Archive for the ‘Web Development’ Category
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/05/04
Last week, I blogged that we should move away from Flash to HTML5, CSS and JavaScript, commenting on Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Flash post announcing support for HTML5 including video playback of H.264 encoded video.
In the mean time, the Microsoft Internet Explorer team announced that in IE9 they are going to support HTML5 and that H.264 will be the only supported video encoding standard.
There is a truckload of hardware that supports H.264 decoding acceleration.
So the movement is from a plethora of video encoding standards into one broadly accepted H.264 standard.
When you look at the combination of support in HTML5/H.264 for all the major browsers, only FireFox has not announced support. This is probably because H.264 is not a free (as in beer) standard: commercial use requires payment. But – if I read the H.264 article right – content that is free for end users requires no royalties to be paid.
This combined hardware and software support means that there is a pretty strong backing for H.264!
–jeroen
Reference: IEBlog : HTML5 Video.
Posted in CSS, Development, HTML, HTML5, Software Development, Web Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/05/03
I just noticed that WhiteHouse.gov last week released some of their code as Open Source.
In addition to using the Open Source Drupal project, they actually contribute to the Open Source community as well.
–jeroen
Posted in Development, Software Development, Web Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/04/30
Steve Jobs just posted his Thoughts on Flash.
Let me add another thought: I hate flash apps.
Flash should go, and we all should go for HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.
The primary reason I dislike Flash is similar to this quote from Steve Jobs’ post: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in CSS, Development, HTML, HTML5, Software Development, Web Development | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/04/20
A client recently asked me what space should reserve to store URLs in their DBMS.
The plurality in the topic title is a hint: different systems have different limits on URL lengths.
But first:
Don’t use long URLs
If you use long URL’s (longer than say a coupe of 100 characters), then usually you have a problem.
First of all: short URL’s are easier to remember, index and search.
Second: long URL’s can pose problems.
It might be that your browser and server support them.
But a user might be behind an intercepting proxy (sometimes invisible to both you and your user) that imposes a URL limit.
In stead of long URLs with a HTTP GET, use shorter URLs with a HTTP POST. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in .NET, ASP.NET, Delphi, Development, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Web Browsers, Web Development | 8 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/04/14
Every major release of software will bring great new stuff, but the price of upgrading from a previous version is that some stuff will break.
.NET 4.0 brings a lot of nice stuff as well, but there are a few things that break.
There is a nice Breaking changes in .NET 4.0 – Stack Overflow article on this.
The article is now a community wiki, and refers to these pages:
Since the article is a community wiki, expect it to be updated over time.
I wonder what these changes will bring (and break) in the upcoming Delphi Prism release (the datasheet is out now, the product should be out before the end of may).
–jeroen
PS:
If you do not have an MSDN subscription, but still want to see if things break for you, try one of these:
Scott Guthrie has a nice post on the bells and whistles of VS2010.
Posted in .NET, ASP.NET, C#, C# 4.0, Delphi, Development, Prism, Software Development, Visual Studio and tools, Web Development | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/02/15
I just found out that the sourcecode tag in WordPress now supports even more languages.
This is the list of languages is below, it contains links to Wikipedia for each language.
Starred ones (bold and hyperlinks in this theme are the same ) are new since my post last year.
This is a follow up on the original article Including formatted sourcecode in WordPress « The Wiert Corner – Jeroen Pluimers’ irregular stream of Wiert stuff.
–jeroen
Posted in .NET, C#, CSS, Database Development, Delphi, Development, Encoding, Java, Software Development, SQL Server, Web Development, WordPress, XML, XML/XSD | Tagged: sourcecode language | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/02/12
Google published an interesting graph generated from their internal data based on their indexed web pages.
A quick summary of popular encodings based on the graph:
- Unicode – almost 50% and rapidly rising
- ASCII – 20% and falling
- Western European* – 20% and falling
- Rest – 10% and falling
Conclusion: if you do something with the web, make sure you support Unicode.
When you are using Delphi, and need help with transitioning to Unicode: contact me.
–jeroen
* Western European encodings: Windows-1252, ISO-8859-1 and ISO-8859-15.
Reference: Official Google Blog: Unicode nearing 50% of the web.
Edit: 20100212T1500
Some people mentioned (either in the comments or otherwise) that a some sites pretend they emit Unicode, but in fact they don’t.
This doesn’t relieve you from making sure you support Unicode: Don’t pretend you support Unicode, but do it properly!
Examples of bad support for Unicode are not limited to the visible web, but also applications talking to the web, and to webservices (one of my own experiences is explained in StUF – receiving data from a provider where UTF-8 is in fact ISO-8859: it shows an example where a vendor does Unicode support really wrong).
So: when you support Unicode, support it properly.
–jeroen
Posted in .NET, ASP.NET, C#, Database Development, Delphi, Development, Encoding, Firebird, IIS, InterBase, ISO-8859, ISO8859, Prism, SOAP/WebServices, Software Development, SQL Server, Unicode, UTF-8, UTF8, Visual Studio and tools, Web Development | 7 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/02/07
The recently launched Google Chrome 4 introduced plugin support (they call it support for extensions).
Greasemonkey is a scripting plugin allowing you to on-the-fly modify the HTML in your browser. Originally it was Mozilla Firefox only.
On February 1st, Aaron Boodman – the original Geasemonkey developer who now works as Google – announced that Greasmonkey support it is available natively in Google Chrome 4.
There are some 40-thousand scripts available on userscripts.org, lots of them written by people like you and me (from simple things like filling out forms and removing ads to complex stuff like re-layouting complete pages).
The vast majority of those scripts will work in Google just as well as in Firefox, the rest (some 15 to 25 percent) need adaption. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Development, Google Apps, Power User, Software Development, Web Development | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/01/15
These Smashing people provide real concise info.
Note their quite though:
Disclaimer: the things we’ll talk about in this article today won’t make you a security expert, just as buying a Swiss Army knife won’t make you a locksmith or buying a whip won’t make you a lion tamer. The purpose here is to raise awareness and perhaps make some of that security mumbo-jumbo a bit more understandable to you.
Web Security: Are You Part Of The Problem? – Smashing Magazine.
Posted in CSS, Development, Software Development, Web Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/01/14
In todays fusion of Web 2.0 and mobile users, performance is key again.
The below article by Christian Heilmann explains the what and how of improving your website performance.
It contains references to the current tools that help you measure and improve performance.
The article also references some interesting videos, and people that lead in performance improvement.
Recommended reading!
Quote:
Even if you don’t have millions of users (yet), consider one very important thing: people are consuming the Web nowadays less with fat connections and massive computers and more with mobile phones over slow wireless and 3G connections, but they still expect the same performance. Waiting for a slow website to load on a mobile phone is doubly annoying because the user is usually already in a hurry and is paying by the byte or second. It’s 1997 all over again.
Website Performance: What To Know and What You Can Do – Smashing Magazine.
–jeroen
Posted in CSS, Development, Software Development, Web Development | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 