Archive for August, 2009

File Under: Software & Tools
Aug
18
2009

Mozilla Revamps Labs Site, Reminds Us Weave Exists

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The entire Mozilla Labs website got a redesign Tuesday. The site is the hub for Mozilla’s sandbox — the place where new functionality and emerging tech, mostly for the Firefox browser, is developed and tested in full view of the public.

As part of the redesign, every major Labs projects gets its own, dedicated community site with a WordPress blog; one each for Ubiquity, Test Pilot, Jetpack, Prism, Personas, Snowl and Bespin.

And of course, one for Weave. Lest you’ve forgotten, Weave is Mozilla’s framework for privately storing your Firefox user data in the cloud. Not just bookmarks, history, identities and preferences (which Weave can sync now), but fully encrypted credentials and other sensitive stuff, complete with APIs to access everything (all of which are on Weave’s roadmap).

On Monday, Google announced the much-anticipated bookmark syncing feature for its Chrome browser was available for anyone in the browser’s developer channel.

For most people, it was a “no big whoop” moment. But for the web futurists among us (that’s all of us, right?) the enhancement points to Google’s plan for creating a personal cloud-based storage service for all kinds of user data. Monday’s developer release was just about bookmarks, but it’s clear Google has set its sights much higher.

Everything is going to have a real browser eventually — your work machine, your phone, your netbook already have one, and your iTablet/toaster/thingy isn’t far off — so it makes sense that our data and all of our services will be accessed through the internet as our lives get spread out across these devices. That’s the grand plan that all of the largest makers of web-enabled software are drawing for us. Most Google users have a massive personal footprint spread across the company’s myriad services. Windows has its Live Services platform ready to go huge with Windows 7. Apple is building a huge data center for… something.

And in a post Tuesday on the brand new Labs site, Mozilla took the occasion to remind us it’s in this game, too. Not to be upstaged by Google’s announcement that Chrome can now sync your bookmarks, the Weave team posted an updated Weave roadmap.

There’s one part of the post titled “Weave is more than just Sync“:

Weave, as a Mozilla Labs project, is a collection of experiments around integrating services in/with the browser. The two most active experiments we have going on are related to synchronizing your web experience and integrating identity in the browser. While we want to drive both of these forward while still carrying on new experiments, our current focus is on stabilizing Sync.

This means, in the short term, Weave is going to be mostly about Sync. We are also thinking about launching a separate development train for all the neat experiments we’ve been planning. Once we do that, I think the true potential for the Weave platform will start to become clearer.

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File Under: Other, Software & Tools
Aug
18
2009

W3C Adopts Semantic Standard for Web Data

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The web’s governing body wants to make it easier for researchers to find the data they’re seeking using web-based tools.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has a whole department, the Semantic Web group, dedicated to integrating data from different sources under a set of common formats. On Tuesday, the group adopted a set of standardized organizational tags that anyone publishing data on the web should start using.

The model, called the Simple Knowledge Organization System, or SKOS, is a set of schema for categorizing data by topic in a way that’s human-readable. But it’s also machine readable, making the process of researching the same topic within different data stores using search and other common tools much easier.

Here’s what SKOS is, from the W3C’s Overview:

The Simple Knowledge Organization System is a common data model for knowledge organization systems such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading systems and taxonomies. Using SKOS, a knowledge organization system can be expressed as machine-readable data. It can then be exchanged between computer applications and published in a machine-readable format in the Web.

A practical example, via the W3C Semantic Web group’s statement, released Tuesday:

A useful starting point for understanding the role of SKOS is the set of subject headings published by the US Library of Congress (LOC) for categorizing books, videos, and other library resources. These headings can be used to broaden or narrow queries for discovering resources. For instance, one can narrow a query about books on “Chinese literature” to “Chinese drama,” or further still to “Chinese children’s plays.”

Library of Congress subject headings have evolved within a community of practice over a period of decades. By now publishing these subject headings in SKOS, the Library of Congress has made them available to the linked data community, which benefits from a time-tested set of concepts to re-use in their own data. This re-use adds value (“the network effect”) to the collection. When people all over the Web re-use the same LOC concept for “Chinese drama,” or a concept from some other vocabulary linked to it, this creates many new routes to the discovery of information, and increases the chances that relevant items will be found.

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File Under: Software & Tools
Aug
18
2009

Google Docs, Google Groups Catch the Real-Time Sharing Wave

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Google has introduced a much easier way to share documents for online, collaborative editing — using Google Groups.

Previously, sharing Google Docs and Calendars was limited to two basic options, the entire world (public docs) or individual e-mail addresses added by hand. But what about situations where you want to share a document with, say, several hundred people on a mailing list?

