Catching up
There’s a reason I use Thunderbird’s weblog-reading component: there’s just too much good content on the Web these days. The last week or two brought in an abundance of computer-related goodies, including these about Microsoft, Opera, and Mozilla:
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MS Anti-Spyware built on MS Abandonware – After coercing so many developers and companies to hop on the .Net bandwagon, the last holdout may be Microsoft’s newest division. [1]
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MSN Virtual Earth: Microsoft Takes on Google – Being the creature of habit that I am, MSN’s new Google product clone won’t see me very often. It might have some slick animation when zooming in and out, but if Microsoft doesn’t have the resources to include Apple’s headquarters in their database or remove the World Trade Center towers from it, then Microsoft may’ve just put Google Maps’ questionable reliability in perspective.
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Standards and CSS in IE – Everyone was anxious to see what Microsoft had added and improved for IE7 beta 1, which was released in tandem with the Windows Vista beta. But when some prominent bloggers tried the new browser out, they were largely disappointed: aside from the copycat tabbed browsing and awkwardly placed toolbar, not much had changed. Fortunately, the IE team came out with a blog post on the subject, and surprised me with the list of Web standards features that they plan to support in later betas – they’re promising pretty much all I wanted: the
abbrtag, better CSS selector support, transparent PNG, and:hoveron arbitrary elements, plus a host of bug fixes involving margin handling. [2] -
Opera to stop spoofing User Agent as IE – When I started using Opera back in the days of version 2.x, the first option I changed was the user agent string: Opera attempts to trick clueless Web designers into thinking that it’s Internet Explorer, so that they don’t send Opera “upgrade now” messages and other annoying nonsense. (Extensions for Mozilla and Firefox have done this for ages as well.) Now, Opera feels confident enough to start using its own name by default. [3]
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What’s in a name? – Round Two, formerly known as MozSource, is now known as the Flock. Sounds like another mozilla/browser → Phoenix → Firebird → Firefox. They’re working on one of those “social browsing experiences” (think del.icio.us).
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Mozilla Foundation Announces Creation of Mozilla Corporation – I’m still trying to decide whether I think this move is a good thing or not… [4]
In case I haven’t bored you enough, how about a few links on programming and application development?
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Hitting the High Notes – You can’t make up for having poor programmers by having hoardes of poor programmers. Sounds kind of obvious, but maybe the project management types will need to read this.
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JavaScript Archive Network – If you’re looking to add some basic functionality to your large program, but don’t want to spend time implementing it yourself, this JavaScript counterpart to CPAN might become your best friend. It already has plenty of JavaScript libraries available for download. Yes, I said JavaScript libraries – JavaScript is a real programming language. [5]
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Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful – No, the user doesn’t always know what they want. You have to be the boss sometimes. [6]
Some of the things that popped up this past week just made me scratch my head. Various bloggers noticed Apple’s new “Mighty Mouse,” a mouse that includes two buttons (!) that you can’t see and an “ingenious” little scroll ball. The thing is, I’m not sure how you’re supposed to use that scroll ball; the plethora of images on Apple’s website don’t really help. I suppose that’s why they have an Apple Store in Kenwood.
In addition, Google’s partnering up to provide a service called Current TV. It looks like an online cable channel comprised of podcasts. I’ve yet to take a close look, and I’ve yet to see why I should.
I’ve still got a host of good links in the queue, by the way.