FreakZion

APPLE: The TV Pie is divided into slices, ..Hulu?, iTunes?

2011-08-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

Comcast, Dish TV, Canal Satellite, DirectTV, , Cable Tvs all around the world,....what is the future of all these Tv Companies??. World is in continuous change and the revolution in the media and entertainment around the TV has new rules. The rules of interaction, the rules of choice, the rules of everywhere/Anywhere, contents related, comments, content scoring..., and so many more new rules to follow..

It is the a new ERA, not just the era of the TV but the tablet PC, the phone, any other screen device, and the TV cable cannot keep being as it is and that is when companies as Hulu, Netflix, Vudu, Pandora, etc are getting a great success, ..although hulu is still not profitable.

The big online companies as Amazon are getting strong into this business, GoogleTV (in my opinion the winner in 1 year from now), and Apple??. Is apple just going to stay with the actual AppleTV??. ..no Way!!

We all know how Apple has revolutionized everything they have done, from the mac, iPod to the iPad, and now is time for TV!!!. Long time ago, in september 2006 Apple launched AppleTV. A new concept, as usual for them, and this time for online movie streaming, ..more than 5 years ago!!. Yes Roku was created in 2002 but not until 2008 came with the product that we now know. Netflix starting in the streaming video seriously in 2008.., so again Apple was ahead in time. And what is Apple doing to compete with GoogleTV??

Google is in every field and of course GoogleTV is going to be a great revolution, but my friends, Apple has already a quite awesome video streaming player with best graphical interface ever, selling movies though iTunes but missing something. It misses a Hulu, a netflix, a amazon concept. Monthly subscription with many, many show and movies in the catalog.

That is the reason why Apple is biding for Hulu, ..at least that is one of the candidates (vudu is always in the point of view of Apple). Apple has already entered in the biding war for Hulu. The best of Hulu??. Its show catalog, ..something that Apple misses although counting with two and a half men in the catalog!! :)

Actually, apple just finished a test that shows how desirable a company as Hulu is for their business. The test was based in a 99 cent TV episode rentals using content from FOX and NBC. That test ended on Friday. the results?? lack of demand!!. Why pay 99 cents a Tv episode when you pay 7 dollars a months and watch the whole "Lost" show at Hulu???. Yes, true, with some commercials, but the whole 6 seasons!!!.

Actually, who want to pay more than 35 dollars to watch a whole season of two and a half men or desperate housewives??.

Why people is quitting cable TV??, ..not to pay 150 dollars??. Yeah, that is the reason, so don't come up with a budget of that amount to enjoy nice tv watching!!. The future?? A monthly subscription to watch shows, and just pay for special events and new movies. If in one year from now I am wrong i plewase ask everybody to insult me in this post!!!.

Is Apple Ready??, No it is not yet. As i said GoogleTv is going to win the best Assault, but the second assault within USA will be for Apple and in 3 years Apple will be the most profitable in the world...

I seem that i am a MAC people but let me tell you that i just bought a Roku instead of AppleTV. So call me realistic, ..in less than a year i will be using appleTV device though..

FIGURES: Steve Jobs Leave his position at APPLE CEO

2011-08-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time we had a great personage, an intrepid person who changed the world, not because its IT knowledge, but because his IT Vision. His name, ..Steve Jobs, the guy that will always be related to a fruit, ..to an apple, but who revolutionize the IT world!!.

Many people may disagree if Androis is better than IOS, that Lion is better than windows 7, etc., etc., but nobody, and repeat, nobody can disagree about the idea that Steve Jobs was the inventor of windows before microsoft windows came to life, the mouse inventor, the actual way to interact with mobile phones, the tablet PC genius, ...and of course the best commercial person in the whole world!!. ....and in case that somebody my have missed it he is the genius behind the best 3D movies ever because he started Pixar studios when he bought the computer division of Lucasfilm.

I will never forget when i studied one year at University of Miami and could compare a 1984 mac agains a 1984 PC. It is like take a great highway (mac) instead of local road(PC)...

Why PC and wintel got to beat Mac??, ..yeah ,that happened, believe me. The reason is very, very simple: Compatibility and third party developments. Meanwhile all the software for MAC was very, very controlled by apple, ..windows "open platform" that could be installed in many PCs contribute many companies to make a lot of money and so for to make this OS very popular (money will unfortunately rule this world...:( ).

But Steve Jobs came back with the iPod!!!, a revolutionary way of listening to music, and the iTunes store!! (hmmm... the idea of stores where many developers, groups and companies could sell their product has been the success of Apple, among their patents and Jobs great ideas!!).

But nobody is immortal and forever young, ...a great song from alphaville, so today steve has announced that he will leave CEO position, he will passed the baton, to Tim Cook!!, Apple's former COO.

Will Tim o a great job at apple??. He is a pattionate person, an stoppable worker, who starts sending emails at alms 04:15 every morning and who has sunday night-s conference calls with his team to prepare the week.

He is a money saver, he is a healthy person with a strong spirit, a hard and strict boss..no doubt about that as well as Steve was. But he is missing one thing, one little thing. The dream spirit of jobs!!.

What will happen to Apple, ..a new ERA??. Still Steve will be as Chairman of Apple executive board so he will be taking care go the fruit..., ..but for how long???

I wish some people could be forever young..., and i include myself

News: Touchpad became a best seller, from cinderella to miss world

2011-08-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

This would be the Touchpad Story who turned the HP to become as a bestseller as the apple gadget.....

The dream of the rich HP was to compete in the tablet world, and as HP felt that her new product should come to life to continue being number 1 hardware seller, she called her only tablet to her bedside and said, "Dear pad, be good and pious, and then the good God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you."

Thereupon she blessed the pad and send it to every retail store. Every day the maiden went out to stand on the desk, and wept, and she remained pious and good. When mid summer came the Touchpad remained in the same place...

The TouchPad was not alone in the Desk, She had two sisters, ipad2 and galaxy tab 10.1, who were beautiful and fair of face, and expensive as the tochpad. Now began a bad time for the poor step-child. "Is the stupid goose to sit in the parlor with us," they said. "He who wants to eat bread must earn it. Out with the kitchen-wench." Customers passed by and although notice that touchpad were there, ...they size and the materials were not as nice as the sisters..

"Just look at the proud princess, how decked out she is," they cried, and laughed, and led her into the dark side of the desk. There she had to do hard work from morning till night, get up before daybreak to warmup, light the colors up, surf and run the marvelous webOS. Besides this, the sisters did her every imaginable injury . In the evening when she had worked till she was weary she had no where to go to, but had to sleep on the top of the shelf as the warehouse was packed of unsell touchpads. And as on that shelf she always looked dusty and dirty, they called her Cinderella.

It happened that the store owner was once going to the fair, and checked how the touchpad could be sold, ..at least one of them...

"Beautiful user experience and speed," is what he thought about the Ipad2, "open software, thin body, and precious future" saw on the Galaxy

"And you, Cinderella," what will i do with you???

"What about a disc out of the 100 bucks??"

So he still thought about the beauty of the iPad and the body and camera of the Galaxy, ..and for you Touchpad, ..now you are cheaper!!. Cinderella thanked him, went to her HP and settled the discount idea, and wept so much that the tears that fell down on made HP to reduce the price in all the touchpad, in all the retail stores.

It happened that the HP king gave orders for a festival which was to last three days (a weekend), and to which all the beautiful thick touch pads in the country were invited, in order that the customer could have a cheaper device (400 for 16gb and 500 for 32gb). When the two tablet-sisters heard that they too were to appear among cheepers tablets, they were worried but also delighted about the competition, called Cinderella and said, "better include more software in the webOS store, brush ur screen and be watching our better sped, for we are going to become the best sellers even in the king's palace."

Cinderella obeyed, but wept, because she too will go with them to the dance...

"You go, Cinderella, covered in dust and dirt as you are, and would go to the festival. You have no Skype or shazam, and yet would dance." As, however, Cinderella went on asking, the HP said at last, "I have ready the webOs store and the 3.0.2 SDK, ..if developers build more than 400000 as for iPad or 250000 as for android, ...then you may become the queen of the festival"

...poor cinderella, not a good multitasking OS and the new price could make her compete with her hots tablet sisters....

...HP couldn't compete with Apple and Samsung??, ..it was time for quitting??. ...Yes, that was the decision but not with a final surprise!!. The price was not reduce by 100 this time, ...but that was 100. No more dust, no more working to continuously show that the bulky plastic dress and the thicker figure could look sexy!!. Cinderella became cheap??, ..YES, but also became HOT???.

5 times less the price of the sisters. You could always install android in the TouchPad (you can do it in a nook (a cousin of the tablets), why not in touchpad??....., actually webOS is cool, nice user experience as the IOS!!. OK OK, not all the applications available for it, ...but why do you need 400000 apps???. Do you have space and time for all of them???

Yes Cinderella turned into the Pricenss, the supermodel go the Festival!!!. And "Colorin, Colorado, this story has ended!!"

TIPS: Buy an IMAC this week!!

2011-05-03T20:18:00.000-07:00

As said last week here we have the new Imacs!!. No changes on the outside, I repeat that Steve Jobs loves the actual design, although it is also true that the apple's guys are coming with a new design which will appear along the year, ..stay tuned after summer and closed to the end of the year. For Summer we have the Mac OS X Lion, and very, very soon iphone V (I know that MR Jobs says that there is no competition in Pads and mobile phones for Apple, ...but I just changed my samsung galaxy to a Galaxy II and believe me that i am just flipping out!!, ..better mobile phone at this moment, period, ..so Iphone V must appear in the ring right now and not another Iphone in a new colour, period again).

A lot of changes in the inside. 3x faster graphics, up to 1.7x faster processors, the sandy intel bridge and of course, the thunderbolt port (remember that is 12 times faster than with FireWire 800!!) (1 for the smallest in the family and 2 for the 27 inch one). ....

Your apps are smoother than ever and playing to call of duty and funny portal in the 27 inch screen it is just a must!!.

Also facetime with your collegues in the new HD Camara.

To check more about the new IMAC, as usual, check the apple site

Bright Ideas: Terminator??, Predator??, ..and without kinect

2011-04-27T18:26:00.001-07:00

Let me share how good programming and clever ideas can achieve something as cool as this development, ....and without kinect technology!! :)

That recalls me about a project at University of digital imaging to seek for speed limits in the highways!!.

TIPS: Do not buy an IMAC this week

2011-04-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

..Yes just don't buy an IMAC this week!!, and I don't say it just because I don't like Imacs, or Apples, or Steve Jobs, or because Sony Vaios is paying me for this, or because I work for Adobe, ...I just ask you to wait for next week's Wednesday/Thursday when the new Imac is appearing on the Apple Store closest to you.

What the new Imac brings??. For sure the Thunderbold Ports, the new Intel Sandy Bridge processors, better Graphics, ..and I have heard a thinner screen which I personally do not belive because Steve Jobs just loves the IMAC design and is very proud about it, as well as Macbook Air and Ipad 2.

What if you buy an IMAC online these days??. Well, we all know how good Apple take care of their clients so most surely they will return to you with a new Imac, ..actually Apple just keep stocked previous version gadgets for replacements and just put in the market the new versions.

One week goes fast...

Mobile Programming FrameWorks: Rhodes

2011-04-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

Since my last posts are populated with references about mobile programming APPs, what the future brings and how the paradigm Browser Apps Vs OS Apps is changing a lot, I have been asked what Mobile programming frameworks are out there. There are already more some, as you can imagine, but still the market is wide opened for new releases and new opportunities for Frameworks.

The most intuitive and as the same time powerfull, although is more oriented to "Web Based Apps" is Rhodes, also called Rhomobile. ..and please let me be specific, I said "more oriented to Web Based Apps" which doesn't mean you can build any kind of App because supports geolocation (GPS), PIM contacts and camera, and more

It is based in the approach "Build once, deliver in different Systems" and using techniques as HTML5 and Javascript, ...lenguages and markup languague that almost anybody knows. What is underneath Rhodes?? ..Ruby, Ruby and even more Ruby!!. Of course you can also use Ruby in your programming.

They claim that the develoment of a new APP takes 1/5 of building it nativily with another programming languages and as an example they talk about Wikipedia c-based Iphone App, ...when they found out about Rhodes, they re-wrote it using Rhodes framework minimizing the lines of code to 1/5 of the original C-based Development.

As usual a video worths more than thousand words:

And also take a quick peek at these tutorials.

Time to continue hard work!!

HTML5: Maqetta, Visual authoring of HTML5

2011-04-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

Dojo and IBM, IBM and Dojo, ...I have mentioned many times the "love" that IBM feels about Dojo (will Dojo be bought by IBM??, IBM and Dojo working together, etc) and now IBM comes with Maquetta!!. It has been shown during Impact 2011 IBM Conference and I must admit is a great tool for bussiness software development environment, ..and moreover if you integrate it with powerfull Portal Server by IBM.

But, hey, what does all has to do with DOJO?. Hmmmm, maybe that is the new project from Dojo Foundation!! :). Remember that IBM is part of DF as well as SUN, Google, Tibco, Orange..., ..although the real two lovers for Dojo are IBM and Google (google is everywhere, ..everywhere).

And now, What is Maqetta??. Ok, let me use the definition from Dojo Foundation "Maqetta is an open source project that provides WYSIWYG visual authoring of HTML5 user interfaces. The Maqetta application itself is authored in HTML, and therefore runs in the browser without requiring additional plugins or downloads". I have tried a bit last two days and it makes just life easier, ..always that you think in a "components within apps" way. Maybe for a little portal is not that usefull but it is the best solution for a big company!!.

Which are Maquetta features??:

A WYSIWYG visual page editor for drawing out user interfaces
Drag/drop mobile UI authoring within an exact-dimension device silhouette, such as the silhouette of an iPhone
Simultaneous editing in either design or source views
Deep support for CSS styling (the application includes a full CSS parser/modeler)
A mechanism for organizing a UI prototype into a series of "application states" (aka "screens" or "panels") which allows a UI designer to define interactivity without programming
A web-based review and commenting feature where the author can submit a live UI mockup for review by his team members
A "wireframing" feature that allows UI designers to create UI proposals that have a hand-drawn look
A theme editor for customizing the visual styling of a collection of widgets
export options that allow for smooth hand-off of the UI mockups into leading developer tools such as Eclipse.
Maqetta's code base has a toolkit-independent architecture that allows for plugging in arbitrary widget libraries and CSS themes.

Maqetta works on any HTML5 compatible browser and so it works also in mobile devicesm, you know.. iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry.

I have to admit that I am pretty excited with Maqetta going finally life, although is still in Preview Version, because we now have an OpenSource solution fighter in the war between Microsoft Silverlight and Macromedia Flash/Flex.

Sooooo Jquery...., run, Forrest, run!!.

This weekend has been awesome for myself but unfortunalty not for everybody, ..such is the case of Norio Ohga who has passed aways this past saturday at the age of 81. He has been king of Sony Reign since 1994 and thanks to him Sony changed from an analog electronic company to what it is right now, a Multimedia Holding. If tha playstation exists is because him.

Mobile: Build your Own Android App

2011-04-20T20:15:00.000-07:00

I still remember those years when a single person could manage to be a site webmaster or the application developer, ...those marvellous times i must say. Now the software management involves a big team to build a robust application, ..the engineer, the designer, the architect, the ...., ...OMG, it seems we are in the middle of a building construction!!.

Hopefully Mobile devices has made possible again that dream, the dream of programmers building quick and fun applications that are used by tons of final users or customers!!. At the same time, thanks to how the apps and the developing techniques has standarized, Non Experts Programmers build Apps!! ....something very similar to easy visual basic applications in Windows but much more powerfull. What the heck am i Talking about??. The crazy guys from google came up with a great fun idea called the APP Inventor!!.

