Nate Koechley's Blog

Opera 8: Max Value for Text Indent

Nick Rigby discovers and writes that Opera 8 has a maximum text-indent value of 32697 pixels.

Clearly this is an edge case and not all that common, but those that use the "off-left" technique might find something familiar in his quote:

There would be no need to ever use a value this large, but I happened to be using -9999em originally, which, depending on the default font-size of the document, is a lot more than this limit value. Hence, it did not work in Opera 8.

Anyways, just a little tip for your toolbox.

Faster DHTML in 12 Steps

As Microsoft's IEblog points out, their Faster DHTML is 12 Steps isn't entirely new but does have some valuable information. Obviously some of the info is quite IE-specific, but it's still worth a read.

Here are the tips included in the article:

• Batch Your DHTML Changes
• Talk to Your innerText
• Use the DOM to Add Individual Elements
• Expand Your Options in a SELECT Element
• Use the DOM to Update Tables
• Write Once, Use Many Times
• Don't Be Too Dynamic with Your Properties
• Data Binding is Good for You
• Keep Your Expando Properties Off the Document
• Avoid switching classes and style rules
• Collapse a Text Range Before Finding the Parent
• Related Topics

DOM Scripting Task Force - WaSP

Once again the fine folks at the Web Standards Project are helping us all move the industry forward, this time with the launch of their DOM Scripting Task Force as announced in their buzz archive today.

"The skillset of a front end programmer is a three-legged stool: structure (XHTML) is the first leg, presentation (CSS) the second, and behavior (DOM Scripting) the third," said Peter-Paul Koch, a prominent scripting expert and one of the founders of the task force. "These three legs should be equal, but at the moment the behavior leg is the shortest, least-valued and least-understood of the three, even though the DOM has been a W3C specification for seven years and enjoys relatively solid browser support."

They have a press release, a manifesto, and of course a website.

These topics aren't anything new necessarily, but it's good to see more and more developers picking up the torch. For more reading on this/these topics, check out these other posts from my blog: The Behavior Layer, Unobtrusively, and Semantic Markup - Create, Support and Extract.

If you eat and breath these topics, I'd love to hear from you and your resume.

DOM Scripting Task Force - WaSP

Once again the fine folks at the Web Standards Project are helping us all move the industry forward, this time with the launch of their DOM Scripting Task Force as announced in their buzz archive today.

"The skillset of a front end programmer is a three-legged stool: structure (XHTML) is the first leg, presentation (CSS) the second, and behavior (DOM Scripting) the third," said Peter-Paul Koch, a prominent scripting expert and one of the founders of the task force. "These three legs should be equal, but at the moment the behavior leg is the shortest, least-valued and least-understood of the three, even though the DOM has been a W3C specification for seven years and enjoys relatively solid browser support."

They have a press release, a manifesto, and of course a website.

These topics aren't anything new necessarily, but it's good to see more and more developers picking up the torch. For more reading on this/these topics, check out these other posts from my blog: The Behavior Layer, Unobtrusively, and Semantic Markup - Create, Support and Extract.

If you eat and breath these topics, please send me your resume.

Changes for Mozilla Extension Developers

On the Inside Firefox blog, ben writes about Changes for Extension Developers. The changes are must-know for extension developers, but also provide some nice benefits for users.

Old News: Deer Park Alpha 1

More old news: Mozilla has released (on May 30th, 2005) the first alpha release of "Deer Park" their "next generation Firefox browser". It's seriously alpha and just for developers, but I figured you might want to know about it anways. As they disclaim, if you're just a user you definitely don't want to download this.

You can find thier announcement and relevant links on the Firefox Project page: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/

(for history's sake, here's the link the windows distribution directly: http://download.mozilla.org/?product=deerpark-alpha1&os=win&lang=en-US

Rendering CSS Efficiently - Insider Tips from Safari

I just came drown from altitude in the Himalayas, so I'm admittedly pretty far behind in my technology reading, email maintenance and blogging. That said, in beginning to catch up I came across this complex and interesting post from David Hyatt on his Surfin' Safari blog. For those of you that have been paying attention, Hyatt is a leading browser developer, having worked on Gecko at AOL, and in his current position largely responsible for the magic in Safari and Web Core.

His post deals with the challenges of rendering CSS:

One of the most interesting problems (to me at least) in browser layout engines is how to implement a style system that can determine the style information for elements on a page efficiently.

