The official release for the end users would be available in the second half of next year i.e. 2010. The initial release of Google Chrome Operating System is targeted at netbooks, it is going to be open-source and consume lesser memory on the computer’s hard-drive. They have published an article on their official blog stating that they are soon going to discuss with their partners and open source community before they announce the authorized release.

Key Factors:
Google developers say that the operating system provides a myriad web based features by integrating the ‘3S’ (Security, Simplicity and Speed). Their design idea in developing the OS was more inclined towards web rather than the contemporary OS features. The design overlay is emphasised on security architecture in order to refrain the operating system from viruses, spyware and malware. Well, it would be a real challenge for all the major Antivirus application manufacturers like Symantec, Kaspersky and McAfee to with stand the market after its advent.

Specifications:
Google Chrome OS would run on both x86 and ARM chipsets. The OS architecture would be window based built on top of a Linux kernel. The web applications developed on this platform would be supporting all major web browsers such as IE, Opera, Firefox and Safari. Web developers and designers can least worry about the cross browser compatibility issues, as this would set a new pedestal in the history of web standards. Applications that are developed using Google Chrome OS are going to be platform independent with multiple OS support.

Android and Google Chrome OS are two diverse projects which rely on Linux kernel. Android is a framework developed in java language, designed to develop a wide variety of devices ranging from mobile phones to netbooks. Where as Google Chrome is designed for netizens who spend most of their time surfing the web. It’s no wonder, when Google launches its beta release by integrating the features of Android. I’m sure this future release is going to be an immensely powerful operating system.

This revolutionary accomplishment shall rewrite the meaning of computer operating systems. The computers would be virtual storage machines where the users can access their data from any location. The users need not worry about loosing their data, computer or backing up files. We shall soon stop spending hours, configuring computer to make the new hardware work or worry about constant updates. Hackers and other spammers would have tough time breaking the code. We can feel the rush just by imagining the advance and powerful features that are soon going to impact the Internet.

Google developers are still working with multiple Original Equipment Manufacturers to launch netbooks in the market by fall 2010. They also plan to collaborate with the open source communities to accomplish this vision.
For more information: Click Here

HTML newsletters offer various benefits to the companies generating them. Firstly, it helps publishers track the number of e-mails that were opened, forwarded or clicked through which in turn helps them gauge the popularity of their product or know what interests the readers about their products. Plain text may not capture the reader’s attention due to its boring presentation. HTML email newsletters on the other hand have an upper edge in terms of visibility and which distinguishes them from the other promotional emails.

But creating HTML newsletters is not a cake walk and requires careful coding in order to display well in various email software. Let us see what are the problems associated with creating HTML email newsletters and how we can achieve success with the same.

HTML email newsletters do not display the same in all desktop software and web based email services. It is somewhat similar to websites not being compatible with all browsers. Different readers have different ways of reading the emails; they may resize the mails to read them which may again cause a problematic situation. Does it mean that we cannot use HTML newsletters? Of course not! We can once we clear all the obstacles that come on the way. Let us understand the different kinds of newsletter layouts, issues with different email services and how we can alleviate these problems.

Types of Newsletter Layouts:

Single-column layout: Single column layout contains:
1. A header containing the logo with more or less all the navigation links from the main website to reinforce the brand and provide that sense of familiarity.
2. Intra-email links to text that is available further down the mail.
3. A footer with navigation links similar to the header with instructions on how to unsubscribe.

Two-column layout: Two-column layout contains:

1. A header and footer
2. A narrow side column and a broader column.
3. The narrower side column houses features and links to more information.
4. The broader column holds the content of the e-mail.

Promotional e-mails: They follow similar layouts as above but differ in the amount of content and links they carry. They often contain a big image with some explanatory text with links below the image.

So, how do we make the layouts? Use CSS and present a clean layout? No! Use HTML tables instead. This is because mail-clients are way too back in terms of CSS support. A layout using HTML tables renders consistently across different browsers.

How to create HTML emails

1. Layout: Use three tables for two-column layout; one each for the header, the centre content columns and the footer. Contain these tables into another table. Follow the same method for single-column layout too. This method is very suitable if the design of your email contains many images that are divided over multiple table cells.

2. Display: To control the table’s display, use the attributes within the table and td tags. For example, border=”0”, align=”left” etc according to your design. This ensures that it displays fine with the older email clients.

3. Design: Consider having a border around the table. Set the border value to “1” during the development time. This will help debug any alignment issues. Again, change the border value to “0” for testing and production.

Just because we are using an old method of using HTML tables, it doesn’t mean that we use only older methods. For example, you do not have to use the <font> tag even if it does not give the proper results. For this purpose we must make use of CSS Styles.

