Firefox 1.0 is here!

Today, Mozilla released the final version 1.0 of their state-of-the-art, cutting-edge, bleeding-technology, [place your own superlative here] Firefox browser.

 

Download it here: Mozilla Firefox 1.0 or get it here: GetFirefox.com

 

Today Firefox is available in 14 languages.  More features, bugs, etc can be found in the Mozilla Firefox Release Notes.

 

Get it!

Linux Client Migration Cookbook

IBM Just updated their Linux Client Migration Cookbook,
interresting reading about Desktop migrations etc.

 

"This Redbook will help you understand how to plan for and conduct a Linux client migration project. A broad analysis and discussion of many different organizational and technical planning topics are presented."

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg246380.html

Web Standards: A Business Perspective

Web Standards: A Business Perspective details the non-technical benefits companies can have when using web standards.

Opinion on software patents

On eWeek, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes an opinion column on software patents:

 

Opinion: Software patents are bad for both open- and closed-source developers, not to mention for anyone who buys software. Isn't it time we get rid of them once and for all?

 

The point is that ideas can't (or at least should not) be patented.  Only the implementation of it can.

 

Read the article here: Software Patents Gone Bad

37signals: An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design

This is great stuff!

I still need to read this completely and apply it, but a quick look
seems promising.

A great article by Ryan Singer: An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design

Firefox 1.0 to be released on the 9th of November

Ben Goodger has released an update to the Firefox Roadmap.
A first Release Candidate is scheduled on the 18th of October and
a final release on the 9th of November (delayed for a week because of
the presidential elections in the USA)

All depends on The List (of bugs), which should be reduced to zero.

Ben Goodger: Release Schedule

New features added to Gmail

Google has added new features to their Gmail email service.

The Gmail Notifier was already available (if you could find it), but
is now officially released.
Search capabilities added to Contacts. Contacts is also greatly improved.
Emails can be automatically forwarded to another account. This
service is free for now, but could be a paid service in the future.
And you can save drafts of the emails you are writing.

What will be next? HTML mail?

The full list of new features here: What's new on Gmail?

Microsoft ASP.Net Security Flaw

Microsoft reported a security flaw that could allow an attacker to
enter a specially crafted URL in that way bypassing any form of
authentication and access secured content.

Microsoft has already released a patch and offers a programmatic
solution to the problem.
They can be found here (either one of them is enough):
Microsoft ASP.NET ValidatePath module (VPModule.msi)
Programmatically Check for Canonicalization Issues with ASP.NET

The full security article can be found here: What You Should Know
About a Reported Vulnerability in Microsoft ASP.NET

The Web Standards Project: The Web As Platform

The Web Standards Project has posted an article on the future of 'Rich Applications', referring to Gmail, HoTMaiL and Yahoo!Mail.  They also take newly developed web-based applications as example and refer to Joel Spolsky's "How Microsoft lost the API war", an excellent article on the history and future of application development.

With new technologies like Mozilla's XUL and Microsoft's XAML future applications will be different, it's still not yet clear what they will look like and how they will be developed.

 

Read the full article here: The Web As Platform

CNET: Internet Explorer--headed for extinction?

CNET has compiled a few articles related to Microsoft Internet Explorer and its future:

"Microsoft's glaring neglect of its Web browser may actually hold clues to the future of browsing. You just have to peek through Windows."

 

Read the full article on CNET News.com: Internet Explorer--headed for extinction?

 

The fox did it!

10 days after the release of Firefox 1.0 Preview Release, more than 2 million copies of the cutting-edge browser were downloaded.

 

That's amazing and it finally makes the future of browsers and webdevelopment look bright again.

 

Power to web standards, power to Firefox!

Een lekker kleurtje! - kleuren, emoties en ontwerp (DUTCH)

Nicoline Wouterlood has posted an article (in Dutch) on Naar Voren, the Dutch equivalent of A List Apart.

In the articel Nicoline talks about the use of colors on websites and refers to some useful resources.  Check out the links below the article if you don't understand Dutch.

Using an Access Database in your C# application

I'm currently working on 2 (.NET WinForms) projects that need a generic data provider.  I use Access while developing, but the application must also work with SQL Server, MSDE, MySQL, PostgreSQL or another database system if necessary.  With my background of web application developer, I started of by using the principle of Data Transfer Objects (DTO) Pattern.  Storing database information in a custom, dumb, database-independent object.

As the project grew and the application got heavier and heavier, the DTO principle gave me more and more trouble.

That's why I today took the decision to take another road and use the built-in data providers (that's why they were there in the very beginning of .NET) and use the Factory Pattern to allow switching databases with a setting in a configuration file.

Things go a lot easier now, and it certainly proofs that I still have a lot to learn about .NET WinForm programming.  Look like it's time to prepare for another Microsoft (WinForms) exam (70-306 or 70-316: Developing and Implementing Windows®-based Applications , they're both the same, except for the language).  That would bring the count on 3 (I've already taken exam 70-315: Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual C#™ .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and exam 70-320: Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual C# and the Microsoft .NET Framework.

But now let's go and use the full power DataAdapters and DataSets!