Hyatt has created a new, more efficient algorithm for doing this (and a few other related things). For the algorithm to work, it checks ten features of each DOM node. I'm blogging this because it presents a new optimization opportunity for web developers. By being mindful of these 10 items, and not needlessly failing the 10 tests, we'll take advantage of these new rending efficiencies in Safari. These aren't revolutionary steps, but there are situations where they will certainly be the tie-breaker between alternate approaches.

There are a number of conditions that must be met in order for this sharing to be possible:

1. The elements must be in the same mouse state (e.g., one can't be in :hover while the other isn't)
2. Neither element should have an id
3. The tag names should match
4. The class attributes should match
5. The set of mapped attributes must be identical
6. The link states must match
7. The focus states must match
8. Neither element should be affected by attribute selectors, where affected is defined as having any selector match that uses an attribute selector in any position within the selector at all
9. There must be no inline style attribute on the elements
10. There must be no sibling selectors in use at all. WebCore simply throws a global switch when any sibling selector is encountered and disables style sharing for the entire document when they are present. This includes the + selector and selectors like :first-child and :last-child.

In web development there are often 6 different similar ways to do the same thing. What makes a good web developer is continually choosing the best of nearly-indistinguishable paths. These insider tips from Hyatt give us a more complete understanding of the guts of the browsers, and will help us choose the best methods.

Read about it in his own words here: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2005_05.html#007507

Awesome Firefox Extensions

Anthony Lieuallen of Arantius.com has a great page called Awesome Firefox Extensions. If you're new to Firefox or extensions, or are interested in finding some great new one, definitely head over there to check it out.

One extension not listed that I would personally recommend is Target Alert. This extension adds a small icon next to any links that aren't to standard web pages. For example, it inserts a small envelope icon next to any email links, and a small PDF icon next to any .pdf links. (The PDF alert is particularily useful, since loading a PDF is slow sluggish and I often want to avoid it all together!) It offers alerts for many file extension (you can turn on and off as needed), and also alerts to links that will open new windows. The new window alert is great, because I then know to press alt-shirt to force the load into a new tab instead of a new browser window.

Anyways, I've been meaning to publish my recommended list of extensions, but this will have to do for now.

Opera 8 Screenshots

Screenshots from the yet-to-be released Opera 8 are available over on Opera Watch: The Unofficial Opera Blog. There's no definitive word yet, but Opera confirms that the release of 8 will coincide with a new name/brand for the browser, so stayed tuned for that.

For my readers convenience, here are the direct links to the screenshot:
Super Opera 8 Windows
Super Opera 8 BSD
Super Opera 8 gray
Super Opera 8 Linux

Three Weeks of W3C

Below are pointers to about a dozen activites coming out of the World Wide Web Consortium over the last three weeks. You can follow along on their homepage or with their feed. Standards-based design and development can be about more than using existing standards; in the best cases, it's about helping to create the standards in the first place! By being aware of the work underway at the W3C, you can have a good sense of where the industry and technologies are going, even if you don't get your hands dirty in any of the working groups.

Working Draft: SVG's XML Binding Language (sXBL)

2005-04-06: The Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group and the CSS Working Group have released a third Working Draft of SVG's XML Binding Language (sXBL). The sXBL language defines the presentation and interactive behavior of elements outside the SVG namespace. The XBL task force welcomes comments and seeks feedback on three issues outlined in the status section. Visit the SVG and CSS home pages. (News archive)

Last Call: XQuery, XPath and XSLT

2005-04-04: The XML Query Working Group and the XSL Working Group released twelve Working Drafts for the XQuery, XPath and XSLT languages. Seven are in last call through 13 May. Important for databases, search engines and object repositories, XML Query can perform searches, queries and joins over collections of documents. XSLT transforms documents into different markup or formats. Both XQuery and XSLT 2 use XPath expressions and operate on XPath Data Model instances. Visit the XML home page. (News archive)

Working Draft: Compound Document Use Cases and Requirements

2005-04-04: The Compound Document Formats Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of Compound Document by Reference Use Cases and Requirements Version 1.0. A compound document combines multiple formats, such as XHTML, SVG, XForms, MathML and SMIL. This draft introduces compounding by a reference like img, object, link, src and XLink. Compounding by inclusion is planned for a later phase. Visit the Compound Document home page. (News archive)

