Brian Fitzgerald

Here's a section I just came across called "The JavaScript Diaries" at webreference.com that looks like it would be a good way to get started.

Firefox engineer comments on Apple/KHTML: Lead Firefox engineer Ben Goodger has spoken out in defense of Apple over the company's suggestion that the existing KHTML rendering engine be replaced by its own-developed derivative rendering engine (WebCore) for Safari, reports Macworld UK...

This story interested me because my first reaction when I saw that Apple would like to drop KHTML and go forward with webcore as a independent web renderer was a negative one. If Ben says that this is a good thing (or at least not a bad thing) then I certainly have no reason to criticize it.

If you care about education and the internet and how it's being used in schools with students, you really need to be reading Will's continuing discussion about blogging vs journaling...

Arstechnica has published an interesting history of the GUI.

Macworld: U of Maine to require iBooks for teachers-to-be: The University of Maine College of Education and Human Development has announced plans to require students working towards Maine teacher certification to have Apple iBooks. The program dovetails with the state of Maine?s own Learning Technology Initiative, where all students and teachers in seventh and eighth grades in Maine public schools also have iBooks.

From jeffcoughlin.com: Simon gave a great overview of his presentation on "Design Patterns and CFML" and Tim spoke quickly about his favorite new features introduced in Coldfusion MX 7.

Simon's full presentation can be seen at the upcoming CFUNITED conference next month.

To view today's recorded Breezo go to http://macromedia.breezecentral.com/p14693917/.

In the ongoing blogging vs journaling debate, a student chimes in with good words

Flex is Macromedia's solution (expensive solution) to allow normal object-minded programmers to create flash applications (RIAs). For examples of Flex applications, see Flex Authority.

Want to use great looking type on the web? Try the newly released sIFR 2.0 (a combination of javascript, CSS and Flash).

Firefox has been updated to 1.0.4 in response to security concerns that have appeared this past week.

Apparently you just need to add the word "cast" to anything now to make it hip and cool. Audio blogging became "podcast". Now the long-possible (and used) method of recording screen actions along with voice-over is being referred to as "screencasting". I'm not sure that I like this term. Podcasting (maybe I've just become used to the term) describes a process where something is being broadcast over the web (sort of) and being stored on iPod-like devices to be listened to. We all know that these are storage devices and are meant for listening to things at one's leisure. Screencasting to me sounds like I will be watching somebody's screen -- Live. Not that I will be simply watching some videos on somebody's website. I am not going to download these to watch on a portable video player. I'm not going to receive these as enclosures in my aggregator (I don't think so anyway). These are instructional tools that live within and require the website that explains them and gives them context. Will we really need to start calling flash videos "flashcasts", quicktime movies "motioncasts", etc.? Screencasting does not replace any sort of traditional broadcasting in the same way that podcasting does.

For the record: my favorite tool for doing these is Snapz Pro.

This is really needed. Dons Blog has posted some good guidelines for tagging podcast files.

Is this a screenshot of IE 7? It has a tab that look thoroughly ugly. Very simple interface similar to MSN Explorer (that I don't think is still distributed -- but I actually liked).

The Mac Observer - Apple Granted Patent for Tablet Mac (w/Illustrations)

COLOURlovers

PanicGoods is where you can by clothing from the software company Panic (makers of the Macintosh FTP program Transmit). You can purchase things on this page by simply dragging items into the dock-like area at the bottom of the page and when things are dragged out of it they disappear with a OSX-like poof. Too cool.

Will Richardson posts more concerns re kids using "blogs" to post far too much personal information online.

iTunes 4.8 has been released. Reports indicate that the new feature is the ability to synchronize contacts and dates with iPods (which has been available) -- what isn't getting much attention is the fact that you can now drag quicktime movies into the player and watch them in quicktime.

Macromedia has updated their MXNA aggregator to version 2.0. Best of all, it has an RSS feed now so that you can subscribe.

Blogger.com has made available a new service that allows you to blog from your cell phone.

I've been asked many times in the past couple of months if there is any way to check Hotmail with OS X's mail.app. I just saw this morning that the mail plugin that does it has been updated.

Update: This latest version is for Mail 2.0 (Tiger) only. A friend fried his panther mail.app installing this.

This morning's Foxtrot cartoon made mention of a Best Buy in Maryland that arrested a person on suspicion of using counterfeit money for paying a $114 bill with two dollar bills. I googled it wondering if the story was true and sure enough, a month ago this did happen.

Here's my new attempt at pod casting or audio blogging (whichever you prefer). I hope to get better at this and learned a lot from putting this one together. Just Three Things is a short wrapup of three stories that emerged in the past week that are worth exploring further.

j3t05012005-1.mp3

Show notes for week of May 1st

Intro: Traveling on I-80 to Kearney, NE with Mark to enjoy brews at the Thunderhead brewery. Creating show mostly for my own fun, but hope to eventually improve in to something that some might enjoy listening to.

One: Web 2.0

Podsafe Tune: California Ocean Highway by Robert Safuto

Two: Satellite Radio Programming (XM vs Sirius) spurred by Adam Curry's new show on Sirius

Three: Weblogg-ed: Youths, News and TMI

Wrapup: Will do this again next weekend? Visit Mark's site: the Throwing Picassos.

Questions/Comments? Email me

Common sense prevails. A federal appeals court has shot down the idea of a “broadcast flag” that would limit the way in which tv programs could be recorded and stored. You can read more at Wired >

MSNBC: “Parents who are unable to help their children use the Internet properly could be stifling their education and reducing their job prospects, researchers said on Thursday.”