PlaybackTime

Category: Web

  • Interview: Paul Colton, founder of Aptana

    Here’s a PlaybackTime interview (:30-ish) with Paul Colton, the founder of Aptana. [audio:http://playbacktime.com/audio/Paul%20Colton%20interview.mp3] Listen to learn about: * Paul’s pionneering pre-Apatana history * His work with Xamalon, and how Ajax trumps Flash as a runtime philosophy * What Aptana shares and doesn’t share with Eclipse * An emerging JavaScript standard called ScriptDoc, and how it…

  • Aptana: The first Web 2.0 development environment

    Even though I hadn’t really used it in a while, I’ve faithfully upgraded Dreamweaver with each new release. A few weeks ago I dusted it off, thinking that it’d be the perfect tool to start a new project I’m toying with. Ooof. Dreamweaver has made progress over the years, but not enough. It’s slow, has…

  • Overview of popular open-source Ajax toolkits

    InfoWorld’s Peter Wayner wrote an good overview of the most popular open-source toolkits, including a helpful screencast about each. Specifically, he covers: * [Dojo][Dojo] _([screencast][Dojo screencast])_ * [Google Web Toolkit (GWT)][GWT] _([screencast][GWT screencast])_ * [Microsoft Atlas][Atlas] _([screencast][YUI screencast])_ * [Rico][Rico] _([screencast][Rico screencast])_ * [Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI)][YUI] _([screencast][YUI screencast])_ * [Zimbra Kabuki Ajax Toolkit][Kabuki]…

  • Sorenson Squeeze 4.3 update now available

    Sorenson Squeeze is a very nice, multi-format encoding tool. This almost-entirely-Flash-focused update… * Adds alpha channel support for the On2 VP6 codec * Adds On2 VP6 Pro plug-in support for Macintosh * Allows you to create embedded cue points for Flash * Improves Flash Player skin templates for SWF and FLV * Lets you create…

  • Essential Firefox extensions

    These are the [Firefox][Firefox] extensions I can’t do without: #### Everybody needs… #### * **[CustomizeGoogle][CustomizeGoogle]** lets you turn on Google Suggest by default, adds lots of other links to many types of search results, and more. * **[DownThemAll!][DownThemAll!]** is a fast replacement for Firefox’s built-in downloader, and lets you quickly download multiple links and images…

  • Google buys Blogger…and?

    Google recently announced that they’d bought the company behind Blogger, which provides tools that let people build personal weblog-type sites. The blogging community went collectively insane, and several near-histrionic posts followed. Most predicted that the purchase of Blogger by Google would spur a renaissance in personal expression or similar Utopian visions. I’m pointing to none…

  • A decade of Mosaic

    Wired News had a brief chat with Marc Andreessen — for you youngsters, the Shawn Fanning of his time — about his thoughts on the tin anniversary of Mosaic. He seems a tad out-of-touch, though. Demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of the strategic purpose of Apple’s Safari, he says: I think it’s so funny…

  • XML turns 5

    XML was born (i.e. first published as a W3C Recommendation) five years and a day ago. Two participants in that process have written a nice toast to one of the most important meta-standards of the web, or anywhere for that matter. Happy birthday, XML!

  • Opera's fat lady sings on Macintosh

    Recently I discussed the imminent end to the browser wars, and predicted that iCab, OmniWeb and Opera will no longer be relevant even for web developers by the end of the year. Now, Opera Software has all but announced that they can no longer compete on the Mac platform. They’ve effectively asked Apple to subsidize…

  • Undesign (a.k.a. the trend toward minimalism in web site design)

    Liz Bailey writes about “undesign” in the new issue of Graphics International: The new, uniquely online aesthetic — termed ‘undesign’ by some after Tibor Kalman — isn’t so much about utilitarian minimalism as usability, reductionism and subtlety. Although this article isn’t great — just referencing the quote above, undesign obviously isn’t new (see Google) or…