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The browser is supported but is the OS?

Last month Yahoo! began an open beta of Yahoo! Canada Mail. I’ve been using it for a little bit now and have to say I’m really digging the new drag and drop functionality and pane based layout. Some real nice improvements. What baffles me though is the operating system requirements for using the beta. If you want to use Yahoo! Canada Mail Beta you need to be running Windows 2000, XP or Mac OSX.

Really? I can understand requiring a modern browser but a web based app running in a supported browser with OS requirements?

This is pretty forward of me but I think someone needs to introduce Dave Winer and Kevin Lynch.

Why? Because they’re both saying the same thing.

Of course they’re on different paths and are both describing it in their own ways but you can’t tell me the goal isn’t the same. What finally clued me in was Dave’s comment today when he had this to say about Yahoo’s calendar:
“The interface is clunky, but I can’t see how it could be better and still run in the browser.”

Heh, Dave, check out Kevin’s presentation from Max last fall. It’s a bit of a pain to get you to the right place in the video but once you watch it I think you’ll agree with me. The video is here. Choose ‘Day One’ > ‘Platform Future’ (3rd thumbnail from the right), then jump ahead to about 1:08:00.

At one point this afternoon nearly the entire front page of MXNA was discussing Macromedia’s upcoming Eclipse based development tool for the Flex framework, codenamed Zorn.

All due to a post from Mike Chambers in which he explains that Zorn will allow users to build swfs with MXML, ActionScript and the next generation of the Flex framework (all without requiring a server).

And I though only Mac users were obsessive ;-)

Dax Phandi has been downloading the Windows Vista beta 1 since July 27. With just under 9 hours to go it would seem he’s in the home stretch. He’s also posted a great list of tasks he’s managed to accomplish while waiting.

Folks in the Authorware community will surely be familiar with Apurva Lawale and the excellent collection of Authorware resources he has compiled over the years.

It seems that Apurva recently launched Learning @ apurvalawale.com where subscribers can access his library of resources …which contains code examples, articles and plugins (activex, u32, xtra) to help you do the various tasks that you might need to do in your eLearning project. As part of the launch he is offering alPicView and alTooltips for free to those who purchase subscriptions ($88) prior to the end of August.

Sure it’s a little sad when an excellent resource for newcomers to Authorware becomes less accessible. Overall though, I feel that if this provides an extensive collection of quality articles and samples then it is most welcome. Authorware suffers from a severe shortage of quality documentation and manuals.

(I’ve often wondered if a CommunityMX style knowledge library could be viable in the Authorware community).

The Web Standards Project (WASP) have posted part 2 of the W3C’s response to their query re the correct way to include multimedia elements such as sound, animation and video in web pages. Bottom line in this final installment seems to be the obvious - the object element implementation varies across different browsers and developers should be aware of the variances. In order to accurately determine the level of support in different user agents they have created a test suite with results being collected here.

Here’s something I wasn’t aware of. Did you know that it’s possible to use the data attribute to embed the object directly (as opposed to refering to it via src).

Holy research period, Part 1 was originally posted back in June of 2004.

Google released a personalized homepage to beta earlier today. It allows you to add various modules such as weather reports, Gmail, driving directions and a few select RSS feeds to the search page. The tech behind it seems kinda cool but to be honest this is one of the main reasons I tend to avoid Yahoo - too much simultaneous information. I suck at multitasking.

Anhyow, links to a Cnet article and one from eWeek.

As well, Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo seems a little bitter about it all:
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/004684.html
(That marissapr blogspot.com page he links to is good for a laugh).

The ajaxian blog points to backbase.com’s recently revamped website. They’ve built it using what’s been coined as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). It’s actually a pretty slick site, though two things struck me:
- Slighty different experience across browsers. Nothing big mind you - functionality all seems pretty consistent but there are little aesthetic things. To be honest I think I’m probably nitpicking here - I’m actually quite impressed with how things work in both the win32 browsers I’ve tried.
- I’m posting this from an embarrassingly slow machine and those animated menus are far from snappy. I don’t think I’d expect that from a swf (though I have seen flash player pieces chug on this box).

There’s a comment in the ajaxian.com blog entry linked above that I also see from time to time as a Flash criticism. It goes something like: but it can’t be bookmarked. That always strikes me as an odd request for a web based application. I understand the desire to bookmark a document but when was the last time you expected to “bookmark” your location in a desktop app?

Anyhow, Jesse James Garrett has a good article on using AJAX for web applications here:
http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php

Context is a pretty nice little code editor that I’ve been running for a bit now. It’s a freeware application written by Eden Kirin and is currently at version 0.97.6. I started off just using it as a notepad alternative and ever since have been discovering features that make it more and more essential. It supports custom defined syntax highlighters so there is a wide selection of higlighters available (no ActionScript 2.0 yet though). I’ve also been playing with swfmill lately and the user definable execution keys in Context allow me to compile directly from within the editor simply by hitting a function key. Sweet.

Grrr.

My install of IE6 began misbehaving shortly after I installed a couple of fairly common utility apps (I’m not sure which is the culprit so will not refer to them by name). Among other things I was being presented with Incompatible version of RPC stub errors when trying to open the find dialogue. Pretty much the only time I browse with IE these days is when reading docs on MSDN so “find in page” is a pretty important feature for me. Anyhow, a quick google turned up this MS Knowledge Base entry which seems to have resolved things:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;321915

So, obviously I’m a little grouchy today - it wasn’t that big a deal to fix - but I really don’t think it’s all that cool to overwrite files required by other software just ’cause some silly feature in your help depends upon a different version.

We’ve made our point. Macromedia have heard - now have some respect about it.

I did not know this.

On Windows 2000 or greater Press Ctrl+C to copy the contents of a Windows error messagebox to the clipboard. This is a javascript alert() to try it out on. (It would seem that this functionality does not work in Firefox 1.0 but does in IE6).

The Current on CBC radio ran a segment this morning on the blogging bill of rights. They discussed a couple of the recent cases of bloggers being fired for writing critically of their employers. I find it interesting to see the differences in reaction various companies are having to blogging. It should be interesting to watch as the technology and the way it is used evolve. Personally, I feel that the organizations which have embraced the trend are reacting more effectively. But I would say that, wouldn’t I.

You can read about the piece here (scroll to the end of “Part 2″). You can also listen to the program archived in Realaudio format:
Part 2
Part 3

Joel on Software blogged this gem. Its a command line utility to remove some of the unnecessary data from a jpeg, thus making the files a bit smaller. More info and download here:
PureJPEG

I only added Kevin Site’s blog to my list of subscribed feeds in September but have been browsing throught the archives ever since. Kevin is freelance journalist who’s been working for MSNBC/NBC in Iraq and keeping a personal “photo-blog” while doing so. Its been on/off since the beginning of the invasion as I get the impression he’s seen some pressure from his various employers. He really manages to deliver a personal side of the situation. Giving us a glimpse into the everyday goings on of people just living their lives and doing their jobs. Whether that be an Iraqi wedding or American Marines on patrol.

So I wanted to watch that docu-ganda film Going Upriver that is being offered as a free download over at thekerrymovie.com to see what all the fuss was about. Keep reading, this is not a political rant - I haven’t finished downloading it yet. This is the first time in ages that I have done that “okay, what am I gonna do while this thing downloads” look around. The most I really download is my few MB legitimately obtained mp3s. Reminds me of the dial up days: connect, fire up the email client, begin downloading messages and then go for a beer or tea, or whatever…