Archive for January, 2010

File Under: Social, Web Apps
Jan
27
2010

NYT Shows Off Real-Time Tweet Tracker During Stevenote

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We were half-expecting Twitter to break entirely when Steve Jobs took the stage Wednesday morning to announce the new Apple iPad. It was a little slow, but it didn’t break.

The New York Times’ Labs website was tracking all Apple-related Tweets in real time during the event. A screenshot is shown above — a simple page that updates around once every two seconds. The data is pulled in via JSON requests, and the super-clean refreshes are handled with jQuery.

Twitter sets limits on API calls. Currently it’s set at 150 calls per hour, which, for apps that send regular requests, is 2.5 calls a minute. This app appears to be updating far more quickly than that, so unless we have our numbers wrong, we’d guess the NYT has a backstage pass here.

View the deceptively simple source and .js files on the NYT Labs site. Also look for the special warning about sharks.

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File Under: Browsers, Software, UI/UX
Jan
26
2010

Ubiquity Alternatives Offer Power Users Command-Line Tools for the Web

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Those of you itching for a simple command-line interface to control your favorite web apps now have several different choices.

Last week, we told you that Mozilla Labs had put Ubiquity on the back burner. Mozilla’s Ubiquity project for Firefox promises to eventually bring the power of the command line into your web browser, enabling you to perform specific tasks — like e-mail a link to a Gmail contact, post a tweet, check the weather or pinpoint something on a map — all with just a few keystrokes. Ubiquity showed promise, but Mozilla has decided it needs to focus on other projects, which unfortunately means Ubiquity currently doesn’t work with the newly released Firefox 3.6.

Luckily, Ubiquity is not an entirely new idea. There have been quite a few attempts to create powerful, command-line interfaces for interacting with the web. Here are some tools you can explore while Ubiquity is laying low.

One of the newest command-line-style tools is Quix, a JavaScript bookmarklet that offers keyboard-based access to text commands. You can use Quix to shorten URLs on the fly, post messages to Facebook, search Flickr photos and loads more, all without lifting your fingers from the keyboard.

Quix is like any other JavaScript bookmarklet you’ve used, you simply drag the provided button to your bookmarks toolbar and then click it. Keyboard junkies can assign a shortcut to the bookmarklet and bring up the Quix dialog without using the mouse (Quix has instructions on how to set that up in each supported browser).

Once the Quix window is activated you can type any number of commands — see the Quix site for a complete list of what’s available — or extend Quix by writing your own commands. The Quix command syntax is borrowed from Shaun Inman’s Shortwave, a similar command-based JavaScript bookmarklet.

While Shortwave doesn’t offer as many commands out of the box as Quix does, it is extendable, so you can always write your own. Even if you don’t extend it, Shortwave makes a good, lightweight option.

Yubnub is another command-line-style option for power users looking for an Ubiquity alternative. Yubnub is quite a bit older than Quix and consequently already has a loyal following of users — some 22,000 commands have already been written.

Like Quix, Yubnub works in just about any web browser and the thriving hacker community that’s grown up around it have managed to integrate Yubnub tools into Mac OS X, a Python library and even the Sony PSP.

While all three of these bookmarklet tools cover some aspects of Ubiquity, none of them can match Ubiquity’s integration with Firefox, nor do they cover all the tasks Ubiquity can handle. On the plus side, if you use multiple browsers, you might be better off with Quix, Shortwave or Yubnub since they will work anywhere.

And we’ll be sure to let you know when Ubiquity moves back into the spotlight at Mozilla Labs.

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File Under: Browsers, Software
Jan
25
2010

Chrome Extensions Go Legit

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Google has added two much-requested features to its Chrome web browser: extensions support and bookmark syncing between multiple computers.

The features are included in the latest version of Google Chrome, which was made available Monday as a free download. The update, which curiously does not carry a version number, is for Windows users only. Mac and Linux versions of Chrome are still catching up to the Windows release.

Both extensions and bookmark syncing have been available for some time to anyone using a beta release of Chrome, but people sticking with the official releases haven’t been able to get in on the fun. If you’re running an official release version of Chrome, you should see an update alert shortly. If you’d rather not wait, head over to the download page.

Once you’ve got the latest version installed you can browse through the over 1,500 extensions in the new Chrome Extension gallery. As we’ve said in the past, Chrome extensions don’t offer the range of functionality you’ll find in Firefox, but for popular extensions like e-mail notifiers, Twitter utilities or OpenID auto-fill for faster logins, Chrome has you covered.

Also new to the stable version of Chrome is bookmark syncing, which means you can automatically synchronize your Chrome bookmarks across computers. The built-in bookmark syncing features will work for most users, but if you’d like to sync bookmarks between Chrome, Safari and Firefox across multiple PCs, be sure to check out the XMarks extension.

There’s no word on when official support for extensions and bookmark syncing will make its way to OS X or Linux. If you’d like the same features on non-Windows versions of Chrome, you’ll need to download the appropriate beta or Dev channel release.

Web developers should also take note that Monday’s stable channel release contains enhanced support for several web APIs, including JavaScript, various web storage APIs, and WebSockets. There’s also support for adding desktop notifications to your web app the less-annoying way — in the user’s status bar instead of in noisy alert boxes. More details are posted on the Chromium blog.

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File Under: Browsers, Software, UI/UX
Jan
22
2010

Mozilla Puts Ubiquity on Hold

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Faithful users of Mozilla’s Ubiquity add-on for Firefox found the extension broken when they updated to the latest version of Firefox, which was released Thursday.

You read that right, Mozilla’s own add-on hasn’t been updated to work with Firefox 3.6. In fact, Ubiquity, an innovative add-on that allows you to interact with maps, Twitter, YouTube and other web services through a command line interface, hasn’t seen an update since the summer of 2009. You’d be forgiven for thinking Mozilla has abandoned it.