What can you do with that tool?. Many, many,interesting stuff. For example programm in a visual way examples like these:

Placing shortcuts in your mobile phone to call any of your friends. Ff course with the picture of ur pal.
Click on a locator icon in your desktop which will prompt you to type a name from your current location and will remember it for you. Then just use google map to check your favourites locations.
Everytime you receive a text message, depending on the title or the sender, you can send a message back preformatted.
Check the time or weather in your x favorites cities in the world.

and all this without almost no coding at all. How??. check the video:

And this little tutorial:

Hey, of course if you want to do a neat, elegant and more sophisticated application for Android, then you must get your hands on the android's SDK

What's next??. Will be able to program not even using our hand, just with our brain, thoughts or vision??, ..getting there, getting there: IPMS show world first OLED microdisplay based Eyetracking HMD at SID-2011

Have a nice thursday!!.

Mobile: The Forum Solution

2011-04-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

Is sometime going to start the good weather in Boston again??. That is the main question of today but the second question is:

If Sepelka, that is me, said yesterday that web browsers are going to be overtaken by Apps, what about all the interesting Disussion Forums that are on the web??. People will remain using web browsers to access to them, ..or not??

Hmmm, sure!!. First of all web browsers are there and will be there forever because is the way to access to tons of informations, sites, etc. But It is also sure that if a Forum is as standard "Concept" as a Blog, ..why not use an APP to read Posts from different topics in different Forums??. An App is fast, help you minimize the data downloaded and most of all is FUN!!.

One of the best solution in the market is Tapatalk.

It is a mobile solution for online comminities and specially design for discussion forums and its success is based on 2 main reasons.

OS Compatibility. It works for:

Android
Iphone
WebOS
Windows Phone 7
BlackBerry

Forum Systems which are supported:

phpBB 3.0.x+
vBulletin 3.6.x+
xenForo 1.0.x+
Invision Power Board 3.x+
Simple Machine Forum 1.1.11+

Even you can create you own development to integrate your forum tech with Tapatalk thanks to the API, ..or to build your own Tapatalk if you wish!!.

So the possibilities offered by Tapatalk are really huge and very intuitive to use. For example to add forums to you mobile favourite gadget just use the browser which comes with Tapatalk and select any of the 10000+ forums. Save them to favourite and you will access to them as fast as with one click.

Want to check the latest posts??. No problem, no matter from which forums they may come from your list of favourites, they are all.

Want to know which post has you read already??. The same as any web discussion forum, you will know if you just went over it or not.

...and remember "you just get the posts to your APP!!!", so forget about downloading commercial banners of heavy data from the source disccusion Forum site :)

....A song reminding that Today is the beginning of the new weather, ...or at least that is my wish!!

JS FrameWorks: Jquery for Mobile

2011-04-18T21:40:00.001-07:00

Hey guys. I cannot say I am back and actually i am busier than ever, even giving a try to my younger dream, ..play the electric guitar and here i write by my Fender Stratocaster, such a good guitar for an apprentice as me, ..but faith is the last thing to lose :)

We all know that the PC platform, as we use to know it, has a short life in future and all these "new" devices as Pads, Smartphones, Smart TVS, and in general any gadget with the "Smart" word on it are changing the way we live, ..more than we can or could ever think they would. Of course the javascript frameworks are aware of this.

A good example of course is Jquery, which is about to release the official version 3 in some weeks. It works in any of these Browsers/OS:

Apple iOS (3.1-4.2): tested on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
Android (1.6-2.3): all devices, tested on the HTC Incredible, Motorola Droid, Google G1 and Nook Color
Blackberry 6: tested on Torch and Style
Palm WebOS (1.4): tested on Pre, Pixi
Opera Mobile (10.1): Android
Opera Mini (5.02): iOS, Android
Firefox Mobile (beta): Android

...by the way Opera mini has my thumb up as browser for slow connections!!.

What are the features of JQuery for Mobile??. Well as the state in their webpage:

Built on jQuery core for familiar and consistent jQuery syntax and minimal learning curve
Compatible with all major mobile platforms - iOS, Android, Blackberry, Palm WebOS, Nokia/Symbian, Windows Mobile, bada, MeeGo with baseline support for all devices that understand HTML
Lightweight size (12k compressed for all mobile functionality) and minimal image dependencies for speed.
HTML5 Markup-driven configuration of pages and behavior for fast development and minimal required scripting.
Progressive enhancement approach brings core content and functionality to all mobile, tablet and desktop platforms and a rich, installed application-like experience on newer mobile platforms.
Automatic initialization by using HTML5 data-role attributes in the HTML markup to act as the trigger to automatically initialize all jQuery Mobile widgets found on a page.
Accessibility features such as WAI-ARIA are also included to ensure that the pages work for screen readers (e.g. VoiceOver in iOS) and other assistive technologies.
New events streamline the process of supporting touch, mouse, and cursor focus-based user input methods with a simple API.
New plugins enhance native controls with touch-optimized, themable controls.
Powerful theming framework and ThemeRoller application make highly-branded experiences easy to build.

...Which are the competitors??. well my friends the rules changes, and jquery needs to adapt.

I just make a question, that may sound really strange coming from a web browsers lover but it is time to face the truth. Who needs a browser when you can dowload apps that run on any android or IOS system??. Do you connect to google maps in the browser on ur mobile or you just use the Google Maps APP?, what about Facebook?....hmmm. If you really give a think to this, you will understand why Samsung, Sony, Amazon, Blackberry etc, etc are trying to give a bite to the APP store from Apple and Maket for Android.

Somethings hasn't changed though as recommending you a song before I leave: Creep

HTML: Kaltura, Video Player Skins for HTML5

2010-11-09T14:49:00.000-08:00

...After posting the last articles about the easiness of include a video on your site with the new <video> tag i was asked: "hey, but the look&feel is so elemental!!, it is not like the player in youtube or someother I have seen before. This tag is really cr...!!". Well, yeah, youtube video player "kick ass", but how much has it cost??. I am not going to say an amount but more than your first thought.

You must think at the video tag to the place where the movie is being playing!!, ..the rest can be achive with different layers, with javascripts frameworks, with style CSS.

Let's have Kaltura's HTML5 Media Library as an Example. The guys for Kaltura has done a video player that is going to work in any browser and also in the IPAD, so whether you're using flash, h264, ogg-theora, or WebM -- Kaltura's library will make sure it is played on all browsers with the same UI.

Here is the example of the different "skins" that you can do thanks to style CSS changes.

You can get your hands on it

Back to Future, Video with html5

2010-06-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

For those who thought i was leaving my blog away i need to say one thing: I am back in town!!. Many changes around, tons of work, as well as tons of fun. Well, there are things that do not change as for example answering questions of my followers and friends. Last one I heard was about how to implement videos with HTML5.

Well, first of all bare in mind that your videos should be converted to H.264 or OGG Theora. Which one of these codecs may you choose from?. In my opinion to both because Safari won’t support Ogg Theora and Firefox won’t support H.264, ..and you want your videos to be played in any PC as well as MAC or famous Ipad, don't you?. Here you have a few converters which might help you with that task:

Ok, now that you have your file converter you are ready to play it as simple as using the new video tag in HTML5

Attribute	Value	Description
autoplay	autoplay	If present, then the video will start playing as soon as it is ready
controls	controls	If present, controls will be displayed, such as a play button.
height	pixels	Sets the height of the video player
loop	loop	If present, the media file will start over again, every time it is finished.
preload	preload	If present, the video will be loaded at page load, and ready to run. Ignored if "autoplay" is present.
src	url	The URL of the video to play
width	pixels	Sets the width of the video player

..As simple as adding this:

<video src="http://archiv.avc-cvut.cz/AVC/mirrors/orange/ogg_theora/Elephants_Dream_HD-q7-aq7.ogg"controls="controls" width="500" height="300">
your browser does not support the video tag
</video>

your browser does not support the video tag

HTML 5 VS Flash, ...a fair combat??

2010-05-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

Sometime ago i wrote an article about canvas vs flash although why just comparing one of the best welcoming elements from HTML 5 with Flash, why not the whole HTML 5???. ...well, we must admit canvas is the best "visual" or "cool" stuff in HTML5 and flash is cool and visual but HTML5 has many more interesting things!!!, ...which doesn't mean that is going to beat Flash.

In my last post i talked about the fabolous IPAD and yes we all know that it doesn't support Flash. Why??, ..well many reasons that you may check into Steve Jobs words about it. Interesting phrases within those words:

HTML 5 is open, while Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. I think Steve has forgotten Apple's pastime, ..is MAC an open platform?, ..and how was Apple in the past??, ..can I install software that do not come from Apple Store into Ipad?? ..hmmmm, He is Totally right about that phrase but in my opinion not the best person to complain about that and actually he trys to explain his phrase in next paragrahs ;)

Reliability, security and performance. Again i must admit it, he is somehow true, ..but to give some positive points to Adobe I admit that many times my borwser has got stuck by AJAX and javascript apps (more coding possibilities means more errors from bad coders!!). Performance of Flash is better than HTML5 still and about videos, HTML5 video is so many years behind what flash can do today and that is a fact, ....but HTML5 will win for sure, it is just a question of time because many opensource coders are working on that!!.

Battery life. Again he is right!!, ..woow, no wonder he has had success in life. But again Adobe is working hard on and flash 10.1 comes with hardware acceleration!!, although still not working in Linux although getting into MAC OS X ;). How is this hardware acceleration working??. I encourage you to read this.

How many flash applications are Touchable??. IPAD use touch HTML5 capabilities...., ..and seems to work very good, doesn't it??

Why Apple doesn't like flash??. when they were in love many, many years ago???

...i have the answer but I will leave it for a close future ;)

Again my thought is the same, Flash is sexier than HTML5, ...but let's wait one or two years..., this remains me the battle between Windows and Linux.

APPLE: Ringing the bell!!, the Ipad is here

2010-04-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

Last saturday I woke up, with a little hangover to be sincere, but just a little one, and decided that it could be a good idea to go and check the new Gadget from Apple, ..the big brother of the Itouch and in middle way to a Mac, and soon with 3G connection as an Iphone, ...hmmmm, what a mix!!. Weather was perfectly sunny in Boston and comfortable for a t-shirt, a perfect day for Ipad.

Apple Store by that time, around 13:20, was not so crowded as I thought, most surely people were fighting to get their dreamed gadget earlier, like at 09:00??, ..yeap that sould be.

I entered the store and of course it took me a time to take my hands on one of them, waited behind an old couple because if i get to be behind a techy maybe at night the ipad could have been freed for me!!. First thing to do, turn it horizontally and vertically, the screen centered to fit the whole space with a cool flipping effect. Hmmm, I remembered one game about a car, soo let's test its motion sensor...

The motion was captured brushing perfection, a pity the game was not very fun and playable, although many cool things may soon appear for a good use of that feature. Let's put our hands, or much better, our fingers on the screen...wooooow, the quick response is really amazing!!, I was expecting the same sensation as iphone and itouch but I was overwhelmed by that speed. Getting to the Picture gallery and suring among the Photos was just incredible, ..not only by some of the pics of a pretty young girl in there, :), but because it is pretty fun, easy, well organized, with differents presentation effects and of course zoom in and out as easy as using the two fingers...

Hmmm, time to surf, ..which page should I visit?? hmmmm

It has a perfect size to surf the web, the perfect screen to read the news, as having a newspaper in your hand (actually some newspaper are difficult to read, being huge and the pages get separated easily!!!), ..my thoguht in that moment was...Bye, bye "paper" newspapers and welcome online suscriptions!!. In just a year most people will be reading and watching the news in the subway, in starbucks, on a bench in the park... and yes on the toilet!! with either ipad and microsoft courier. Steve Jobs made the miracle again??

Ok, time to go to the library, ...hmmmm, which book to choose??, Yes, again, the perfect device to read books and, hey, hold on!! let me select some music to here meanwhile reading, just in the same device!!. If you don't make up any night, do not worry, you will take the ipad to bed with you :). Of course use the finger on the screen to turn the page.

Watching movies in the ipad, ..well maybe is a good idea for keeping kids quiet while having a long drive, or to watch short videos but for sure better to watch anything in a 50" screen, so if your main porpouse of the device is to use it as a TV or monitor, just forget about this.

Perfect with the music, i can imagine setting the ipad on a big speakers and having as the perfect jukebox, even with videoclips...

About working with ipad, ..still needs sometime for being the solution and for sure buy a keyborad to achieve that task, but again a bigger monitor will be your answer.

In conclusion, ....usefull, very usefull, sexy and fun!!. I will wait for 3G though to be always connected wherever i am so i can download books, music, surfing the net, getting rss news, etc., etc. As I said before, ..brushing perfection.

CANVAS: Canvas vs Flash

2010-03-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

As you all know canvas is a new HTML element which can be used to draw graphics using scripting (usually JavaScript) and not only draw graphs but also make photo compositions or do animations. An example of these animations can be this fun demo that normal mapping and phong shading in JavaScript using Canvas and where your mouse cursor becomes the torch or light source that dynamically lights up a 3D object!!. Also new 3D Javascript have appeared as for example Copperlicht.

Canvas is getting more and more popular and more than one voice are saying "Is Canvas going to replace Flash??". My answer is no, Flash is much more than Canvas and flex is getting as a great framework!!. But at any case here are a comparison between Canvas VS Flash. Canvas/JavaScript is better than Flash

The most obvious is the deliverable size: Smaller code base and the compiled SWF file clocks in at 111k compared to the minified Canvas version at just 25k!
Flash do not work good in all platforms, for example Linux.
No need to Compile.
Inspectable/debuggable via browser.
Better cursor handling and the is no need to focus to receive keyboard events.

Where Canvas/JavaScript is worse than Flash:

Have to handle clipping and redraw manually (SVG does better here too)
Font support is not embedded.
Access to DB is better managed by Flash.
No built-in multiline text wrap.
No HTML fragment rendering.

And what about Apple??, ..if the Ipad is not supporting flash, ..would that be a better chance for Canvas to gain more territory to Flash/Flex??. Let's wait a year and we will see!!. Flash is sexier than Canvas, ..but as soon as summer gets here and freckles appear in Canvas Face then i will stay with Canvas, ..I just love Freckles!!.

JS Frameworks: Javascript Frameworks speed Comparison

2010-03-16T17:41:00.000-07:00

It is being said a lot in the web about which is the fastest JS framework and although JQuery have been working a lot in this issue in latest versions, without no doubt Dojo is still the fastest JS Framework and Mootools and Jquery continue running for second place!!. Take a look at this comparisons:

Freakzion

Dojo
Jquery or Mootools??
Prototype

SlickSpeed

Dojo
Jquery
Mootools
Prototype
Yui

TaskSpeed

Qooxdo
Dojo
Mootools
YUI
Jquery
Prototype

Qooxdoo appears the faster in one comparison although unfortunatly when getting into more complex operations it gets sloooooower

Of course at any case this may not your best concern, at least not the only issue, to choose a Javascript Framework!!. One very important factor to me is how sexy and attractive the API is as well as the flexibility to build everything with the behaviour i expect to!!. Other factors as

A great community supporting the solution who will help evolving it as well as providing quick troubleshooting and many best practices.
Documentation. Not only a good API Documentation but alsoWikis, Blogs, Forums.
Great Developers!! behind the JS library Core!!.
A mature solutions, ....no fixes every single moment!!.
Extensions, Components, Widgets, plugins ...call it as you desire but we all know how aswesome is to get a list of apps to integrate directly into our project easily!!

JQUERY: New version 1.4.2, ..speeding UP!!

2010-03-13T06:06:00.000-08:00

A new version is here!!, download it at Jquery homepage or as usual you can upgrade your projects just linking at google code with google.load("jquery", "1.4.2");.

Among the updates included in this new version I must mention the new methods .delegate() and .undelegate() which complements the already existing .live() and .die(). At any case if you want to know all the new stuff related to the API just sneak out at Query API Reference.

What I really like about this new version, ....speeeeeeeed!!. This results will comeup soon at TaskSpeed. It is 3 times faster than Jquery more used version (v1.3.2).

These are the elements that most significant changes in speed have be aplied to, that is the elements which have been more optimized in this new version:

.bind() and .unbind() functions
.empty(), .remove() and .html() Proccess
Inserting of a simple node in the document.
$("body") call.

