If you search for Firefox using Google you’ll see this ad towards the top:
Look over to the right side and you’ll see this:
Here’s a larger complete screenshot for anyone interested.
Interesting eh? They aren’t threatened though. Here’s another tidbit. A search for “Safari” brings up a Microsoft ad as well. A search for “Opera” or “Opera Browser” does not. A search for “Browser” will. A search for “linux” will bring up a few Microsoft ads as well as a Firefox ad.
Man, even their going out of business sale sucks. There’s a store that just couldn’t get much right. Considering their high prices, even with the discounts it’s still often cheaper to buy elsewhere.
I still may visit one closer to the actual closing though. Perhaps at the last minute the discounts become worthwhile if there is still inventory.
I’ve been pretty quiet lately, but I’ve got a sequel to a very popular blog post coming in the near future… stay tuned 🙂 .
Am I the only one who sees the irony in the John Hancock Memorial Marker? I guess in MDCCCXCV (1895) the childish humor just wasn’t there. Or people found it funny but nobody said anything until they erected the marker (pun intended). Reminds me of that Family Guy episode where they parodied John Hancock as having changed his name from “John Footpenis”.
Interesting, example of something done 100+ years ago that would possibly be offensive by todays standards because of his name and the phallic shape. Just shows how society’s perception of things as simple as shapes change. As does it’s sense of humor. On a more serious side, it’s interesting that this was done during the lifespan of Sigmund Freud who had some interesting views on this type of stuff.
Last week it seemed that Steve Jobs would appear in Epcot’s Spaceship Earth, while Woz would get shafted. Apparently that’s not the case. Gizmodo has some pictures of the new Spaceship Earth that feature a larger-boned scruffy fellow sitting in a garage. As a opposed to a lanky guy. So now it seems Woz is featured in Spaceship Earth.
The character also has a very similar shirt to that of a somewhat famous picture. Another thing Gizmodo didn’t even notice is that you don’t really see Jobs wearing glasses until sometime in the 80’s. In fact, I don’t think Jobs was really seen with glasses until after his first stint at Apple (most if not all pictures show him without). Wozniak on the other hand is seen with glasses dating as far back as the 70’s when this scene would have been taking place. This leads me to believe this character must indeed be Steve Wozniak.
More pictures can be found at lifthill.
This morning I saw Benjamin Smedberg wrote:
I wonder how many other people might have no clue that their applications are incredibly out of date.
Ironically I ran across the following photo on Digg today, which I mirrored since those free image hosting sites tend to remove images linked on Digg pretty quickly:
Seems by 2.0, the problem of not noticing updates if fixed. I guess that bug can be marked as “FIXED”.
There’s been a lot of talk today about Google’s launch of it’s services optimized for the iPhone.
It got me thinking. Is it really about the iPhone? Or is it about mobile standards based browsers (WebKit in particular). What I’m talking about is Android, who coincidentally also uses WebKit. Call be crazy, but Google’s launch of this offering isn’t really about riding the iPhone’s popularity. It’s about being in that new mobile space. You might even say this is being tested on the iPhone, before Android comes around. No longer is mobile limited by a basic WAP deck. This one uses the same technology the rest of the web uses, only designed to look and function well on a small screen by people with giant clumsy fingers.
This space isn’t limited to just WebKit. Gecko has made some headway into the market (mainly via Nokia devices), and is preparing to make a big effort in the near future to bring Firefox Mobile to your phone. Most iPhone sites look pretty decent in Firefox already, the main thing that makes some of them look a little funny is a css property or two it doesn’t support, for example -webkit-border-image which has become pretty popular for sites only targeting WebKit since it’s pretty handy. Some sites also use -webkit-border-radius, which is supported on Firefox, as -moz-border-radius both of which follow the border-radius specs as part of CSS3, but are still namespaced for the moment.
For once we don’t have to learn another silly markup, and be limited by lack of JavaScript which has made the web a better place… for the most part (think Gmail, Google Maps, etc.).
It’s some very cool stuff. I’m really interested to see what comes.
According to a blog post at distant creations, a Steve Jobs like character will be in the newly remodeled Spaceship Earth at Epcot. Missing will be Steve Wozniak. The character apparently won’t be referenced by name. It should be noted Steve Jobs is a member of Disney’s Board of Directors and the largest shareholder.
Back in March I mentioned that Microsoft is trying to standardize it’s HD Photo format as the official successor to the ever so popular JPEG format. Well it’s now looking to become JPEG XR.
Suprisingly it’s still not listed on Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise where Microsoft lists things it won’t sue over. Hopefully they will update that soon. My understanding from what I’ve read is that’s the intent.
It’s a pretty interesting thing going on. Video on the web has improved by leaps and bounds over the years from a tiny grainy video object that took a decade to load, to instantly loading and still improving quality Flash / Windows Media / QuickTime. Photos on the other hand have been using JPEG for pretty much a decade. Most photography buffs don’t seem to fond of JPEG because it can degrade picture quality, but still love services like Flickr.
Will JPEG XR spark a photo revolution by allowing better quality?
So I decided to do a little book shopping a few weeks ago and one thing I purchased was High Performance Web Sites: Essential Knowledge for Front-End Engineers (affiliate link). At its core is essentially a 14 step guide to making faster websites. I don’t think any of the steps are new or innovative, so anyone looking for something groundbreaking will be sorely disappointed. I don’t think the target audience has that expectation though. It’s still a rather practical book for any developer who spends a lot of time on the front-end of things.
It gives many great examples on how to implement, as well as suggestions based on what some of the biggest sites on the web are doing (including Yahoo, the authors employer). I found it pretty helpful because it saves hours worth of research on what other sites are doing to improve their performance. For that reason alone it’s a worthwhile book to checkout. For each rule there’s enough discussion to help you decide if you can implement an improvement on your own site or not. Most sites are limited by their legacy systems such as cms, processes (including human) and audience in what they can actually do. Unless you’ve got a serious budget, you likely fail rule #2 (use a CDN) right off the bat. Regardless there’s likely a few tips you can take advantage of. It’s also a very fast book to get through.
Most steps are pretty quick to implement provided they are feasible in your situation. Overall one of the best “make it better” tech books I’ve seen regarding web development. One of the few that actually appeared worth purchasing (and I did). The majority of the tips require a somewhat tech savvy approach to web development, the book isn’t oriented much towards web designers (with the notable exception of reducing the # of requests by using CSS and better use of images) or casual webmasters. It’s important for those who understand the importance of HTTP headers, but could use some help deciding on best practices, and those who want to know how the small things can add up.
Interestingly enough, I learned about the book by trying the YSlow extension which essentially evaluates a page against the rules suggested in the book. Interesting from a marketing perspective I guess. Overall this blog evaluates ok (about as well as it ever will considering I’m not putting it on a CDN anytime soon). Though I guess I could add some expires headers in a few places.