Last Call: Web Services Addressing

2005-03-31: The Web Services Addressing Working Group has released two Last Call Working Drafts. Web Services Addressing - Core enables messaging systems to support transmission through networks that include processing nodes such as endpoint managers, firewalls, and gateways. SOAP Binding defines the core properties' association to SOAP messages. Visit the Web services home page. (News archive)

XML Binary Characterization Notes Published

2005-03-31: The XML Binary Characterization Working Group has released its evaluation, recommending that W3C produce a standard for binary interchange of XML. Published today as a Working Group Note, XML Binary Characterization is supported by use cases, properties and measurement methodologies. Optimized serialization can improve the generation, parsing, transmission and storage of XML-based data. Visit the XML home page. (News archive)

Upcoming W3C Talks

2005-03-31: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (News archive)

Last Call: XML Schema Component Designators

2005-03-29: The XML Schema Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of XML Schema: Component Designators. Comments are welcome through 26 April. The document defines a scheme for identifying the XML Schema components specified by the XML Schema Recommendation Part 1 and Part 2. Visit the XML home page. (News archive)

Working Draft: RDF/Topic Maps Interoperability

2005-03-29: The Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of A Survey of RDF/Topic Maps Interoperability Proposals. The document is a starting point for establishing standard guidelines for combined usage of the W3C RDF/OWL family and the ISO family of Topic Maps standards. The group expects to publish Survey and Guidelines Working Group Notes based on this draft. Visit the Semantic Web home page. (News archive)

RDF Data Access Use Cases and Requirements Updated

2005-03-25: The RDF Data Access Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of RDF Data Access Use Cases and Requirements. The draft suggests how an RDF query language and data access protocol could be used in the construction of novel, useful Semantic Web applications in areas like Web publishing, personal information management, transportation and tourism. The group invites feedback on which features are required for a first version of SPARQL and which should be postponed in order to expedite deployment of others. Visit the Semantic Web home page. (News archive)

C

all for Participation: W3C Workshop on XML Schema 1.0 User Experiences

2005-03-23: Position papers are due 20 May for the W3C Workshop on XML Schema 1.0 User Experiences to be held 21-22 June in Redwood Shores, California, USA. Schema authors and users, developers and vendors of schema-aware code generators, middleware, validators, and the W3C XML Schema Working Group will gather to discuss user experience with XML Schema 1.0. The workshop goal is to arrive at plan of action for XML Schema 1.0 interoperability, errata and clarification. Read about W3C workshops and visit the XML home page. (News archive)

Last Call: Timed Text Distribution Profile

2005-03-21: The Timed Text (TT) Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of the Timed Text (TT) Authoring Format 1.0 Distribution Format Exchange Profile (DFXP). The format enables authors and authoring systems to interchange style, layout and timing associated with text. DFXP helps to transform and distribute subtitles and captions to legacy systems. Comments are welcome through 11 April. Visit the Synchronized Multimedia home page. (News archive)

Working Draft: Compound Document Use Cases and Requirements

2005-03-15: The Compound Document Formats Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of Compound Document by Reference Use Cases and Requirements Version 1.0. A compound document combines multiple formats, such as XHTML, SVG, XForms, MathML and SMIL. This draft introduces compounding by a reference like img, object, link, src and XLink. Compounding by inclusion is planned for a later phase. Visit the Compound Document home page. (News archive)

Working Draft: Timed Text Distribution Profile

2005-03-14: The Timed Text (TT) Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of the Timed Text (TT) Authoring Format 1.0 Distribution Format Exchange Profile (DFXP). The format enables authors and authoring systems to interchange style, layout and timing associated with text. DFXP helps to transform and distribute subtitles and captions to legacy systems. Visit the Synchronized Multimedia home page. (News archive)

Call for Participation: W3C Workshop on Frameworks for Semantics in Web Services

2005-02-10: Position papers are due 22 April for the W3C Workshop on Frameworks for Semantics in Web Services to be held 9-10 June in Innsbruck, Austria. Participants will discuss possible future W3C work on a comprehensive and expressive framework for describing all aspects of Web services. The workshop's goal is to envision more powerful tools and fuller automation using Semantic Web technologies such as RDF and OWL. Read about W3C workshops and visit the Web services home page. (News archive)

Internet Explorer and Accessibility

From the IEBlog:

Today I wanted to talk about three aspects of accessibility as they relate to IE and Windows in general. First is access to the Windows OS for individuals with disabilities, second are a couple of hints for users of screen readers using IE in XPSP2 and finally is a request for feedback to help guide our development in IE7 and beyond.

