XHTML 2 canceled!

Today the Director announces that when the XHTML 2 Working Group charter expires as scheduled at the end of 2009, the charter will not be renewed. By doing so, and by increasing resources in the HTML Working Group, W3C hopes to accelerate the progress of HTML 5 and clarify W3C's position regarding the future of HTML. A FAQ answers questions about the future of deliverables of the XHTML 2 Working Group, and the status of various discussions related to HTML. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

Link:
http://www.w3.org/News/2009#item119

30+ Javascript/Ajax Techniques for Sliders, Scrollers and Scrollbars

Every once in a while we like to focus on different design elements and how to use javascript and ajax to make them more interactive and more flexible to the user. In this article we’d like to present a list of over 30 hand-picked Sliders, Scrollers and scrollbar techniques you can use to achieve some special visual effects in your designs.

Link:
http://www.noupe.com/javascript/...

Network Protocol Analyzer with Wireshark

Wireshark is the world's most popular network protocol analyzer. It is used for troubleshooting, analysis, development, and education.

Not sure I have a need for this but it good to know its around.

Link:
http://www.wireshark.org/

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network's WEP Password with BackTrack

You already know that if you want to lock down your Wi-Fi network, you should opt for WPA encryption because WEP is easy to crack. But did you know how easy? Take a look.

Today we're going to run down, step-by-step, how to crack a Wi-Fi network with WEP security turned on. But first, a word: Knowledge is power, but power doesn't mean you should be a jerk, or do anything illegal. Knowing how to pick a lock doesn't make you a thief. Consider this post educational, or a proof-of-concept intellectual exercise.

What type of protection do you have on your home network?

Link:
http://lifehacker.com/5305094/...

Simple DVD Authoring tool with DVD Flick

DVD Flick aims to be a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool. It can take a number of video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. You can add additional custom audio tracks, subtitles as well as a menu for easier navigation.

Link:
http://www.dvdflick.net

Firefox 3.5 officially released

Things move quickly online, and we’ve beefed up the engine that runs Firefox to make sure you can keep up: Firefox 3.5 is more than twice as fast as Firefox 3, and ten times as fast as Firefox 2.* As a result, Web applications like email, photo sites and your favorite social networks will feel snappier and more responsive.

Link:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/upgrade.html?from=getfirefox

Organize your desktop with Fences

Fences is a one-of-a-kind program, allowing you to draw labeled shaded areas on your desktop, which become movable & resizable containers for your desktop icons. These groups can help bring organization and consistency to your computer's desktop, solving the "constant mess" problem that has plagued the desktop since its inception.

This is something I have struggled with, how to organize something that offers very little help in doing so. I create folders, but then I can't see whats in them easily. I move things to different areas of my desktop, but then switching video sources and all that is undone. Fences is perfect for someone like me who likes things neat and organized.

Since its in beta I have been testing in in a Virtual PC and so far see no reason not to adapt oit on my laptop.

Link:
http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/

Gmail Increases Maximum Attachment Size to 25 MB

Now you can send bigger attachments in Gmail, as Google increased the maximum attachment size from 20 MB to 25 MB.

Link:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/...

Windows 7 official pricing announced

Vista and XP users will need to pony up $119.99, $199.99, or $219.99 on October 22 to score their Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate upgrade, and those of you who want a full retail disc will need to roll up with $199.99, $299.99, or $319.99 respectively. It's not quite that simple, though: starting tomorrow, June 26, you'll be able to pre-order upgrades at much cheaper prices -- $49.99 for Home Premium and $99.99 for Professional..

Link:
http://www.engadget.com/...

In case you don't know the difference between the versions check this out:
http://www.veign.com/blog/2009/02/windows-7-versions.html

Flight Aware live flight tracking.

FlightAware was the first company to offer free flight tracking services for both private and commercial air traffic in the United States. FlightAware offers live flight data, airport information, weather maps and charts, as well as aviation news to nearly two million users a month. FlightAware also powers operational management and dispatch software, airport FIDS (flight information displays), and provides reporting data to aircraft and airport operators.

Link:
http://flightaware.com

Also, check out Flight View:
http://www.flightview.com/

Google Gives Presentation On Search Engine Optimization

Video: Google’s Matt Cutts On “Over Optimization”

Design Inspiration Roundup

10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To:
In short, design patterns are solutions to recurring problems. By extension, UI design patterns are solutions to common user interface problems. This article goes over 10 interesting UI design patterns that you can use in your own projects. In fact, you may already be using them now without knowing it.

Pattern Tap:
Pattern Tap is here to satisfy and encourage the inspiration needs of my interface design peers and peeps. We aspire to be the one stop pattern shop for your next inspiration need.

40+ Helpful Resources On User Interface Design Patterns:
In this article, we share with you the best of the best, cream of the crop sites, galleries, online publications, and libraries devoted to sharing information and exploring concepts pertaining to User Interface design patterns.

Flickr Design Patterns:
A great collection of design patterns on Flickr that are organized by category.

UI Pattern Factory:
UI Pattern Factory is a mix of user interface design pattern library and UI gallery. It is a place to find user interface best practices, get design inspiration, and share design solutions with others

Open Source Design Pattern Library:
The Open Source Design Pattern Library is a place where individuals and organizations can share, collaborate, and discuss design patterns.

Yahoo! Design Pattern Library:
Welcome to the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library. We're thrilled to be sharing patterns and code with the web design and development community, we hope it's useful, and we look forward to your feedback.

