Open Web

There is a never ending debate about which platform is best: Android, iPhone, Palm, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, or Symbian. But what if the correct answer is … JavaScript? Is this a joke? Not according to an open source project named PhoneGap.

You need an HTML5 ready browser to visit this demonstration.  Amazing stuff though.  The latest Chrome beta 3.0.196.2 works well.  Ajaxian has a review of this at:  http://ajaxian.com/archives/audio-canvas Lots of Webkit tweets in the demo!

This one's for Florian. He's been wondering about mobile computing and that creeping sense of being left out of something big. The desktop is so not happening. It's day has come and gone. Now there is a study out from ABI Research, connecting mobile computing to the future of the Web. Good stuff: Intro Excerpt:The term "cloud computing" is being bandied about a lot these days, mainly in the context of the "future of the web." But cloud computing's potential doesn't begin and end with the personal computer's transformation into a thin client - the mobile platform is going to be heavily impacted by this technology as well. At least that's the analysis being put forth by ABI Research. Their recent report, Mobile Cloud Computing, theorizes that the cloud will soon become a disruptive force in the mobile world, eventually becoming the dominant way in which mobile applications operate.

Dion Hinchcliffe has posted a lengthy discussion on the future of Open Data and the Open Web.  He identifies three Open Web methods for accessing and working with Open Data; WOA, API's and Linked Data.  These methods are discussed in the context of SOA and the re-engineering of enterprise business systems.  Great stuff.  Dion also provides an excellent chart describing his vision of how these things fit together. Excerpt: "Open data holds up the promise of instant connectivity between arbitrary numbers of ad hoc partners while at the same time reducing integration costs, improving transparency, harnessing external innovation, and even (perhaps especially) creating entirely new and significant business models. I sometimes refer to these as "open supply chains", and the term is highly descriptive when it comes to the potential for open data models to make cloud computing safe and interoperable, help journalists to do their jobs better, or create multi-million dollar new lines of business, such as Amazon's well-known Web Services division."

HuffingtonPost CTO to speak on Enterprise MySQL: Heavy-Traffic Management on Aug. 11 at the NYC MySQL Group http://www.meetup.com/mysqlnyc/calendar/10930810/

Microsoft's proposed undertaking for resolving the ECIS complaint to the European Commission regarding its office productivity software can be downloaded from this linked web page. I've given it a quick skim. Didn't see anything in it for anyone but competing big vendors. E.g., no profiling of data formats for interop of less and more featureful implementations, no round-tripping provisions. Still, some major concessions offered.

In a recent speech to Stanford students, Siebel system's Thomas Siebel argues that the 20 sweet years of IT spending growth between 1980 and 2000 has ended.  IT growth no longer outpasses the growth of the economy.  In 2000 IT spending fell from a compounded annual growth rate of 17% to 3%, and has languished there since. Shane Greenstein, an economist at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management who has written extensively about the computer industry, to take a look at the raw data upon which those numbers were supposedly based: the annual I.T. spending estimates published by IDC.  He found that the hay day of IT spending was actually between 1961 and 1980, where the rate was upwards of 35.7% growth!!! One thought i had is that IT spending today is very focused on the problem of connecting legacy business systems to the Web.  It's not focused on replacing those systems. One very interesting excerpt:  "when one company dominates a certain area of technology, it can be a bottleneck along the road to innovation - an obstacle to the technology of others. Mr. Bresnahan says that this has happened with Microsoft in the PC side of corporate information technology, and in earlier times with I.B.M. in computers and AT&T in telecommunications. But he said that entrepreneurial companies of those earlier days - like Siebel Systems - ultimately invented around bottlenecks and "innovation-led growth picked up again."

For most of this decade, web developers have been suffering the shortcomings of Internet Explorer. Like 1998 limited HTML-CSS support.  And nothing for the language of the Web - HTML+ :: HTML5, CSS3, SVG/Canvas and advanced JavaScript.  That hasn't bothered Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) too much, because the company has historically focused on developing "real" applications that run only on Windows and don't use the browser as a platform. With the new Office web apps, many thought that Microsoft might actually have to experience the living nightmare that web app development can be. Yet the company has figured out a way to make things easier: cheat.   MIcrosof thas figured out how to provide MSOffice as Web Apps, without having to use the language of the Web: HTML+.  Instead, they use protpietary formats, protocols and interfaces to create an interesting dichotomy - a rich MS-Web, and a poor, 1998 Open-Web.

In today's world the internet travels. Not just through laptops and wireless signal, but through a growing number of smart phones. The trick? Getting your site to travel just as well. Build to Touch:  The iPhone did two things differently. The full browser was a good first, but the second changed the fundamentals of interaction in a new direction. The phone is driven by touch. The best applications and websites have navigations that compliment this. Buttons are larger and more accommodating, and interfaces become more intuitive when they seem tactile. The iPhone did two things differently. The full browser was a good first, but the second changed the fundamentals of interaction in a new direction. The phone is driven by touch. The best applications and websites have navigations that compliment this. Buttons are larger and more accommodating, and interfaces become more intuitive when they seem tactile. For the average web designer, you'll save yourself a significant amount of time and headache by simply giving the site some iPhone sensitive browser design. Applications must be approved before going live, and can require extensive knowledge of development tools.