While it's fun to pan Microsoft, and particularily, in my circles at least, Internet Explorer, I have to give them some credit for leaving comments enabled on their blog. It would be even better if they responded to some of the comments - a comment is more valuable if it initiates dialog - but at least they're doing an ok job experimenting in the blog space. It can't be a bad thing.

W3C: Working Draft: CSS3 Backgrounds and Borders

The CSS Working Group has released a Working Draft of CSS3 Backgrounds and Borders Module. The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) language is used to render structured documents like HTML and XML on screen, on paper and in speech. Replacing two separate CSS3 modules, the draft proposes CSS Level 3 functionality including borders consisting of images and backgrounds with multiple images. (emphasis mine)

It's great to see work continue in these areas. It's due to their move to modularity that components can be released independently like this. I know I'm not alone in my excitment at the possibility of better control of backgrounds and borders (since so much of CSS design comes down to backgrounds and border tweaks).

W3C: Specifying the Language of XHTML and HTML Content

The W3C's Internationalization GEO (Guidelines, Education & Outreach) Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Specifying the Language of Content. Part of a series designed for authors, the document is an aid to specifying the language of content for an international audience.

This is still a working draft, so comments are welcome!

Evolution vs Revolution in Web Standards

CNet's Paul Festa filed a story today, Fight over 'forms' clouds future of Net applications, with a subhead of "As Net heavyweights vie to define the next generation of Web applications, the Web's main standards body is facing a revolt within its own ranks over electronic forms, a cornerstone of interactive documents."

The article sheds some light on the WHAT-WG, as well as some of the players in this general saga. The most interesting section to me:

WHAT-WG members say the forms dispute illustrates a larger conflict over whether the W3C should proceed in a "revolutionary" mode, tackling problems from square one and coming up with technically elegant solutions--even if that results in the loss of backward-compatibility with older browsers--or an "evolutionary" mode, maintaining older technologies like HTML 4 and extending the usefulness of current browsing software.

I also enjoyed Steven Pemberton's comments:

"The WHAT approach works OK for small examples," Pemberton said. "But actors like the Department of Defense say 'no scripting.'"

And:

"I understand where WHAT is coming from, but they are browser makers, not forms experts," Pemberton said. "It is important to build something that is future-proof and not a Band-Aid solution. Forms (technology) is the basis of the e-commerce revolution and so it is important to do it right."

[All emphasis mine.]

FeedBurner Stats, Podcasts, Specialized RSS Clients

podcast_growth
Originally uploaded by natekoechley.

Feedburner, an RSS feed tracking company (that I use to understand my RSS statistics and readership), has been releasing some very interesting statistics recently. This batch provides some insight into the Podcasting space:

• Since the beginning of 2005, the number of podcast feeds managed by Feedburner has more than doubled from 871 to 1746.


• Four different rss aggregators specialized for podcasts are in the Top 50 RSS Aggregators list. This illustrates a trend that's sure to continue... There are already clients specializing in aggregating video -- how long until photo-specific show up?

Thanks for sharing, Feedburner, it's a great post. Thanks also for the interesting and valuable service you provide.

News from the World Wide Web Consortium

For better or worse, I only catch up on my W3 reading every month or so. That said, here's the stuff that caught my eye recently:

• Call for Participation: W3C Workshop on Frameworks for Semantics in Web Services
• Working Draft: Glossary of Terms for Device Independence
• W3C Launches Voice Browser Activity
• 'Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One' is a W3C Recommendation

Browser Speed Comparisons

"There is a speed war on the web. Browsers compete on many fronts; security, standards support, features and speed. Most people are aware of which major browser fails on three of these, but one of them is still open for grabs. Speed."

Today’s Wrong Solution is Tomorrow’s Constraint

Layered Semantic Markup (LSM) is not a technology, but a framework comprised of HTML, XHTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Javascript, DOM and other Web technologies. LSM allows for appropriately implemented principles and standards.

