Month: September 2009

Helping Mozilla to define “the open web”

September 30, 2009 by futtta

Over at Mozilla Hacks Christopher Blizzard is asking readers to explain what “the open web” means to them.
My answer went something like this (it was slightly less elaborated and not as structured, guess I have a problem with character-limits):

The open web is an ecosystem based on free and open standards, allowing anyone to:
participate in evolving the standards
using the standards to build and use
server- or client-side infrastructure-type applications (e.g. Apache or Firefox)
websites and -applications, relying on the standards-compliant infra-type apps
without being limited by commercial or patent restrictions (per se).

It is my conviction that it were exactly these principles which allowed the WWW, as it was invented by Tim Berners-Lee (and Robert Cailliau off course), to become the success it is today. Sir Tim announced and published the first specs (specifically http/html) and asked people for feedback and encouraged them to put up servers and pages and to develop their own WWW-applications in 1991. In 1993, as a reaction to the University of Minnesota wanting to charge license fees for Gopher, CERN officially released the project into the public domain in 1993 with the aim:

“to further compatibility, common practices and standards in networking and in computer supported collaboration”

A few years later Gopher (which didn’t only suffer from the license-issue, but was less flexible as well) had disappeared completely, and the open WWW boomed and revolutionized the way information was published and consumed.
So the next time anyone asks you why “the open web” is that big a deal, you might want to ask them if they would rather Gopher instead.

Bridging the gap between html5 and Gears

September 29, 2009 by futtta

my trash in gmail mobile Google claims HTML5 on the web is the future of applications on mobiles and they present the high-end mobile version of Gmail (on iPhone and Android) as an example of what can be achieved with web-based applications. But, as I wrote earlier, the Android-browser does not support HTML5’s webdb, appcache or geolocation at all (and neither does Google Chrome). Instead Google offers similar (but different) functionality in their Gears-plugin.
Almost the same functionality, but with a different API, how did they implement mobile Gmail? Well, Appcache (a.k.a. “offline web application”) seems to be implemented separately. That makes sense as defining which files can be stored locally is more or less a one-off job. But for more complex data-oriented offlining with a local database, Google created a wrapper-script that hides the Gears and HTML5-API’s and the underlying differences, thus offering a unified way to store and retrieve information from a local db. The code, including an example, can be found in WSPL’s svn-repository in Google Code.
And while it’s not used (or needed) in gmail, there also is a a geolocation-wrapper to abstract those HTML5 and Gears-implementations. Once the wrapper is instantiated, getting the user’s location on iPhone (OS3), Android and some others becomes as easy as doing:

geo_position_js.getCurrentPosition(success_callback,error_callback);

Great stuff, those wrappers. But wouldn’t it be even greater if Google’s browsers would support the native html5-specs, so these stopgap solutions weren’t needed to start with?

WebTech news (september 2009)

September 25, 2009 by futtta

1. Mobile browsers; not all is WebKit:
Although webkit-based browsers dominate the mobile web with Mobile Safari on the iPhone, the Android browser on e.g. the HTC Hero and in the future also the Blackberry browser, there are other browsers around as well:

Opera published the first beta of Mini 5 (which is a powerfull lightweight solution that runs on almost any handset)
Window Mobile 6.5 (which will be in the stores from October onwards) ships with “IE 6-on-6” (based on the aging desktop MSIE6 with some enhancements from IE8), no news on what Windows Mobile 7 will ship with in Q4 2010 though.
Nokia introduced their new flagship, the n900, which does not run Symbian OS but Maemo Linux and which now has a Gecko-based browser (the same as in Firefox)

2. According to a Forrester-study, in 2014 28% of handset-owners in Belgium will use mobile internet. Not bad, but according to that same study, the European average in 2014 would be 39% with Holland attaining 47%.
3. Misc:

Layar, a great Augmented Reality mobile application (available in Android market, they’re said to be waiting for Apple to approve it for the AppStore as well) will offer a 3D-version in november. Difficult to explain, just look at the vids on http://layar.com/3d/
Next to Mini v5, Opera also released version 10 of their desktop product
Google released a (preview of a) browser-plugin for MS Internet Explorer which essentially replaces the core of that browser with the Google Chrome engine to allow IE-users to log into Google Wave (which relies on html5-functionality not present in MS IE)

