Well I gave Firefox 3.0 a good run but decided to stay with Firefox 2.o for now. Some of the reasons for this include:
Tagneto: Mobile Development
I was recently asked about my experiences making TinyBuddy IM. Here are my very biased thoughts about it and mobile development in general.
Server-side JavaScript on the Java Virtual Machine (Google I/O Session Videos and Slides): "Server-side JavaScript on the Java Virtual Machine
Steve Yegge (Google)
After over a decade in the browser space, JavaScript is making a surprise move into the server programming space. Mozilla Rhino is turning JavaScript into a compelling option for Java programmers. Will JavaScript be the next server-side programming language? In this talk I will do a deep dive into Rhino's technology, and I'll demonstrate some of its many uses in server-side computing."
YouTube - Google I/O 2008 - Underneath the Covers at Google: "Underneath the Cov I/ers at Google: Current Systems and Future Directions
Jeff Dean (Google)"
Powering a clean energy revolution: "RE<C (Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal)
Clean and affordable energy is a growing need for our company, so we’re excited about launching RE<C, a strategic initiative whose mission is to develop electricity from renewable sources cheaper than electricity produced from coal. Initially, this project to create renewable energy cheaper than coal will focus on advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies, and enhanced geothermal systems – but we’ll explore other potential breakthrough technologies too.
We’re busy assembling our own internal research and development group and hiring a team of engineers and energy experts tasked with building 1 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. (That’s enough electricity to power a city the size of San Francisco.) Google’s R&D effort will begin with a significant effort on solar thermal technology, and will also investigate enhanced geothermal systems and other areas."
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.: "Playlist: Google I/O 2008
Description: Videos of sessions from Google I/O 2008."
Gears API Blog: Appcelerator gives you Gears functionality out of the box: "First, for those that haven't heard of Appcelerator, it is an open source 'RIA' development toolkit that focuses on rich clients talking to services on the backend. You can think of it somewhat as a Flex-like framework built with Open Web technology.
We are seeing an interesting trend. At first, frameworks would wrap Gears semantics in something that makes sense for their audience of developers, which is great.
Appcelerator though does something a little different. It uses Gears under the hood to make your existing Appcelerator based application a better user experience."
Today at around 11:00am, according to Zha Ewry, a long hoped for landmark was reached: a couple Linden Lab staffers teleported with Zha from the Second Life grid... into Open Sim, the open source spinoff of SL. They came only as avatars, without inventory or attributes, and therefore, appeared as "Ruth", SL's default bug avatar. Even so, it was still the first instance of interoperability between one virtual world and another. "Next steps," writes Zha, who runs the Architecture Working Group, "will include better syncing with the OpenSim environment, handling teleport in and our requests, and then starting in on how to fetch assets from the test grid." It's a small step, but it opens up worlds of possibility.New World Notes: Metaverse Milestone: Interoperability Between Second Life And Open Sim Virtual Worlds
Webtop Watch: Adobe Launches Acrobat.com and Releases Acrobat 9 (With Flash).
Continuing its push to become a major provider of Webtop software, Adobe is releasing two new products on Monday: Acrobat.com and Acrobat 9. Adobe’s Webtop arsenal already includes the recently launched online version of PhotoShop and its online media player, Adobe TV. Acrobat.com is another big step towards bringing more desktop-like experiences to the Web. “It is our intent to blur a lot of the lines of the past,” says product manager Erik Larson.
Acrobat.com—Online Word Processing, Meetings, and File Sharing
Acrobat.com
is a combination of three recently launched online services: Adobe Brio (online meetings), Adobe Buzzword (online word processor), and Adobe Share (online file sharing). Thus with the public beta launch of Acrobat.com, Adobe is taking on Google Docs, Microsoft Office Live Workspace, WebEx, and GoTo Meeting—all at the same time.
Buzzword is now integrated into Acrobat.com as the default word processor. (I reviewed Buzzword and Share when they first launched last March). Multiple people can edit a document and leave comments. Tabs along the bottom representing different people show you who has accessed the document most recently and their status (author, reviewer, etc.). It paginates documents, supports all kinds of fonts, and lets you create the closest equivalent to a PDF that is possible online.
All the documents on Acrobat.com are organized in what up until now has been Adobe Share. The document and file-sharing service now offers five gigabytes of free storage, and lets you embed documents in a widget on other sites across the Web. (I’ve put an Adobe PDF widget at the bottom of this post). This last feature should worry startups like Scribd and DocStoc, which are based entirely on the ability to upload and share documents in a similar fashion.
Finally, my favorite part, Acrobat.com includes Brio, which is a light version of Adobe Acrobat Connect. It lets up to three people have online meetings for free, with screen sharing, desktop video, voice conferencing, chat, white-boarding. You can add in a regular toll line for a fee. Anyone with a Mac is going to love this. Whenever I get a virtual demo, I prefer to do it through Adobe Connect because WebEx and GoTo Meeting sometimes don’t work with my Mac. And Adobe’s Flash viewer simply looks better.
Adobe Launches Online Office Suite and New Flash-Enabled Acrobat 9 - ReadWriteWeb: "Back in March, we said Adobe was slowly building an online empire. Today, that news turns out to be true. Adobe is has just launched their version of an online office suite available at Acrobat.com, complete with word processor (Buzzword), web conferencing/whiteboard app (ConnectNow), online file sharing (Share), file storage, (My Files), and PDF converter. To complement this launch, Adobe has also announced a brand-new version of Adobe Acrobat, Acrobat 9, the biggest release since the initial one that introduced Acrobat to the world. The remarkable change in this new version is that Adobe is now incorporating Flash into the PDF experience."
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Note to Web 2.0 Companies: Early Adopters are not the Mass Market:
If you work in the technology industry it pays to be familiar with the ideas from Geoffrey Moore's insightful book Crossing the Chasm. In the book he takes a look at the classic marketing bell curve that segments customers into Early Adopters, Pragmatists, Conservatives and Laggards then points out that there is a large chasm to cross when it comes to becoming popular beyond an initial set of early adopters. There is a good review of his ideas in Eric Sink's blog post entitled Act Your Age which is excerpted below
The people in your market segment are divided into four groups:
