Entries in the Category "General"
RSS is Still Kicking.
Glad to hear its demise is greatly exaggerated - still.
The Truth About RSS – Stephen's Lighthouse
"The Truth About RSS: It’s Not ‘Dying’ — Normal People Never Used It In The First Place by Dan Frommer
‘Seems like it’s that time of the year again, when people pile on about the supposed death of RSS. It’s dead, it’s not, wahh, etc.
Here’s the truth about RSS.
It’s a fine back-end technology.
It’s great for syndicating content from one place to another.
It’s nice for fetching headlines, or for powering pretty tools like Flipboard."
(Continued... The Truth About RSS – Stephen's Lighthouse)
HTML v. Flash via Apple
I just love tech drama...
Did Steve Jobs Just Kill Flash?
How the iPad could dictate the future of the Web.
By Farhad Manjoo
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010, at 4:50 PM ET
What was Steve Jobs thinking? That's been the general reaction to the most obvious shortcoming of Apple's new iPad—the tablet doesn't support Flash. While Jobs claims his new device will offer the best browsing experience on the planet, that's a hard argument to make when the iPad throws up little blue Lego icons when it encounters most Web videos. Load up the New York Times' home page, for instance, and you'll see the sorry-this-doesn't-work Lego where you'd normally see a video player.
Since its launch in 1996, Flash has come to power nearly everything online that isn't static: streaming video players, interactive graphics, animated ads, and more. Of the 100 most popular sites on the Web, 85 use Flash. Web surfers rarely upgrade their browsers, but they're quick to install the latest version of the Flash player, meaning Flash is the primary way that the Web gets new powers. So if you're going to launch a device whose main function is Web surfing, why would you ditch Flash?
[Continued... Will Apple's iPad kill Flash? - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine ]
Chrome over Safari already?
That didn't take long...
Chrome edges out Safari in browser usage
Google's browser has passed Safari in terms of worldwide browser usage--at least by one measurement.NetApplications' measurements of browser usage share, which track which browsers individuals use based on visits to the company's network of Web sites, gave Chrome the third-place spot after No. 1 Internet Explorer and No. 2 Firefox for the week of December 6 through 12, according to a Computerworld story Tuesday. Chrome had 4.4 percent share to Safari's 4.37 percent.
[From Chrome edges out Safari in browser usage | Deep Tech - CNET News]
Google Chrome for Mac goes beta!
I'm excited to see what this browser can do on the Mac...though the thought of yet another browser to support doesn't sound appealing. I'm hoping it's a non-issue.
73,804 lines of Mac-specific code and 29 developer builds later, we're excited to finally release Google Chrome for Mac in beta. We took a hefty dose of goodness from the Windows version to build a fast, polished browser for Mac -- with features such as the Omnibox (where you can both search and type in addresses), themes from artists, and most importantly, speed. Try downloading Google Chrome for Mac and see what you think.
We also took great care to make Google Chrome a native application for Mac. For example, we integrated the Keychain into Google Chrome for Mac, and incorporated Mac-style animations when you open the Bookmarks bar.
For more details on today's beta release of Google Chrome for Mac, check out the video below.
[From Google Chrome for Mac goes beta!]
RIP GeoCities
I can't say that I ever setup a Geocities page, but I've definitely visited plenty of them. For us "old timers" on the web, this is kinda sad. Ok, not really, but definitely nostalgia-inducing.
Yahoo! GeoCities (1995-2009) is finally put out of our misery
by Jay Hathaway
Oct 26th 2009 at 11:00AM
We've known for months that early-90's homepage service GeoCities was shutting down today, taking a big chunk of Internet history and a lot of hideous animated GIFs with it. That doesn't stop the web geeks at Download Squad from getting a little sentimental, though. To paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi: we felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. So, let's take a moment to remember GeoCities. The easy website-creation service opened in 1995, and many Internet users set up their first homepages within its quirky "neighborhoods".
