Well, on the heels of the Github downtime last night, and perhaps related (* twirls mustache*), Rails 3.0 beta has been committed.
There's also a new app on edge rails post up for people who want to give it a shot.
Great article I found via twitter about Software on the Cheap and just why you should be paying your programmers more, and not less, and why that six figure salary will (probably, assuming they are good of course) be completely worth it compared to getting uncle bob's nephew who took some classes sometime.
Via Lifehacker comes a Beta for the Silverlight Client for Facebook, which is a desktop facebook client with a look similar to Seesmic Look, but darker and moodier. Looks awesome.
Note that you need to install the SilverLight 4.0 beta to have the client work.
Today Seesmic released Seesmic Look into their arsenal. This is a new style of app to immerse yourself in the twitterverse. Hit their features page for more details. Basically it gives you a more "floaty" view of your subscriptions, lists, things like trends, and other categories of items.
Looks very nice, though a bit slow, on Windows XP. Not unsurprising as it's optimized for the Aero experience in Windows 7, but doesn't allow some standard things like right click to copy a link. Ah well, a neat new view of twitter for sure. Wonder if this will make it's way into an iPhone (or other mobile) app. There was one for the iPhone that used a 3D paradigm, which was ok, but didn't catch on that well.
Announcement blog post as well.
If you're looking for the "next gen" video experience (read: not using flash) and use Youtube, you can hit the YouTube HTML5 page to add your account to the trial. Note that not many browsers are modern and awesome enough to support HTML5 properly, so you are currently limited to what you can use:
Right now we support browsers that support both the
Sadly a few restrictions are in place, mostly that if the video has ads in it (more and more these days :( ) it'll play in the flash player, and no fullscreen. However, I expect the option to get better and better as time goes on. It's also not perfect. For example the volume control seems a bit touch in terms of allowing you to adjust it while the video is playing.
If you're a Google Chrome user you can also check out the Youtube HTML5-ifier extension to do something similar.
How's this for inventiveness? Instead of letting the lack of flash on the iPhone stop them, an Open Source implementation of Flash in Javascript has been created. Details over at 9 to 5 Mac:
Even if Apple never lets a Flash plugin within 50 yards of an iPhone, you may yet be able to enjoy the richness of those blinking banner ads. Gordon (Get it? Like Flash Gordon?) is an open source Flash runtime written in pure JavaScript.
Nifty little HTML/JS/CSS magic hack to create an Online HTML5 Editor where what you type in is rendered in real time.
The Web Census Research Project sounds interesting, a "map" of all possible IP addresses and if they have a webserver sitting on port 80.
Follow Christmas Tweets of the year to see what people are saying about #christmas. Cool site for sure.
Laughing Squid has a link to The Evolution of the Hipster 2000-2009. Wow, I never thought that "hipster" was anything other than a fake style and word. Apparently it's not just used to describe one of those mac-lovers!
Interesting post from Leo (of the world famous TWiT network) posts that he is changing how he is paid. An excerpt:
Up to now I've been taking my pay from TWiT's general fund (along with all the other employees). Not any more. From now on you'll pay me directly with your contributions. I won't take a penny out of the operating funds.Think of your contributions as a tip jar.
Definitely an interesting move which ups my respect for Leo as well. Many thanks to West Coast Geek for the pointer.
Pretty amazing HTML only particle system called Parcycle. A bit slow on my dual core system, still amazing to see though.
As usual, IE users need not apply until their browser supports HTML5 and standards....
With the new twitter features coming out lately, a new retweet and geolocation setup, twitter clients are starting to update. Tweetdeck is no exception, with a slick new 0.32 update that brings both of those, plus LinkedIn support and various other nice bits.
At PDC this year Microsoft revealed an early look at IE9, what it's targeting, and what the plans are to come. The theory is that IE9 will ship sometime next year, possibly corresponding with Windows 7 SP1.
Here are a couple of links about it first.
Basically Microsoft is going to concentrate on web standards, javascript engine speed, and most interesting, rendering using the computers GPU instead of CPU to speed up rendering.
I'm glad they're finally going to concentrate on web standards as well. Please don't give me the "but HTML5 and CSS3 aren't finished standards and Microsoft will support them when they're ratified" argument. The other major browsers out there support these, get 100% on the ACID 3 test (well, Firefox actually only gets 93/100, still a far sight above the 33/100 that IE8 gets), and when people are writing web apps and cool tech with these standards in mind, IE users get left out in the cold, which isn't good for anyone.
Here's my main complaint with IE. Other than the security issue's it's had in the past, the UI is too slow. Not the rendering speed mind you, the UI. IE's rendering speed is, within reason, completely irrelevant. A 10th of a second difference in rendering msn.com (ugh, what a horrible page by the way), or apple.com or whatever, hell, a 5 second difference really doesn't matter all that much. But when it takes me the count of five to open a new tab in the last updated version of IE on my dual core Windows 7 system, compared to almost instantly in Chrome or Firefox, that's where the failure is. I wish I knew what it was, it's not that silly "automatically detect proxy settings" setting, but it's consistant across the different computers I use.
I think that if Microsoft has the resources to do magic stuff like rendering webpages in the Graphics Processing Unit of my computer, they sure as hell should be able to make the "new tab" function happen in a second or less.
I think that even the IE apologists will acknowledge that some of the UI in IE is sub-optimal compared to other browsers out there. Even if the rendering engines and security were apples-to-apples the same, the responsiveness of Google Chrome and Firefox win out.
Scoble does a great interview with the guys from Seesmic on the perfect Facebook and Twitter client. Very interesting, cool to see @loic and the team.
Cool article on how to Successfully Launch a Web Design Startup with Social Media and No Budget. Including what's needed, social media, etc. Via @johnkoetsier.
Mockingbird is a cool new online tool for mocking up websites. Even better, it's written in pure HTML/JS, no flash to be found. Very sexy tool!
In a thrilling video, @sockington celebrates his one millionth follower. A cat. Who posts things like "A MOMENT OF SILENCE FOR WHAT OF YOURS I JUST BROKE ACCIDENTALLY what oh nothing". Has (as of 4pm thursday the 27th of August in the year of our lord 2009) 1,082,191 people and spam bots watching his posts. Holy crap.
That said, I'm intruiged by this cat and his tweets and videos, and pissed off (still) that I didn't think of it first.