SEO: Improve your Speed with WebPageTest

2010-03-09T15:16:00.001-08:00

...2 days ago I posted about the factor to better your SEO strategy, Page Load Speed, and how google is going to add it to its pagerank algorithm, ...so let's get our website fast!!. WebPageTest can help you in this task with tips as:

Cached Elements. Turn your dynamic pages into static pages thanks to cache!!.
The use of a CDN (Cache Delivery Network). ...A system of computers containing copies of data, placed at various points in a network so as to maximize bandwidth for access to the data from clients throughout the network.
Use CSS and JS. Unify your styles and functions in external files, ..and do not forget to minimize your js files.
Compress your images and text.
etc., etc....

The test will be conducted from the location specified and you will be provided a waterfall of your page load performance as well as a comparison against an optimization checklist.

How to use it??, ..as I always say an Image is worth better than 1000 words, in this case a video by David Artz.

SEO: You better boost your website load time!!..

2010-03-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been asked if search engines take into consideration the speed load of a page, and that remained me about something I read some months ago.

Google is going to add a new factor into its famous algorithm, this new ranking factor has to do with how fast a site or page loads!!. You may think "Ohhhh, shxt, my website is on a slow service provider!!". Well, time for a change, either to look for a faster provider or for your provider to improve its infraestructure and communications.

Is speed that relevant for a search criteria relevance??. Google’s co-founders want searching to be real fast, an they say "as if you are flipping through a magazine", and that is why they want to include load speed into the Algorithm. Actually Google is thinking in more important issues:

Adworks will index page faster if the load speed is better, which will turn into more pages indexed...
Who is building a superfast broad-band access??....

But who better than Google's SEO expert Matt to explain us about this new Factor??

At any case, in my opinion, this is a great news for internet consumers and surfers, because many providers will speed up its communications!!, ..run forrest run!!!

NEWS: Picnik Adquired by Google

2010-03-02T15:11:00.000-08:00

Everytime we have used picasa at our desktop, we have had the ability to manipulate, edit your pics, crop them, resize them..., but why do we need to download picassa at our PC when google likes to have everything on the cloud???, even within its new operating system...

That is probably why Google has adquired Picnik!!, ...hmmm, I bet my house on that :)

Google has announced that no changes will be aplied in short term to picnik, but most surely we will see a new picassaweb called just picasa and picnik totally integrated with it!!. Actually Picnik is more powerfull that picasa in image, pics manipulation.

Picnik is the third company bought by google this year, after Aardvark and reMail...., It is obvious there crisis period is over, although i may ask ..has Google ever be in a crisis??, ...even when Microsoft is kicking up and hard with bing streetview, ot "touchable" windows 7??.

SOCIAL NETWORKING: Opensocial by Google

2010-03-01T14:28:00.000-08:00

Do you like to use apps at facebook??, have you ever though about programming a widget or app similar to those??, ..what about if you could program a widget which can be used not only in facebook but also in Linkedin, Friendster, XING, Sonico??, do you realize the commercial power behind these widgets? ....hmmmm, if all your answers are a "YES" then that means you want to use OpenSocial.

What is Opensocial??. Well google uses some sentences to define it:

"OpenSocial enables apps, containers, and other clients to collaborate and move the social web forward."
"OpenSocial helps these sites share their social data with the web. Applications that use the OpenSocial APIs can be embedded within a social network itself, or access a site's social data from anywhere on the web."

But translated to our "freak" language, I could say that Opensocial is a API, or set of APIs, to build social applications across multiple Social Networks, or other Websites, which can be shared and interact with existing online communities and with the ability to access a social network’s friends and update feeds.

For example, imagine that you have a surf clothing store and build a social widget which will send the coolest surf pictures uploaded for any subscribed user to the rest of subscribers, obviously with the logo of your enterprise on all the pics, and send a "wanna join" message to subscriber's friends in Facebook. Do you get an image of the commercial possibilities of this widget???.

Now imagine subscriber's friends at:

Hi5
MySpace
Linkedin
XING
Orkut
QuePasa
FanBox
.........
.........

And much more Containers, which is the name used by google to define any social network or webiste. And yes, the code is the same!!!, just change the container ;).

Web Marketing no longer is limited to your corporate site, Internet is no longer static, is no longer just html, or just emails, ...internet is dinamic, updated with million of messages every second, and your bussiness may be in those messages, you bussiness should go "social"!!, and Opensocial will be a must to build this kind of widgets.

Opensocial is now in version v0.9, so as you can imagine is in early stages, but a nice API is already ready to be used. Actually check out the "world of apps" which already use openSocial. Will your app join this world soon????

TOOLS: Colorzilla

2010-02-19T13:54:00.000-08:00

It is totally clear that this tool will help developers with something realted with colours..., for sure!!. Do you need to choose a color from a palette??, do you need to copy a color from any other place in any homepage??, do you need a Color Picker similar to ones that can be found in Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro???. All this and more can be found within this handy tool.

It also allows to zoom into a homepage by 1000%!!. Strange tool but not if you want some colours in a picture!!, ..isn't it??. :)

It even analyzes all the colour in the DOM of the homepage!!. what else??

History and Favorites palettes
Page Pan option allows to quickly pan the page without using the scroll bars
Displays element information like tag name, class, id, size, relative mouse position etc.
Outline elements under the cursor
Multi-platform - works on MS Windows, Linux and MacOSX.
Manipulate colors by their Red/Green/Blue or Hue/Saturations/Value components.
....................
....................

And much, much more!!!

CANVAS: CopperLicht , the 3D javascript engine

2010-02-11T18:50:00.000-08:00

HTML5 came to stay with us bringing little things as sections, articles, footer, header, dialog..., but big fantastic things as the Canvas which is used to to render graphics on the fly, such graphs, games....

Many, many projects are already using the canvas element as Raphael but the future will bring many online games which by now can only be run over flash technology.

One of the first 3D engines to appear is CopperLicht!!. If you like to work with 3D Studio, LightWave, 3D Builder, etc., you will be able to "post" your designs to the web an be accessed online because CopperLicht supports many 3D formats as 3ds, .obj, .x, .lwo, .b3d, .csm, .dae, .dmf, .oct, .irrmesh, .ms3d, .my3D, .mesh, .lmts, .bsp, .md2, .stl. and more!!.

Just before the idea of slow performance going though your mind, CopperLicht will turn all your 3D designs to small binaries file that will turn down the amount of time needed to download them!!, ..compressing them could be also a good idea ;)

Wanting to know how ot use it, Ambiera is already providing a whole bunch of tutorials after free subscribing!!.

And the jewel of the queen is the 3D Map editor, CopperCube, ..just amazing!!!.

The 3D features which brings:

Lots of precreated materials and shaders.
Fast, precalculated lightmap support.
Billboards.
Skyboxes.
Extensible 3D rendering based on a hierarchical scene graph.
Transparent objects: Automatic correct item ordering when rendering transparent 3d objects.
Paths and Splines.
Animation and Action system.
Texture animation.
Optimized, reusable 3d math classes (vectors, matrices, plance etc), all with collision test functionality.
Automatic redraw reducing (optional): Instead of redrawing the whole 3d scene every frame which can be slow on old computers, CopperLicht is able only to redraw when it is absolutely necessary, for example when the 3d scene changed or the camera moved. This is very useful to reduce CPU load.
Picking and simple click detection: Simply add a JavaScript callback function to any scene node which gets called when your scene node is being clicked. (See AnimatorOnClick for details)
(IiP:) Skeletal character animation
(IiP:) Particle systems
(IiP: ) Fog
(IiP:) Parallax Mapping

Go on, and get your hands on CopperLicht, and if not convince yet, just check the demos, ..and remember what is needed to run WebGL!!

And yes....it's freeeeeeeeeeeeeee

TOOLS: Browsercam, test you developments at any browser and OS

2010-02-04T17:08:00.000-08:00

Everytime the compatibility of code between browsers is getting bigger and so less problems, ...javascript frameworks help keeping compatibility working and that is just incredibily helpfull, but also some new operating System and devices has come to our live in the last years, ...android, symbian, iphone, htc, nokia...and our sites need in most case need to work in most of them. Having install opera, chrome, firefox, Safari, Explorer in your computer can be achieved with no hasstle, ..but what about installing diferent versions of those borwsers and different OS combinations??? hmmmm, not an easty taks.

What is the solution to our problem??. The Browser Compatibility Testing Tools, and here we have one. Browsercam.

BrowserCam is a paid service that lets you test multiple URLs in a huge number of browsers, which of course you would be able to test before paying a cent. It provides all these possibilities:

Internet Explorer
Mozill
Firefox
Safari
Konqueror
Opera
Netscape
AOL
Camino
Chrome

and OS Systems as:

Linux
Mac OS
Windows 98, vista, 7......

Not bad, ehhhh?, ..and also different browser versions, ..for example with explorer you can test for 4 , 5 , 5.2 , 5.5 , 6 , 6.02, 7 , 8!! .

And waht about devices??. no problem, blackberry (cruve, storm, pearl, 7100g...), Iphone, Android, windows mobile...

How does it work??, easy!!, enter your URL(s), browsers, operating systems, screen resolutions, and other capture details in our Screen Capture Wizard and BrowserCam creates screen captures!!. Check it out!!

TOOLS: Adminer, The Alternative to PHPMyAdmin

2010-02-03T20:19:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it appears a tool which covers the main coding and working neccesities for us, for example apps to manipulate DBs Servers. I still remember the first time I used Toad to manipulate Oracle/DB2 data and tables , and of course my frequent visits to MySQL with PHPMyAdmin. This tools are so used that no competitors seem to appear!!, ...but the guys who started with PHPMinAdmin have continued their nice work ending up with an easy-to-use app called Adminer.

What does Adminer offers??. Well, to be sincere not many different functionality from which PHPMyAdmin offers, ..actually PHPMyAdmin is more complete and comes with better User Experience, from my point of view besides of being translated to mny more languages (57 translated into in PHPMyAdmin against 11 in Adminer). But as a good point, ...can you imagine bringing and only file to your PC and have a whole DB client??, well, stop imagining, its name is adminer!!.

Ant not an only file is the best of Adminer, but also the size of the solution, almost half of PHPMyAdmin. This minification code is based on a work of David Grudl who uses it for his brilliant libraries Texy, dibi and Nette, and get adminer more than 15 times smaller than PHPMyAdmin.

It works perfectly wit MySQL 4.1, MySQL 5.0 y 5.1. PHP 4.3 and higher compatible as with PHP 5. TRy Adminer, ...it is really faaaaast and light!!!.

TOOLS: Tuning your website!!

2010-02-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

Is your web app slow??. ..and you want a web app which roncks with great performance and fasteness!!. The answer has 2 names, Amy and Thomas. They have writing a serie of there books which will work most surely to make your web faster than ever.

Those 3 books are:

Part 1. Understanding & Measuring performance.
Part 2. Loadtime.
Part 3. Runtime.

The total pages are about 270 pages, but believe me than this could be a little "javascript bible" or "javascript Quixote" and betters other books with triple the pages!!.

Unfortunatly all this is not free, but paying just a reasonable price of $39 USD, misses just a nice dinner one day for having a nice knowledge for whole year long....

Where can you get them??, ...click here!!

TOOLS: Xampp, The Server package

2010-02-01T15:53:00.000-08:00

I presume that most of you already work with an installation of a web server, a apps server, a DB server...., but what about if you are newbie or just tired of having to integrate all this tools together??. The answer is called XAMPP, ..actually the one I like to use!!. XAMPP is an integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl (the AMPP in XAMPP) that all run from a removable drive. Everything is pre-configured and ready to go just by unzipping or installing it.

Actually not only this important servers are installed, but the package include all this:

Apache
MySQL
PHP
MiniPerl
OpenSSL
phpMyAdmin
XAMPP Control Panel
Webalizer
Mercury Mail Transport System
FileZilla FTP Server
SQLite
ADODB
Zend Optimizer
XAMPP Security

..and if you do not have enough then the add-ons will do the rest!!:

Tomcat 6.0.20
Perl Add-On

The installation of XAMPP is very straightforward, mainly if use the self-extracting archive, and it will take less than 10 minutes!!. The of course you can enter to the typical apache configuration file to create as many sites as you wish!!. The delightfull of powerfull phpMyAdmin will let you control all your DB contents, although you might like to work with Adminer....

Thanks to the XAMPP team to make our life easier!!.

CSS: Movement without javascript??

2010-01-29T16:22:00.000-08:00

This is just a nice example of the CSS power. Actually, and the most amazing of this example is the use of CSS 1!!!, just that, ..although in one example there is an attribute used at CSS 2.

It works in all major browsers but in IE6, ...you already know how complicated was that version..

The creator of these examples is Román Cortés:

Paper Bird.
Coke Rotating.

At any case, and although the effects are really cooool, what has happened with 3D Programming?? hmmmmm, do u know js3d??, it lets you achive things like this.

TOOLS: Thumba, online image editor

2010-01-18T12:16:00.001-08:00

Most of you can think somethink today "I hate mondays!!!", ..but hey, it is better to think something like "Cool!!, a new Post from Sepelka, a new day to code and only 4 days for next weekend!!!".

Still using paint shop pro, photoshop, ...or another pay per use Software??. Well done if you work manipulating images but for just posting images into blogs, resizing them, etc, you better use online and free tools, unless you don't mind to pay to use fabulous paint shop pro!. I am going to introduce you to Thumba, an online software based on silverlight, ...sorry for linux users because moonlight will not work ..unfortunatly.

What can we do to our images with Thumba besides coping, paste, cropping, rotating..?, ..many, many stuff as for example bluring, hue, saturation and ilumnation adjustion, Brightness, contrast, gamma correction.. Ok, ok, that doesn't seem to be a lot for an Image Editor Application, but what about effects like:

Old Paint
Pencil Sketch
Pop Art
Stamp
Blur (Zoom, Focal, Radial, Smart....)
Crazy Distortion
FishEye Lens
Explosion Distortion
Effects as Sepia, Sunny day, Solarization.....
Wave Effect
Ripple Effect
..and many, many more!!!.

Some as cool as converting this image of me looking at a duff beer into Ascii Characters..

And yes all for freeeeeeeeee, as you like ;)

TOOLS: Firebug for IE, Opera and Safari

2010-01-14T15:09:00.001-08:00

For web development there is one very important tool called firebug!!.It is used by almost any webmaster to debug CSS, HTML and Javascript code. This tool brings inspection, debugging an supervision through mozilla browser.

..but hey it only works for firefox as one of its extensions, but what happens when you need to test your pages in Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari? ..hmmm, well for Safari you can drag the Web Inspector button to your Safari toolbar from the customize toolbar option...

...but for the rest?. Well, we are lucky, because it comes firebug lite. To use it you have to add a link at the favourite toolbar as a bookmarlet. This link contains javascript that will excecute remotely firebug!!. All the instructions will be found at the firebug lite homepage. Thanks firebug!!!

Today I feel happy, in fact having a a little glass of macallan and smoking a larisian cuban Cigar i have had for a present (I never smoke...) so I leave the best 2009 song for me to all of you!!!. Milow - Ayo Technology

CAPTCHA: New Captcha based on Video

2010-01-11T04:42:00.000-08:00

..One of my favourites phrases is "Life is Easy, but we, the people, make it hard!!", ..why do I say this??. Well, just because everytime we find more barriers to do normal task, for example filling up a form and "the captcha"!!.

Everytime you are introducing data into a form, the captcha appears to know if you are human. Why??, because somebody liked to make a program to fill up automatically forms for bad porpouses.. But Captcha, as any barrier is being broken, ...again to make things harder..., so what's next?? 3D Captcha?? :), ..errrr, sorry, that question has a "YES" answer??...

A group of people at Tel Aviv University has comed with a new development to have a dinamic 3D Captcha, which integrates blur and noise to an animated image in a way that a human being can see what's behind that "curtain of noise" but your inteligent PC will not be able to know it. An example here:

And yes, you will need to do both, get blind trying to get the figure in movement and answering the question as it already happens in some captchas, as well as adding this tech to your forms at your sites!!. This new Captcha system based on video is still on development, ...but keep an eye on it..

JQUERY: Multilevel Tree Menu Plugin!!

2010-01-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

Now its time to have a Multilevel Tree Menu with Jquery!!!.

