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Blogs ยป Archive for June, 2005
Nokia to Use Safari Components for Mobile Browser
This sheds a little light on Apple’s recent move to open the source for their modified core components from the KHTML project that make up the Safari web browser. Nokia intends to use it on its Series 60 smartphone platform.
This shrewd move by Apple allows them to leverage the changes that will occur to the core elements of Safari source in its transition to a mobile browser for Nokia and perhaps have assets to introduce into other products. Let us also not forget - when the iPod division was broken out at Apple to have its own R & D and product pipeline, it was assumed this would produce more than iPods in the long run.
Though I am not suggesting a Apple iPhone or iPDA anytime in the near future. surely mobile browsing technology could come in handy. At some point perhaps Apple will choose to license some of its digital rights management to other mobile hardware makers and could then place both Quick Time and a mobile Safari in addition to a music player opn those devices. And with some improved screens - a color iPod could easily incorporate WiFi and host a mobile browser.
Knowing that …
SitePoint SEM Kit reviewed at Search Engine Watch
Chris Sherman of Search Engine Watch has written a nice review of the SitePoint SEM Kit for Search Day, which was posted last week while I was in Berkeley for the Consumer Reports Webwatch conference.
This review likens our SEM kit to the “internet in a box” kits that were on the market during the mid-90s, an analogy that sent me back in time for a bit, and very accurately describes what we were trying to accomplish.
Many thanks to Chris for taking the time to read our big book, and reintroducing the word “foofaraw” to my vocabulary with his blog post pointing to the review. Around here, we don’t say foofaraw, we say “jibba-jabba,” a term which was introduced to my vocabulary by Mr. T.
More comments soon on the Consumer Reports conference and their report on search engines’ disclosure of paid advertising… there’s a lot to sort out before I post, because it was a busy couple of days. I had a chance to meet the great Jared Spool, discuss PPC strategy with Mike Moran from IBM, and watch Barbara Coll twitch as she sat in the audience trying not to shout out the obvious.
Vanishing Point in Photoshop CS2
Continuing the ‘Adobe Creative Suite 2′ theme from my last post, I thought I’d walk you through one of Photoshop’s newest and grooviest features.
Vanishing Point is a new ‘mini-app’ within Photoshop that allows you impose a 3D framework on top of any 2D image. With this grid in place, all your interactions (cut, paste, draw, paint, clone, select, etc) behave as if they were in a 3D environment. Here’s a quick demo.
1) Activating Vanishing Point from the ‘Filter’ menu (or Alt+Ctrl+V) will launch your image into a Vanishing Point workspace with it’s own set of controls and tools.
By default, the ‘Make Plane Tool’ is selected and waiting to go. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to find and mark out a ‘reference rectangle’ on your base image, that you could resonably expect to have right-angled corners. This might be a window, a building, a wall or a door, but obviously the larger the more margin for error (my example isn’t quite square).
2) Once your rectangle is in place, you’re free to scale it to your image by dragging it’s edges. However, holding down [CRTL] while dragging the same edge will create a new …
Get Serious with MySQL 5
If you need to get under the hood with MySQL 5.0 - MySQL AB is hoping you will attend a web presentation being hosted by them on June 15.
The focus will include stored procedures, views, triggers, cursors, schema and more.
Also included will be discussions on upgrading your existing MySQL installations to version 5. Definitely worth a view if you are exploring for development or intending to use MySQL in production.
=== From the MySQL Announcement ===
To register, please go to http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/web-seminars/inside-mysql-5.php
WHO:
Brian Aker, Director Architecture, MySQL AB
WHEN:
Wednesday, June 15, 2005: 10:00 am PDT; 1:00 pm EDT; 17:00 GMT
(the presentation will be approximately 45 minutes long followed by Q&A)
MySQL Tools Go Native on OS X
While we are on the Apple theme during the annual Worldwide Developers Conference - MySQL has announced a native set of tools for MySQL administrators and developers.
Central to any database deployment are the management tools. Of course the command line is a fine method for standard tasks - however - as database infrastructure grows in complexity or size (or both) so does the demand for a more sophisticated method for the care and feeding of MySQL.
In addition to user, database and system management with MySQL Administrator, MySQL Query Browser adds in a visual environment for building, testing and analysis of queries into your systems.
I prefer using a tool such as query browser to bench test any expanded queries I may be using in a web application or simply as a report writer. Rapid GUI access to a data store is worth its weight in gold.
For most, these new ported applications are extensions of common tools, as MySQL has been supporting Linux and Windows for some time from an administration perspective.
For any developers who have been running MySQL on Macs - this is a welcome addition to the fold.
