HTML5 DevTools: Aptana Studio 3 beta
Aptana Studio 3 beta is an HTML5 aware development tool. This means it has Intellisense with hinting capabilities for a broad range of HTML5 tags and syntax. In addition Aptana supports CSS3 and is capable of parsing mixed files of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript which are now the rule with Web 2.0, HTML5, PHP, and […]
Apple vs Adobe: Vetting Steve Jobs Flash Assertions
Apple and CEO Steve Jobs have at various time in the past 6 months complained about Adobe Flash performance on both OS4 iDevices [iPhone and iPad] and Mac OS X. This will post will vet those remarks with publicly available benchmarks and other reports. They will be confined to Mac OS X since results of […]
The IE Boast
This advertisement that is appearing all over the Web is a dual edged sword. On one hand it is trying to encourage users to upgrade from IE7 and IE6 [the latter is particularly backward in features and more security-error prone]. But on the other hand the ad invites jaunty humor like “So far … and […]
Apple vs Adobe: Are Apple’s MacOS/X Graphics Drivers to Blame
Keep an Open Eye has been following the Apple versus Adobe debate with a bit of a jaundiced eye – wondering how Flash video and all its broad range of applications can run so fast on Windows yet apparently so slow on Macs [and Linux too]. Adobe claims that the latest Flash player 10.1 has […]
Mashables Christina Warren Does a Fox News “Story”
One of the constant supplies for Jon Stewarts “self-skewering” stories on the Daily Show is Fox News where it is ridiculously easy to catch the network lying, prevaricating and otherwise speaking falsehoods with unbridled carelessness. See the Nazi Icons spoof or the many roastings of Glen Beck. Well I was surprised to see the same […]
iPhone 4 Announcement
For Apple, this means the iDevice closed ecosystem continues along its proprietary path. For Google, fast pace of Android OS revisions has to get into phones – e.g., HTC EVO is one step behind. For Microsoft, they will have to surrender Windows-only development.
Bing Keeps Microsoft in the Game
If anyone had doubts that Microsoft can innovate – take a look at what is coming through the Bing group. Now many would argue that what keeps Microsoft in the game is its Windows + Office monopoly lock and its hordes of cash. But Keep-an-Open-Eye would like to advance the idea that Microsoft is capable […]
Google’s Hybrid Open Model
I have just argued that Google is beating Microsoft because it is adopting a new Hybrid Open Model. But that is not entirely true. Google is actually using the Apache “Open” License that does not require that all code built upon its Open Source has to be returned to the community as Open Source as […]
How Google Beats Microsoft
Everybody and his brother know that Apple and Google are beating Microsoft and its latest yet-to-appear Phone 7 in the mobile market. You don’t need a table, but just in case here is the latest comparative numbers available from Gartner – note the Microsoft market share is for Windows Mobile 6.x and other Microsoft phone […]
iPhone 3Gs $97 at Walmart
Walmart knocked down the prices again – by more than 50% to $97 for an Apple iPhone 3Gs as of last Tuesday. So the gadget press churned out the obvious – Apple was allowing Walmart to clear out the iPhone 3Gs stock for the upcoming iPhone 4 likely to be announced at the Apple Worldwide […]
Google’s Impact
Google has just released an Economic Impact Statement – Google has attempted to measure what impact Google’s search engine and other services has had on the US and by implication, World economics. But as well there is the impact of Google on the basic technology of the Internet and therefore global communication. Google seems to […]
Declarations of OS Independence
Dell and HP have recently made very strong declarations of OS independence from Microsoft. Take HP first. With the buying of Palm for its webOS and the annoucement by HP that webOS would be used in not only its mobile phones [displacing Microsoft Windows Mobile] but also some of its tablets and notepads including the […]
Turmoil at the Redmond Bigtop
Flash Player 9 or higher is required to view the chartClick here to download Flash Player now View the full MSFT chart at Wikinvest There are large changes at the executive suite of Microsoft [key management J.Allard and Robbie Bach are out] as the Mobile and Internet divisions continue to flounder while Apple and Google […]
Whats in Firefox 4
Firefox 4: fast, powerful and empowering View more presentations from Mike Beltzner. The people at Mozilla who are responsible for Firefox deserve admiration. They were the first organization to take on the IE monopoly effectively in the early 2000 time frame by targeting better standards adherence and strong JavaScript support. True, Opera had been battling […]
Google’s New Look. Bing.