It builds a menu from a table as this for first level, although also a list should work:


<div class="myMenu">
 <table cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0' border='0'>
  <tr>
   <td menu="menu_1">Freakzion</td>
   <td menu="menu_2">PressXine</td>
   <td menu="menu_3">Jquery</td>
 </tr>
</table>
</div>

and rest of level for option menu_1 should be as this: (different examples)


<div id="menu_1" class="menu">
  <a rel="title" >title menu_1.1</a>
  <a href="../mb_carusel/carousel.html"
   target="_blank" img="image.gif" >menu_1.1 (href)</a>
  <a action="document.title=('menu_1.2')">menu_1.2</a>
  <a rel="separator"></a>
  <a action="document.title=('menu_1.3')" disabled=true>menu_1.3</a>
  <a action="document.title=('menu_1.4')" menu="menu_1" 
   img="image.png">menu_1.4</a>
</div>

To gererate the menu from this just execute the next method for the element (in this case "myMenu"):


$(".myMenu").buildMenu(
{
template:"menuVoices.jsp",
additionalData:"",
menuWidth:200,
openOnRight:false,
menuSelector: ".menuContainer",
iconPath:"ico/",
hasImages:true,
fadeInTime:200,
fadeOutTime:100,
adjustLeft:2,
adjustTop:10,
opacity:.95,
shadow:true,
closeOnMouseOut:true,
closeAfter:500,
minZindex:200,
hoverIntent:0
});

The details for each of the options of the method are totally describe at the plugin page.

As usual do no forget to include at the HEAD of your html the javascript and css files:


<script type="text/javascript" src="inc/mbMenu.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="inc/jquery.hoverIntent.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="inc/jquery.metadata.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/menu1.css" media="screen" />

I miss some examples of styles change and possibilities, as well as it is a bit heavy library, ..but as usual sneak into de code and say thanks to its creator!! :)

WEBSITE TOOLS: HootMonitor, monitorize your site

2010-01-04T11:02:00.000-08:00

I am sure all of you are not all the time over your site checking the availability of it, ..many things to do just for that!!. But what if youR site is down for a period of time??, ..hmmm, would you like to know ASAP to solve the problem???. I am sure the answer is YES!!. Here is a tool, HootMonitor, that may help you!!. If your site is down, then you will receive a twitter message!!, and for sure you have twitter integrated in some tool at your desktop or mobile phone to be always online...And this is not only its features. You can have:

Stats
Reports
RSS Feeds
...

There is a free version which will allow us to register 3 websites but with premium access you will have even alerts via SMS, detailed stats...

A CHEAP service which by the way is still at Beta Version...

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!!!

2009-12-31T08:41:00.001-08:00

For sure 2010 will be a great year and hope all of you will make all your dreams come ture!!. This year i have created this blog and next year I will have version 2.0 of it besiddes many CODE to share!!. To share with YOU. Thanks for being there.

This year I have posted 101 posts, counting this one, ...not a coincidence. HAPPY 2010!!!

JAVASCRIPT: The First Drunk Drawing App

2009-12-31T08:24:00.000-08:00

Steve Hanov has created just a hillarious app to create an imprecise line-drawing app with the following Features:

Box, circle, lines, and curve primitive shapes
Shadows when supported by browser
Text in several hand-drawn fonts rendered on the server
Rotate & scale shapes individually or in groups
Save drawing to a browser bookmark
Select colours using an HSV colour wheel.
Unlimited levels of Undo/Redo

Just go and check it here.

JAVASCRIPT: Javascript Extreme Programmming by Thomas

2009-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

Thomas Fuchs, the creator of scriptaculous, scripty2 and part of prototype team delight us with this video explaining 6 easy things you can do to improve your JavaScript runtime performance:

Get the slides of the presentation at this post.
If wanna check the rest of the videos at JSConf.eu just link form here!

TIPS: Page under Construction....

2009-12-31T07:45:00.000-08:00

Are you building a new website and thinks about placing the typical "Under construction" phrase on it??. Well better check this video from Matt Cutts from the Search Quality group in Google:

As I like to say a video is worth more than 1000 images and text. So I hope this words from this Guru will Help you!!.

YOUTUBE: Youtube Direct

2009-12-31T07:02:00.000-08:00

Would you like to have a tool to upload videos from your site to Youtube and get access to them within your site???. Then you are lucky because Youtube Direct is your solution!!.

Youtube Direct is a google's tool which enables a platform to add a personalized loader to a site, your site, and the users who access your site the ability to upload videos directly to Youtube Portal, ...but Hey..."I want to check the videos within my site but not on Youtube!!". No problem this service will allow you to watch your videos within your site or Youtube.

This service has been launched to estimulate Users to create and upload videos on sites and so on, on Youtube.

Youtube Direct has also moderation panel to review, aprove and reject the uploaded videos.

Get all the info at Youtube Direct and by the way all this platform has been built on the top of Youtube API

NEWS: Why investing on internet by Peter Thiel

2009-12-30T04:44:00.000-08:00

Peter Andreas Thiel is an northamerican business man with a "bit" of success in life and who trust on the power of Internet as an Inversion. He is a natural hedge fund manager, libertarian and venture capitalist, and his trust on Internet has made him being one the first people to invest in facebook, actually now he is in the board of Directors, and also he was co-fonder of Paypal, leadig it at the first 4 years. He also made investments in startups as Slide, LinkedIn, Friendster, Rapleaf, Geni.com, Yammer, Yelp, Inc., Powerset....

Here we have an interview with him, ..and I am sure this make us all believe in our sites!!:

The interviewer was Luis Eduardo Barrueto. Let's call this a new year's present.

DESIGN: Menus for our sites

2009-12-30T03:38:00.000-08:00

I am sure we are all aware of the importance of a good web design, and the menus are part of that design. Yesterday I crashed into a post called Inspiring Navigation Menus That You Must See where you can find a collection of 45 menus. It is a fact that designing a navigation menu is not easy, actually it depends on the space you leave for it and the design and structure of the whole site.

Within the post there are links to each of the menu. You will not find something as a library to build a menu as it happens, for example, with pressxine but just menus within sites quite are quite atractive, well-designed, user friendly and many of them totally accesible despite its design.

Access this collection at www.webdesignbooth.com

JAVASCRIPT: Image transitions with TransM

2009-12-29T13:32:00.000-08:00

We have seen along my blog some ways to have a photogallery, for example with MooFlow or SlideShow 2, but what about a library to have photo transitions???, what about having 113 different transitions??, ..what about doing it with unobtrusive javascript to keep your code clean?? The answer to all those questions is transm.js 1.0!!!

It works in all the major browsers - Mozilla Firefox 1.5+, Opera 9+, Safari 2+, Chrome 3+ and IE 6+. Works also on older browsers supporting JS 1.5 and images and filter or opacity, else it'll degrade and your visitors won't notice a thing.

TransM.js uses 113 transitions for HTML 5 canvas element supporting browsers, 51 transitions for filter:

ALPHA
BARN_HORIZONTAL_IN
BARN_HORIZONTAL_OUT
BARN_VERTICAL_IN
BARN_VERTICAL_OUT
BLINDS_UP
BLINDS_DOWN
BLINDS_RIGHT
BLINDS_LEFT
.....

as well as supporting tweenings (up to ...)

Linear
EaseIn (Sine)
EaseOut (Sine)
EaseIn (Cubic)
EaseOut (Cubic)
EaseInOut (quart)
EaseInOut (quint)
EaseIn (expo)
EaseOut (expo)
EaseIn (Cubic)
EaseOut (Cubic)
EaseIn (Circ)
EaseOut (Circ)
.....

What do u need to use it??, ..as usual adding javascript file at the head of your code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="cvi_tween_lib.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="cvi_trans_lib.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="transm.js"></script>

And to use it, just execute the function "transm.add( element, { options } );" to a block-level element!!. More details here!!. ...ahhh, and the creator is Christian Effenberger, creator for example of corner.js

JQUERY: Get pics from PANORAMIO

2009-12-27T03:47:00.000-08:00

Lately I've posting just a bit of bytes, ...hollidays, family, friends, christmas, moving to other country..., soon I will be back to mydaily basis, I promise!!. Talking about hollidays, many of you may have travelled to different locations during christmas, and many of you would probably have checked panoramio to get photos of the new place you will visit, ...haven't you??. Why don't you add pics of panoramio to your site??. It is very easy with Panoramio API!!!

Let's use JQuery for our example, although as we are going to pick up the data from Panoramio Rest Service using JSON, any other language language and library will handle it without difficulties.

As usual let's have a div area where we would place the results from panoramio, in this case the id of the are would be "thePics":

<div id="thePics"></div>

The Panoramio Rest Service works like this (Picked from Panoramio API where it is very well explained):

It's a very simple REST api, you only have to do a GET on:
http://www.panoramio.com/map/get_panoramas.php?order=popularity&set=full&from=0&
to=10&minx=-3.59&miny=37.17&maxx=-3.79&maxy=37.37&size=medium

for "order" you can use:

popularity
upload_date

for "set" you can use:

public (popular photos)
full (all photos)
user ID number

for "size" you can use:

original
medium (default value)
small
thumbnailsquare
mini_square

the minx, miny, maxx, maxy define the area to show photos from (minimum longitude, latitude, maximum longitude and latitude, respectively).

You can define the number of photos to be displayed using "from=X" and "to=Y", where Y-X is the number of photos included. The value 0 represents the latest photo uploaded to Panoramio. For example, "from=0 to=20" will extract a set of the last 20 photos uploaded to Panoramio, "from=20 to=40" the previous set of 20 photos and so on. The maximum number of photos you can retrieve in one query is 100.

And the the javascript code (the latitude and longitud are set to get Granada at Spain):

$.getJSON("http://www.panoramio.com/map/get_panoramas.php?order=popularity&set=full&from=0&

to=10&minx=-3.59&miny=37.17&maxx=-3.79&maxy=37.37&size=medium",

   {},

   function(data) {

       var thePicsHTML;

       $(data).each(function(i, item) {

         thePhoto=$(this)[0].photos[i];

         thePicsHTML +="<img src='" + thePhoto.photo_file_url + "'>";

         thePicsHTML += "";

         thePicsHTML += thePhoto.photo_title;

         thePicsHTML += "";

         thePicsHTML += "Photo from: " + thePhoto.owner_name;

         thePicsHTML += "";

         thePicsHTML += "<a href='" + thePhoto.photo_url + "' target=_blank>Check the photo at Panoramio</a>";

        thePicsHTML += "<p>";

       })

      $("#thePics").html(thePicsHTML);

   }

);

Get yous site full of your_favourite_place_in_the_world photos!!

WORDPRESS: Version 2.9, what's new?

2009-12-21T12:34:00.000-08:00

Wordpress 2.9 is out to be downloaded, with some interesting features:

Do not ever lose your posts when erasing them by error. Yeap there is undo/trash option which will take your posts back to live!!:
Photoshop??, paint shop pro??, ...maybe you can save a bit of money because now it comes with a image editor that will help you to crop, rotate, scale, and more all your pics. At any case do not forget to use online services as picnik who will save youtime and money!!.
Update your plugins. They will be grouped so it will be easier to you.
Want to post a video??. Just place the URL of the video and Wordpress will just wrpa it around with a nive video player!!. This will do it for videos at:
- YouTube
- Daily Motion
- Blip.tv
- Flickr
- Hulu
- Viddler
- Qik
- Revision3
- Scribd
- Google Video
- Photobucket
- PollDaddy
- WordPress.tv

Dowload this version at Wordpress.org

MOONLIGHT: Silverlight gets Opened

2009-12-18T10:10:00.000-08:00

Silverlight is Microsoft's weapon to defeat their enemies at RIA war, ..but Microsoft, as many programmers, analysts, leaders, managers think, likes to have a pay for use platform and somehow obscure code that cannot be copied or used by third parties and which just works at microsoft Operating systems. That is not the case of Silverlight, just because mono has been working in a Open Source solution!!!.

Moonlight comes, as well as silverlight of course, with a rich variaty of multimedia functions to include video, vector graphics, animation, etc., within your sites and works perfectly at any many linux distributios as for example SUSE Linux Desktop Enterprise 11, openSUSE 11.x, Ubuntu 9.10, and Fedora 12.

Of course, at many RIA framework, Moonlight has thought about its integration with different serverside Technologies so if your site is based on IronRuby, IronPython, Visual Basic or PHP, for example, then smile, moonlight will fit perfectly ok!!.

Which is the roadmap of moonlight??. Microsoft and Novel have agreed to support moonlight at least to versions 3 and 4 of silverlight:

Moonlight 3

Silverlight 3 compatible engine.
- 3D graphics
- Pixel shaders
- Application library caching
- Out-of-browser capabilities and offline support
- Pluggable media pipeline to support 3rd party codecs
HD Smooth Streaming
Native support for MPEG-4-based H.264/AAC Audio

Moonlight 4

Silverlight 4 compatible engine.
- Webcam and microphone support
- Trusted applications can read/write to users' documents directories
- Improved localization, including right-to-left and bi-directional text
- Desktop notifications ("toast")
- Render HTML on Moonlight surfaces
- WCF RIA Services

..and actually Microsoft is very interested in getting its silverlight technology to linux platforms.

Will Moonlight get to work on new Google's operating system??, ..as well as Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. works now on Steve Jobs's Apples...who knows??. My guess is that it will run on it, ..just a question of time (..by the way it's been a while without quoting a song at my blog so here is one related to the end sentence of this post, IS A QUESTION OF TIME ).

P.S: just 2 post this week, ..being busy, big interesting changes happening, a new country awaits :)

GOOGLE: goo.gl URL Shortener

2009-12-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

Google, google, google, a company which never sleeps know has come up with a brilliant idea!!. What do u think about a service which will shorten those horrible microblogging services URLs you want to share at twitter for example, or just by email, gtalk..??

To start with an example you can get at the service at goo.gl :). This "goo.gl" service is not available to shorten directly the URL but that it is integrated within Google Toolbar or from FeedBurner.

The core goals of this service are:

Stability – ensuring that the service has very good uptime
Security – protecting users from malware and phishing pages
Speed – fast resolution of short URLs

This may seems familiar to some of you, and yes the reason is by some other project called TinyURL, which with just inserting an URL it will give you another one shortenen, basically a hashkey saved in a DB at TinyURL site. For example the URL of this post would be: http://tinyurl.com/y8t96fe

Enjoy it!!

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING: Be at any social Network with Addthis

2009-12-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

Easier than ever!!, your posts and webs can be mouth to mouth, word by word at any social network as a bookmark with Add This with just 4 steps:

Select your service. From your own site, and so with some coding notions, to blogger or wordpress.

Select the button style. How would addthis look like??. as soon as you check this, you would know that it is not the first time you see adthis...

Do u want analytics??. Here is one intereting issue as well as part of the business of addhis. Register and you will know who adds bookmark to which social network!!.

You are Done!!. Get the code and start playing!! ;)

As easier as this, so add i to your blog!!. I will for version 2.0 of my blog coming up at january!!. Meanwhile try to feel young!!. Do you remember this song from alphaville??

TIPS: ...Just something related to last 2 posts

2009-12-08T16:37:00.000-08:00

I have been asked where to find a long list of robots for google wave after I posted about it. Here is a link to them.
How is related this to my last post??, ...just check an example of Sharing is sexy at that page!! ;). In this way I also answer a comment on that post.

Talking about sexy, enjoy this video!!

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING: Sharing is sexy

2009-12-07T10:32:00.000-08:00

Sometime ago I wrote about a social bookmarking tool called Share This which helps bookmarking your posts at many social Networks. Itis extremely handy because it gets updated with any new social network you can imagine as well as you can configure it but it has 3 drawbacks:

It disables some other divs or objects in your site depending on the code on it.

Not accesible solution

It is not sexy!!!!.

