blogZero

Wow, talk about a hiatus. Looking down at the previous post it's been over a year since the last time my shadow has darkened this doorway. Below are a few recent items of interest regarding development and the Web in general. To me at least. But who am I kidding? I must be the only person left who actually still reads this blog.

jQuery I spent a lot of time evaluating the myriad of JavaScript libraries out there and I've settled on a favorite. jQuery is compact, fast, powerful, easy to use, and extensible. If you haven't tried it, do yourself a favor and do so.

Chrome The long-awaited browser from Google, in beta naturally, has arrived for Windows XP and Vista. Versions for Linux and Mac are on the way. Built from WebCore (the rendering engine that forms half of Apple's open-source WebKit project), Mozilla's Firefox and V8, the open-source JavaScript engine from Google. Although you'd think they would come up with a more original name, one intriguing feature are tabs that sit externally at the top of the browser window and each one runs in its own virtual space, so one misbehaved Web application won't crash the entire browser. You can also monitor the amount of memory taken up, the amount of CPU used, and the network activity for each tab via the Task Manager.

Google Turns 10 Has it really been that long? Actually, Larry and Sergey first met in 1995 at Stanford where Larry was considering going to grad school and Sergey was assigned to show him around. The rest, as they say, is history. To the best of my knowledge, the magic 9-27-1998 date is when Google was officially incorporated.

Also long overdue, last month's DC PHP Developers Group (now located at the DC Greenpeace office) featured a presentation on the CodeIgniter open-source PHP Web application framework, by Oscar Merida and Matt Gibbs of Forum One. Next month will feature Barry Austin on MySQL Optimization for Developers.

Stay tuned, I may just be back sooner than 12 months. In fact, you can count on it.

Rather than manually installing either the IE7 or Firefox 2 upgrades, I thought I'd wait and see which one initiated the installation first, through an auto-update. Microsoft won this battle (I'm still waiting on Mozilla but not the least bit concerned about it). However, and this is typical for Microsoft, the installation was anything but convenient. Since the browser is so closely tied to the core OS, it took something on the order of 20 minutes and several reboots to finish.

I suspect the Firefox upgrade will be relatively painless, based on past experience. The only thing you have to do typically is restart is the browser itself, which makes perfect sense. If anything, I may have some issues with extensions that are no longer "compatible" and will be disabled after installation. Several of my favorite extensions will no longer be necessary anyway, as Firefox 2 now has the same functionality built-in.

While I'm on the topic of Microsoft, am I the only developer who's jaw dropped in amazement when they heard that Zend is now working with them to improve the stability and performance of PHP running under IIS? As far as I can tell, this boils down to a port of FastCGI as an add-on to the server. I've never used Windows on the server-side, and you couldn't pay me six figures to use IIS. Perhaps Microsoft is following IBM's lead in recognizing and supporting the role of open-source.

Over the years I've tested many so-called Web server (log file) stats packages, including Webalizer, AWStats, and lately, a slick remote JavaScript solution from Google—better known as Analytics.

The results? My visitors are me. Whoa, what the hell does that mean (and why should it come as no surprise)?

The typical profile of a visitor to this site is:

• Running XP
• Has a screen resolution of at least 1024x768
• At 32-bit color depth
• Their browser is Firefox
• Speaks English
• Is on a broadband connection
• They have JavaScript, Flash, etc. enabled

The rest fall off quickly into the long tail. And even though I've taken pains to accommodate them, I no longer worry too much about the scant 2 hits from a person on a Sun workstation with a browser that is as old as the hills.

I would probably be more concerned if I got millions of pageviews a day, but at some point you have to say to yourself, is it really worth the effort? Why should I bust my balls for the few people that are too lazy to educate themselves and install a decent browser?

After all, this site is geared for Web developers and if they are still running IE6 on Windows 98 with a dial-up connection (or whatever), then they need to wake up and smell the coffee.

The first developer preview release of Firefox 2.0, codenamed Bon Echo, is now available for testing purposes only. You should probably avoid installing it on a production desktop client if you intend to continue using version 1.5.0.1 (or earlier) and want to save your existing environment.

Bon Echo Alpha 1, the first development milestone of Mozilla Firefox 2 aimed at developers and testers, is now available for download from ftp.mozilla.org. Bon Echo Alpha 1 is the first of many developer milestones on the path to Firefox 2. This milestone is focused on testing the backend infrastructure supporting the new Places functionality.

Source: mozillaZine.

New Features

• Changes to tabbed browsing behavior
• New data storage layer for bookmarks and history using SQLite
• Extended search plugin format
• Updates to the extension system to provide enhanced security and localization
• Support for SVG text using svg:textPath

Supported Platforms

• Windows (XP Recommended)
• Linux (tested on Linux Fedora Core 4)
• Mac OS X

A list of notable bug fixes is forthcoming.