Provided your mailing list is through Google Groups, now you can do just that. The new Groups sharing feature adds an option to share Docs, Calendars and Sites with all the members of a Google Group. The group’s members can then simultaneously open and edit the same document, and everyone you’re sharing with will see the other parties’ edits appear as the doc updates every few seconds.

While the new features aren’t exactly as slick as what we’ve seen in previews of Google Wave (the company’s experimental, collaborative editing tool), they do offer similar automatic, “just works” style sharing with almost zero latency. And, unlike Wave, these sharing features are here today. Google is expected to open up public access to Google Wave on September 30. It is also strongly expected to develop Wave into a full-fledged web-based platform, complete with add-on applications from third parties which take advantage of the platform’s real-time updating capabilities. So, it’s possible this enhancement to Google Docs’s sharing ability is just a sign of more powerful real-time sharing to come.

If you want to share a document with a Google Group, just type the Group’s email address (groupname@googlegroups.com) in the sharing dialog and your document will be automatically shared with all your group’s members. But the real win is the new automatic updating. As people come and go from your group, the shared document’s list of approved editors (or viewers, if you don’t hand out editing rights) updates as well, adding new members as they join the group and dropping the old when they leave.

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File Under: Software & Tools
Aug
18
2009

Tr.im URL Shortening Service Finds New Open Source Lease on Life

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Tr.im, the popular URL-shortening service for Twitter and other social networks has found a new lease on life. After announcing it would shut down by the end of the year, the team behind Tr.im has decided to continue on as a community-supported open source project.

Rather than closing its doors, Tr.im is throwing them wide; releasing all its code under the MIT open source license and offering developers unfettered, real-time access to all the link-map data associated with Tr.im URLs.

While not entirely solving URL-shortening issues like link rot, Tr.im appears poised to at least become a bit like the Mozilla of short URLs.

Tr.im founder Eric Woodward says “Tr.im will being accepting donations to help meet its operating expenses,” but goes on to say that he will “cover operational costs personally,” if there is any shortfall between the donations and costs of running an open source Tr.im.

Woodward also says that the Tr.im code will be ready for outside users by September 15.

But perhaps most interesting for mashup creators or those interested in harvesting real-time link data, all of Tr.im’s click data and statistics — the very thing that made Tr.im popular with Twitter users — will be made available anonymously through the new service provider Gnip.

Woodward says this will involve “a variety of time-based snapshots of aggregated destination URLs, the number of Tr.im URLs created for any given destination URL, and aggregate click data.”

While we still think URL-shortening services have some serious potential problems, at least a community-operated, open-source option like the new Tr.im avoids a few of them — particularly the problems that come locking all your link data up with a closed, third-party service that may or may not be around when you need it.

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File Under: Visual Design, Web Basics
Aug
14
2009

OpenStreetMaps Project Takes Maps in a Different Direction

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When the hyper-local news site EveryBlock first launched, one of the big things that caught our eye was the site’s custom map tiles — what, no Google Maps? When asked about those custom maps in numerous interviews, EveryBlock creator Adrian Holovaty took every opportunity to state his belief that Google Maps are pass.

While Holovaty is probably kidding to a certain extent, Google Maps are a fine example of the old adage: familiarity breeds contempt. Nearly every site on the web seems to have some Google (or Yahoo) map tiles. So, if you want your mashup to stand out these days, you might want to consider something a bit different.

Of course, completely rolling your own map tiles as Holovaty and the EveryBlock team did is probably well outside the scope of most mapping projects. Still, there are quite a few options out there beyond Google, the best being OpenStreetMap.

If you’ve never seen OpenStreetMap, take a look at the Best of OpenStreetMap website. Web forefather Tim-Berners Lee has called OSM a “grassroots remapping of the world.” Indeed, the project, which we’ve covered before, is fast becoming a “Wikipedia of maps” — a designation coined by software developer and blogger Simon Willison. OpenStreetMap’s database is user edited, user updated and in many cases, like in remote parts of Africa and Asia, far more accurate than commercial offerings from the likes of Google.

Such a project is critical as web-enabled mobile devices continue to make the web more accessible in the far corners of the Earth. Also, with the proliferation of hyper-local search and geo-aware applications on the web, current and accurate map data is becoming increasingly more important.

Unlike some crowdsourced projects that have fizzled, OSM has managed to attract a large following of enthusiastic contributors who constantly “trace” routes they take by car, bike or foot. Users tag points on their routes, and share the resulting places of personal interest on the maps with other users. Some of the bigger map providers also offer such geo-tagged metadata, like Google’s MyMaps.