That's the reason why i will show you a sexy way to invite your guests to add your posts, comments or pages to social netowrks. Its name?? sharing is sexy, ..what a better name??. it looks as this one:

The CSS would be as this:


<style type='text/css'>
div.sexy-bookmarks {
height:54px;
background:url('http://YOUR-IMAGES-ROOT/sharingsexy.png') no-repeat left bottom;
position:relative;
width:540px;
}

div.sexy-bookmarks span.sexy-rightside {
width:17px;
height:54px;
background:url('http://YOUR-IMAGES-ROOT/sharingsexy.png') no-repeat right bottom;
position:absolute;
right:-17px;
}

div.sexy-bookmarks ul.socials {
margin:0 !important;
padding:0 !important;
position:absolute;
bottom:0;
left:10px;
}

div.sexy-bookmarks ul.socials li {
display:inline-block !important;
float:left !important;
list-style-type:none !important;
margin:0 !important;
height:29px !important;
width:48px !important;
cursor:pointer !important;
padding:0 !important;
}

div.sexy-bookmarks ul.socials a {
display:block !important;
width:48px !important;
height:29px !important;
font-size:0 !important;
color:transparent !important;

}

.sexy-furl, .sexy-furl:hover, .sexy-digg, .sexy-digg:hover, .sexy-reddit, .sexy-reddit:hover, .sexy-stumble, .sexy-stumble:hover, .sexy-delicious, .sexy-delicious:hover, .sexy-yahoo, .sexy-yahoo:hover, .sexy-blinklist, .sexy-blinklist:hover, .sexy-technorati, .sexy-technorati:hover, .sexy-facebook, .sexy-facebook:hover, .sexy-twitter, .sexy-twitter:hover, .sexy-myspace, .sexy-myspace:hover, .sexy-mixx, .sexy-mixx:hover, .sexy-script-style, .sexy-script-style:hover, .sexy-designfloat, .sexy-designfloat:hover, .sexy-syndicate, .sexy-syndicate:hover, .sexy-email, .sexy-email:hover {
background:url('http://YOUR-IMAGES-ROOT/sexysprite.png') no-repeat !important;
}
......
......

and then add each of the icons styles, on hover or not:


......
......
sexy-furl {
background-position:-300px top !important;
}
.sexy-furl:hover {
background-position:-300px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-digg {
background-position:-500px top !important;
}
.sexy-digg:hover {
background-position:-500px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-reddit {
background-position:-100px top !important;
}
.sexy-reddit:hover {
background-position:-100px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-stumble {
background-position:-50px top !important;
}
.sexy-stumble:hover {
background-position:-50px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-delicious {
background-position:left top !important;
}
.sexy-delicious:hover {
background-position:left bottom !important;
}
.sexy-yahoo {
background-position:-650px top !important;
}
.sexy-yahoo:hover {
background-position:-650px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-blinklist {
background-position:-600px top !important;
}
.sexy-blinklist:hover {
background-position:-600px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-technorati {
background-position:-700px top !important;
}
.sexy-technorati:hover {
background-position:-700px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-myspace {
background-position:-200px top !important;
}
.sexy-myspace:hover {
background-position:-200px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-twitter {
background-position:-350px top !important;
}
.sexy-twitter:hover {
background-position:-350px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-facebook {
background-position:-450px top !important;
}
.sexy-facebook:hover {
background-position:-450px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-mixx {
background-position:-250px top !important;
}
.sexy-mixx:hover {
background-position:-250px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-script-style {
background-position:-400px top !important;
}
.sexy-script-style:hover {
background-position:-400px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-designfloat {
background-position:-550px top !important;
}
.sexy-designfloat:hover {
background-position:-550px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-syndicate {
background-position:-150px top !important;
}
.sexy-syndicate:hover {
background-position:-150px bottom !important;
}
.sexy-email {
background-position:-753px top !important;
}
.sexy-email:hover {
background-position:-753px bottom !important;
}

</style>

uffff, too much css code because each tab has an style, ..i would have done it in a different way but never blame on someone's solution when is helping us!!.

Here comes the code for including the tabs, in this is case the example is for someone who is using blogger or wordpress, if it is n ot your case just change
data:post.url and data:post.title with the url and title of your post:


<div class='sexy-bookmarks'>
<ul class='socials'>
<li class='sexy-delicious'><a expr:href='&quot;http://del.icio.us/post?url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank'/></li>

<li class='sexy-digg'><a expr:href='&quot; http://digg.com/submit?url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank'/></li>

<li class='sexy-technorati'><a expr:href='&quot; http://technorati.com/faves?add=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank'/></li>

<li class='sexy-reddit'><a expr:href='&quot; http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank'/></li>

<li class='sexy-stumble'><a expr:href='&quot; http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank'/></li>

<li class='sexy-designfloat'><a expr:href='&quot;http://www.designfloat.com/submit.php?url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank'/></li>

<li class='sexy-facebook'><a expr:href='&quot; http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank'/></li>

<li class='sexy-twitter'><a expr:href='&quot; http://twitthis.com/twit?url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank'/></li>

<li class='sexy-furl'><a expr:href='&quot; http://www.furl.net/storeIt.jsp?u=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank'/></li>

<li class='sexy-syndicate'><a href='http://feeds2.feedburner.com/YOUR-FEEDBURNER-ID' title='Subscribe to RSS'/></li>

<li class='sexy-email'><a expr:href='&quot; mailto:?subject=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank'/></li>

</ul>
<span class='sexy-rightside'/></div>

Where are the images??. Download them from here

Google: Are you using Robots at Wave

2009-12-07T03:45:00.001-08:00

Have you ever realized how cool "Surf on Internet" sounds??, or just "Surfing on the Wave"?? awesome, especially when you are seated in front of a PC and totally dry.... Now there is something even more amazing that you can say: "I am Surfing with some robots on the Wave" of course with your thumb up and little finger down!!. All this is just thanks to Google!!, ..and I am not talking about this:

Google Wave is growing in popularity as well as happened with the search engine and gmail, manly among programmers, and actually there are people who right now are not able to live without it, ..as would happen to everyone of us if our mobile phone were stolen. this popularity is not only based at the Wave Core App, but also thanks to what are called "Robots". Google likes robots as we can check at android's logo :).

To use this robots you just have to add an email address to your contact list, do not forget that are robots so like us they have the right to own an email account, and to use it just create a new wave and include the robot. The Robot's list is already loooooong, some examples are:

RSSyBot (rssybot@appspot.com): Adds an RSS feed to Wave.
TwitUsernames (twitusernames@appspot.com): Links @usernames to Twitter.com.
Blog bot (blog-bot@appspot.com): Publishes waves to blog posts.
WaveVotely (wavevotely@appspot.com): With a tiny gadget, votely allows you to vote public waves up/down; enabling high-quality content to float up.
Wikify (wikifier@appspot.com) Adds Wikipedia links for topics.
Multi Lingual Bot (multilingual-bot@appspot.com) Select the language of the person you are talking to, and the blip you type will be translated to that lenguage!!, ...coooooollll

Even funny ones:

Silly Bots Eliza the Robot Shrink (elizarobot@appspot.com): Talks to you when no one else will. ..in case you feel lonely
Flippy (flippy-wave@appspot.com): Flips text upside down, ...in case you are upside down %&$???
Eliza – elizarobot@appspot.com – The Google Wave Psychologist
Hangman – wavehangman@appspot.com – Play hangman with a bot

Robots, Robots, Robots, more data, more data...., what does future brings?? Check Out the present.

SCRIPTY2: Preview on UI Controls

2009-12-06T06:16:00.000-08:00

With nice work and supervision from Michael Fuchs, scriptaculous creator and colaborator at prototype, scripty2 is a totally rewrite from Scriptaculous dividing the product in three blocks, ...as I said before in this post, and such interesting stuff at work Queue as multitouch concerned about iphone and what's coming up with windows 7, android. Check this demo from Nokia StarLight project:

How is the development going?? New examples of the UI Controls have been brought up by Andrew Dupont for adding the first batch of controls goodness to scripty2, including buttons, dialogs, overlays, sliders, autocompleters and accordion.

All these controls are made with prototype class and class methods and so on creating new extensions of them to make them tottally cutomized!!. Other interesting issues these awesome controls owns:

Support full keyboard navigation.
Provides also accessibility hooks through WAI-ARIA. Make your apps accesible!! ;).
The best thing is that they’re compatible with Themeroller (from jQuery UI) themes! So you can just reuse/tweak existing themes very easily.

Keep coding!!

JQUERY: Open Source Application of the Year 2009

2009-12-04T10:03:00.000-08:00

Yeap, Jquery is getting higher and higher..., more and more sites make use of it, actually most of the times I have seen javascript widget's on portal there is a name behind them "JQuery". Concerned about that, .net Magazine has awarded Jquery as the Best Open Source Application of the year 2009, bitting opponents as Firefox 3.5 and WordPress. It is interesting how the .net awards page uses Jquery to show the winners of each category ..no wonder they have chosen as the winner because this magazine lovesss it.

But JQuery, do not relaz and lose track!!, the war is still out there. IBM and Dojo are working together, Mootools and Joomla like to flirt around, and in my opinion Scripty2 should marry Prototype to become a strong competitor, ..but that is my Opinion....

Congratulations not only to Jquery, but also to all the people and communitty, me included, who use it contributing to what today has been a reality, Jquery becoming a number one for .net Magazine.

Enjoy the weekend freakcoders!!.

TOOLS: Capture FOX, screencasts for U

2009-12-03T17:07:00.000-08:00

Many times you would like add into your blog or site a nice video tutorial of your product. In many cases this product would be something related with a software development, and what better way to show your product that within a video recorded testing your software at your screen, or better called screencast??. There are many comercial software out there for this porpouse by why paying if there is a nice firefox addon called Capture Fox??.

You can download it HERE by pressing Add to firefox after which you will need to restart firefox. You got it, a nice videocam icon at the tool bar which will do its work, record what you do at your computer (Whole Screen at Capture Area from Basic Settings or just at your firefox browser (Firefox window at the same location as before) ...and of course with sound!!.

You can change Video Quality whre you can tune that quality and for ecample choose how many frames per second o record. As usual the better the quality the bigger the size!!.

Remember to activite Voice Recording if you want to add voice, music or just anything which get into your mic, into ur video!!.

Damn, I need to change FreakZion!!, too many ideas and too littlethis blog. Ok I will do it for next year. New Year, New blog style!! ;)

CSS: Optimizing CSS Size. 8 Ways

2009-12-02T13:51:00.000-08:00

As I commented about JS Code in this article, a very good idea to optimize your site is reducing the size of your code. Now is time for CSS. Which tools and tips do we have to reduce the size of the CSS????. Of course try to host your site in a provider which enables HTTP Compression!!. That will help in general with all your code. Which are our tools??:

Since long, long time ago CSS Drive has been helping Web Masters to compress the size of css. you can choose from erasing all the comments or comments which exceed a size, concat all the characters in CSS, erasing just white spaces.....

CSS SuperScrub by iSnoop will reduce the size and complexity of your CSS by programmatically stripping unneeded content, stripping redundant calls, and intelligently grouping the remaining element names. A very usefull tool, although we should help iSnoop to make a better marketing campaign to sell its product!! ;)

If you like to get a readable CSS file then use Factor CSS. Easy and actually you can get same results with CSS Superscrub.

Combine all the css files to one!!. ..when possible of course. When a user is opening your website every object on the page (e.g. images or scripts) will require a round trip to the server. And any access, or HTTP Request to the server takes time!! and so on will delay the response. If you are loading dozens of objects this delay can add up to several seconds.

Put CSS file in the header/top. I know you already do it..., but in case you don't I would recommend Nike slogan: Just do it!!!

I know sometimes is hard if you are a programmer... but group all up, right, down, left properties together!!!. If firebug does it, you can also do it!!. Imagine how much size you earn from:
margin-top:1em; margin-right:2em; margin-bottom:3em; margin-left:4em;to: margin:1em 2em 3em 4em;

Are you able to group all your styles together?? My question is not darish at all, but just it is helpfull for you or not. If you have 3 same styles:
h2 <margin: 10em 10em> #style1 .title1 <margin: 10em 10em> #style1 .title1 <margin: 10em 10em> group them to
h2, #style1 .title1, #style1 .title1 <margin: 10em 10em> but rememberyouwill need to ungroup them if they change seperatly!!.

Trying to get to Perfection??. Remove last semicolon at styles:
from <margin:1px 2px 3px 4px;> to <margin:1px 2px 3px 4px>
by default measure is px so you can reduce size writing <margin:1 2 3 4>

Create now optimized CSS files!!. You can use same keyboradas OMD!!, ..do you remember this?? :)

MOOTOOLS: Mooflow, Cool Image Gallery

2009-12-01T16:04:00.000-08:00

Who doesn't need an Image Gallery within a site??. We have reviewed some already, but as Mootools is growing really fast, somwhow thanks to Joomla, I would like to share this one which allows not just navigating the images by clicking on them or on left/right buttons but it also comes with:

Use of slider.
Enables autoplay with a predefined interval.
Resize of the Images.
Add caption to the images.
Ability to use left/right keys to roll over the images.
Use also the mouse wheel to move along the pics!!.

How to use it. Very easy. Just wrap all your images within a

and create an MooFlow object passing the id of the div as the main argument. For Example lets create a div with id="MyGallery":


   <div id="MyGallery">
    <div><img src="img1.jpg" title="Title" alt="My Pic 1" /></div>
    <p><img src="img2.jpg" title="Title" alt="My Pic 2" /></p>
    <span><img src="img3.jpg" title="Title" alt="My Pic 3" /></span>
    <a href="big/image.jpg" rel="image">
     <img src="image.jpg" title="Title" alt="My Pic 4" />
    </a>
   </div>

and just instancing an object from class MooFlow is enough: new MooFlow($('MyGallery'), parameters)

The parameters are as follow:

reflection: number reflection height; default(0.4)
heightRatio: number container height (container width * number); default(0.6)
offsetY: number vertival image offset; default(0)
startIndex: number the number of the image to show first; default(0)
interval: number time in ms to show a image in the presentation loop; default(3000)
factor: number zoom factor; default(115)
bgColor: string image background color (#000 or transparent); default('#000')
useCaption: boolean adds a caption(<div>) to the MooFlow-container and shows the title-attribute from current image. default(false)
useResize: boolean adds a resize button(<a>) to the MooFlow-container and allow to set MooFlow in a fullscreen like look. default(false)
useSlider: boolean adds the slider with buttons (left, right) to the MooFlow-container. default(false)
useWindowResize: boolean updates the MooFlow-container when changed the dimension of the browser window. default(false)
useMouseWheel: boolean enables the Mousewheel to navigate. default(true)
useKeyInput: boolean enables the keybord buttons left and right cursor (only one MooFlow instance). default(false)
useViewer: boolean enables the inline-viewer. default(false)

Just check it, ..and add it to your site!!. Yeah, somehow it remains you to a Mac menu, ...although thinking about Mac, this one is more "applelish" which looks just as Apple’s time machine :)

FREAKY: QR Code

2009-11-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

Today i didn't feel like writting an interesting post related to web programming or just portal coding, ..yesterday I just slept a bit, ...so I am tired and I just felt like talking and doing something freaky and here it is. FreakZion QR Code:

What is the QR Code??, ..what a horrible image!!!. QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The "QR" is derived from "Quick Response", as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. QR Codes are very common in Japan, actually I could say they have them everywhere!!. Will these Codes conquer the world??, ...maybe for a while, although I believe RFID code is the winner and if not read my post 3 years from now, besides I am not the only one who thinks that way, ..do you remember the funny techy Nabaztag rabbits from Rafi Haladjian and Olivier Mével??. The like to "smell" RFID Codes

If you have any app at your phone as for example NeoReader (spanish article) to read QR Codes then read my id and your phone will be redirected to my homepage. cool, ins't it??, ..and totally freaky!!. :)

SEO: URLFan

2009-11-29T17:24:00.000-08:00

As i posted in my last news at my blog, I talked about pagerank from google and how it works. but who else is crawling your website? Many are watching your blog, as big brother, and one of them is URLFAN!!!.

ULFAN has a few websites indexed, just 3.783.534, multiplying the amount of posts by 100 from more than 5 millions blog feeds. All this info gets for thousands of daily RSS entries from blogs in which URLFAN detects how many times a site, ...you site could be, has been quoted or mention.

Wooow, that means that URLFan is spying at RSS feed checking for your popularity??. Yeap, the popularity of the sites that URLFAn are indexing are registered by daily or just all-times popularity!!.