As it turns out, you’d actually be right, Mozilla has abandoned Ubiquity — but not forever, just for now.

Jonathan DiCarlo, who works at Mozilla Labs, recently posted an update letting the Mozilla community know that Ubiquity is on hold. The reason, according to DiCarlo is that Mozilla labs had too many projects going and, “Ubiquity was one of the things that was put onto the back burner in order to focus better on Weave, Jetpack, Bespin, and other core projects.”

Mozilla’s current roadmap calls for both Weave and JetPack to graduate out of Labs and into Firefox proper, which is likely why the company has chosen to focus its efforts there rather than on Ubiquity.

Which isn’t to say that Ubiquity will never make it into Firefox. Aza Raskin, Head of User Experience for Mozilla Labs, at one point showed off a mockup of one way that some elements of Ubiquity might make it into Firefox. The demo was dubbed Taskfox, and frankly it looked awesome, but so far there is no timeline for when — or if — it will ever become a part of Firefox itself.

Even if Ubiquity never moves beyond Mozilla Labs, Mozilla, for its part seems to have a pretty clear idea about what works in Ubiquity, what doesn’t, and where it can be improved. In fact, DiCarlo has a second Ubiquity post running down everything Mozilla has learned from Ubiquity.

The rather lengthy post is notable for addressing what we found to be the chief shortcoming of Ubiquity — the lack of commands. Mozilla essentially created the frame work and left the work of creating actual, useful commands up to users.

As DiCarlo admits, “we might have been putting the cart before the horse… it’s not the system that is valuable to users, it’s the individual commands, and the time they can save.”

The good news for those of you relying on Ubiquity is that, while Mozilla may be taking a break to finish up Weave and JetPack, the Ubiquity community is still thriving. The mailing list reveals bugs are being fixed and users remain enthusiastic about the project.

If you’d like to update to Firefox 3.6 and want Ubiquity to keep working, you can disable process where the browser checks add-ons for compatibility (go into about:config, search for extensions.checkCompatibility and toggle the option). Keep in mind that doing so may cause problems with Firefox.

Hopefully, even though Ubiquity may be on the back burner, Mozilla will eventually at least release an update that works with Firefox 3.6.

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File Under: HTML5, Multimedia
Jan
21
2010

YouTube Embraces HTML5, But Stops Short of Open Web Video

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Google is now offering up YouTube videos using HTML5′s next-generation video tag. But this advancement is only available to those surfing with Chrome or Safari — Firefox and Opera users need not apply.

YouTube’s HTML5 video support effectively eliminates the need for Adobe’s Flash plug-in for viewing videos on the site. The move comes in response to a survey where users voted “support HTML5 open web video with open formats” to the top of the YouTube’s feature request list.

Unfortunately for fans of the open web, Google seems to have stopped reading at “support HTML5″ because “open web video with open formats” is entirely missing from the new features.

To test YouTube’s new HTML5 support for yourself, head to the TestTube page and enable the new features for your account. Just make sure you’re using either Google Chrome browser or Safari because those are the only two browsers that support the new features.

The video quality of HTML5 playback (shown below in a screenshot taken with Google Chrome on a Mac) is a little chunkier than the Flash version, but it works. The frame rate is just as smooth and the player controls, which are JavaScript and CSS, operate as you’d expect.

this is a SCREENSHOT

Eliminating the need for Flash means YouTube videos will be less likely to crash your browser and should stop your PC’s cooling fan from turning into a jet turbine, but it doesn’t really advance open video on the web — it just moves from one proprietary solution (the Flash plugin) to another, the H.264 video codec.

While Google’s early support for the new HTML5 <video> tag is a win for HTML5′s vision of a web without plug-ins, unfortunately Google’s HTML5 support also highlights what will be a thorn in the side of open web video for some time: codec compatibility issues.

At the moment, YouTube’s HTML5 video support is limited to web browsers that support the H.264 video codec — namely Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari. Because the W3C declined to specify a standard video codec to go along with new video element, the choice of codecs to support lies with each web browser.

Browser manufacturers are split into two camps, those that support the free, open Ogg Theora codec (Chrome, Firefox, Opera and others) and those that support the proprietary H.264 codec (Chrome and Safari). Internet Explorer is entirely removed from this debate, as it does not support the video playback capability of HTML5 — in fact, IE support for HTML5 in general is almost entirely nonexistent, even though all the other browsers are racing to build in support.

Google’s decision to start with the H.264 codec is disappointing since Mozilla and Opera have declined to pay the expensive licensing fees for H.264 and instead support Ogg Theora for open video on the web.

What makes Google’s choice of video codec even more regrettable is that the Ogg Theora codec (a free, open video codec) works in Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Had Google opted to support Ogg Theora, only Apple would have been left out of the fun.

Furthermore, the latest version of Firefox — version 3.6, which was ironically released within hours of Google’s YouTube announcement — expands the browser’s ability to play videos using proposed HTML5 standards, including support for fullscreen playback. But Firefox’s video capability is limited to Ogg Theora.

However, there may be a simple practical reason YouTube chose to start with H.264 — it most likely already has most of its videos in H.264. Thanks to the YouTube application for the iPhone and Flash 10′s H.264 support, behind the scenes much of YouTube’s video is likely already in H.264.

Hopefully Google will add support for Ogg Theora in the near future, after all the number-one request in YouTube’s survey wasn’t more HTML5 support, it was “support HTML5 open web video with open formats.”

We welcome this baby step away from web video plug-ins, but keep in mind that we’re still some ways away from truly open, free video on the web.

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