User Interface Design Patterns:
Recurring solutions to solve common problems.

15 jQuery Plugins To Create An User Friendly Tooltip:
Tooltip is a good way to show extra information when user hovers the cursor over an element. The “hover box” will appear when the mouse hover in, and disappear when the mouse hover out. If the tooltip is being used appropriately, it can improve our site’s user friendly level, and also save us a lot of spaces. Today, we are going to see 15 jQuery plugins to create an user friendly tooltip.

25+ jQuery Plugins that enhance and beautify HTML form elements:
...collected over 25 jQuery plugins that enhance and beautify html form elements. Some of them add more capabilities that able to increase usability and user friendliness to a website.

20 Excellent JavaScript Navigation Techniques and Examples:
In this article you’ll discover some terrific and unique JavaScript-powered navigation techniques and examples.

Sprint releases something cool, MiFi

It's the length and width of a credit card. It's the thickness of a couple nickels. It'll let you and a few friends get an Internet connection just about anywhere with no wires whatsoever.

It's a MiFi, Sprint's new wireless broadband device, and it's geek gadget magic that'll realistically fit in your wallet.

Link:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/...

Easy online image cropping application at Quick Thumbnail

I recently expanded the functionality of Quick Thumbnail to include a Quick Image Cropping tool. This tool lets you crop an image by uploading a file or by entering a URL to the image file. Once uploaded, Quick Cropping allows you to select the cropped area and each time you press the Crop button a new output is generated. No need to reload the image, simply adjust the selection area and press crop again.

Active Cropping Window:

Cropped Results:

Link:
http://quickthumbnail.com/crop/

Build charts online with Chartle

Over 1 billion charts, maps, plots and diagrams are found in print publications each year - but only 40 million online. This huge discrepancy is a reflection of the complexity to create & publish charts online. Chartle.net tears down the complexity of online visualizations - offers simplicity, ubiquity and interactivity instead.

Just wish it didn't require Java to run.

Link:
http://www.chartle.net/

Does MS think users are this stupid?

Is this chart a joke by MS?
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/...

Did you see what Adobe released?

Seems that Adobe released Acrobat.com quietly. I saw a little buzz around it but not a whole lot. Acrobat.com is

Acrobat.com is a set of online services — file sharing and storage, a PDF converter, an online word processor, and web conferencing — you can use to create and share documents, communicate in real time, and simplify working with others.

Probably in an effort to compete with the many Software as a Service (SaaS) marketplace.

The one that had interested me was the Online PDF Converter that:

provides an online PDF converter so you can easily create Adobe® PDF documents from your existing files in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and many other applications. It's as easy as selecting your file and clicking Create PDF.

Until I remember that I run a PDF Printer on my system that lets me 'print' to PDF from any application. What would interest me, as a developer, is the ability to send documents to Acrobat.com to create, and return PDFs on the fly from a website. Gonna look around to see if they allow this. If not, I have no real interest.

Is anything else worth a second look at Acrobat.com? Buzzword? ConnectNow? Share? MyFiles?

Link:
https://www.acrobat.com/

Flip Book engine

Entirely customizable. Supports Zoom, print and download options. Can be configured either using HTML code, or via an external XML file.

I tend to not like effects like this on a website but can see where some website may benefit from it.

Link:
http://page-flip.com/

Quickthumbnail adds Watermark feature

You can now add watermarks to any image while your resizing it at Quick Thumbnail. The text is rendered as part of the image. Like everything else I develop for free this was done to play around with a code technique, in this case rendering text onto an image.

For now I only give basic control over the text: The phrase, color (either light or dark) and a choice of three sizes.

Comments?

Link:
http://www.quickthumbnail.com/

Easily create a Favicon from any image

Want to display your own logo on the browser address bar and browser tabs? Simply select a picture, logo or other graphic (of any size / resolution) for the "Image to Use" and click "Generate FavIcon.ico"

A favicon is that small icon that appears in the address bar of a browser for the website your visiting.

Link:
http://www.html-kit.com/favicon/

My custom Facebook URL

I am now:
http://www.facebook.com/veign

Thought that was the best URL I could get.

10 cool things to do with your old laptop

there are plenty of ways you can turn your old laptop into something far more useful again. The easiest way to get the most from your old system is to recycle the internal hardware, such as the memory, hard drive and, in some cases, even the processor.

However, this isn't the only thing you can do, as your trusty portable can even find a new lease of life when used alongside other devices in your home. It can bring improved usability to games consoles in your living room, or even be used to enhance other PCs that you or your family use. Whatever the case, there's no need to get rid of your old laptop just yet.

Don't forget to check out the How to turn Ubuntu into a media center.

Link:
http://www.techradar.com/...

The First Few Milliseconds of an HTTPS Connection

In the 220 milliseconds that flew by, a lot of interesting stuff happened to make Firefox change the address bar color and put a lock in the lower right corner. With the help of Wireshark, my favorite network tool, and a slightly modified debug build of Firefox, we can see exactly what's going on.

Interesting enough...

Link:
http://www.moserware.com/...

Easily add Custom Google search to your website

Add the Custom Search element, and let visitors search your site and other sites you choose using the power of Google Custom Search. If you like, earn revenue from your site with AdSense for Search.

Try it out:
http://veign.com/help/custom-google-search.php


Link:
http://www.google.com/webelements/customsearch/