Archive for February, 2011

File Under: Programming, Web Services
Feb
18
2011

Amazon S3 Storage Now Handles Entire Websites

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Cheap, cloud-hosted web servers are a key component of a distributed web. But sometimes you don’t need a server, you just need a cheap way to host your static files, like images and videos. That’s the gap Amazon’s S3 service has long filled — offering a simple and cheap way to serve up static files without paying for an always-on server.

Now, thanks to an update, you can host not just a few image files, but a complete static website on Amazon S3.

Previously, S3 wouldn’t work for an entire site because the root level of your Amazon S3 “bucket” (as storage containers are called in Amazon parlance) was an XML file. For entire websites you needed to use Amazon EC2, even if your site was purely static content.

But Amazon has changed the way S3 works. Now, an S3 bucket can be accessed as a website, making it possible to host static sites on the service. If an error occurs, your visitors will see an normal HTML error document instead of the old XML error message.

Amazon CTO Werner Vogels is eating his own dog food and has a helpful post on how he moved his blog to S3. Like most blogs, Vogels’ site is mainly static content, so serving it from S3 is simply a matter of uploading the files and changing the CNAME to point to the S3 bucket instance. Of course, for those elements of the site that aren’t static — editing posts, managing comments and searching — Vogels still relies on a web server.

For those using static publishing systems like Jekyll, the revamped S3 makes a cheap hosting option.

Amazon S3 still has some notable oversights — like the lack of support for gzip/deflate — but now that it can handle whole static websites there’s no need to pay for a server when you don’t need one.

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File Under: Browsers
Feb
18
2011

Chrome 10 Beta Offers Faster JavaScript, Less CPU Usage

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Google has released version 10 of its Chrome web browser to the beta release channel. Chrome 10 is a major overhaul, featuring a new version of the V8 JavaScript engine, which is 60 percent faster than the version of V8 found in Chrome 9. Faster JavaScript means faster web apps, and the Chrome 10 beta is definitely the speediest version of Chrome yet.

To get the update you’ll need to be using the Chrome beta release channel. Head over to the Google Chrome channels page to download the latest beta.

JavaScript isn’t the only speed improvement in Chrome 10, Google has also enabled experimental support for GPU-accelerated video. Provided you have a capable graphics card, HTML5 video should be considerably easier on your CPU. The Chrome blog says that, in fullscreen mode, CPU usage “may decrease by as much as 80 percent.” I didn’t see anything quite that dramatic, but it’s definitely an improvement over Chrome 9.

If you’re a fan of Chrome’s sync features, this release adds support for encrypting your passwords with your own secret sync passphrase. The new encryption setup works much like Firefox’s sync encryption — just create a passphrase and enter it on every machine that syncs to that account.

Although its been in the dev channel for some time, Chrome’s new tab-based settings panel has now made its way to the beta channel. Having settings appear in a tab rather than a separate window is mildly more convenient, but the real win is the new search box, which allows you to quickly find the setting you want without wading through every tab and menu item.

To go along with Chrome 10 moving to beta, the Chrome dev channel has also been updated to a new version of Chrome 11. The dev channel update is primarily a bug fix release, though for Mac OS X users their is one small change — the tab overview mode is now on by default.

If you’re not one to trust your daily web browsing to beta or dev channel releases, fear not, Chrome 10 should be headed for prime time just six weeks from now (and, for those keeping score, it’s only another year and four months until Chrome overtakes Emacs in version number).

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File Under: Social, Web Services
Feb
17
2011

Google Taps Your Friends to Improve Search Results

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Google has updated its Social Search tool to add links, photos and relevant web pages from your friends to Google’s normal search results. The changes build on Google’s earlier social-search efforts and help add a more familiar, human element to your search results.

Google Social Search, which debuted in 2009, taps your social network to find search results from people you know. Although your friend’s Flickr photos of Yosemite might not normally rank high in a Google search, Social Search adds another layer to the algorithm-based results and makes sure that you see your friend’s photos when you search for “Yosemite.” In order to use Social Search you must be signed in to a Google account.

Back when social Search first launched any results Google found within your social networks were relegated to the bottom of the page. Today’s update changes that, mixing social results in with regular search results. The change not only makes it easier to find results from within your social network, it also signals that Google is getting more serious about social search as a first class offering.

Facebook already uses similar social network connections to surface helpful links and even recently started using your friends to promote and advertise products within the site. Google, on the other hand, has been slow to embrace social searching. This is only the the second update to its social search tool in nearly two years.

The second major change in this update is that Social Search will now add notes for links your friends have shared on Twitter and other sites. For example, if you search for a video of a singer slapping his guitarist after a bad solo, and your friend happens to have posted the same video to Twitter, that result might show up higher in your results. You’ll also see a note beneath the link, mentioning that your friend tweeted the video.