Adding CSS styles:

You may ask that I was the one who stopped you from using the CSS owing to its lack of support with the mail clients. You are right in asking. Though CSS is not supported, we can still use CSS for styles in your email once your nested table layout is set. You just need to bear some points in mind. Let us see how to style utilizing the CSS.

1. Styles: Firstly, use inline styles to store your style information just like this:
<p style=”color: red;”>. It also includes table, td, p, a etc.

2. CSS style declaration: Do not use the CSS style declaration in the HTML head tag. This is because mail services like the Google deletes them when it finds it.

3. Link to style sheet: Do not use the link element to reference an external style sheet. Most mail services delete, ignore or modify these external references.

4. Tables: Set your container table width to 98% as Yahoo mails require 1% cushion to either side to display the mail properly. But make sure that the tables inside the container tables should be set to 100%.

5. Font Style: Put the general font style information in the table td which is closest to the content. This can result in repetitive style declarations within multiple td cells.

6. Font Style: Put font style definitions in the headings, p or a tag only when required.

7. CSS Shorthand: Use CSS shorthand wherever possible. TRBL in CSS stands for Top, Right, Bottom and Left. For Example, look at this mark up:
style="margin-top: 15px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 2;"

8. The above code can be rewritten using the shorthand in the following way:
style="margin: 15px 10px 15px 2;"

9. Divs: Use divs sparingly to float small boxes of content and links to the right or left inside a table’s td cell. While Google mail seems to ignore the CSS float, Yahoo and Hotmail deal with it quite well.

10. Content: Instead of cluttering your email, consider placing the floated content in the narrow side column.

11. Spans vs Floats: Use spans instead of floats as they seem to be more useful. This is because they are inline elements. Apart from using them for colouring or sizing text, they can also be used to position text above or below content.

12. Style definitions: Some email services unpack the style definitions to make them more clear and readable for all email software. For example, the CSS shorthand which was used before will be changed into its lengthier version. Test each mail and see what happens to the email code. To start with, check all CSS shorthand as it renders well with all email software.

Dos and Don’ts:

Taking for granted that the above information has helped you create a valid HTML newsletter, let us see what we need to do to ensure that the email is received in a way you want them to.

Do’s

1. Testing: Test your HTML email with various email services. Testing your email will tell you what are the elements which are not displayed properly and where you need to make the changes.

2. Cross-Browser Compatibility: Firstly, test your HTML newsletter in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. If it displays well or perfectly in both, then there are good chances that they will be displayed well in Outlook, Yahoo!, Google Mail, and other services with only minor problems.

3. Next, use an email delivery service to send the email to a range of test email accounts. Preferably, this should include accounts with the Yahoo!, Hotmail, and Google Mail services.

4. Use test accounts depending on the domain names of the people on the mailing list. For example, if there are no Hotmail subscribers in the list, it is sheer waste of time and money to test with a Hotmail account.

Testing Phase Tricks:

5. Sizing: Sometimes, you need to switch from percentage width to fixed width. Though it is not ideal because different users view mails differently—they may resize their email windows. But using a fixed width helps you get a layout which displays well in multiple email clients.

6. Spacing: If you are not satisfied with the spacing between the columns in the email design, change the attributes of cell spacing and cell padding in your HTML code. If that does not seem to work, apply CSS margin and padding attributes. HTML spacing is well accepted by older email software.

7. Tags: Sometimes, an image may get displaced if a td cell is closed right below an <img> tag. A solution to this problem is putting the </td> tag in the same line as the <img> tag! This gets rid of the irritating 1-pixel gap.

Don’ts

1. JavaScript: Do not use JavaScript. This is because email software disables it.

2. Images: If an image is sliced and spread across several HTML table cells, test the email using various test accounts. Sometimes, it appears fine in Outlook but may look displaced by a few pixels in Hotmail and other services. A better idea would be to use a background image on a new HTML table, which encloses all of the table rows and columns, which would display parts of the background image. This method helps you achieve similar effect as a sliced image and in addition uses less code with improved results.

3. a tags: For a tags use the target=”_blank” attribute so that when email recipients request for a page it does not appear within their web mail interface.

4. Use the table’s background attribute for background images instead of using CSS. This method works consistently across all email software than other possible solutions.

5. Images: Store all your email images in a web server. Make a separate folder apart from your site’s images folder and never delete them. This is because some people do not view these emails immediately on receipt and check them later (after weeks or months).

6. Although, using 1×1 pixel images may prove beneficial for providing spacing in your layout, very often spammers use it to determine if their emails have been opened. Therefore using this method for spacing may bracket your email in the spam category.

7. Do not use large images “above the fold” in the mail. This is a method used by most spammers and thus lead to your email being treated as a spam.