Is Google building a browser?

According to the folks of /. (SlashDot), Google is preparing the launch of their own browser, Gbrowser. Evidence include the registration of the gbrowser.com (currently not in use) domain name by Google and the fact that they hired several developers recently.

According to evidence in Mozilla's Bugzilla, the browser might be based on the Gecko rendering engine

Update:
More information can be found here:
More evidence of a Google browser
The Google Browser
Google picks Gates' brains
Google Browser?
The Google Browser

Web Standards Planet

Your one stop to W3 news.

W3 planet tries to connect Web standards related bloggers, and web standards related sites within one website.

 

Web Standards Planet

Firefox reached 1 million downloads

Firefox PR reached the number of 1 million downloads (that's one-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero) in about 4 days, 6 days earlier than aimed for.

And it's just a Preview Release!

My guess is that the number of downloads after day 10 will be something about 2 million.  You can follow the march to 1 million downloads (and further) in the Spread Firefox Campaign website.

Firefox 1.0PR Released

Today Mozilla released a Preview Release of their Mozilla Firefox 1.0.

It will be at least another month until the final version will be released, but you can already enjoy a bunch of new features and bug fixes like Live Bookmarks, the Find Bar and a brand new Plugin Installer.

 

I was already using the Release Candidate of the Preview Release (right) and it was GREAT!

 

Read more here:

MozillaZine

MozillaNews.org

 

And be sure to download your copy and gat the fox running!

Standards Resources for Beginners

Dave Shea has started to compile a list of standards resources.

Post your comment there if you have something to add to the growing list.

Web Development Mistakes

This is one for the keepers: Web Development Mistakes and Web Development Mistakes, redux.

 

It's like MovieMistakes.com, but then for the web developer.  I'm sure you never made any of them, but make sure you don't make them again!

Getting started with Mono

In SitePoints .Net Column Philip Miseldine explains how to get your .Net applications running on Linux.  As Philip is not a Linux expert, this article describes how to get the Mono package on your Linux system and how to get your applications running

Read the complete article here: "SitePoint: Getting started with Mono"

CSS Centering 101

How to center a fixed-width layout with CSS?

SimpleBits explains it with a brief but clear example: CSS Centering 101.

Windows XP SP2 upsets people

... like Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe.  In fact the (siltent) installation of DRM (Digital Rights Management) is what upsets him.

 

By installing SP2 (and DRM technology) Microsoft or its business partners can prevent you from accessing files on your own hard drive.  That's unacceptible indeed, but not if you don't have rights to access the file (like when it is an illegal copy).  If you do, there's nothing to worry about I think.

 

Tristan switched to Fedora Core 2 anyway, which I'm also trying out.  But saying goodbye to Microsoft Windows definitely would be a step to far for me.

Absolute and Relative positioning

Sometimes I need to explain to my fellow designers/developers the concepts of absolute and relative positioning.  No big deal.  The tricky part is when I come to the concept of absolute relative positioning.

 

And that's where Joe Gillespie comes in: Absolutely relative, a clear overview of absolute and relative positioning and how to mix them with a few simple examples.

Firefox Extensions Guide

Flexbeta has posted an in-depth guide to a number of the well known, and not so well known extensions available for Mozilla Firefox. It covers close to 30 different extensions, including web developer tools, full application add-ons, existing feature enhancements and more.

 

Read the complete article here.

WEB STYLE GUIDE, 2nd edition

As this is nothing new to me ;) it's a nice reference though: WEB STYLE GUIDE, 2nd edition

Apache Software Foundation rejects Microsoft's Sender ID

Apache would not use a Microsoft technology to fight spam, called 'Sender ID'.

"The current Microsoft Royalty-Free Sender ID Patent License Agreement terms are a barrier to any ASF project which wants to implement Sender ID" according to Apache and Apache further states that the current license is "incompatible with the Apache License 2.0".

It looks like Microsoft is defining its own 'open' internet standard again and tries to take (financial) benefit of a global threat that it created itself by delivering poorly secured software.

Update: Today also Debian announced they cannot implement Sender ID technology as the Microsoft Royalty-Free License Agreement is a barrier to any Debian package which wants to implement Sender ID or include Sender ID support.

Microsoft's Security Program Manager uses Firefox

In this month's Wired Magazine, Stephen Toulouse, Microsoft's Security Program Manager, admits he uses Mozilla's Firefox browser <quote>Just this morning I had to install an update to Firefox to block a flaw that would've allowed an attacker to run a program on my system</quote>.

OK, this doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't use Microsoft Internet Explorer, and in fact means that Firefox also can contain bugs.

But it does mean that at least 1 person in Redmond found the Start button of his Brain OS :)

Mozilla.org has a website

They always had, but the renewed it. And it looks good!

Check it out here en take a look at the News Feeds too.

More people talking about it:

Asa Dotzler

Ben Goodger

David Tenser

Ten CSS tricks you may not know By Trenton Moss

On The Code Project, Trenton Moss lists 10 very easy and usefull CSS tricks:

1. CSS font shorthand rule


2. Two classes together


3. CSS border default value


4. !important ignored by IE


5. Image replacement technique


6. CSS box model hack alternative


7. Centre aligning a block element


8. Vertically aligning with CSS


9. CSS positioning within a container


10. Background colour running to the screen bottom

Read it al on CodeProject.