LSM is a development framework for creating Web documents and experiences. LSM builds for the least capable devices first, then enhances those documents with separate logic for presentation, in ways that do not place an undue burden on baseline devices but which allow a richer experience for those users with modern graphical browser software. LSM supports all user agents, and is inclusive by design. (Progressive Enhancement - Unobtrusive Javascript)

LSM has structural semantic markup at its core, which provides lean, meaningful, accessible pages. This well-built core and the clear separation of structural, presentational and behavioral layers make this development philosophy superior to many short-sighted approaches.

Today’s wrong solution is tomorrow’s constraint. A holistic vision - an underlying philosophy - must guide technical decisions. LSM provides the strategy for a sound and future-ready approach.

LSM embraces Graded Browser Support by using one markup document, subsequently layered with stylesheets and scripts that provide a gradually enhanced experience across a wide variety of browsers and devices.

This approach has profound advantages over other browser support approaches such as graceful degradation. Graded Browser Support recognizes that advanced technology support is not a guarantee of the future, and that legacy software as well as alternative devices (mobile) must always be considered. Graded Browser Support defines support in terms of current capabilities, not in terms of legacy or obsolete software; it embraces accessibility, universality, and peaceful coexistence with more feature-rich browsers/devices; and it allows for adoption of new technology and strategies without leaving any browser/device behind.

Credits

This work is heavily influenced and contains directly passages from Debra Chamra's "Progressive Enhancement: Paving the Way for Future Web Design", Steven Champeon and Nick Finck's presentation "Inclusive Web Design For the Future with Progressive Enhancement", and Steven Champeon's "Progressive Enhancement and the Future of Web Design", all of which may be found here.

Thanks also to the great people who have endlessly debated and developed these topics with me: James Berry, Sean Imler, Todd Kloots, Jon Koshi, Mike Lee, Thomas Sha, Matt Sweeney, Chanel Wheeler, and Christina Wodtke; and everybody else; and to everybody who puts their ideas online so that others may be inspired. Thanks.

Analyze HTTP Headers and Smart Keyword Search with Firefox

There are several good ways to check out a file's HTTP headers. Tonight I was using http://www.forret.com/projects/analyze/, which is just a simple web form that you enter your URL into.

I know there are more snazzy ways, including Firefox's great extension LiveHTTPHeaders, but sometimes an always-available web page is a fine solution. And, while I totally love the ability to extend and modify Firefox with the ever-growing supply of extensions, I've been trying to keep my browser as lean as possible by only installing ones I really need. For services that require a query to be submitted -- a map request, dictionary lookup, feed subscription or web search -- I've been opting lately to set up Keyword Search in Firefox (as I described several months ago).

(In addition to having less extensions, I find it's just significantly faster to trigger these actions form the keyboard.)

With a few keyword shortcut's set up, my hands are liberated from the mouse to the efficiency and speed of the keyboard. My browser begins to resemble a command line interface. In addition to my newest, headers http://www.yahoo.com, I use these others constantly:

sub http://natek.typepad.com

subscribed to a feed -- fastest possible way to subscribe to an rss feed with bloglines (please don't ruin bloglines Ask!)

ys northern california hiking trails

returns Yahoo Search results page -- 100s of times a day.

wiki Thomas Frank

returns Wikipedia encyclopedia entry -- lots of info types are best answered by an encyclopedia

map [[701 N First Ave, 94089]

returns a Yahoo Maps -- always need for a map

dic efficiency

returns dictionary.com definition

the excitement

returns thesaurus.com entry

by natek

returns my company's intranet (backyard) results -- for looking up coworkers

amaz Talib Kweli

returns Amazon search results -- to grab a book cover or album track listing

imdb War of the Worlds

returns an Internet Movie DataBase (IMDB) search

how to change your car's oil

returns detailed instructions from ehow.com

techno mobilemonday.com

returns blogosphere info on who's talking about http://www.mobilemonday.com/ right now?

Did you notice the ones for Bloglines (sub)? It's great. I am generally motivated to subscribe to some feed while in the midst of being excited or engaged by the content. This time of highest engagement is the time when you least want to interrupt the session to go subscribe -- this shortcut allows me to nearly-instantly subscribe in the heat on the moment.

(In case you're curious, I was looking at headers tonight to verify that the file expiration dates were distant, so that the files would be cached by the client until then.)