[Continued... GeoCities (1995-2009) is finally put out of our misery]
Goodbye Netscape
Ah, the memories...
A Sad Milestone: AOL To Discontinue Netscape Browser Development
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/28/a-sad-milestone-aol-to-discontinue-netscape-browser-development/I'm speechless...
I never thought the day would come that I would expand out of my Safari / Firefox worlds. That is until I read this article this morning. I was skeptical, since installing it first thing this morning, I've been blown away. Here's just a couple quick things that have really impressed me:
RSS Reader. I've been a huge fan of NewsFire, but the RSS reader incorporated with this browser seems to do everything I ever liked in NewsFire: flagging, organizing, searching, etc. and all without needing a separate program. It also gives you more options for viewing the feeds.
Search Box Customization: Before is Safari 2, there was a great plug-in called AcidSearch. It allowed me to customize what search engines were in the default Safari box. Invaluable! But having freezing problems with Safari made me upgrade to the Beta 3.0, but that turns off that feature and I'm not sure AcidSearch is getting updated anytime soon.
Firefox Plugins: To have access to this wonderful world of plug-ins is hugely beneficial.
Bookmarks: I like how it manages and displays bookmarks better than Safari & Firefox.
Then of course there are all the social media features of Flock, such as seeing all your Facebook, Flickr & YouTube friends. Not a huge deal for me, but quite impressive how it's been integrated. Including the integration of multimedia - uploading your own photos to those services, searching them, etc.
Finally, there's the blog editor, which I'm using right now to post this article (we'll see if it works).
Here's an article for you:
I Have a New Favorite Web Browser: Flock (via PCWorld)
Blogged with Flock
Tags: Flock, Web Browser
Information R/evolution
From the maker of The Machine Is Us/ing Us comes a "Library" version. (via the Shifted Librarian)
Safari's Going Windows
For those of you not glued to the WWDC today. The only real exciting announcement was that the new version of Safari (3.0) is now available to Windows users (XP & Vista). Not exactly sure what to expect of this, but it's an interesting twist. If anything, it makes it a more serious contender when developers are testing pages.
Download your copy here: http://www.apple.com/safari/
(The Apple website has received a nice little upgrade as well...)
Apple is really touting Safari's speed. I can't say I've noticed it being that much faster...
RSS in Plain English
One of the more exciting developments of the Internet (for me) has bee the use of RSS feeds. And with all things great, I like to share the wealth... I find myself often talking to family and friends about RSS feeds, what they are and why they should use them. I have to admit they often look at me funny and say things like "uh oh, here he goes again." But still I try... Why? Because I think RSS feeds are worth it, once people know how to use them.
Well, luckily I found another tool to help explain them over at the Common Craft show (via LibraryBytes) It does a great job explaining the process in a simple way, so I thought I'd share:
The only thing I would add would be the mention of what else you can do with software-based readers. Web readers are great (and free), but looking at these other applications is definitely worth it. I highly recommend NewsFire (for OSX).
And to keep this "professional," have you checked out the RSS feeds available here at Kelvin Smith Library? There is further description of what they are and how to use them, as well as a complete list of available RSS feeds broken down by department and subjects. Enjoy.
The Trouble We Face
This video represents the challenge that web designers face when working in an Academic Library. While we strive for the best possible user experience, there's only so much we can do when dealing with a 3rd party catalogs & databases...
Though I believe we're on the right path to make things like this less likely.
Case Blog API Help...
Is anyone having luck with using a separate blogging application to post entries on the Case Blog?
I found this article describing how to do it...
I'm trying to use Journaler, which supports XML-RPC Movable Type API.
I enter all the information in, but then when I try to send an entry to the blog, it attempts to pull back the categories and I get the following error:
XML-RPC Fault: 0
Fault message: Failed to locate method (getCategories) in class (metaWeblog) at /usr/local/apache/htdocs/mt/extlib/SOAP/Lite.pm line 2180.
I've followed the instruction and I've done just about all the self-help I can do. I'd love to see if anyone has any suggestions.