of the most significant of these challenges is the lack of consensus around a standard media codec, a contentious issue that has rapidly escalated into a major controversy. The debate has now stalled without a clear resolution in sight.

Click here to read the rest of this article

Open source to shape cloud computing, but not dominate it

2009-07-03T12:54:00Z

Open source has a role to play in cloud computing, but it's likely not to be the vanquisher of old, proprietary dominance.

Study Deconstructs Canadian Copyright Lobby Deception

2009-07-04T18:19:00Z

An anonymous reader writes "A new Canadian study deconstructs how copyright lobby groups manipulate public opinion by laundering proposals through seemingly independent groups. The study started after the Conference Board of Canada was shown to have plagiarized several of its IP reports and now shows the connections that all lead through the MPAA and RIAA. Michael Geist writes, 'It is not just that these reports all receive financial support from the same organizations and say largely the same thing. It is also that the reports each build on one another, creating the false impression of growing momentum and consensus on the state of Canadian law and the need for specific reforms.'"

Obama: Does He Pass the Social Media Test?

2009-07-04T18:59:58Z

He used social media and the web unlike any other presidential candidate in history. Barack Obama’s incredible online presence turned into a grassroots movement culminating in his election as the 44th President of the United States. He was all over YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and the blogosphere.

But that was the campaign. Since then, he has promised to be one of the most transparent and accessible presidents in history, and social media was going to be central to achieving that goal. Now that it’s been a few months since his inauguration, we revisited his social media credentials. Not only that, but we put a letter grade on his usage of social tools.

So how does the President’s social media usage rank since he took office? Does the leader of the free world earn a passing grade?

Twitter

During the campaign: President Obama was a prolific user of Twitter on the campaign trail. He joined Twitter all the way back in April 2007 and, up until the election, updated it about once a day with news, information, and videos.

Post-inauguration: From November 4th to January 15th, the @BarackObama account was dormant. Now though, his Twitter use has picked up, with a tweet about every other day or so. He (or his campaign) also know how to use their hashtags. It would be nice if maybe he’d @reply a person or two though.

Another note: the Obama team has been tweeting from @WhiteHouse, which is far more active than even Obama’s Twitter account.

Conclusion: Despite the two month lull, his Twitter use is solid.

Grade: A-

Facebook, MySpace, and social networking

During the campaign: Barack Obama made history with his Facebook usage. He used his Facebook Page and his MySpace Page to reach out to constituents. He started it early and used it often.

Post-inauguration: While MySpace has fallen a bit by the wayside, his Facebook usage has been nothing but phenomenal. Not only has there been a nonstop news feed of videos, links, and pictures, but he is the #1 page on Facebook, beating out the likes of Vin Diesel and Michael Jackson (for now). The millions of users who watched Obama’s Inauguration on Facebook/CNN Live prove he’s a social networking rock star.

Conclusion: This is one place where he upped his game. You can’t argue with being #1.

Grade: A+

YouTube and Video

During the campaign: YouTube addresses, touching stories, and looks behind the scenes were common during the campaign. His YouTube profile was very active.

Post-inauguration: While he still uses his old YouTube account, really, you can find him over at The White House’s channel. Obama and his team post videos almost every day, with the most important one being his weekly video address, which is much more effective than a simple radio address.

He’s also stepped up his social media video presence with multiple live video press conferences and town halls.

Conclusion: How many other public figures are so accessible via video?

Grade: A

Blogging

During the campaign: Both Barack Obama and John McCain had strong blogging presences. Barack also had My.BarackObama, which provided a lot of user-generated blog content, while John McCain was fortunate to have a prolific campaign blogger in his daughter, Meghan McCain.

Post-inauguaration: Obama has two primary blogs, his Organizing for America blog and, yes, The White House Blog. Both are updated very frequently by his team – and are transparent in who is posting and when.

Still, it’d be nice to see a post from Obama himself maybe once every month or two, but we understand that he has bigger fish to fry.

Conclusion: Great blogging presence, but would love to see his name as the author just a tad more often.

Grade: B+

Overall

During the campaign: Social media and social networking were such a huge aspect of his campaign. It was central to his grassroots movement, and his my.barackobama initiative was a stunning success. Clearly the best use of the web in a political campaign (Ron Paul doesn’t count – he still lost).

Post-inauguration: Let’s remember, this man is the leader of the free world. He has to worry about rogue states, nuclear missiles, CIA intelligence, broken economies, budget deficits, re-election, and probably things we don’t want to know about. Yet he has made reaching out and keeping constituents informed via social media a priority. It’s tough to argue that Obama isn’t the most accessible president in history, no matter your party affiliation.

Conclusion: Obama has gone beyond the call of duty.

Grade: A

Tags: barack obama, facebook, myspace, obama, social media, twitter

Firefox 3.5 and the potential of Web typography

2009-07-03T03:56:00Z

In addition to new features such as support for HTML 5, geo-location, and a noticeably faster engine, Firefox 3.5 added a new CSS rule that makes Web typography much more attractive.