If you feel like living on the bleeding edge, or want to help out by evaluating one of the first builds, jump in there and give it a try.

For those interested in testing the latest beta build (5335.5) of Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft has made it available for download. This version is actually more recent than the one distributed, demonstrated and frequently blogged about at the Mix06 conference now live in Las Vegas.

As with the previous beta/preview releases, IE7 requires Windows XP Service Pack 2. If you have a previous version installed, remember to uninstall it first!

• Open Control Panel
• Select Add or Remove Programs
• Check Show Updates
• Locate Windows XP Software Updates
• Select Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview
• Click Change/Remove

More information is available at the IEBlog.

Everyone has their favorite browser, and each of them have specific strengths. Opera is famous for its performance and outstanding CSS support. Camino users appreciate the Gecko rendering engine, but prefer the native Mac OS X interface.

And of course there are legions of Firefox fans. For me, what really sets this browser apart from all the others is its extensibility, and in particular the many extensions for Web developers.

Before heading to SXSW I ran across one called InfoLister, which lists your installed themes, plugins and extensions. Okay, nothing terribly exciting there (or anything you can't already determine using other Firefox tools). What really intrigued me about InfoLister is a feature that allows you to upload this data as an XML file to your Web server.

Many people have published lists of their favorite extensions for Web developers, but I am constantly testing new ones and removing others I no longer find useful. What I set out to do was create such a list, but rather than building it by hand I would exploit this upload feature by parsing the XML data file and then generate the list automatically. That way, if I add or remove an extension, all I have to do is hit the InfoLister upload button and my list reflects the change.

If you a regular visitor to my site or this blog, then it should come as no surprise I elected to use PHP for the job. There are any number of other approaches you could take to accomplish the same thing and I will make some other suggestions. But this post is not the tutorial nor does it display the results, for that visit the Installed Extensions page. You will even find some sample code there if you're interested in creating a similar page.

So, why not share your own Firefox Extension List?

In a quick follow-up to my De Facto RSS Feed Icon Spreading Like Wildfire post, today Opera announced they are also adopting the Firefox RSS feed icon from Mozilla. The old blue icon located on the right side of the address bar will be replaced with the now commonplace orange "broadcast" icon in the next weekly build of Opera's flagship browser.

Good for them. The more recognizable and universal feeds are the better, especially for new users.

Is your sweetheart also a Mac lover? If so, Camino 1.0 is scheduled for release on Valentine's Day. That would be February 14th. I think I've gone completely browser happy (which is way out of touch if you ask me). Or perhaps it's only temporary madness.

Via Forever Geek.

Browsers, browsers and more browser (previews) — oh my! The feature wars are raging full-on now. A few from Opera 9, codenamed Merlin:

• Ajax widgets
• Built-in BitTorrent support
• Content (ad) blocking
• Site-specific preferences
• Thumbnail tab preview

More info from Håkon Wium Lie @ Opera Labs...

If that isn't enough for ya, Firefox 2.0 Alpha 1 is scheduled for release on Friday.

What the hell, as long as we're on the subject, do you think it's premature for a history of Firefox? I don't, since its roots go way back to Mosaic. Mozilla (codename for the first Netscape browser) refers to Mosaic Killer, after all.

Apparently, neither does Ben Goodger.

I'm not going to comment on the shortcomings of the latest IE7 beta when it comes to standards, and in particular CSS support. There is enough discussion and debate going on in that regard already. I'm not even going to comment on the new interface, which some people seem to like. Okay, I can't help myself. I think the team should be concentrating on fixing bugs and bringing the browser up to modern levels so Web developers don't have such a huge headache on their hands due to one particular, and unfortunalty dominate, browser.

However, one feature that is spot on is the built-in support for RSS feeds. Like Firefox and other browsers that check for syndicated content, IE7 indicates their presence by displaying a special icon.

Now of course savvy Web surfers that use Firefox know they can install extensions like Sage and Feedview. Firefox's "Live Bookmarks" built-in feature for working with RSS feeds is weak, and the preview feature added by installing Feedview is lacking in some areas.

What we have to keep in mind is many IE users are casual users, and they are unaware of or simply confused by the gold mine of content that is available with feeds. Not to mention the convenience. Of course everyone knows by now that Safari (and it's little Japanese half-sister Shiira) have built-in RSS preview, as does OmniWeb—the Mac OS X family of browsers are on top of this trend (no matter which one you may prefer).

So what happens when you visit a feed with IE7? Just what you would expect (all along), the browser renders the feed so you can scan headlines, read the summary and visit the full article if it interests you. This is a huge improvement over a bunch of meaninless XML source code! Adding to this are features that include sorting by both date and title, filtering by category (you do use categories don't you?) and even keyword searching. Eureka! says the average Joe Web user, now I know what all those funky orange chicklets are for...

So to the IE7 team I say, good work. Now please fix the lackluster CSS support.