Google has finally released on a regular basis the New Look of its Search Results. Bing. Now I don’t want to imply that Microsoft or AskUs had any influence on this new look. Bing. But clearly Google is out to make its search page results as attractive as its search engine savvy. Bing. Also the […]
Best Open CMS: WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal
In a previous post, 10 reasons were given for doing your website development in a CMS/Blog. And the most important reasons were that the best blogs are Open Source, free, secure, fast and very popular. The latter point is notable because that means the chance of finding developer talent that knows how to customize an […]
Adobe Responds to Steve Jobs Attacks
Steve Jobs has done some unprecedented trash talking about Flash running on Apple hardware – raising questions about the openness, security, reliability, speed, and battery life of Flash on iPhone OS and Mac hardware and software. In this probing and blunt interveiw with Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen, the Wall Street Journal gets down to the […]
Google Embraces Web Speed
Just after April Fools, Google added speed and response time delivered at a website as part of its page ranking algorithm. The full details can be found here at the Google Webmaster Central site where Google not only explains some of the rationale about using speed in the rankings but also provides a listing of […]
Steve Jobs Explains No Flash
ReadWriteWeb was the first major tech blog off the mark to get the story on Steve Job’s explanation of why he is excluding Flash on the iPlatforms. RWW nicely summarizes the Flash points and then rightly raises the issue of Google’s Android and its support of Flash. RWW asks is Androids more flexible approach to […]
Adobe Officially Says Adios to Apple iPhone, iPad Development
Mike Chambers, product manger for Adobe Flash, made it official today– Adobe would stop developing for Apple’s iPhone platform. See the following commentary: PCWorld – summary of the situation and Adobe’s withdrawal from iPhone, iPad development Mike Chambers blog – Adobe Flash Product manager explains position eloquently Francis X. Cringely – commentary on decision by […]
HTML5 == DHTML5
Web designers will not like it but Web developers will see it as inevitable – the new emerging HTML5 standard is really the recognition that Web 2.0 development trends have taken us to DHTML-Dynamic HTML as the way to design and program Web applications. But DHTML means designers and developers will require solid knowledge not […]
5 HTML5 Motivators
1)This demo of HTML5 powered Quake 2 game will be a motivator for developers to explore what can be done in HTML5 2)The Battle Royale between Adobe and Apple over the suitability of Flash on iPad/iPhone/iPod will drive more users to HTML5. And Google’s second implementation of Google Voice for iPad/iPhone/iPod using HTML5 demos how […]
Dreamweaver CS5 Wishlist vs Just Announced Reality
Well Dreamweaver was launched today and there are 5 new features and 3 enhanced ones. Here is a quick summary of those new features and enhancements. I must admit, the upgrade list to my view is small. Integrated CMS support – new direct link/edit for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal CMS systems CSS inspection – new looks […]
Apple Cuts the RIA Field Down
Apple has cut the RIA field down to one for now – HTML5. With Apple’s iPhone OS4 announcement of what software development tools would be acceptable on the Apple Mobile Lineup, Apple has said NYET, NEIN, NO to Flash in any way shape or form and to Java too. And NON, NOPE, NIX to Microsoft […]
Apple’s Move to a Mobile Monopoly
Apple is moving inexorably to a Mobile Monopoly – it is the Apple mobile line up: iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iGiveUpWhatsNext. The Apple mobile lineup is closed ecosystem in which all plugins, extensions and apps must go through Apple approved software process. And those extensions and apps/plugins must use Apple approved software development tools. Hence […]
Computing Chip Trends: Memresistors
Moore’s Law is not a law but rather an astute observation that has stood the test of time – it has predicted the rate of change in computing power for the past 50 years with uncanny accuracy: Computing power will double in capacity for the same cost every 18-20 months. This “law” is now running […]
jQuery and CSS Collisions in WordPress
Your browser does not support iframes. The following jQuery powered widget, jCarouselLite, is an example of the dangers of jQuery and CSS collisions in WordPress [this is WordPress version 2.9.2 but the same is true of the new 3.0.1 beta]. I simply have not been able to get the code to work without resorting to […]
Whither E4X ?
E4X is an extension of ECMAScript that makes XML processing a snap in JavaScript. Read about all the details at W3CSchools or Yahoo or WikiPedia and see what IBM developers , Adobe and others have to say about E4x and its effectiveness. Despite the near universal acclaim, currently E4X is only supported in the Firefox […]
Blogs for Website Design in General
More often than not I am recommending to clients that they use blogs rather then custom designed websites for their new or even existing Web projects. Here is my Top Ten Reasons for using or switching to a blog or CMS software for developing large business to small organization websites. 1)Much blog software is very, […]
Dreamweaver CS5 Wish-list
Adobe will announce the new version of Dreamweaver and the whole CS5 Suite of products on April 12th. I know I am so very, very late on a wish-list; but I have been using Dreamweaver a lot lately and find the following points fresh in my mind -and worthwhile repeating. Note the wish list is […]
EXTjs Designer Review
In a previous post on Web Design IDEs, mention was made of the just released EXTjs Designer which allows users to design an RIA JavaScript based interface using the EXTjs Framework. A review was promised – and so: For $219 one can now buy the Designer and develop EXTjs interfaces more rapidly than ever. I […]
Google Binged