Mobile Content Market

From the Internet Stock Blog, some highlights from Verisign's conference call (VRSN):

"our mobile content services were the highlight… even without a major new market entry impacting Q4. Revenues… were up 27% sequentially, as we saw increased penetration in Europe and the initial contribution from Australia"

Clearly the U.S. market for mobile content is growing rapidly

Even if you're not interested in the money side of things, the Internet Stock Blog has some pretty sweet tidbits and insights.

Opera Interview; Opera v8 beta; XmlHttpRequest

Opera Watch (The Unofficial Opera Blog) has An Interview with Opera's Berit Hanson. It's a good read. It sounds like Opera plans to stay true to themselves, and if you read between the lines it sounds like they have some cool things just around the corner. Opera has always been the most innovative company and browser, so this comes as no surprise.

Digital-proof that you should stop using Internet Explorer for your browser.

Digital-proof that you should stop using Internet Explorer for your browser.

The goal is simple: to collect a database of every single article ever published on the internet about why one should not use Internet Explorer.

New Mozilla Alpha

Mozilla 1.8 Alpha 6 was released yesterday. They've addressed 465 bugs in this release, including "TAB doesn't start from selection text after mouse click", "Copy from textarea truncated at first instance of <". and "exthandler should require just nsITransfer, not nsIDownload".

More Bits, More Browsers

Keeping up with the 64-bit server, Microsoft has released (last month) a 64-bit version of IE6 for Windows Server 2003 SP1/x64. The server will ship with both the 64-bit and the 32-bit versions, with the 32-bit connected to most of the UI entry points.

We found that in our own every day use of the 64-bit client, the 64-bit browser was difficult to use because web sites hadn’t authored common controls for 64-bit clients.

No word yet on any rendering implications.

Firefox Tip: Quick Complete URLs

Here is how I enter a new URL into the Firefox Address Bar. It is the fastest way to jump somewhere new (without linking), and it keeps my hands on the keyboard (not the mouse).

Step One ("Quick Complete" starts on Step Three, but this is a bonus tip, and will speeds things up too.):

Press "Alt-D" on the keyboard (hold down both keys at the same time). This will more the cursor to go to the Address Bar, and also select any URL that is already there. With all the text highlighted, the next thing you type will erase what's already there, saving you the step of manually erasing the current URL before typing a new one.

Step Two:

Type the base of the URL. In other words, if you want to go to http://www.yahoo.com, you'd only type "yahoo" at this point.

Step Three: Quick Complete

With just the base entered into the Address Bar, you now press "Control-Enter" to wrap the base with the full .com stuff. By pressing "Control-Enter", the base "yahoo" instantly becomes "http://www.yahoo.com. (You may use the 10-Key number pad's "Enter" key in addition to the primary "Enter/Return" key.)

If you want a .org address, press "Control-Shift-Enter" instead. This will turn "craigslist" into "http://www.craigslist.org".

With those three tiny steps, you'll be flying around in no time. Alt-D, "cnn", "Control-Enter" take no time at all.

Note: On Mac's, replace "Control" with the "Apple" key I think.

BitTorrent, and BitTorrent Clients

I'm been investing a little time lately trying to learn more about BitTorrent. BitTorrent, a P2P distribution tool, is unique and potentially superior because it allows many people to download the same file without slowing down everyone else's download. (More: Wikipedia | Y!Search). This background and client review will be a precursor to an entry on BlogTorrent that I'm still working on.

Traditional P2P distribution (Napster, Gnutella, Kazaa) let you download an entire file from another person on the network. BitTorrent is different. With BT, you initially download only a small map of the file. This map describes the many tiny files that comprise the complete file. This map file is called a tracker.

Once you've downloaded the tracker, a BitTorrent client takes over. The client coordinates the separate but concurrent downloading of each small file. It always choosing the fastest source. This is a faster and more stable process, capable of handling feature-length movies and other multi-gigabyte files.

Another distinction between BT and more traditional P2P technologies is that with BT, things go faster when more people are on the network. This is the opposite of other technologies, that bogged down on popular files. By definition with BitTorrent, if you're downloading you're also potentially uploading. The more people that want a particular file, the more people that have the file. More requesters equals more providers. And more providers equals a faster experience for everybody.

If you're looking for a BitTorrent Client, I've posted personal research from my hours spent looking for the best one. I'm just sharing, I don't profess to be an expert.

CSS Hack vs CSS Filter

I was in the midst of some late-night coding. Well, not really late-night I guess. Let me rephrase.