As found on the web (September 24th)

September 24, 2009 by futtta

Impatiently flashing my HTC Hero into shape

September 22, 2009 by futtta

the new android recovery image menu in action

I’m an impatient man, so although I heard rumors that Mobistar might be testing the HTC Hero update (which is Belgium-specific, as the YouTube application has to be removed because of privacy law concerns), I decided to go the “less official” way and root and flash the darn thing myself. The process was pretty easy (thanks for the info Thomas & Serge), the outcome is great; my phone is a better Hero for it!
So suppose you’re as impatient as I am, suppose you don’t care that this may void your warranty, suppose you’re not scared of bricking your brand new toy, suppose you’re a not entirely technically ignorant, then you could follow these steps:

Root your HTC: by using flashrec.apk to flash a new recovery image on your HTC as described here. If you get a “backup failed” error in step 10 as I did, you just need to power off and on and try again (the backup itself isn’t used anyway, that step is just needed to have flashrec allow you to continue).
Upgrade your rooted HTC: from the new recovery image menu flash MoDaCo custom ROM v2.x (I installed 2.2, 2.3 was released a couple of hours ago) to your system as described here. And don’t forget to wipe before flashing as I did.
Update to the latest radio package to version 63.18.55.06EU_6.35.06.18 from the recovery image menu (you should know the drill by this step) for optimal radio performance.

But you could also wait for the official update, off course …

Nu zonder donkere kamer; diavoorstelling vakantie Centerparcs 2009

September 21, 2009 by futtta

Met de knapste vrouw op aard en het liefste dochterken van dit (en het ander) halfrond tijdens de mooiste maand ter wereld op vakantie naar Centerparcs Lommel, leuk dat dat is;

HTML5 offline webapps vs Google Gears Localserver

September 17, 2009 by futtta

Google Gears is a fantastic browser plugin; it allows a developer to create applications that run while offline, syncing with a server when online. Two great examples of the power of that mechanism are Gmail (both the “desktop browser” and the mobile Android-version) and Mindmeister (only while in trial, for paying Mindmeister-accounts after that period). The problem with Gears however is that it’s a plugin and not a lot of people have it installed: only Chrome-users have it by default. And that’s where HTML5 comes in; one of the areas where the new spec offers vast improvements over html4/xhtml is the ability to take webapps offline by allowing a developer to store files for offline usage and to write data to a local, browser-embedded database. Both Safari 4 and Firefox 3.5 support these features, so maybe HTML5 makes Gears already redundant in those browsers with more to come?
I haven’t gotten around to experimenting with offline databases yet, but I did already look into offline files. At first sight, Gears Localserver and HTML5 Offline Webapps indeed seem very similar; your html-page points to a manifest-file which contains a list of assets (pages, images, css, js, …) that the browser has to store for offline usage. Easy enough, no?
To get a better feel of how offlining in HTML5 works, I decided to try to write a simple WordPress plugin to replace its ‘Gears Turbo’-option. Turbo (which you can find in the Options-menu) essentially stores 1Mb of files locally, to speed up delivery of the WP-admin pages. To make a long story short; my plugin didn’t work. For starters, by default requests for non-local data are blocked, but it’s easy enough to unblock network access by adding “NETWORK:*” (with a newline before the wildcard) to the manifest. But more fundamentally; HTML5 Offline Webapps not only stores the files specified in the manifest-file, but also every html-page which points to the manifest (see my test here). There’s no way you can exclude those “master entries” from being stored. So if pages are stored, that means they have to be static and that all dynamic parts should be handled by javascript (fetching data using ajax and updating your page with it). And that, my friends, is clearly not a use-case that is applicable to WordPress admin-pages.
So HTML5 Offline Webapps is no drop-in solution to speed up delivery of dynamic pages, you’ll still need Gears to take care of that (or rely on old-fashioned carefully configured expiry- and cache-headers). But, as Google proves with the iPhone-version of Gmail, Offline Webapps combined with a HTML5 offline database can work miracles if you use it the correct way.

http://blog.futtta.be/2007/04/06/cache-header-magic-or-how-i-learned-to-love-http-response-headers/

As found on the web (September 17th)

September 17, 2009 by futtta

Op een Grifter, zoals Roger De Coster. Bijna.