Ben Goodger says: "Buh-bye VersionCheck"

Firefox Update web service is being updated, better said: the current service that never worked is being replaced by a brand new one. Quoting Mike Shaver: "it's much faster and smoother than before, ben and vlad did excellent work"

 

Ben Goodger says: "Buh-bye VersionCheck"

Web Development Mistakes - Update

456 Berea Street writes:

 

"There have been a lot of comments on my recent post about common web development mistakes, and thatÂ’s great. Not all comments are of the kind I asked for, but that made for an interesting discussion, which didnÂ’t get completely out of hand."

 

Read further...

Wish I were in Japan, in 2010

womby writes "Nihon Keizai Shinbun report (Japanese) that NTT, Fujitsu and the Japanese Government are forming a working group to develop internet technologies that will hopefully allow homes to receve 10 gigabit internet connections by 2010. 'The Japanese government (the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Post and Telecommunication) are going to start a development plan next year that will increase the speed of the internet in Japan to 100 times faster than the current 100MB fibre internet, with partner companies it is aiming for completion by 2010.' A complete Translation is here, if my blog gets beaten into the ground try the Coral Cache Link."

 

Read further...

Roderick Howard's CSS Directory

A nice collection of CSS resources (layouts, fonts, lists, navigations,
positioning, hacks, tools, ...)

Mozilla 1.6 released

Yesterday Mozilla.org released version 1.6 of their browser suite.

This release brings a lot of improvements to the Mail component, cross-platform NTLM authentication, a lot of security bug fixes and other bug fixes.

More details here:
Mozilla 1.6 Release Notes
MozillaNews
and probably MozillaZine as well, but their site was down at the moment of writing.

This means that Mozilla Firebird 0.8 will be released shortly, but a few bugs are still open.

Eolas talks with Open Source Community about patent

Eolas Technologies (no link here, the don't deserve it :b) has started to talk with the Linux and Open Source Community about their browser patent according to this article in eWeek.

Eolas Technologies successfully sued Microsoft and was awarded more than $521 for patent infringements. At that time it was unclear what this would mean to other browsers like Mozilla, Mozilla Firebird, Opera and many others.

Little details were given about the topics being discussed and the people involved but Eolas Founder Michael Doyle told that "the solution will be supportive of the open-source community."
Does this mean that Open Source products can use the technology for free or that Eolas will participate in the Open Source community in some way?

Kicking off AnthoroStats v2

I first started to look at other counters that are either successful by functionality or have a good looking layout or navigation. In other words: learn from your competitors, don't imitate them, just do it better!.

I signed up for a bunch of them and created a testpage. It's about the same page as what Tellertest.com (Dutch) has to offer
I set up a test page. A also evaluated them on different points and pointed out what I could use of them, how I would improve it or what I should definitely not do.

I started by signing up for the counters that scored best in this test
Here's the testpage: http://stats.anthoro.be/testpage.php.

Here are some of the counters I signed up for (more will be added later to the page):

CQ Counter
OneStat.com Lite
OneStat.com Basic
StatCounter.com
eXTReMe
CheckStat.nl
Stealth Lite
BelStat
NedStat
LetsStat
TopStat
Site Meter
GheoStats
StatsBox
RealTracker Free
GoStats
Counted!
eStat Perso
ServuStats

I signed up for each of them and reviewed their homepage, signup page, conditions, emails, etc... Later on I will summarize that whit the pros and the cons of each of them and translate them to do's and don'ts :)

While signing up and reviewing these counters, I sometimes thought: "How can it be that this counter has a much higher score than mine? Is my counter really that bad?" And then again: "Yes, mine IS that bad. And that is not how I intended it to be."

Conclusion: There's a lot of work that needs to be done.
Now I'll continue with the reviews and start putting together a Functional Analysis.

Back again... (not that I was away but...)

It's been a while since I last posted something here because of several reasons. I had some projects going on that consumed a lot of my time, I went on a holiday, I had a long weekend away, etc...

Now that the internet connection with Telenet (the internet provider where I work) is down, I take the opportunity to clean up my mailbox and tell you what interesting stuff was in it, starting with the oldest first.
Some things might seem a little out-dated, but that's because they're in my inbox for a long time and I think I need to tell something about it anyway.
In the mean time I will start to follow the blogs and newsfeeds again and give my comments and opinions about them and try to keep up-to-date with what's coming in new, so I won't be chasing my own tail.

Another reason why I'm starting to post to the blog again is that I'm re-designing and re-making one of my websites: AnthoroStats. This website was developped about 4 years ago and hasn't changed a lot since then. As the functionality is OK, the layout really sucks, it always did, a (almost) complete re-make of the site could be the spark that turns it in a successful website. If possible I can start to make money out of it :)
Here I will tell you on how this all works out. Hopefully this will be some sort of "Diary Of The Creation Of A Successful Website Business". Ahum, we'll see :)

Oh yeah: Happy New Year!