It was 10:30pm and I was just getting started with some nighttime coding. I was searching for something, and ended up reading a july 2003 evolt post. In it, PPK describes the difference between CSS Hacks and CSS Filters. I've read tons about each, but this is the first time that I really noticed their definitions.

CSS Hacks

Techniques and syntax that achieve desired results by exploiting a bug in a particular browsers rendering engine.

CSS Filters

Techniques and syntax that achieve desired results by exploiting a feature that a particular browsers rendering engine does not yet support.

CSS Hacks - Collection of Articles and Links

I've been thinking about CSS hacks lately, so I thought I'd gather together some of the resources I've been using and articles I've been considering.

• Over on CNET, Michael Meadhra writes (yesterday) CSS: To hack or not to hack. While not introducing much new information, and it's always useful to consider another professionals thought process and approach. In addition, he makes important reminders, including that our work is it's highest quality when we

  [think] of design and coding as parts of the same process and [are] willing to go through multiple iterations of the process to refine [our] design. It doesn't work if you approach coding as the task of precisely implementing a preconceived design.

• Doug Bowman has an article on his stopdesign site entitled Filtering CSS. The article gives some background on CSS hacks and filters, then introduces a new CSS filter that can be used to import a separate style sheet for IE5/Mac, named the IE5/Mac Band Pass Filter.
• Molly Holzschlag's piece for informIT, Strategies for Long-Term CSS Hack Management is definitely worth reading.
• No hack list would be complete without at least a passing mention of Tantek's Box Model Hack. Turns out I don't use it that often, but you still gotta have it in your toolbox.
• If you're not using del.icio.us, you definitely should be. Either way, you can find more CSS hack info in their collection: http://del.icio.us/tag/css-hacks
• In addition to those articles, there are a bunch of quality resources too: Centricle's CSS Filters (css hacks) compatibility grid, Dithered's CSS Filters main page, and the always useful CSS-Discuss Wiki has a dedicated page: http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=CssHack. If you still need more, there are about a quarter-million here.

Enjoy.

MIME Type Test Suite

I pointed to Juicy Studio's article It's all in the MIME a few days ago in my mini-blog. Well, Gez Lemon, the author of Juicy Studio, follows that up with some MIME Type Test Suites.

Did you notice the shameless plug for my Mini-Blog? Good. Enjoy it. (The 8 most recent posts to my mini-blog are included in the right column on my main blog.)

Why have a mini-blog? What's the difference? Who's idea was it? First of all, it wasn't my idea. I remember noting it first at my friend Ernie's blog, but it's pretty common and you'll find something similar at mezzoblue and even Digital-Web's What's New area.

Why have a mini-blog? The idea it to be able to quickly blog lots of things, without diluting the quality of the main blog. My mini-blog is hosted for free by bloglines. I read most of my feeds at Bloglines (it's my recommended RSS Aggregator). Their integrated publishing/blogging capabilities make it trivial to blog things of interest without breaking stride. Instead of writing a long entry of for this blog, I can just quickly and effortlessly flag things of interest and they show up in my mini-blog.

Anyways, I hope this will allow me to publish even more content, and that you find it interesting.

Now, go get a free Bloglines account, I can't recommend it enough!

Firefox 1.0 RC2 Available

Ben Goodger announces on his Inside Firefox blog that Firefox 1.0 Release Candidate #2 builds are available now:

• Windows, English
• MacOS X, English
• Linux i686, English

Douglas Bowman's presentation from Web Essentials 2004 in Sydney

Doug Bowman, of Stopdesign and adaptive path, famous for the Blogger and Wired News redesigns, posts his great presentation Pushing Your Limits (And Other Secrets of Designing with CSS) from the Web Essentials 2004 conference in Sydney.

It's a great presentation, and beautiful too. Whether you know your CSS or not, it's well worth a click-through.

Cool browser archive and timeline

I didn't know that Netscape 2.0 was released in March of 1996, and that it introduced the font color tag. Nor did I remember that Netscape 4.5 was released in parallel with Netscape 4.06. Did you remember that 4.73 was the first with 128-bit encryption?

That and many more details on SillyDog701's Netscape Info Centre.

While this new reference is pretty impressive, it only makes sense to point to what seems to be the authoritative browser reference online: http://browsers.evolt.org.