Is it my imagine or has Google gone half-Bing[no pretty picture background] as seen in the screenshot above? Now the rumors have been circulating at various shows that Google was changing its interface for Search results – and clearly what I have experienced is now out in the wild according to SearchEngineLand. And the new […]
2010 is the Year Bandwidth Goes Wireless
Are you on a Cable Modem or DSL wireline service like me?[Got em both but I have just just dropped DSL]. Well this year marks the move to Mobile Wireless as the primary data and voice carrier with superior capacity/bandwidth. Call it the iPhone and smartphone effect. Every major carrier is now offering WiFI connects […]
Keep an Open Eye Eye, Sir – Theme Changes
Regular Keep an Open Eye Eye Sir readers will note a lot of changes to the styles and themes of the the blog in the last few weeks. I am in the midst of making some large architectural changes and so I am benchmarking different themes and tracking their “live performance” in the background to […]
Touch Screen Is Still Open
David Pogue has a great two part review of Apple’s iPad in the NYTimes. The first part is devoted to so called techies who find the iPad missing a lot of basic amenities and therefore less than desirable. The second part is for the rest of us and I will let David do the eloquent […]
Concept Maps | Idea Trails | Mind Mapping
Concept Map More to come…
WordCamp Toronto: Day2
WordCamp was very informative and so the second day gets its own posting. Plugins are the topic this morning. TrailMeme Plugin allows creating a summary of posts as a Map or Trail to be followed. There is a website called TrailMeme.com and a WordPress plugin called Trailmeme which allows users to create a trail map […]
Blogging from WordCamp Toronto 2010
Open Source CMS-Content Management Systems/Blogs like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal have become so popular as basic website delivery vehicles that they are now “must-know” tools for Web Developers. Check all the Blogs at the New York Times [a WordPress MU site ] and the Web developer want ads for proof of concept. So I hope […]
Web Design IDEs
Drag and drop design of Web pages has been elusive – Borland had a product way back when with IntraBuilder which was quite good- but perhaps was too far ahead of its time. Now Adobe Dreamweaver, the leading Web Design tool sort of skirted with drag and drop design elements but never really supported it […]
Visual Lightbox
There are a ton of great AJAX Mashables and Widgets becoming available on the Web and even for design use on your PC. Here is one of the better tools, Visual Lightbox which implements a very customizable image viewer for a web page use anywhere – its open and free jQuery based. The screen shot […]
Xara Web Designer 6 – A Best Value
Xara already has one of the best and fastest photo composition tools with Xara Xtreme 5 and they have just delivered a huge upgrade to their Web Designer product that elevates it to one of the best Web Design tools available. Xara Web Designer 6: 1)is the best Web-page Prototyping tool on the PC for […]
Whence Goes Palm?
UPDATE: A number of stories have hit the media describing Palm’s survival as going critical. LATimes – Smart phone maker Palm facing fight for survival StreetInsider – Wall Street Weighs In On Palm’s (PALM) Disastrous Report – Two Say It’s Worth $0, Another Highlights Growing Chance of a Takeover Washington Post – Palm’s phone sales […]
Ballmer’s Problems Three
Steve Ballmer’s Microsoft is playing serious catchup in 3 big software development tasks: 1)Windows 7 still has speed, reliability, memory usage, hardware+software compatibility issues, and ease of use/learning-to-use problems versus Windows XP – hence Windows XP stays entrenched in corporates where Microsoft cannot muscle users off Win XP like it can in the consumer market […]
GPUs and Multicore CPUs
For the next year or two the biggest software battleground among major interface vendors like Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera, and others will be over a)who takes advantage of all the underutilized GPU and extra core CPU power available on PCs especially but also cameras, mobiles, tablets, etc. For example, in todays announcement […]
eReader/Tablet/Slate Market Heats Up
This summer should be very interesting for developments on the eReader/Tablet/Slate market. Apple’s iPad at $500 to $900 will be the seventy cents spread … and a number of products from HP’s Slate to Amazon’s spiked up Kindle will be vying to show that they are a notch or two ahead of the iPad. Apple […]
When JavaScript Equals Java in Speed
I can remember back in the mid 1990’s when Java first came out and was quickly dismissed as being a major player in the IT world. This was going to happen despite Java’s cross platform capabilities and rich set of standard libraries because Java was a slow, interpreted language. Maybe on the Web Java could […]
Google Leads Linux to the Promised Land
Linux users, particularly those on the desktop constantly lament the languishing of their favorite OS well behind Windows and even MacOS. This is true despite the fact that a)Microsoft has badly botched Windows Reborn as Vista even while b) Linux has some very good distributions for free desktop usage. One can name at least 10 […]
The SplInternet ?
Amazon Kindle,Apple iPhone + iPad, Google Nexus, Blackberry smartphones, and the dozens of other devices are all building up incompatible application libraries in a race reminiscent of the PC software/hardware wars of the late 1970;s and early 1980’s. Apple was a leader then but Microsoft arrived late but with a huge partner in IBM – […]
Unix/Linux Lineage and Directions
2011 will mark the 20th year of Linux and close to the 40th anniversary of Unix and its worthwhile The Unix/Linux Family Tree noting the family tree and who is who among the operating system players of note in their use of Unix/Linux. Apple MacOS = has strong Unix/Linux heritage through NextStep and Andrew HPUX […]
Java + LAMP Hosting:Stallmanned
I just finished an all day seminar on BIRT the partially Open Source report writing package available from Actuate[the Core is open, the extended services are closed and the two packages are, according to Actuate people, moving in different directions – More on this in a later posting]. BIRT software is impressive especially with its […]