To avoid your email being rated as a spam, it is advisable that you check for factors which may classify your emails as spam. A useful resource which comes handy is the SpamCheck (http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/) service which highlights the problems in your email newsletter which make it appear like a spam. The good news is that this service is absolutely free!

Checklist before sending your newsletters

• Check if the From address displays correctly
• Check if the subject line is correct
• Check if the contact information is correct
• Check if the top of the email and the bottom of the email display the text “You received the text because………” and the instructions on how to unsubscribe.

If you want to know how your email will be displayed in different browsers you can try the services of Browsercam (http://www.browsercam.com/Default2.aspx). Most email clients use web browser components to display HTML email. Therefore, it is recommended to check your email for cross-browser compatibility to spot any errors in your email newsletter.

We may presume that Google being a newer email client will display the emails properly by supporting the latest web standards. But it is not true. Unfortunately, Google like the others behave in a similar manner by ignoring or deleting the CSS styles. Moreover, the fonts in the HTML table appear larger than they are supposed to irrespective of how the HTML mail is structured.

Listed below are some of the methods which can ensure your emails to render well in Google as well as other email clients:

1. Set the background colour in a td cell with bgcolor= and not in the CSS.

2. Use padding instead of margin style for controlling margins within the td cell.

3. Google mail displays the border around a td cell if it is defined in a div, but not when it is defined as a border style in a td tag. So define the border in a div.

4. If you want a light-colored link against a dark background, put the font definition in the td cell (to apply to p and a tags equally) and then add a color: style to the a tag.

5. If you find that the a and p fonts are of different sizes, confine the a tag in a p tag.

6. Make sure that the padding style in the content tds is set to 10 pixels all around. This is because Google mail uses the right hand column of the Google mail interface, thus pushing the HTML email into the centre. It also causes the text to hit against the left and right edges.

7. Google mail account does not display some of the font styles that appear in td, h1, h2, p, a, and other tags. Check every font carefully so that Google Mail displays the fonts properly.

Apart from the problems faced with the display of emails in Google Mail, programmers have an added burden of getting the emails displayed successfully in Lotus Notes. It can be a tough task to remove the aberrations that the Notes introduce into the HTML code. The software has the ability to convert the images to their proprietary formats. Moreover, it is not consistent with how it displays the HTML in every mail.

Tips on managing Notes

1. Always use a container table to contain all the internal layout tables. This helps in keeping the whole layout compact and prevents it from displaying in parts.

2. Provide ample space around the container table by setting the width to a percentage or using cell padding of minimum 5.

3. Make use of absolute URLs to images stored on the web server. Though not much can be done about the image conversion in Notes, remote images may help in this regard.

4. Avoid using any kind of links (named anchors) as they hardly work in notes.

5. Avoid using colspans in your HTML tables as Notes usually consider the basic table layouts.

6. Ensure the accuracy of your td cells as Notes sizes each td cell based on its defined width.

7. Email layouts in all probability should be left-aligned for Notes.

Suggested Reading:

1. MailChimp weblog
(http://mailchimp.blogs.com/)

2. HTML email tips for Web Designers
(http://mailchimp.blogs.com/blog/2006/01/im_a_web_design.html)

3. Free HTML email templates
(http://www.mailchimp.com/resources/templates/)

4. MailChimp resources
(http://www.mailchimp.com/resources/)

5. CSS support in HTML emails of Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail
(http://www.xavierfrenette.com/articles/css-support-in-webmail/)

6. A Guide to CSS Support in Email
(http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/archives/2006/03/a_guide_to_ css_support_in_emai.html)

7. Secrets to HTML email
(http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=Sections&op=listarticles&secid=16)

8. SpamChecker
(http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/)

9. Style in HTML email
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=StyleInEmail

10. CSS and Email, Kissing in a Tree
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/cssemail/

11. Optimizing CSS presentation in HTML emails
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/archives/2005/08/optimizing_css_1.html

12. How HTML Code Affects E-Mail Deliverability
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=clickz_print&id=3490146

13. Free Lotus Notes downloads
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/downloads/

14. Cross Browser Compatibility Testing
http://www.browsercam.com/Default2.aspx

Most web users use CSS supporting browsers. Thus, you can be assured that your site will look good in Windows, UNIX as well as Mac browsers. Once we complete the template designing process, we run them through various browser tests to ensure better requirement compliance.

You can save a lot of time and work if you use CSS as they provide a default font styling for HTML. So if you want to change your font, you don’t need to change each and every piece of text. Simply, edit the CSS file, which will convey the change to the all the text and links. It is that easy and fast. CSS also uses simple coding which in turn reduces download time and less usage of bandwidth.

CSS templates can easily be edited using web editors like Macromedia Dreamweaver and MS-FrontPage. Other web editors too handle CSS better than HTML code.