Safari Veers Toward Open Source
Apple has released the underlying engine of its Safari web browser with an open source project that includes comprehensive access to the CVS repository.
While the ongoing theme is this action was taken due to complaints over a closed development process for the browser, it also is interesting timing with its announced shift to Intel. The Intel-based open source community is vast and surely contributions may contribute toward a better browser as ths architecture shift occurs.
This will help synchronize activity between KHTML developers and Apple. And with Konqueror, Firefox and other open source projects closing in on the goal of complete standards adherence, it may open up the door for Safari to join the club, which recently passed the ACID test.
This also may also crack open the door for some ambitious folk who might want to pursue eventually getting Safari ported to a Linux or Windows environment. Not as far of a stretch as it seems once Apple releases its Xcode framework that will assist in the port from PowerPC to Intel.
The Business of PHP
Perhaps an anomaly in the PHP landscape is, despite the massive adoption of PHP as a software development platform, the relatively small ecosystem of commercial software offerings that exist within it. One might easily put this down to PHP being an open source - and largely free - product. People who use a “zero cost” platform generally have little inclination to pay for software that runs on it.
But as the argument so often goes in the Land of Open Source, we all need to eat and - perhaps failing that - buy iPods and fixed gear ‘cycles. Many of the great software engineering minds tinker on well known projects while getting paid for it. For the rest of us, though, a commercial motive needs to exist somewhere in our day to day activities.
I’d venture that the majority of professional PHP developers (and I use that term loosely; referring to people who earn a living coding PHP) work with / in some kind of client services entity. That is, building PHP web sites and applications on behalf of a client for a fee.
(As a side note, I propose that this may be a cause of the PHP community’s unquenchable …
Another passenger on the Eclipse bandwagon: Flash?!
Macromedia has joined the growing masses busily porting their top-end development tools to the Eclipse platform.
In a flurry of press releases and publicity on its website, Macromedia this week announced the Flash Platform, which really isn’t anything new — just a, er, flashy reminder of everything that Flash can do.
What is new, and of particular interest to Java developers, is the news that the next-generation development tool (codenamed “Zorn”) to replace Macromedia’s custom-built Flex Builder IDE will be based on the Eclipse platform.
Flex is a platform for rapidly developing Web applications that use rich, Flash-based interfaces generated on-the-fly on the server side, and that interact in real time with server-side applications, typically written in Java. Although this is an amazingly slick and powerful development environment, I think it’s safe to say that uptake has been slow among Java developers, who are typically reluctant to leave their development tools of choice to try a custom IDE.
Moving Flex development to the Eclipse platform will not only put the technology directly in the sights of millions of Java Web developers, but it will also enable them to continue using their favourite Eclipse plugins as they build rich Internet applications with Flash. With Borland …
GoogleGuy Dumps, Google Leaks
The current/recent Google update, dubbed “update Bourbon,” has created a bit of a stir, due to the length of the update and the significant shifts that have taken place in some search results. Google’s webmaster rep “GoogleGuy” posted some lengthy comments at Webmaster World, including the helpful note that using “id” as a variable in URLs can discourage the Googlebot from crawling a site. Apparently GG has had a lot on his mind lately, and decided to dump it all out at once.
File this under interesting but not really something you can act on: Google’s “secret” web interface for their quality control team has been revealed to the world by Henk van Ess’s Search Bistro. GoogleGuy confirms that it’s true.
Interesting and maybe worth some folks taking action: for what may be a limited time, you can actually download Google’s spam recognition guide in MS Word format: http://www.searchbistro.com/spamguide.doc. Plenty of comments can already be found on the Search Bistro blog, and there aren’t really any surprises, but it’s interesting reading. Mr. van Ess also snagged another document, a guide to rating searches.
While we’re crawling all over Henk’s blog anyway, he’s reporting that META tags are still being used to generate descriptions …
Google Site Maps - Flipping the Script
Google has just released a beta tool for webmasters called Google Site Maps, which allows webmasters to submit an XML sitemap.
According to Google’s website and related blog entries, the goal is to make it easier for Google to index more of the web. Presumably, the major issues they’re trying to deal with involve dynamic sites.
Currently, the only software tool to create Google Site Maps is a Python script hosted in a project at Sourceforge. I would expect that someone will step up soon with similar tools implemented with other languages… perhaps even PHP. (Hint to SitePoint readers… major street cred awaits!)
Also interesting to note is that the Site Maps are being released under a Creative Commons license, to encourage other search engines to follow their lead.
It’s a sure thing that many webmasters will adopt the Google sitemap file, and that application designers will begin building support into shopping carts, content management systems, etc.
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