September 12, 2009 by futtta

Ook ik ben nog jong geweest, in de tijd dat BMX’en en mountainbikes nog moesten worden uitgevonden en Roger De Coster de beroemdste der gemotoriseerde moddervreters was. Het was 1977, ik woonde in Blaasveld en ik ging bij Ivan spelen, die stoer rondreed met een echte Raleigh Grifter (mooie foto’s hier), waarnaast mijn nieuwe oranje jongensfiets maar een kneusje leek.
Een jaar later waande Ivan zich op een oude brommer zijn tuin omploegend al helemaal Roger De Coster. Ik heb één keer met zijn aftandse Mobylette mogen rijden en bolde stomweg tegen een muur. De Costers troonopvolger André Malherbe had duidelijk niets van mij te vrezen. Voor zover ik weet heeft Ivan ook geen potten gebroken in de internationale motorcrosserij.
Maar mijn Vero vouwfiets heeft nu, net als die Grifter toen, wel stoere twist-shift versnellingen aan het handvat. Vitessen in het stuur en een stevige pot op, zo ben ik 30 jaar na datum toch nog een beetje Roger De Coster. Misschien moet ik net als Ivan toen ook nog speelkaarten tegen m’n wielspaken laten ratelen terwijl ik door Brussel cross?

As found on the web (September 12th)

September 12, 2009 by futtta

	Shared WordPress Attack Underway: WordPress Users Must Upgrade [ALERT].
	Shared Bidoorlog rond T-Mobile?.
	Shared HTC Touch HD 2 to run Android not Windows Mobile?.
	Shared WordPress Enters Real-Time: 7.5 Million Blogs Reach Twitter Speed.
	Liked Michel Cleis ft. Toto La Mompozina – La Mezcla (radio edit) VIDEOCLIP.
	Shared La mise à jour majeure du HTC Hero officieusement disponible.
	Shared Official Facebook App Hits Android Market.
	Shared Automattic picks up After the Deadline.
	Shared Apple rejects Google Voice app.
	Shared How to Draw with HTML 5 Canvas.
	Liked Port O’Brien I Woke Up Today Official Video.
	Shared iPhone and Android Support in Cascada Mobile Breeze.
	Published Facebook mobile websites faceoff.
	Shared Firefox 3.5.3 and 3.0.14 security updates now available for download.
	Shared Sneak Peek at .NET Framework 4.0 beta 1.
	Shared Introducing MOTOBLUR.
	Shared And Here’s the Motorola Cliq!.
	Shared BREAKING: Facebook Lite Is Live.
	Frank test lite.facebook.com.
	Liked Nick Drake- Riverman.

	Shared Google praises Microsoft’s HTML 5 thoughts.
	Published HTML5 offline webapps vs Google Gears Localserver.
	Shared Getting all JavaScript into the Footer in WordPress? Not so fast, Buster!.
	Shared The Wire – David Sylvian "Manafon".
	Liked Florence and the Machine – My Boy builds Coffins (BBC Introducing).
	Shared 22 september – Zonder auto mobiel in de stad.
	Shared Reflections on Foo Camp 09.
	Liked Françoiz Breut: Mouchoir de poche.
	Published Impatiently flashing my HTC Hero into shape.
	Shared Layar Enhances Augmented Reality Browser Platform With 3D Capabilities.
	Shared Google plug-in builds Chrome browser into IE.
	Shared JAMMER. Jos Ghysen..
	Shared Microsoft threatens 30 million WinMo 6.5 devices by 2010.
	Shared Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine.
	Liked 2 videos.

	Shared Al 23 zelfdodingen bij France Télécom.
	Shared DE MONUMENTENDAG . Jos Ghysen..
	Liked Nick Drake riverman vocals and guitar.
	Published Op een Grifter, zoals Roger De Coster. Bijna..
	Shared HOW TO: Get Your Data Out of Google.
	Shared Breaking: Google FastFlip Web Search.
	Shared Mobile Internet use in Belgium will triple.
	Shared So Appy Together: iPhone and Android Apps, Visualized [Pic].
	Shared Google Releases Chrome Version 3.
	Shared It’s time for Donut! Android v1.6 launched for developers.
	Shared Opera Mini 5 beta browser strikes it rich.
	Shared Mobile Internet usage to reach 39% in 2014.