The last change in this update to Social Search gives you a bit more control over how your various social network accounts are linked to Social Search. Previously accounts were connected publicly through your Google profile page. That still works, but you can now also connect accounts privately, so no one else will know that you masquerade as @voltronsuperfan on Twitter. Of course, Google will still know, so if you’re concerned about maintaining your privacy, Social Search probably isn’t for you.

For an overview of how Google Social Search works, check out this video:

Photo by Brynn Evans/Flickr/CC

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File Under: Browsers
Feb
17
2011

Mozilla Makes Plans for Firefox 5

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Mozilla's site-specific tabs mock-up

Firefox 4 was originally scheduled for release in November of last year, but bugs and last minute features have seen the next version of Firefox delayed several months. However, Firefox 4 has finally entered the home stretch and should be available in release candidate form on February 25, with the final release a few weeks after that.

Never one to rest, Mozilla has already set its sights on Firefox 5. The company is hoping to avoid the delays that plagued Firefox 4 by moving future releases to a rolling update schedule, which resembles Google’s approach for its Chrome web browser.

Mozilla’s goal is to deliver a total of four major releases in 2011, pushing Firefox to version 7 by the end of the year. Mozilla is hoping that faster development times will mean new features can be rolled out as they are completed. Among the priorities for Firefox 5 are 64 bit support on Windows, a revamped Account Manager and the usual performance and speed improvements.

Whether or not Mozilla can meet its rather ambitious goals for the future of Firefox remains to be seen, but work has already begun on Firefox 5.

The first mockups on Mozilla’s AreWePrettyYet design showcase show off what Mozilla calls “a site-specific browser.” Widely used websites, like Twitter and Facebook, would get drop-down menus within dedicated tabs. As shown in the mockup above, the tab would add a site’s top level menu links in a drop-down menu.

Other mockup ideas include changing the search bar to use colors instead of favicons, blocking automatically installed add-ons and promoting Firefox Sync on the default about:blank page.

Naturally these mockups and possible features are very much a work in progress and there’s no guarantee that Firefox 5 will actually incorporate these ideas. There are also, thus far, no firm release dates to go along with Firefox 5′s roadmap.

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File Under: Browsers, HTML5, Web Standards
Feb
16
2011

Microsoft, Mozilla Battle Over What Makes a ‘Modern’ Web Browser

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HTML5test.com scores for IE9 and Firefox

Microsoft and Mozilla are trading barbs over the coming Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft has been touting its HTML5 support in IE9, claiming that it renders HTML5 better than Firefox (and Chrome, Safari and Opera).

Mozilla then turned around and released an infographic that shows IE9 lagging well behind Firefox across the board — whether its HTML5 support, speed or CSS 3.

So who’s right? Well, both of them. IE9 is a huge leap forward for Microsoft. IE9 handles HTML5 and CSS 3 far better than its predecessors. As we said in our review of the release candidate IE9 is great news for web developers because it means the end of IE hacks and workarounds.

That said, IE9 offers nowhere near the level of HTML5 support found its competitors.

But what about Microsoft’s much-touted HTML5 compliance chart? Well, the tests used for that chart are the tests Microsoft developed for IE9 and submitted to the W3C. It should be no surprise that IE9 scores well in the tests it created, after all, those are the tests it was developed against.

IE9 does well on its own HTML5 tests

For something a bit less biased, grab a copy of the IE9 release candidate and point it any of the popular HTML5 test suites on the web — caniuse.com and HTML5tests.com are two good examples. Run IE9 RC1 and Firefox 4 through those tests and you’ll find that Firefox handy beats IE9 (as do Chrome, Opera and Safari). In fact, Firefox 3.5, which is over two years old, also handily beats IE9.

So how can Microsoft claim that IE9 is a “modern” browser with amazing HTML5 support? Well, Microsoft’s argument is that HTML5test and its ilk look for features that haven’t necessarily been finalized by the W3C. Microsoft’s rebuttal to Mozilla’s criticisms is that users don’t want experimental features, they want a fast browser that can handle HTML5 video, audio and canvas.

Microsoft’s Tim Sneath, director of Windows and Silverlight technical evangelism, says that “modern browsers implement features when they are ready, providing predictable patterns that developers can rely on rather than suddenly breaking or removing specifications.”

The problem with that claim is that, as we’ve often pointed out, the web doesn’t move at the speed of standards, it moves at the speed of innovative web browsers and developers. Sometimes there are hiccups along the way, but in taking the conservative track, IE9 is in danger of falling behind the web before it even makes it onto the web.

Internet Explorer’s market share has been in steady decline for several years now. IE has dropped from 68.5 percent world market share in July 2008 to 46 percent today (according to StatCounter).

Faced with dwindling market share and IE bashing in the web development community, many developers were hoping Microsoft would innovate, would build something amazingly far ahead of the competition. But that’s not the approach Microsoft has decided to pursue.

So while IE9 does an admirable job of catching up on web standards, it’s far from a leader when it comes to HTML5 and CSS 3 support. If you want a browser that works on today’s web, IE9 will make a fine choice. If you want a browser that’s already moving toward the web of the future then you might want to look elsewhere.

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