Great title, no substance.  But who can pass this up?  Even if it's been obvious since the 2007 release of the iPhone.  WebKit Rules the Edge of the Web today!   Tomorrow, the greater Web will follow. Excerpt: There are a lot of brave souls out there making mobile browsers, hoping to gain traction with the phone makers. But most of them are fighting a losing battle, for the mobile browser war is increasingly being fought between two camps - the Webkit-based browsers camp, which includes Safari on the iPhone, the Google Android Browser, the Palm browser and the Nokia browser; and the Opera camp.

Florian is fond of pointing out to me that Open Web HTML+ lacks a representational model - a standard method for layout that can then be interoperably rendered across any ACiD 3 browser.  Florian is right that HTML+ is not quite there yet.  But many engineers and Web designers are working on this problem.  The W3C may have dropped CSS layout years ago, but the WebKit and Mozilla faithful toil upwards through the night to get it right.  The Flexible Box spec pushes the envelope. Excerpt:  Alex Russell has been having a really interesting discussion with some standards folks about what is wrong on the Web right now, and it narrowed down to discuss CSS variables as a case study (it aint perfect, but get DRY and ship it!) Alex tells it how it is, but people forget that he does this as he is passionate about the Web, and that he does also give credit and positive outlook IF it is due! His latest post shows this as he talked about CSS 3 progress and specifically the flexible box model that Mozilla and WebKit have had forevaaaaaah: David Baron (of Mozilla fame) is editing a long-overdue but totally awesome Flexible Box spec, aka: "hbox and vbox". Both Gecko and WebKit-derived browsers (read: everything that's not IE) supports hbox and vbox today, but using it can be a bit tedious. Should you be working on an app that can ignore IE (say, for a mobile phone), this should help make box layouts a bit easier to get started with:

Excellent discussion that covers the full spectrum of Open Source Software - Community licenses.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Excerpt: Microsoft's chief Washington lobbyist has been convening regular meetings attended by the company's outside consultants that have become known by some beltway insiders as "screw Google" meetings, DailyFinance has learned. The meetings are part of an ongoing campaign by Microsoft (MSFT), other Google (GOOG) opponents, and hired third parties to discredit the Web search leader, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter. "Microsoft is at the center of a group of companies who see Google as a threat to them in some combination of business and policy," said a source familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to avoid retribution. "The effort is designed make Google look like the big high-tech bad guy here." Microsoft lobbyist, the Law Media Group, has several people who work full-time on Google-bashing. Everybody knows Microsoft is trying to throw roadblocks at Google and knock them off their game. Microsoft is trying to harm Google in the regulatory, legal, and litigation arenas because they're having problems with Google in the competitive marketplace." "This is textbook Microsoft," the source adds. "Microsoft has got some of the best, highest-priced lobbyists that money can buy in Washington."

Amazing must read!  BackBlaze offers unlimited cloud storage/backup for $5 per month.  Now they are releasing the "storage" aspect of their service as an open source design.  The discussion introducing the design is simple to read and follow - which in itself is an achievement.   They held back on open sourcing the BackBlaze Cloud software system, which is understandable.  But they do disclose a Debian Linux OS running Tomcat over Apache Server 5.4 with JFS and HTTPS access.  This is exciting stuff.  I hope the CAR MLS-Cloud guys take notice.  Intro: At Backblaze, we provide unlimited storage to our customers for only $5 per month, so we had to figure out how to store hundreds of petabytes of customer data in a reliable, scalable way-and keep our costs low. After looking at several overpriced commercial solutions, we decided to build our own custom Backblaze Storage Pods: 67 terabyte 4U servers for $7,867. In this post, we'll share how to make one of these storage pods, and you're welcome to use this design. Our hope is that by sharing, others can benefit and, ultimately, refine this concept and send improvements back to us. Evolving and lowering costs is critical to our continuing success at Backblaze.

Webkit on the march.

The stripped down "HTML Author" version of the 900 page HTML5 specification.   The bulk of the spec targets "implementers" such as browsers and editors.  It's very exacting and should provide for an unprecedented universal interoperability. Introduction:  This specification provides the details necessary for producers of HTML content to create conformant documents, and for others to wcheck the conformance of existing documents. It is designed: to describe the syntax and structure of the HTML language to describe the semantics of HTML elements and their attributes (that is, to describe what the elements and attributes represent) to be clear and unambiguous to be as concise and readable as possible Certain purposes are intentionally out of scope for this specification; in particular, it: does not provide any conformance criteria for HTML consumers; in particular, it does not attempt to define how Web browsers and other user agents process documents does not define any APIs related to processing of HTML content by HTML consumers. does not attempt to be a tutorial or "how to" authoring guide