Which are within the 100 more popular sites??. can't you guess:

1. Wikipedia
2. Yotube
3. Flickr
4. Twitter
5. Google
6. Myspace
7. Facebook
8. Imdb
9. Nytimes
10. Apple

Get into URLFan and check your site's popularity and if the info is not in there just add the RSS Feed or the Bumper Icon to your blog. A new week is starting!!, ..have fun!!

GOOGLE: Page Rank??, ..Did I get an A??

2009-11-26T16:10:00.000-08:00

At the end of last month, Octuber, the guys from google updated the the relevance indicator called Pagerank. Third time they do it within this marvellous 2009 year.

As You might know, and if you don't there is not problem because nobody borns knowing everything :), google grants every website with a qualification from 0 to 10, as we all had when at school, university, any exam, or in general when we were/are rated by our partners and friends (of couse we get always a 9, because 10 is boring perfection).

Google, in a periodically basis, searches and "investigate" every web ,from its structure of the links, to the people accessing to it, its popularity, the hypertext harmony as I like to call it which matches to a specific search, etc, etc. Combining the general relevance with the specific search, google sets the search results order. That order comes from that pagerank. (not easy formula of course which is somehow the secret formula of google search engine, that makes it sooooo perfect!!, ..well let's give it a 9.9 because as I said before perfection is boring and google is kind of fun, ..isn`tt it?)

Pagerank technology, or formula, has more than 500 millions variablss, ..that is what google says, ..but trust me, it uses less variables, they just say those much variable so noone will try to understand that formula and copy it :P, ..just kidding. It uses more than 2000 millions terms as well, ...uffff, Einstein formulas are 6 month's baby puzzles compare to these google's one.

One good thing is that google likes to reach perfection, to be number one in class!!, and every year is improving its formula, its algorithm and applies those changes to every new pagerank regeneration every 3/4 times a year.

Very important, ..and of course I will discuss about it at next SEO's articles, google takes into account links to your page from sites with bigger pagerank. That is, if site B points to your site and page C points to your competitor's site and site B has less pagerank than site C, ...then your competitor will get more points, or better called votes, than you...crap!!. Ask Site C to link at your site for god's sake!!

If you get a higher PageRank, this will mean that google's robots will review your Site more often to index your contents, ..because those robots know your site is important, is very busy with people making visits, and in general those robots LOVE your site, ..how romantic.

Things are changing a bit with public pagerank, ...hope this doesn't mean that we will need to signin to private sites paying a fee, ...oh no!!. Check it at google's forum

GOOGLE: Google Chrome OS

2009-11-23T15:56:00.000-08:00

Hmmm, Today I feel as shareing something as simple as what Google says: ..wouldn't be a good idea to turn your Browser into your operating system??, and furthermore, ..why store your data in your computer when can be stored in something called ...INTERNET??. This is the introduction to Google Chrome OS. enjoy it.

I just let one question back before i leave...., isn't google next big project something which could be called "Google Internet File Storage"??, ...hmmmmmm, yeap, you and me are not the first to think about it. Which could be the name??, filepod??, myfiles??, fileCrib??, gfile?? ...wait just a bit longer and you will see ;)

QOOXDOO: A newbie at Javascript Libreries Classroom??

2009-11-23T14:01:00.000-08:00

It may seems a newbie among the javascript frameworks but as any of them it has a getToKnow curve which takes some years and this is the case of Qooxdoo, ..it has been living around us for abot five years. The best description of what Qooxdoo is, can be found at its homepage:

"qooxdoo (pronounced [’ku:ksdu:]) is a comprehensive and innovative framework for creating rich internet applications (RIAs). Leveraging object-oriented JavaScript allows developers to build impressive cross-browser applications. No HTML, CSS nor DOM knowledge is needed. qooxdoo includes a platform-independent development tool chain, a state-of-the-art GUI toolkit and an advanced client-server communication layer. It is Open Source under an LGPL/EPL dual license."

It is a object, or I should say component, oriented framework with the ability to add methods to all the classes and elements embedded in it. It includes console panel, events manager... and it is not as "heavy-weight" as extJS (another javascript framework full of widgets/gadgets). Qooxdoo is very stable and clean as it usually happens working with objects but a bit slow (something that also happens working with objects :)), ..at its origins it was slooower though and had that same windows 9x look&field!!.

It has a nice documentation, something that sometimes misses at other Javascript frameworks. (maybe because it commercial-friendly open source license)

As extJS I would use Qooxdoo to build big JS Apps with a style that may not differ from Qooxdoo standards, but never for little apps or just little javascripts add-ins in pages as for example a drop-down menu.

Finally and although It's taken them sometime, they've finally released a wrapper for GWT. Its name QxWT

Check the demos to know what qooxdoo is able of!!

GOOGLE: Image Swirl

2009-11-22T16:43:00.000-08:00

Have you ever entered at google labs to check Image Swirl??, ..did you know how Google is working hard handling images?? ..with projects as Google Similar Image which is currently available in the labs section of the site??. It finds similar images as if it was a very similar job to do!!. Just check this result of similar images of this Depeche Mode Photo:

The result:

Now they have gone a little bit further and have created the Image Swirl which will not only link similar images but will build with the Google Wonder Wheel that they've had available for some time now, links to different wheels of pictures that are related. For example if we select the eiffel tower, then we will have different wheels of pictures. It has very similar pics within the wheel and then a link to another wheel with pics related. In this example an eiffel tower at night will be in a wheel which links to another with similar pictures but during day!!. Isn't this cool??

SEO: Social Networking & Media Strategy

2009-11-22T12:52:00.000-08:00

If you are one of my growing followers community, you will remember a quick post I wrote about SEO Strategies by one of my readers's request . Oe of the strategies involved using social networking sites as well as social media sites. Let me point out how to use them to increase your page rank and attract more visitors to yous site. These are my 5 keys for Social Networking and Media SEO Strategy:

Bookmarking. The easiest and basic one. Just link your site, your profile, your articles, etc., at all the internet communities and social networks as reddit, linkedin, stumble upon, delicios, technorati, G Bookmarks, mixx.... A very handy tool is sharethis as I posted some days ago.

Viral phenomenon or Viral Marketing. Analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses but in terms of spreading your posts, the name of your site, your interests among all the people who interconnects on the web. I like to remar 3 ways for achieving this:
- Through your contacts and their friends. Try to type you are owner of a website and check the results in that same week, ..and furthermore if you know your contacts may like it.
- Create a Site Profile at a Internet Communitty as for example the facebook pages. One of my friends owns an online Pouf Store and uses facebook pages to fidelize his followers by sending a free pouf on a periodically basis.
- Are you able to create Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images or just something who might get the attention of your friends???. Post it at your profile or just send it to your friend's profiles.

Video Streaming. ..As I always say an image worths more than thousand words, and a video more than a hundred images. Jump and upload a video at youTube!!. You may think that google and most searchers index just text, ..hmmm, I recommend you read about some pretty commercial search engine tools as Blinkx and Autonomy (very related companies by the way ;)). The video is indexed first by youtube and it will find keys within the video as well as it would within plain text and will add the result keys to the description and tag of the video. As usual You Must pay much attention using a proper name full of interesting keywords for the video.

There is more than just Internet Communities!!. Make other sites to link to your page. How can you do this??:
- Writing good content!!, ..be patient and constant and persistent. It is one of the best long-term strategies for encouraging inbound links.
- Why wait??. Get in touch with other sites owners and start a "lovely" friendship. The higher the friendship, the higher the probabilities to be linked
- A "link to this page" function. Some routine that gives you the exact url to link to your page, ..as google maps does to send the link of a placement coordiates.

Write your own Blog. Show all the internet surfers which are the capabilities of your product, you and your knowledge. A blog will help people undertand how good is your product compare with the competitors, ..and will help you yo better your product. Your Blog is just an advertisement which lasts months, even years. One exmaple: The Dojo Blog. The same idea works with a Forum but of course you need a really big list of followers/writers to get it to work properly

SEO: Social Bookmarking with ShareThis

2009-11-19T15:36:00.001-08:00

Digg, Meneame, Stumble Upon, Technorati, facebook, twitter, ....and many, many other places where you can link your posts for sharing with all your friends!!!, and why not, get your posts much more popular!!!, ..and everyday the list keep growing. does it mean that you must add new social networks in a daily or weekly basis to the code of your blog???. Well, yes you can do so, or you can use share this .

Share This makes it so easy enabling to add a widget at wordpress, Typepad, Blogger and gives you the code to add it to your website. You choose which social networks to add from:

Facebook
Twitter
MySpace
Digg
Delicious
StumbleUpon
Reedit
G Bookmarks
Technorati
mixx
wordpress
Xanga
Blogger
LiveJournal
Faves
friendFeed
....
etc, etc.

I just added to my blog for a quick test so just take a look and remember ...keep sharing my friend!!

JOOMLA: V1.6

2009-11-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

It's been a long way run in little time, from 2005, since Joomla has been helping programmers, and even more important, non programmers, to build portals easily.

A year has already passed since 1.5 opened its eyes with features which made the installation muh more easily, more platforms ready to run over (somehow thanks to mootools obviously), multi lengual, more template features and more scalable....

Since less than a month we are enjoying alpha2 of Joomla v1.6 which comes with new ACL System, mootools 1.2 fully integrated and so on cleaning up the javascript code, less code being a 30% a lighter solution, big changes at the menu system (mainly for big web sites), an efficient system of modules, which can add new packages that extend or complement and enhance their ability to work with our website photo galleries, word processors, and of course again a larger number of design templates...

The questions now are:

When will be final 1.6 will be released???
When will be v2.0 come to scene???.

If anybody knows those answers..., why don't you tell us?? :)

And remember one thing about joomla, ...Here are just some examples of the hundreds of available extensions:

Dynamic form builders.
Ecomerce Solutions.
Organizational directories as well as directory services.
Document management.
Image and multimedia galleries.
E-commerce and shopping cart engines.
Forums and chat software.
Calendars, Scheduling Apps.
Blogging software
Email newsletters
Data collection and reporting tools
Banner advertising systems
Subscription services
and many, many more.

SOCIAL NETWORKING: Google Social Graph API

2009-11-17T08:32:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the plot about I am going to write in a daily basis at this blog comes from what I have read that same day, ..sometimes the idea comes just because I feel like talking about it, ..sometimes because someone asked me about a topic and want to share the answer with you all ..and this is the case of today. I was asked about public information of people relationships on the web. Is there such a thing??. Well, absolutely, actually more than you may think (twitter, facebook, digg, ....etc. stores this information as public, and even more this information can easily accessed if declared by XFN and FOAF markup.

Google is working, in one of their labs, in a Social Graph API which access to many public sites looking for:

All public URLs that belong to you and are interconnected. This could be your blog (a1), your LiveJournal page (a2), and your Twitter account (a3).
Publicly declared connections between people. For example, a1 may link to b's blog while a1 and c link to each other.

...How this API may help us??. Well there can be many funtionality which bombs my mind, for example:

Getting to know all your friends to check the availabity to contact you for a job offer or just for a deal.
Getting to know all your public URLs may be interesting to know what you are interested in, and so what to sell you (hmmm...interesting tool for one of the main money incoming sources for searchers!!)
If you sign in a new website, ..why do you have to upload again your profile info, picture, CV...., why are not just asked you to get all that info from other sources as facebook, Flickr, .... A nice development is being done by Glenn Jones with Ident Engine.
...................

...Now time for today's great concert!!

JAVASCRIPT: 6 ways to improve you performance..

2009-11-16T15:26:00.001-08:00

...and again thanks to the JS Ninja Thomas Fuchs.Some of the things in the presentation are already known by many of us, for example the use of inline coding is faster that function calling (although as usual you may check how many times a function may be called at your code and the amount of code within that function. Some other "tricks" ,as the weird stuff related to math calculus, remains me when I posted my 3D programming blog, more than 13 years ago and when I posted my first "Games programming" tutorial at geocities
having more than 2 millions hits, snif, snif, old times.

At any case here you have this wonderfull masterpiece presentation:

As well as a link to a pdf file in case you want to have a nice reading at bedtime!! :). Tomorrow Depeche's mode concert!! ..I was there at munich, and I will be at Madrid .....life is perfect.

LOGIN: OpenID

2009-11-15T14:33:00.000-08:00

When building a site, you may need a private section where the user must log in. Well that seems not hard at all, but why don't you help the user to use an existing login identity which may already have?? Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, MYSpace, AOL...

Thanks to OpenID you can do this!!!.

The owner of your identity is the Identity Provider and that provider is the only site who knows/handle your password, the only one, and the rest of your profile info can be shared to all the sites you want to sign in with your identity. Your provider asks you which of this information you’re willing to give out and which not.

How does it work??. Very easy, anytime you are going to sign in at freakzion.com which allows openID you would see something like this:

if you are using a blogger account you would log in as:

user.blogspot.com where user in my case would be sepelka.blogger.com

Freakzion.com then should redirect the user to a blogger sing-in page where the user, in my case sepelka, would enter blogger's user and password. Now, the identity provider, Blogger, sends the user back to the web site he/she were visiting, freakzion.com, and gives it the information he/she allowed. Now the user is logged in to freakzion!

A new week is coming and depeche mode's concert is here!!, this cannot be a wrong week!!

TOOLS: Spy your Readers...

2009-11-12T15:50:00.000-08:00

As we all have seen at Google Wave, users action log as well as user online interaction is just ...sooo coooooooool!!. Why don't you just add something cool as that at your site??, for example a tool which tell you the readers whole navigation on your site. The name of the tool is userfly:

To test it, just get in here. check every move of users at your website!!.

It remains me of software called newKnow from META4 Owner, ...6 years ago... life changes but it cycles so much!!

TOOLS: Do u have any broken Links at your site??

2009-11-12T15:38:00.000-08:00

During Next days I will post about tools which may help a site to be "cleaned" and "usable". Let's starting cleaning our site!!.

It's awefull to have broken links at your site, ..it gives the idea of unmaintenance of the site, like getting to rent an apartment and find a garbage bag as soon as you open the apartment's door!!. There is a piece of cake solution called Xenu's Link Sleuth (TM). Link verification is done on "normal" links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and java applets. As you can check in this wuick tutorial you can filter wich links to show, which links to exclude....

It works with SSL sites as well as partially testing of ftp and gopher sites. Time to clean!!. At nay case if you are looking for something really quick just access here and this php litle tool will help you

JAVASCRIPT FRAMEWORKS: JQuery vs Prototype

2009-11-11T15:49:00.000-08:00

It is said Jquery started being a "child" of Prototype and no wonder that are probably the two closest javascript frameworks to each other.

Actually you will use '$' in both Prototype and Jquery, although jquery uses '$' as prototype '$$', and anything that can be done at jquery can be done at Prototype and viceversa. New versions of the libraries are being release frequently, and for example Jquery "$(document).ready()" will result as document.observe('dom:loaded',) included at its dom content loaded event in version 1.6.

I remember a very nice article from Remy Sharp and although it is a bit old, 2007, it gives a nice view of the differences:

I, myself, prefer prototype just a bit more than Jquery, it is a bit simpler although not much differences (for example node.up('div') at prototype or node.parent('div') at Jquery when trasversing), but I must admit somehow having the Effects library glued to the Jquery baseline is cool!!. For prototype you must add script.aculo.us or scripty2 aside to have cool Effects, ..but at any case i LOVE to code at both, Prototype and Jquery.

Talking about cool effects, ..do you remember this video??

SEO: WebSEO Analytics

2009-11-10T12:50:00.000-08:00

Ok, ok, You have applied all the SEO strategies you already know, you have set your "h?" attributes properly, you have all your meta and keywords tags perfect, you have included your site in some social networks...

What else can you do to improve it??. Well I encourage you to use this free tool which will give you an idea of things as for example is your site being indexed at google, yahoo, bing???, which social networks are linking to your site, which external links do u have?, Which are the words more repeated in your page??, are u using a robots.txt file to tell the browser not to index for example a print page??.....and more!! as your pagerank, Info about the updates done at your page,...

Just access here, get a URL and let Web SEO Analytics help you.