@font-face is a CSS rule that allows Web designers to reference fonts not installed on end-user machines. Just as you would have a pointer to a server-based stylesheet or JavaScript file in your Web page code, you can now make reference to a hosted typeface.

You'll note that news sites such as CNET News and NYTimes.com are optimized to make Web type more readable and as stylish as possible, but there are many design possibilities via additional downloadable typefaces. (As with any linked asset, there is some level of security risk if a hacker gets their hands on the font file.)

Mozilla's John Daggett explains: Within a stylesheet, each @font-face rule defines a family name to be used, the font resource to be loaded, and the style characteristics of a given face such as whether it's bold or italic. Firefox 3.5 only downloads the fonts as needed, so a stylesheet can list a whole set of fonts of which only a select few will actually be used.

This function is something I would have expected to be commonplace by now (Safari began supporting it in Version 3.1 and Opera in Version 10) but neither have the market share to drive usage the way Firefox and Internet Explorer do. (Note: this function doesn't work in IE.)

Generally speaking, the Web browser has done a terrible job with type. We've been stuck with old standbys such as Helvetica or Times New Roman, and don't forget the oft-loathed Comic-Sans and other delightful Microsoft fonts that are often easy to read but lack any real style (Verdana, for example.)

As Ian Lynam and Craig Mod write: "Fine typography has always been one of the stumbling points of Web design. Limited at most to a handful of cross-platform specific fonts, Web designers have often found it necessary to hack their way into typographically nuanced territory."

New font possibilities won't necessarily make you more popular or a better designer, but @font-face does open the door to make Web pages much more attractive and readable without being forced in Flash or other plug-in based solutions.

This of course is provided that font developers figure out ways to make their typefaces available freely or in a manner that encourages developers to use them. From a technical perspective, Firefox 3.5 allows fonts only to be loaded for pages served from the same site. This prevents sites from freely using fonts found on other sites and gives a bit of protection, but not much.

Most commercial type foundries aren't prepared for this and generally don't have licenses that are conducive to this type of use. But there is a big opportunity to get stylish new typefaces onto browsers worldwide, provided font designers are ready to embrace an open mindset.

(Note: I recognize the irony that I can't use the @font-face tag to demonstrate. Please take a look here and here for examples.)

Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom.

2009-07-03T17:01:18Z

Plusieurs Ã‰tats amÃ©ricains ont commencÃ© chacun Ã leur tour, Ã obliger le prÃ©lÃ¨vement d'une taxe de vente sur les achats effectuÃ©s en ligne. La menace d'une telle taxe fait annuler plusieurs relations d'affaires qu'entretient Amazon avec les sociÃ©tÃ©s affiliÃ©es Ã©tablies...

XHTML 2 Cancelled

2009-07-03T15:32:00Z

Jake Lazaroff writes "According to the W3 News Archive, the charter for the XHTML2 Working Group — set to expire on December 31st, 2009 — will not be renewed. What does this mean? XHTML2 will never be a W3C recommendation, so get on the HTML 5 bandwagon now. According to the XHTML FAQ, however, the W3C does 'plan for the XML serialization of HTML to remain compatible with XML.' Looks like with HTML 5, we'll get the best of both worlds."

Facebook revoit sa gestion de la confidentialité

2009-07-03T10:43:00Z

Entre les internautes soucieux de leur vie privée qui le fuient par crainte et ceux qui y publient naïvement des photos ou vidéos compromettantes, Facebook admet que les options de partage sont trop nombreuses [...]

Babluit's shared items in Google Reader

What Chrome OS has on Windows that Linux doesn't

Google Drops a Bomb: Its Own Operating System

Google Chromium gains native theming support on Linux

Balsamiq Mockups and iPlotz Comparison

Balsamiq Mockups

iPlotz

Working canvas, pages and master pages

Adding components to the stage

Properties editing

On page components handling

iPhone support

Export/Import

Conclusion

Pirate Party comes to Canada

Une nouvelle version du plug-in Gmail pour BlackBerry

Firefox stability to get a boost with multiprocess browsing

Google Scrubs Apps Clean of Beta Labels

Watch Out Low-End Digicams: Here Comes the iPhone

Facebook Users Are Getting Older. Much Older.

Mozilla Aims To Centralize All Open Web Tools In One Directory

Even Consumer Reports Finds Smartphone Ratings Are Tough

Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

Open source to shape cloud computing, but not dominate it

Study Deconstructs Canadian Copyright Lobby Deception

Obama: Does He Pass the Social Media Test?

Twitter

Facebook, MySpace, and social networking

YouTube and Video

Blogging

Overall

Firefox 3.5 and the potential of Web typography

InquiÃ©tudes chez Amazon devant la venue d'une taxe sur les ventes en ligne

XHTML 2 Cancelled

Facebook revoit sa gestion de la confidentialité