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Blogs ยป Archive for June, 2005
Apple on Intel is Official
Apple shook up the technology roadmap a bit today at the Worldwide Developers Conference by announcing a shift to Intel architecture in 2006. This has ramifications for users and developers alike.
Some longtime Apple analysts reacted negatively, but largely the rumor mill had been churning and most assumed something was brewing. Conventional wisdom would suggest this is an excellent move for Apple, opening up faster, more power-sensitive performance especially for Macintosh notebooks.
More interesting perhaps is the new universe this opens up for Linux developers who can now leverage the now mature OS X (and BSD Unix underpinnings) on a familiar hardware platform.
Engineers in Cupertino have put some thought behind this - having had several years to explore the Darwin core of OS X on Intel, and now planning a release of XCode, Apple’s programming environment for OS X, which will assist PowerPC developers in porting to Intel.
Having already been an Xserve user from a web hosting perspective, I am excited to have the capabilities and user interface framework of OS X server available at the blistering speeds of the Intel platform.
For the uninitiated, Apple has taken care to build configuration and management tools right into OS X server …
Some IDE news
Looks like it’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE) season again…
Eclipse 3.1 is just around the corner with the first release candidate (RC1) now available for download. Support for Java 5.0 is the biggest thing on the list that I like, though support for Ant 1.6 is nice too. It might be time for me to give this thing a try…
NetBeans 4.1 is now out, and is getting some requisite post-release buzz from Sun. This free IDE that forms the foundation of Sun’s Java Studio Creator and Java Studio Enterprise IDEs now provides its own support for Web development with J2EE 1.4 support, and mobile development for MIDP-capable devices. NetBeans was the subject of a live chat hosted by Sun in May. The transcript is now available for more casual perusal.
JBuilder continues to hype its use of Eclipse as the foundation for future versions. In its just-announced product roadmap, Borland announced that JBuilder 2006 will ship before the end of the year with expanded team development features, such as shared code views and debugging sessions. The much-hyped “Eclipsed” version of JBuilder will ship next year, and is codenamed “Peloton”.
IntelliJ IDEA isn’t standing still either. JetBrains …
Ajax Patterns
The concept of Design Patterns is familiar to many; short explanations of reusable techniques which you’ll find yourself adding to applications again and again. The Ajax Patterns Wiki is the beginning of an attempt to apply this pattern-gathering process to Ajax applications. While the wiki does list a wide variety of patterns, only about half are as yet documented, and the documentation often just contains a simple explanation of a pattern without examples. This has the potential to be a useful resource: when you’re developing a web application, a quick recourse to here will give you some pointers to where someone may have already developed the functionality you’re looking for, or perhaps even suggest a technique that you hadn’t thought of. It needs people to weigh in and fill in the blanks, though.
Oh, and as someone noted, “Ajax”, “Patterns”, and “Wiki” together making up the name makes it 100% buzzword compliant. :-)
Playing MP3s with Java
In my off hours, I’m building a spanky Web interface for JJukebox, an open source, multi-user MP3 jukebox server. We take our music pretty seriously here at SitePoint HQ, and it’s time our rusty, old, Perl-based MP3 jukebox software got a revamp.
If there is one weak point in the JJukebox server implementation, it’s the audio playback–specifically, the handling of MP3 files. Despite all its cutting-edge vitality, Java’s support for multimedia is in a sad state indeed.
Going by the book, the Java Media Framework API (JMF) is a one stop shop for capture and playback of all kinds of streaming media. Though MP3 support was removed after JMF 2.1.1a due to the same patent issues that are affecting other open source MP3 software, the Windows version of JMF 2.1.1c reinstated MP3 playback by using the MP3 support in Windows, and since November JMF 2.1.1e now has a MP3 plug-in for all supported platforms (Windows, Linux, Solaris, and a cross-platform version).
Unfortunately, JMF is reportedly incompatible (or at least buggy) with Java 5, and the only sign of life for the API is a comment left by the manager of the Java Client Group’s Swing team …
A creative marketing tactic to generate awareness of your firm
I was at a large trade show in New York this past weekend, and one tiny company used a very creative marketing tactic that is worth sharing. It can apply to any networking event, not just trade shows.
They gave out pins/buttons with numbers on them to anyone they met. The pins included the company logo and slogan, along with a 4-digit number that matched exactly one other pin. If the owner of the pin found someone else at the trade show with the exact same number, both people received a prize (in this case $100, but you can make up any prize you want).
