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"