...Still some more presentations to do at work, ..a proper song for this moment

PRESSXINE: PXMenu v0.6

2009-11-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

Another review of configurable multilevel dropdown menu. Still not release 1 but getting closer!!. To have a javascript dropdown menu is as simple as adding a list to your site with class="pxmenu" and in that list will turn into a dropdown menu:

<ul id="menu1" class="pxmenu" style="display:none;">
  <li><label>PX Menu</label>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="index.html">Description</a></li>
      <li><a href="pxMCtnt.html">Menu Content</a></li>
      <li><a href="pxMCss.html">Menu Styles</a></li>    
      <li><a href="pxMCode.html">Menu Coding</a>
        <ul>
          <li><a href="#">Menu Code</a></li>
          <li><a href="pxMCodeCnf.html">Menu Conf.</a></li>    
          <li><label>Download</label>
            <ul>
              <li><a href="PXMenu.zip">Click Here</a></li>    
            </ul>
          </li>     
        </ul>
      </li>          
    </ul>    
  </li>
  <li><label>JS Libraries</label>
  ...............
  ...............

With different styles you can get totally different menus:

You can set the speed of sublevels hidding/unhidding, any menu style, names for ids of menus and options... and working now on different effects to be applied when hidding/unhidding, having as many menus as desired at same page and choose actions from mouseover to mouseclick (this will allow you to build any menu you may think.....). More info at PressXine Menu Site. Have a nice weekend!!. ...and yes!!! here is a song for this weekend, a great version by Lacuna Coil of the one and only depeche's Enjoy the Silence!!!

ALL: Autocomplete at any JS Library

2009-11-05T14:26:00.000-08:00

ufff, what a horrible week at work almost no time for this blog with many projects and teams to lead!!!. But I can't ever forget about my daily readers!!. I have been asked by the autocomplete of google and facebook. I am going to shwo you a list of different options, ..and as usual I will build a nice solutions in some weeks so you may use it with many configurations....

PHPGuru example. A Javascript library which provides an auto-complete dropdown which you can attach to one or more form inputs (typically text inputs). It functions the same as the Internet Explorer auto-complete, and works in Internet Explorer and Firefox (tested on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera). ...It only matches characters matching exact start of name.

Script.aculo.us Autocomplete. As usual one of my favourites developments. I link here the local function although there is another one getting info from external data source using ajax. The constructor takes four parameters. The first two are, as usual, the id of the monitored textbox, and id of the autocompletion menu. The third is an array of strings that you want to autocomplete from, and the fourth is the options block. The option blocks allows to have a full search of substring Search anywhere in autocomplete array strings!!!. Really cool. Example here.

AutoSuggest. An AJAX auto-complete text field tested on Safari 2.0.4, Firefox 2 Mac & PC, IE 6, IE 7. It has a nice style look&field but it is a bit slow and it looks for character input which matches starting string characters..

JQuery Autocomplete. How could JQuery help with this??. this is just an example because it doesn't refresh quickly at any keystroke at it should happen as well as it only matches first characters at string.

jQuery Autocomplete Mod. I lead many important, big and expensive projects at one of the best forbes worlwide enterprises and i have learnt two basic rules: anything you develop may look cool as any commercial product, and with just an eye glance you see a nice product. This is not the case of this software, but trust me when I say it is one of the best autocomplete JQuery solution out there!!. Thanks to people as

WEB OPTIMIZATION: Compress your JS, CSS, ....files

2009-11-03T16:31:00.000-08:00

do u want to speed up a bit your sites??. compress your code with any of this tools besides ofuscating the code in some cases.....

JSMin is a conservative compressor, written several years ago by Douglas Crockford. It is considered safe (especially if you verify your code with JSLint first-- an excellent thing to do anyway) because it doesn't attempt to change any variable names.
jasob will typically shrink for around 70% which will significantly improve download time and execution speed in the Web browser. This is done because it ofuscate the codes besides eliminating unused blank spaces. Jasob reads files with JavaScript code and replaces descriptive variable and function names like Customer, Salary, FirstName... with meaningless names like d, g, m... It also removes comments and unnecessary white space characters (space, tab, carriage return, line feed).
Dojo shrinksafe is a very popular Java based JavaScript compressor that parses the JavaScript using the rhino library and crunches local variable names.
Packer by Dean Edwards, is also a very popular JavaScript compressor, that can go beyond regular compression and also add advanced on-the-fly decompression with a JavaScript runtime piece.
YUI Compressor is a newer compressor written by Julien Lecomte, that aims to combine the safety of JSMin with the higher compression levels acheived by Dojo Shrinksafe. Like Dojo shrinksafe, it is written in Java and based on the rhino library.

Remember to try to use gzip compression if your hosting provider enables it.... Welcome to the shrinking universe

SEO: Quarkbase

2009-11-02T15:39:00.000-08:00

Do u know who is visiting your site?. Most probably you have many information at google analytics about that. But do u know if your site is being linked within social websites?, which info about your site may be at wikipedia??, which blogs are linking to your site?? ....and many more more info. Quarkbase is a mashup of more than 30 data sources and algorithms which gathers info about your site, social networks linking to it, info about the domain, people who founded or just related to your site, most popular pages within your site, internet pagerank......

All the research is done online, free and fast. It gives many info, ...but remember other tools as weboptimizationsite. Never there is enough info, never the world is enough

JOOMLA: Facebook Fans at your site ..and more

2009-10-29T17:21:00.000-07:00

Last wednesday a collegue was trying to integrate his facebook friends within a site built with Joomla. He was having problems with the code, ...and i asked him, why don't you use a module for that??.

Yeah, joomla has modules for everything, absolutely everything. I like to digg into joomlabyte where you can find from free to commercial modules for joomla. ...and here it was, the Facebook Fans Joomla Module.

Very easy to use, you just need a facebook API key as it happens to many services you want to access. To get the API key just get here. At any case and if you are not used to work with facebook API, by the time you create an APP you will get a key so for a shortcut get in here to get it. ...my recommendation is to fully understand what you do so be patient and start at the "get started" page from facebook.

With the key you have all set:

Page Id: 54217729140
Fans Number :40
width:i set 400 pxl
height:i set 700
You Facebook API Key: xxxxxxx

Time to sleep, ..but if you want to dance tonight, and talking about FACEbook, ..I leave you with this poker FACE.

ZOHO: Another Google Docs??

2009-10-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

Most of you have already tried the Google Docs, those web tools which allow you to use excel, word...and many more on internet, without installing any software at your PC and so being able to access your docs from any Computer or smartphone with internet access. Is google Docs alone??, ..of course not!!. No Software is ever alone...

Of course the other choice is not Microsoft Office Online because we are talking about free use, ..we are talking about ZOHO. ZOHO, as google docs, allows people to work together on same documents, as well of being platform independent. ZOHO comes with many, many apps:

Zoho Mail. Web-based Email Service
Zoho Writer. Online Word Processor
Zoho Sheet. Spreadsheets. Online
Zoho Show. Online Presentation Tool.
Zoho Docs. Online Document Management
Zoho Wiki. Easy to use, full-featured Wiki
Zoho Meeting. Web Conferencing, Remote Support
Zoho Projects. Project Collaboration Software
......................
......................
......................

Every month seems to appear something new!!. There is also a API to use it at social networks as Facebook or to integrate at your site, or even into Iphone Apps!!.

Remember that is free for personal use, but if wanna use it for comercial or business purposes, then a fee must be paid.

Again, a video is worth a thousand words:

MOOTOOLS: Slideshow 2

2009-10-25T17:26:00.000-07:00

Slideshow 2! is a javascript class for Mootools 1.2 to animate a whole bunch of your favourite images into a presentation within your portal. It is already used in many sites so the stability of this solutions is out of question. Place your pics this way:


<div id="show" class="slideshow">
<div class="slideshow-images">
  <a rel="lightbox" href="images/1.jpg">
   <img id="slide-1" src="images/1.jpg" width="700"
   height="400" alt="Comment image 1" /></a>
  <a rel="lightbox" href="images/2.jpg">
   <img id="slide-2" src="images/2.jpg" width="500"
   height="600" alt="Comment image 2" /></a>
  <a rel="lightbox" href="images/3.jpg">
   <img id="slide-3" src="images/3.jpg" width="500"
   height="400" alt="Comment image 3" /></a>
</div>
<div class="slideshow-thumbnails">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="#slide-1">
     <img src="images/1t.jpg" width="50" height="40"
     alt="Slide thumbnail" /></a></li>
    <li><a href="#slide-2">
     <img src="images/2t.jpg" width="50" height="40"
     alt="Slide thumbnail" /></a></li>
    <li><a href="#slide-3">
     <img src="images/3t.jpg" width="50" height="40"
     alt="Slide thumbnail" /></a></li>
   </ul>
</div>
</div>

And Slideshow will do the rest!!!.

Its features:

Dynamic resizing - Slideshow can accommodate any size presentation.
Thumbnails - intelligent, auto-scrolling, tracking, etc.
Full-featured controller - completely style-able with CSS.
Animated captions - plain text or formatted with HTML.
Fully accessible - Slideshow can be controlled with access keys.
Automagic slideshows - create slideshows from existing HTML images.
Varied hyperlinking options - Slideshow allows for mashups with Lightbox, Slimbox, etc.
CSS slide transitions - designed in stylesheets, not javascript, allow for an infinite combination of effects (plus support for all Robert Penner transitions).
Unobtrusive and degradable - Slideshow even functions with Javascript turned off!

Integrate this nice utility at your sites and adding some music as this one while photos being presented, ..that assures a Victory!!.

JQUERY: Alert Dialogs, Context Menu, File trees, from "A Beautifull Site"

2009-10-25T16:56:00.000-07:00

There are 3 interesting tools which you may like to integrate in your developments!!. These are in one very good blog, a beautifull site, ..hey why not mentioning blogs other than mine, this is the basis for Open Source, ..sharing info!!

All these tools come with an outstading description as well as examples so I just link to them!!:

jQuery File Tree. An AJAX File Browser plugin. And just with a little line of code. Obviously we need a server-side tech to get access to the folder.. It provides conectors for PHP, ASP, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JSP, Lasso, Perl, Python/Django and Ruby!!!
jQuery Context Menu Plugin. Just with a html list you can get this context menu.
jQuery Alert Dialogs. Aims to replace the basic functionality provided by the standard JavaScript alert(), confirm(), and prompt() functions.

A beatifull site for a beatifull day!!, Today it's a beautifull day. This is the song for today, enjoy this wednesday!!

VIRTUAL DESKTOPS: G.ho.st

2009-10-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

Another great Web Virtual Desktop with a very cool design (very funny animated ghosts moving along...). Its name: G.HO.ST. Its futures??

File Manager. You can sync you local drive with the drive at G.ho.st. How much Space do u have??. Are 15GB enough??. If it is not enough get a friend to signup and add 5 more GB!!.
A chat Client. It can manage Yahoo!!, MSN, AOL messengers as well as Google Talk. Log in also to facebook, twitter, myspace.......
Share your PICs with Flickr.
Watch your videos at youtube or Youku.
Listen to your favourite radio at LastFM, Pandora and Groove Shark
It Integrates ZOHO. The most comprehensive suite of web-based Applications which you can use to work with MSoffice for example.
RSS Client integrated.
Wanna play games??. It also includes Kongregate!!!

..And of course check ur POP and IMAP external email account as well as having a new one "user@G.ho.st".

In my opinion is one of the best Web Virtual DEsktop, or WEB OS as some like to call it, at this moment. With more apps than ICloud, but slower. Soon I will review a faster and very interesting choice called EyeOS

Talking about a ghost, ..do you remember this??

VIRTUAL DESKTOPS: ICLOUD

2009-10-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

...I ve been thinking for a while which name I should give to ICloud, a web OS??, a Collaborative tool??, another Goggle Wave??, or yes, a Virtual Desktop!! as I prefer to define it. Actually ICloud is the Desktop on top of XIOS/3, Xcerion XML Internet Operating System.

This is THE FUTURE, to have desktops on the cloud where you can share your info with friends, log for example at messenger, get your email, upload pics and documents, icloud provides you 3GB disk Space, tag your youtube and meta cafe videos, have a video and audio player, have your calendar, even play games with your friends. Iclouds have all these although still misses some features as for example spreadsheets. It comes with a word editor but it doesn't still import word files ok, in the other hand it comes with a handy file explorer!!. At any case, a video is more worthy than a 1000 words:

which JS framework lies underneath Icloud?? JQuery is the answer!!.

Which song for today??. talking about clouds, what about an eye in the sky??, ...

SCRIPT.ACULO.US: PopIt, simple JS desktop windows

2009-10-23T08:43:00.001-07:00

wooow, ..the weekend is almost here!!. We might have some free time during it to take out the frames of our old Web Apps and be ready to use JS DropDown Menus, Drag&Drops options, and windows managers!!. About this last issue is today's topic. How can you create windows in your desktop??, ..try this simple app called PopIt.

It runs under MIT Lincense, as we all like, and it will automatically generates draggable window which can be minimize, maximize and close, as well as having resizable borders (Horizontal and vertical).

Get your hands on coding this weekend although you also may have 2 more options:

Buy this TV where not only you can watch and play 3D movies and 3D Games, but also wath 2 different programs at a time so no more argues with partner...
Try to find that woman at the pic and take her for some drinks!! :)

PROTOTYPE: Protofish, Another drowpdown Menu

2009-10-22T06:59:00.000-07:00

It is called protofish and yeap it is another MIT License Accesible Multilevel Dropdown Menu which supports most browsers (IE6+, Safari 3+, Opera 9+, Chrome, Firefox 2+). It is accesible because from a list, which all browsers and webspiders can read, it appears magically a dropdown menu, and it also includes ARIA best practices.

The List, which will turn into a Menu, should be this way:


<ul id='menu-1' class='menu'>
 <li><a class='sub' href='#'>Item 1</a>
   <ul>
     <li><a href='#'>Item 1.1</a></li>
     <li><a href='#'>Item 1.2</a></li>
     <li><a href='#'>Item 1.3</a></li>
     <li class='last'><a href='#'>Item 1.4</a></li>
   </ul>
 </li>
 <li class='active'><a class='sub' href='#'>Item 2</a>
   <ul>
     <li><a href='#'>Item 2.1</a></li>
     <li class='active'><a href='#'>Item 2.2</a></li>
     <li><a href='#'>Item 2.3</a></li>
     <li class='last'><a href='#'>Item 2.4</a></li>
   </ul>
 </li>
 <li><a href='#'>Item 3</a></li>
 <li><a class='sub' href='#'>Item 4</a>
   <ul>
     <li><a href='#'>Item 4.1</a></li>
     <li><a href='#'>Item 4.2</a></li>
     <li><a href='#'>Item 4.3</a></li>
     <li class='last'><a href='#'>Item 4.4</a></li>
   </ul>
 </li>
 <li class='last'><a href='#'>Item 5</a></li>
</ul>

It works fine although there are 2 features, in my opinion, that should be automatically perform by the script. Those are:

The need to add class "last" to mean that is the last item in that menu level.
The need to add class "sub" to mean that come sublevels

In that sense I prefer PressXine Menu, although it is still in alpha version.

Protofish allows multiple instances at the same page, although it would be great that those instances can use different styles..., ...for sure Peter will include that feature in next versions...

I normally finish my posts with songs, ..today let me switch to techy videos as well. Do you know magic mouse from apple??

CAPTCHA: Don't let noone attack your forms!!

2009-10-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

At any on our sites we will have for sure a form, either for requesting info, for suscrbing to newsletters, to buy in our store, or just to sign up, ..and there are some people out there who enjoy behave a little bad either to shutsown your server, to fill your database or just to spam those forms. The solution as you all know is to install a Captcha, "put a nice car in you live and a nice captcha in your forms".

What is a Captcha??, I assume most of you know but at any case it means: "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart." What it means is, a program that can tell humans from machines using some type of generated test. A test most people can easily pass but a computer program cannot. Have you see them??

