Firefox 3 Launched

Well, I've really been in "summer vacation" mode recently and missed posting about the launch of Firefox 3. A world record was set for Firefox 3 downloads — over eight million — on 6/17 for the most software downloaded within 24 hours. Check out this screencast of Firefox 3's new features and the download your own copy at: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/.

ICANN Approves Recommendation for New TLDs

ICANN will initiate a process for applications for new top level domain (TLD) names. In addition the current TLDs such as .com, .biz, etc., the press release states, "This proposal allows applicants for new names to self-select their domain name so that choices are most appropriate for their customers or potentially the most marketable."
So, the sky's the limit for creativity here — whether it's a brand-related name (Wouldn't .cola be fun for the soft drink companies?) or a geographically-based name such as .chicago — it's going to be fun to see what new TLDs are proposed.

New Accessible Web Design & Compliance Certificate

Harper College's new Accessible Web Design & Compliance Certificate was just approved by the State of Illinois. There is an increased focus in the technology industry and in society on accessibility. Information technology (including web sites) is expected to provide accommodations in order to be accessible for all individuals. The certificate was added to address learning needs generated by the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act.

New Adobe Photoshop Express Beta

Adobe launched a new beta version of Adobe Photoshop Express. This Rich Internet Application (RIA) is free -- all you need to do is sign up! You'll be able to store up to 2GB of images, edit your images, and share them online.

WOW Technology Minute Podcast

January 2008 is turning out to be quite a month... check out my one-minute podcast interview about web design best practices and accessibility at the WOW Technology Minute.

Outstanding e-Learning Faculty Award

The Instructional Technology Council (ITC) recently announced the recipients of their 2008 Awards for Excellence.

Harper College Associate Professor Terry Morris was named the recipient of the 2008 Outstanding e-Learning Faculty Award for Excellence.

The ITC is a national organization that promotes effective use of technology to enhance distance learning. Member institutions may nominate an exemplary faculty member for this national award. The nominations are reviewed and the recipient is chosen by a panel of judges including ITC board members, past awards winners and other ITC members.

See a press release issued by Northcentral University, where I am a doctoral student, for more information.

Netscape's Demise

AOL announced that support of the Netscape browser will end on February 1, 2008. Back in the days of Netscape Gold, this browser was considered the latest and greatest. Netscape made available an open-source build called Mozilla, which has grown in popularity as Mozilla Firefox.

A Preview of HTML 5

Want a preview of the next new version of HTML and be the first on your block to know about the new <section>, <article>, <header>, <nav>, and <aside> elements? Check out the thorough and informative Preview of HTML 5. The author, Lachlan Hunt, is one of the editors of the W3C HTML 5 Working Draft and a software developer at Opera.

10 Future Web Trends

Read/Write Web has posted a list of 10 Web trends to watch for. Some may be familiar to you but others may be new. The trends are: Semantic Web, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Worlds, Mobile, Attention Economy, Web Sites as Web Services, Online Video / Internet TV, Rich Internet Apps, International Web, and Personalization. Intrigued? Explore the post and its related links.

New Adobe CS3 Tutorials

New tutorials are available for Adobe Photoshop CS3, Adobe Fireworks CS3, and Adobe Flash CS3. Each tutorial walks you through creating a logo banner for a web site. The Fireworks and Photoshop tutorials also introduce techniques for creating navigation buttons. The Flash tutorial introduces motion tweens, shape tweens, symbols, and behaviors.

The Rise of Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails has been around for a few years as one of the open source server-side programming languages for the Web. With Microsoft's announcement of its own implementation, IronRuby, you can expect this language to get a lot of attention. Read eWeek's Rise of Ruby on Rails for an overview of where this technology is headed.

Apple Safari Browser for Windows

Apple recently released a beta version of its Safari Browser for Windows. See http://www.apple.com/safari/ for a free download. Why should you consider using this browser? According to Apple, "The fastest web browser on any platform, Safari loads pages up to 2 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. And it executes JavaScript up to 2.8 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2."

HTML 5 - the next version of XHTML/HTML

Back in March 2007 a previous post discussed the founding of the new HTML working group at the W3C. It's recently been resolved that "HTML 5" will be the name of the W3C's next HTML specification.

New! Flash Slideshow Tutorial

Try out the new Flash Slideshow Tutorial. The slideshow uses Flash — but you don't need to know how to develop in Flash to download and configure the slideshow to display your own images! That's because the slideshow utilizes an easy to edit text-based XML file to configure the file names of the images that it displays.

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3

Adobe is releasing a new version of Dreamweaver called Dreamweaver CS3 in mid-April. Visit http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/features/ for an overview of what's new. Highlights include improved CSS and XML support. You may need to upgrade your computer before trying out this new software -- the Windows version requires Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista along with 1GB of RAM. The product is expected to ship in mid-April 2007.

The Next Version of XHTML May Be HTML 5

An independent group, WHAT-WG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group), has been working outside of the official W3C since 2004 towards a new "version" of HTML. In March 2007 the W3C announced a new official HTML Working Group that is expected to build on and extend WHAT-WG's efforts.

According to the W3C HTML Working Group's charter, their charge is to recommend a new standard that combines HTML and XHTML:

"This group will maintain and produce incremental revisions to the HTML specification, which includes the series of specifications previously published as XHTML version 1. Both XML and 'classic HTML' syntaxes will be produced."

An initial Working Draft is due June 2007 and should make for some interesting reading! The process will take several years -- the Recommendation is due 2010. The new W3C HTML Working Group is to plan incremental changes to HTML and XHTML together.

Tim Berners-Lee shares his perspective of the reinvention of HTML at his blog. He stated,

"The attempt to get the world to switch to XML, including quotes around attribute values and slashes in empty tags and namespaces all at once didn't work."

Another area that the W3C HTML Working Group will address is extensions to HTML forms. According to Berners-Lee,

"A goal would be to have an HTML forms language which is a superset of the existing HTML language, and a subset of a XForms language with added HTML compatibility."

There is a plan for a separate group to continue the XHTML 2.0 work, although Berners-Lee indicated that there would be no dependency of HTML work on the XHTML 2.0 work. The diagram below depicts the relationship between these markup languages:


According to the W3C's architectural vision, -- the deployment strategy and expected field of use for the new HTML and for XHTML 2.0 are expected to be different -- with new HTML for use by typical Web pages and web applications such as content management systems and the non-backward compatible XHTML 2.0 designed to meet "enterprise-strength" needs.

It seems that Web developers who transitioned from HTML to XHTML will need to be flexible again as they look forward to a new version of HTML.

For additional perspectives and more information, see
HTML5 Versus XHTML 2
HTML 5 or XHTML 2?
Ajaxian Editorial
On the Road to XHTML 2 and HTML 5
The Future of HTML, Part 1:WHATWG
The Future of HTML, Part 2:XHTML 2.0
How not to fix HTML
Annotated WHAT-WG Working Draft
HTML5, XHTML2, and the Future of the Web

The World, Technology, Education, and the Future

What are the implications of this video to you, your family, your education, your career, your future?

At one time even books were a "new" technology

A look at Web 2.0

Play the video below for an enlightening perspective of the impact of Web 2.0.


The video was created by Michael Wesch.

The Big Three Search Engines Agree!

Google's SiteMap XML protocol provides a method for a web developer to publish a map of a site and submit it to Google. The purpose is to describe pages to be listed in the search engine. It's designed to let organizations guide Google's crawlers and should help get pages indexed more quickly and thoroughly. The big news is that now Microsoft and Yahoo! have agreed to also use this protocol! Visit http://sitemaps.org for information about using this XML protocol.