Some of OSM’s contributors have added some truly unique data, such as dedicated maps for cyclists, or maps that highlight public transportation routes throughout Western Europe. There’s even an OpenStreetMap-powered iPhone app called Roadee.

To see how quickly the project has grown, check out this very cool video showing a year’s worth of edits to OpenStreetMap.org.

If you’re a developer and you want to switch your current application to use OpenStreetMap to take advantage of the user-generated maps and metadata, all you need to do is change a few lines of code. Thanks to the excellent Mapstraction JavaScript Library, it’s easy to write mapping applications that use any map tiles — be they OSM, Google or hand crafted.

If you’re just starting out building some sort of a mapping application, don’t think you’re limited to Google Maps. Check out OpenStreetMaps and make sure to try the Mapstraction Library in case you change your mind about mapping providers down the road.

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File Under: APIs, HTML5, Web Apps
Aug
13
2009

HTML5 File API Brings Drag-and-Drop File Uploads to the Web

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The coming HTML5 specification has several tools that take HTML well beyond its humble beginnings as a markup language and give web developers some powerful scripting tools. The W3C, the group that oversees the development of HTML5, has just published a draft spec of yet another powerful tool — the HTML5 File API.

The File API is designed to improve the way browser-based webapps handle file uploads, and it even makes it possible to create pages with drag-and-drop upload fields. The draft defines a new input option, <input type="file">, for handling uploads.

Even better, the API gives developers a way to hook into the upload data and display upload progress and other information.

The downside is that, because it’s so new, very few browsers have implemented the File API. The furthest along appears to be Firefox, which supports enough of the File API to have created a drag-and-drop demo. If you’ve got a copy of the latest alpha build of Firefox 3.6, try dragging a file from your desktop into the black box on the demo page.

Still, while widespread support might be a ways off, the File API promises to give web apps a way to behave a bit more like their desktop cousins — drag-and-drop support, the ability to handle multiple simultaneous uploads and show upload progress — all without the need for Flash or other outside tools.

For more details on what you can do with the HTML5 File API and how to access its methods using JavaScript, head over to Ajaxian, which has an in-depth look at the new API and its methods.

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File Under: Software & Tools
Aug
13
2009

Opera 10 Marches Toward the Finish Line With Beta 3

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Opera 10 Beta 3 on Mac OS X. Click the image for a larger view.

Opera software has released the third beta of its Opera 10 web browser. Opera 10 introduces a major visual change for Opera fans and brings quite a few new features to the table, including a visual tab switcher, improved JavaScript performance and a faster Opera Turbo feature.

You can grab the latest pre-release beta of Opera 10 from the downloads page. It’s a free download for Mac, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and a few other operating systems.

The latest beta release adds some more options to what Opera calls “visual tabs.” Visual tabs show up in the expandable bar just below your browser tabs. Either pull down the tab bar or double-click the handle to reveal visual thumbnails of all your open tabs. Previous betas lacked the new visual tab switcher and beta 3 adds a new option to have your tab bar on either the left or right side of the window. To get to the new options, just right-click the tab bar and choose “Customize.”

Opera is also claiming some performance enhancements for the third beta, specifically in JavaScript performance. While Opera 10 beta 3 felt pretty snappy in our casual testing, pitting it against Firefox in the SunSpider Javascript test revealed a considerable performance gap. Firefox 3.5 blazed through the tests in 1250.6ms, while Opera 10 took 4794.8ms.

This is curious, especially at a time when more complicated web applications are demanding faster and better JavaScript performance from the latest releases of web browsers. Opera has always been a fast browser, and we expected more. However, since this is a beta release, we will reserve judgment until the final browser arrives and we can run some more formal tests. Plus, Opera is working on a brand new — and reportedly much faster — JavaScript engine called Carakan, which should see the light of day soon. This release uses Opera’s current Futhark engine.

While Opera 10 may not have the best JavaScript engine on the block, it does offer something most other browsers don’t, the so-called Opera Turbo feature which optimizes webpages for slow connections. Turbo speeds up page loads by routing your requests through a proxy server, compressing the images and the page code before serving the pages to you. It was made for mobile users, but regular desktop users requested it as well, so Opera built it into its flagship desktop browser. Opera 10 reportedly has a much improved version of Turbo, though without a slow connection to test it on, it’s hard to say how much faster it is in this release.

Opera also continues its pioneering support for web standards. Opera 10 beta 3 scores 100/100 on the Acid3 test and adds support for CSS 3 features like web fonts, RGBA/HSLA color definitions and some SVG rendering improvements.

There’s one thing you won’t find in beta 3 is the much-hyped Opera Unite — the web server built in to the browser. So far Unite remains an alpha release and Opera hasn’t set a timeline for when it will officially arrive in Opera.