The result was fascinating, because a small sub-community formed of people looking for each other’s pins, talking to one another, and definitely remembering the name of the sponsoring company — who was previously a no-name. Soon people were asking for the booth number of this company, so that they could participate too. At a trade show with 20,000 attendees, this company generated huge awareness with a relatively small investment, and certainly did better than companies handing out flyers or waiting for people to stop by.
At a Chamber of Commerce or association meeting, you could set off …
Thunderbird and Podcasting
The upcoming Thunderbird 1.1 release will add several new or improved features - most prominently Podcasting.
Named somewhat after the Apple iPod, whose users initiated the method, content creators of all stripes from hobbyists to corporations can use RSS to enable their audience to get audio-based broadcasts of content and listen to it on iPods and other MP3 players.
I have already been using this feature as a listener on my iPod Shuffle, including to review recordings of a radio show I participate in from time to time on digital media and technology. This will be even more convenient to use Thunderbird for email, RSS and now these audio feeds.
This has been particularly nice considering my increased travel schedule - now able to maximize my time spent on numerous long flights catching up on several broadcasts available as podcasts.
Obviously this feature is of value both as an end user and a web professional. As Mozilla’s user base expands by adding value and security - more of your own users, customers and their users can benefit from it.
Some sites that track podcasts:
Weblogs.com - http://audio.weblogs.com/ (these broadcasts are not ranked by topic, personal or business levels - …
Free Directory Services in Fedora
As many have already explored, Fedora Core 4 has been out in test release since May. Even better, Red Hat, after several months of licensing and development has made available an enterprise class directory server based on its acquisition of Netscape Security Solutions from AOL.
The free GPL’d version is available for Fedora and enables the Fedora community to experiment with directory services for user bases large and small. This certainly advances the capabilities of those web professionals seeking to test and implement single sign on solutions among other opportunities.
As our web sites have evolved into web applications and further into multiple interacting portals of varying scales, we begin to face authentication challenges. This especially when dropping our solutions into existing client infrastructures including intranets, extranets and third party vendor systems. With a robust LDAP, we now have the ability to tap into Microsoft Active Directory Services, Lotus Domino directories and other LDAP-like environments and add further value.
I continue to both observe and participate in increasingly sophisticated environments, which by nature demands multiple administrators, larger groups of users and challenging cross-platform integration. Single sign on becomes more of a requirement than ever as clients and end users …
Tracing in Illustrator CS2
Although I’ll be covering Adobe’s Creative Site 2 in more detail in the Design View, I thought I’d take a look at a new feature that grabbed my attention — ‘Live Trace’.
Till now, I’d have to say that automatic tracing tools have always sounded like a great idea, but have never been truly useful. My experiences generally went something like:
1) Fiddle with colors, sensitivity sliders, and other more mysterious options.
2) Trace picture.
3) Be generally impressed but not really satisfied.
4) Fiddle with colors, sensitivity sliders, and other more mysterious options.
5) Trace picture.
6) Be generally impressed but not really satisfied.
7) Repeat steps 1 thru 6 four or five more times.
8) Obtain a raw vector graphic I’m happy to start working with.
9) Begin working with an insane hornet’s nests of tangled and interwoven vector shapes. Squeal as cleaning up stray points mysteriousy deletes huge chunks of the graphic from time to time, forcing a backtrack.
10) Admit defeat and hand trace it.
The good news is Adobe may have nailed it now with Illustrator’s new ‘Live Trace’ drawing mode.
Here’s a quick test I ran a test using our CSS super-guru, Rachel Andrew’s pic from her CSS Anthology book cover.
After …
Should the first thing you show the client be perfect?
A reader in the last blog asked about whether the client should see A+ work the first time you show something.
Here are three answers:
1. Each client is different. Ask your client what their expectations are. Propose different ways to work (e.g. show something perfect; show an early draft to get initial thoughts) and find out their preference.
2. For simple sites, I expect designers to show me two iterations of their best work (for a home page/look and feel), and then I want to choose one. Some designers I’ve worked with take weeks to show me as many as 10 iterations, which annoys me to no end. Two or three alternatives is the most I can handle. One is fine, too, if it is great, but two is better. I like to feel in control, and have some choice. Either way, if we are talking about a simple 10-page site, I want to see a top-quality attempt at a home page. That’s because it should be relatively easy for you to understand the requirements of such a simple site, and so the ball is in your court to understand my goals, other sites I like, etc. Ask your client if they …
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