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?