While the third beta of Opera 10 may not have enough to entice fans of other browsers to give it a try, it does have enough improvements to make it worth the upgrade for Opera fans. And as has been the case with the previous to betas, Opera 10 is certainly one of the best looking browsers out there.

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File Under: Multimedia, Web Basics
Aug
12
2009

NBC Adds Facebook Connect Logins to Video Sites

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When the Winter Olympics roll into Vancouver early next year, you’ll be able to chat and share videos with all of your Facebook friends more easily than ever.

NBC Universal has announced it will launch the Facebook Connect sign-on technology across several of its TV websites within the next few months. NBC.com is the first to implement Facebook Connect, starting Wednesday. NBCSports.com, Syfy.com and Oxygen.com, among others, will come next. NBCOlympics.com will be Facebook-enabled in time for February’s opening ceremonies.

The emphasis is on video content, NBC Universal says in a press statement. The company wants to enable Facebook users to post highlight clips from “Saturday Night Live,” “30 Rock” and other shows that already have heavy viral mojo.

Facebook Connect is the social networking company’s technology for logging in to third party sites using one’s Facebook login and password. Once you log in to a site using Facebook Connect, any comments or media you share on that site will also appear in your Facebook stream. It’s a win for Facebook users, because it makes engaging with a new site easy (you don’t have to create yet another user profile just to leave a comment) and it helps you find your friends on the new site. The third-party sites get free links back to their content from within Facebook, and it also gets a trusted commenter — when you login with Facebook Connect, the website knows you are who you say you are, and can even pull your name, profile photo to put next to your posts.

It’s the same sort of functionality promised by OpenID and OAuth, the two leading open-source technologies for signing in to third-party sites. Facebook Connect is proprietary and requires a separate implementation. However, Facebook is also supporting OpenID for logins, so you can log in to the social network using an OpenID from Google, MySpace or wherever.

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File Under: Programming, Software & Tools
Aug
12
2009

Flush With Choices, Developers Still Dig Django the Most

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Which web development framework is de rigueur for today’s hottest startups?

If you posed that question to the audience at Hacker News, a subsidiary of the prolific venture capital firm Y Combinator, the answer would be Django by a wide margin.

The poll is very informal, so we wouldn’t suggest putting too much stock in the results. But right now, Django is the top choice with 133 respondents saying they’ve chosen the Python-based framework for their projects.

While Django might top this particular set of numbers, what’s far more revealing is the wide variety of frameworks and tools being used to build today’s web. Long gone are the days when everything seemed to be “ASP or the high road.”

After Django, Ruby on Rails had 83 adherents and PHP (not a framework, but never mind that) comes next with 75. It’s worth noting that in PHP’s case several people cite the Cake framework, but most seem to rolling their own custom solutions.

Perhaps the most interesting responses though are in the “Other” category, which accounts for 56 people calling out a wide variety of frameworks and tools. In the Other column is everything from Catalyst (a Perl-based framework) to custom Erlang backends, as well as some old favorites like Pylons, Cherrypy, ASP .NET and others.

We love Django, but what we really like is a wide variety of options. Today’s web developers have a huge array of choices at their disposal. Whether you want to use a popular framework or roll your own in the language of your choice, there’s something out there to fit just about every project.

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File Under: Software & Tools
Aug
12
2009

Mozilla: One Third of All Firefox Users Have at Least One Add-on Installed

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One of Firefox’s main selling points is its add-on infrastructure, which lets people customize their browsers and add extra features. The generally accepted logic is that “advanced” users can trick out their browser with all sort of add-ons while “average” users aren’t overburdened with (for them) useless feature bloat.

But just how many of these “advanced” users are there? That’s a question Mozilla has been trying to answer for some time. And thanks to a new set of statistics, the company says it now knows the answer.

One third of all Firefox users have installed at least one add-on.

That’s considerably more than we would have predicted. And, bear in mind that number doesn’t take into account multiple computers residing behind a single IP address. If you take into account homes with more than one computer, the number jumps to over half of all users.

As Mozilla notes in its post on the Add-on blog, these numbers also come only from active, daily users of Firefox, meaning that more casual users — say, developers who rely on Firefox add-ons like Web Developer or Firebug for testing their sites, but do their daily web browsing in another browser — aren’t included.

It would be interesting to know how the users who’ve installed add-ons get them — recommendations from friends, browsing the Mozilla Add-ons website, using the new “Collections” feature or some other source — but sadly that isn’t part of the data.

Still, there is one thing these numbers make clear: add-ons are popular and more users than you might expect are taking advantage of them to customize their browser how they see fit.

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