It is prove to be a Herculean task to modify the layout of sites built using HTML. But this is not the case with CSS templates. This is because CSS templates make use of blocks in place of tables. This gives the freedom to drag and drop the blocks easily in the HTML editor. In addition, these tags are better understood by JavaScript and other web programming languages.

When you use CSS, it helps you modify your website easily. All templates provided by us are based on w3c.org technologies and standards that make your website more user-friendly.

We have made an attempt to highlight some of the interesting and innovative features added by the Mozilla Corporation in this new release.

Speed does matter!

This is considered to be the fastest browser when compared with its previous releases. The results were baffling when they compared the loading time of Firefox 2, Firefox 3 and the latest release Firefox 3.5.

• Firefox 2.X – 18,148ms (load time)
• Firefox 3.0.X – 3,669 ms (load time)
• Firefox 3.5 – 1,524ms (load time)

Privacy!

It has enhanced security features to protect your private data. Firefox 3.5 release has introduced “Private Browsing Mode” by which the user can browse websites by surpassing the web history being saved on his/her local machine. This feature was earlier introduced in Google Chrome as “Incognito”. This feature would be helpful to users who use a public machine to browse websites. In this mode, Firefox won’t keep track on browser history, search history or download history. The cookies and temporary internet files will be deleted automatically once the session is closed. In case, if the user wishes to save a website, then the only option would be to save it in bookmarks.

To start Private Browsing, Click on Tools> Start Private Browsing (Ctrl+Shift+P); to stop it simply click on Tools> Stop Private Browsing or restart the browser.

Note: Even though there is no record of the browsing history on your local computer, your ISP or your employer can still track visited pages.

Forget the Site!

This feature allows the user to get rid of the website which he doesn’t want to save in his web history. If you are ordering a present online or you don’t want to share the website information with anyone else then you can just click History, select the site, right click on it and click Forget about this site. In case you forget the website or want to delete the recent past history of few hours or days click tools in the menu bar, click on the Clear Recent History (Ctrl+ Shift+ Del) and select your desired time range to clear.

Open Recently Closed Windows

Unlike release 2 and 3.0, Firefox 3.5 has added a new menu item to History tab called “Recently Closed Windows”. Apart from restoring the closed tabs we can also restore the closed windows. Click History tab on the Menu bar and pick any of the windows that you recently closed or restore all the closed windows.

Upgrade for Web!

Apart from upgrading the browser version, it has also upgraded the features for web. Apart from the normal things that you can do with a video like play, pause, adjusting the volume etc. you can also save your favourite videos just like saving an image on your computer. Right click on the video, select Save Video As, select the location on your computer, click OK and you are done.

Where am I?

Firefox 3.5 can tell websites where you’re located so that you can find more relevant and more useful information. It gathers information about the nearby access points and your computer’s IP address. Then it sends the information to default geo location service provider to get estimation on the location. In case if it is unable to find it, it returns “Oops! An error occurred while trying to determine your position.”
Note: These locations are only estimates and Google doesn’t guarantee accuracy in finding the location.

Click for more: http://www.Mozilla.com/en-US/Firefox/geolocation/

Web Technologies!

Other Web technologies supported by Firefox 3.5 are

1.) Download fonts feature allows the web designers and developers to integrate various font styles and font families in their design.

2.) Enhanced CSS improvements in Firefox 3.5 allow the designers to style the web layouts and help them to view the web pages exactly how they wanted to see in web browsers.

3.) Web Worker threads.

4.) JSON and

5.) SVG.

The latest enhancements to be made in Firefox 3.5 release are

• Improved performance and better stability are achieved using the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
• In order to render the content with minimum load time an improvisation is done to the Gecko layout engine.
• This version is available in 70 languages and supports the Operating systems like Windows, Mac and Linux.

Flaws that are to be tackled!

Mozilla Corporation is trying to fix some of the bugs that were encountered with Firefox 3.5 (Release Candidate)

• If a pop-up window is focused when you enter Private Browsing Mode, the Location Bar in the first Private Browsing Mode window will not be editable.
• After installing this version, users will not be able to return to a previous beta version of Firefox 3.5 without creating a new profile.
• After using Clear Recent History some SSL sites will not load all images and styles without pressing reload.
• Some sites which require Java to Javascript communication may not work properly.
• Some sites with Flash can cause problems with the Cookies dialog.
• Web pages can no longer automatically install PKCS11 cryptographic tokens. Users are now required to do this manually or install an Add-on that installs them.

There are thousands of add-ons available on Mozilla webpage. The available add-ons are classified into categories; any user can easily go through them and install the desired add-on. These unique characteristics make Mozilla Firefox to be the king among other potential web browsers.

Click here for more: https://addons.Mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/