There are many out there but the one I prefer is recaptcha. It has the next functionality as stated in its site:

It's Free! Yep, reCAPTCHA is free.
It's Useful. Why waste the effort of your users? reCAPTCHA helps to digitize books.
It's Accessible. reCAPTCHA has an audio test that allows blind people to freely navigate your site.
It's Secure. Most other CAPTCHA implementations can be easily broken.
It's Popular. Over 100,000 sites use reCAPTCHA, including household names like Facebook, Ticketmaster, and Craigslist.
It's Easy. reCAPTCHA is a Web service. As such, adopting it is as simple as adding a few lines of code on your site. For many applications and programming languages such as Wordpress and PHP we also have easy-to-install plugins available. We generate and check the distorted images, so you don't need to run costly image generation programs.

Another alternative:

SecureImage Captcha: PHP Captcha. t is also a good Accesible as it generates audible CAPTCHA files !!.

Today I leave you with I captcha under my skin!!!

SCRIPT.ACOLO.US: Multilevel dropdown menu

2009-10-16T03:50:00.000-07:00

During this week i spent a little time to start building a multilevel dropdown menu. It is in version 0.5 so it still has some BUGS, do not kill me for that!!, and of course many garbage code to erase and some commented!!.

It works in firefox, chrome and explorer 8.0, and although I haven't test it on Safari it will work almost for sure (we know how "similar" the hearts from chrome and Safari are ;)). The only issue that will not work with early versions of explorer should be the hover style over the divs, and obviously some other CSS stuff.

I have added comments explaining how everything works, ..although I Still need to add comments about the JS code. At any case, and as the weekend is coming, I posted here so you have time to play around!! :).

Its name PressXine Menu or just PXMenu.

I need to hit the road!!!, Time to travel. Have a nice weekend!!.

SCRIPT.AULO.US: An original Picture Gallery

2009-10-14T16:36:00.000-07:00

The world is full of original ideas, and we all need to pay attention to them so we can fill it with some others!!. This is the case of the creative scrape. As simple as getting images from flicker, order them randomly in a cell grid, and being popped up by hoving the mouse over or randomly. The effect is really awesome. Those effects are done by the famous effects library from script.aculo.us (

<script src="effects.js?1" type="text/javascript"></script>

).

This is a great idea for having an Image Gallery!!!.

The code is very simple and I will just recommend you to take a look at the morphing function which produces the zoom, ..I am not going to explain it because it is just a question of reading it but you can get an idea of how scale images, how to get the size of the window, set styles... :


function zoomImage(element, event, suspend){
    closeAbout();
    suspendAutomatic = suspend || false;
      
    var 
      data = element._data,
      zoom = $('zoom'), o = element.cumulativeOffset();
    zoom.setStyle({backgroundImage:'url(' data[0] ')'});
    
    zoomStyle = {
      left:o[0] 'px',top:o[1] 'px',
      width:element.offsetWidth 'px',height:element.offsetHeight 'px'
    };
    var link = zoom.down('a');
    link.hide().writeAttribute('href', data[1]).update(data[1]);
    zoom.setStyle(zoomStyle);
    
    var dims = document.viewport.getDimensions(),
        w = parseInt(data[2]), h = parseInt(data[3]), l = o[0], t = o[1];
    
    if(l w>dims.width-10) l = dims.width-w-10;
    if(t h>dims.height-10) t = dims.height-h-10;
    if(l<10) { w=dims.width-20; l=10; }
    if(t<10) { h=dims.height-20; t=10; }
    
    zoom.show().morph(
      'left:' l 'px;top:' t 'px;' 
      'width:' w 'px;height:' h 'px', {
      duration: .4,
      after: function(){ link.show(); }
    });
    
    if(event) event.stop();
  }

Amy and Thomas, as usual, have come out with a good idea expressed by a clean code!!. My Time: 01:45, so bed time, have sweet dreams if you are able after checking the video from Marilyn Manson..., who says I am freaky after checking Marilyn??

PHPBB: The Forum Solution

2009-10-13T15:33:00.000-07:00

During all these days, at my blog, you have read about the different JS Frameworks, how to build dropdown menus, how to drag&drop, where to get the updated code of these libreries, about widgets for video players, or for pics and tag clouds, the latest news about joomla, wordpress, how to make your website quick, fast and optimized and good SEO Strategies....But I have said little about forums and how to being able to have one..

I think it is time to meet PHPBB!!!
As it is said in the name of this awesome software, it runs over PHP and you also obviously need a DB and a Web server (I recommend you to install XAMPP which will install all this requirements in several clicks). The requirements for version 3 can be found here.
PHPBB is released under the GNU General Public License and it brings the following features:

You can build all the forums you may need.
For a quicker access it provides cache for all the contents.
User Registrarion and personalization of any field.
User Panel to administer all his/her info.
Private messages between Registered users, as well as being able to create folders to save them.
A Nice search engine by topics and users.
Administration and moderation Panel and Options.
Session Control. It provides maximum connection time and inactivity control.
Users can block messages by "enemies".
It enables content Personalization.
It enables Groups.
Many reports for moderators and administrators, as well as many intersting logs of user activity.
"Skins". It comes with 2 different ones but you can download more at many sites for example at phpbbdesign or free at phpbbstyles.com or at PHPBB site

How to install it??. It is perfectly explained at PHPBB site.

I Prefer PHPBB as VBulletin, ....but as any person has different likes, i will talk about VBulletin soon!!. As always stay tuned, ..and talking about tunes, Do u remember Suede??

PROCESSING.JS: Why Using flash or Applets??

2009-10-12T16:21:00.000-07:00

This is not new, lately we have crashed into Raphaël, or even the fx frameworks from Scripty2 or mootools, which are implenting very good stuff that will provide RIA apps to your web. Now it's time for processing.js. I haven't had time to test it, so for this time I will just pick words of its creators (Ben Fry and Casey Reas):

"Processing.js is an open programming language for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions for the web without using Flash or Java applets. Processing.js uses Javascript to draw shapes and manipulate images on the HTML5 Canvas element. The code is light-weight, simple to learn and makes an ideal tool for visualizing data, creating user-interfaces and developing web-based games.

Processing.js runs in FireFox, Safari, Opera, Chrome and will also work with Internet Explorer, using Explorer Canvas."

Do not miss the learning Chapter!!. Examples of just everythings..

For how long time will still Flash or Flex conquer the market??, ...still for quite a bit, ...but change is happening!!

JQUERY: Links Styles

2009-10-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I heard a collegue complaining about some code she hada code at an upload jsp to detect the extension of the file and save that type of extension (pdf, zip, png, doc....) within link field in a DB. I asked, ..what for??, ..and she answered " so when someone comes to my link's section at my Portal, it appears a cool pdf, zip, png, doc.... icon by the link!!..."

What could I say??, I just crayed out loud "JQUERY!!". She looked at me surprisely and I explained her the following:

There is a pretty way, and very simple, to get the extension of a link in Jquery: just like this $("a[@href$=extension]"). So for what you can do is set a function that will execute when the dom is ready $(document).ready(function(){}) that would look for all our extensions links and assign to them a style. The function could be as this one:


<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){

 $("a[@href$=pdf]").addClass("pdf");
 $("a[@href$=zip]").addClass("zip");
 $("a[@href$=zip]").addClass("png");
 $("a[@href$=doc]").addClass("doc");
});
</script>

And now just get the syles ready for those extensions. Something very easy could be:


.pdf {
 padding-left: 20px;
 background: transparent url(pdfIcon.png) left top no-repeat;
}
.zip {
 padding-left: 20px;
 background: transparent url(zipIcon.png) left top no-repeat;
}
...
...
...
...

As simple as that!!. Even if you want to set a style for external links this also could be done adding this to the js function:


 $("a:not([@href*=http://blogandweb.com])").not("[href*=#]").addClass("external")

And adding the "external" style at the css. Last but not least and to prevent external links to open in your site, I recommend to add to all external links this attribute: .attr({ target: "_blank" });.

Enjoy the weekend, and do not miss a good concert!!: Every you, Every me (Placebo)

RAPHAEL: Helps you handling IMGs and Charts at your Site

2009-10-08T03:29:00.000-07:00

Most of us want to include some charts in our sites and we endup including excel sheets or just IMGs with the Charts that is much easier, ....are you sure that is the easier way??. If your answer is "YES" is because you don't know Raphaël by Dmitry Baranovski.

Write the values in a table and let magic happen.

As dmitry says: "Raphaël uses the SVG W3C Recommendation and VML as a base for creating graphics. This means every graphical object you create is also a DOM object, so you can attach JavaScript event handlers or modify them later". So. That means that Raphaël can apply translations, rotations and scalations to images as this example:

As well as being able to animate them!!. At any case, and thanks to the Image Method, you can Embed an image into the SVG/VML canvas and being at the DOM you can apply any other jquery, scripty2..... object transformation methods!!.

Today, which is today's song??. Time for Moby singing in spanish with Amaral.

OPTIMIZATION: Test your portal on Websiteoptimization.com

2009-10-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

When building a portal, a site, a blog, a forum.... there are many factors to have in mind:

Technology
Design, Usability & User experience
Good SEO Strategy
Market Niche, ..or People interested in your contents
.....
.....
and a good OPTIMIZATION of your site!!!.

How can you optimize your site??. There are many factors, but the most obvious are:

A proper size of the html code. It is recommended less than 50kb, ..normally this would not be the problem!!
Miniziming the number of items in your page (img, flash, css files, js files...). How much are recommended?? from 20 to 30.
Minimizing also the size of this items. Total size should be around 100kb.
Minify your css and js files (this will erase any useless whitespaces, carriage return....).
GZIP your code. This has to be allowed by your hosting provider.
Size of External Elements. You may have external elements in within your page, ..for the hosting server this can better sometimes (youtube videos, flicker images...), but for the guy surfing your web will be like elements in your page, so bare in mind point 2.
No broken links!!. No error 404. This will make the server one disk access to declare the error at the log which will mean slower transfer.
A good hosting provider!!. The speed your page is downloaded depends of all factors above as well as the speed of your provider!!.

Hmmmm, too many factors!!. why doesn't exist a tool which can help me??. There are many, for example a plugin for firefox which I love called YUI but I will speak about it another day..., for starting testing your site I recommend Websiteoptimization. Just enter your URL, and this tool will check most of the factors above about your site, ..and even more interesting it will tell you how optimized are your friend's portal so you will show them your portal is better than theirs!! :)

Try twitter and google starting pages, ..and check the differences....

And today the killers are at Radio freakZion!!!.

SCRIPTY2: The FX factory. When the magic comes true

2009-10-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

A while ago I announced the PHOENIX REBORN!!, .. the new version of script.aculo.us which is called Scripty2. This weekend I tried out the FX , the effects frameworks, part of the Core...uffff, no words to explain my feelings. Its features:

CSS morphing engine: morph from one set of style properties to another, including support for all CSS length types (px, em, %, cm, pt, etc.).
Extensive transition system for animation easing and special effects (e.g. bouncing).
Auto-adjusts to differences in computing and rendering speed (drops frames as necessary).
Limits the number of attempted frame renders to conserve CPU in fast computers.
Flexible OOP-based implementation allows for easy extension and hacks.
Effect queuing to run an effect after other effects have finished.
Chaining and default options: easy-to-use syntax for most use cases.
Reusable effect instances can be used with more than one DOM element.
User-definable callback functions at any point in the effect lifecycle.
Effects are abortable (either as-is or abort-to-end).

But as I always say.., a demo is more worth than 1000032042304304 words, ..so just take a look at the demo page of the transitions.

Soooo, what are you waiting for to change your code from Script.aculo.us to scripty2??, ..and I should ask, ..when is the wedding between Prototype and Scripty2??, hmmmmm, many common things I see lately, ..have you realized how the documentation from Scripty and Prototype seems very similar thanks to pdoc from prototype..

..I leave this post but with the pleasure of leaving the radio on with this version of Personal Jesus by Johny Cash

ALL: Drag & Drop

2009-10-03T02:50:00.000-07:00

A shiny saturday!!, perfect for some beers at a terrace, ..hmmm. I will be quick with this post then :)

Here is the promised list of Drag & Drop for all technologies:

Scriptaculous:

FreakZion Post 14/09.
Article 1 at vagabundia (spanish).
Article 2 at vagabundia (spanish).

Dojo:

Article at sitepen in which kevin Guillen explains in detail dojo.dnd.

Jquery:

Article at Hermoso día... (spanish).
Article at Papermash.

YUI:

Samples at developer network.

ExtJS:

Article at the ExtJs site blog (Very good explanation I must say).

Mootools:

FreakZion Post 02/10.

..If you like to add one to my list do not doubt to throw me a brick with the URL Links written in a paper attached!!!. Enjoy the weekend!!

MOOTOOLS: Drag&Drop

2009-10-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

hmmmm, now it's time for mootools, ..and then I should make a list of drag&drop in all javascript libraries, some of them I have already explained in my "awesome" blog, ...because you all think is awesome, don't you??.

Let's think about 10 balls and 2 baskets, so the balls can be dragged to any of the baskets. Let's have an easy html code to represent this:

<div id="balls"></div>
 <div class="ball"></div>
 <div class="ball"></div>
 <div class="ball"></div>
 <div class="ball"></div>
 <div class="ball"></div>
 <div class="ball"></div>
 <div class="ball"></div>
 <div class="ball"></div>
 <div class="ball"></div>
 <div class="ball"></div>
<div id="baskets">
 <div class="basket"></div>
 <div class="basket"></div>
</div>

o not forget to apply style to give them a form. Something like this:

#balls{
 float:left;
}
.ball{
 width:100px;
 height:100px;
 background-image:url(ball.png);
}
#baskets{
 float:left;
}
.basket{
 width:100px;
 height:100px;
 float:left;
 padding:0px;
 margin:5px
 background-image:url(basket.png);
}

Now with javascript let's define the objects draggable (the one to move, that is the ball), and droppable(the one to drop, that is each basket):

$$('#balls div').each(function(drag){
 new Drag.Move(drag, {
  droppables: $$('#baskets div')
 });
});

This means, add the drag capability to the ball elements to being drop into the baskets. Now let's make the basket vibrates when ball on top, empty when ball is not drop in, and basket with ball when ball has been dropped in (All effects will be done with images for simplicity):

$$('#baskets div').each(function(drop){
 drop.addEvents({
  'over': function(el, obj){
   this.setStyle({'background-image','url(BasketVibrating.png)'});
  },
  'leave': function(el, obj){
   this.setStyle({'background-image','url(basket.png)'});
  },
  'drop': function(el, obj){
   this.setStyle({'background-image','url(basketWithBall.png)'});
   });
  }
 });
});

...and that's it!!. It is just a matter to see how to assign drag or drop capabilities to objects, and being able to set over, leave or drop events for droppable objects...

Then of course you can make it complex, for example when moving the ball to the basket you can use Fx.Transitions.Bounce to make it bounce....for example. There are soo many interesting things about Mootools FX

ohhh, yes, I almost forget, ..the list of articles about drag&drop for all libraries..., hmmm, let's leave it for tomorrow :)

YUI: 3.0.0 Version

2009-10-01T02:40:00.000-07:00

YUI 3’s core infrastructure (YUI, Node and Event) and its utility suite (including Animation, IO, Drag & Drop and more) are all considered production-ready with this release, ..meanwhile you 've been playing around with beta version as well as with v2.8.0.

The topics which have been redisign are:

Selector-driven: YUI 3 is built around one of the lightest, fastest selector engines available, bringing the expressive power of the CSS selector specification into actions that target DOM nodes.
Syntactically terse: Without polluting the global namespace, YUI 3 supports a more terse coding style in which more can be accomplished with less code.
Self-completing: YUI 3’s light (6.2KB gzipped) seed file can serve as the starting point for any implementation. As long as this seed file is present on the page, you can load any module in the library on the fly. And all modules brought into the page via the built-in loader are done so via combo-handled, non-blocking HTTP requests. This makes loading the library safe, easy and fast.
Sandboxed: YUI modules are bound to YUI instances when you use() them; this protects you against changes that might happen later in the page’s lifecycle. (In other words, if someone blows away a module you’re using after you’ve created your YUI instance, your code won’t be affected.)

Wanna see YUI in action??

The Core Infrastructure:
- YUI module.
- Node.
- Event.
Utility Suite:

Input/Output operations.
and of course Drag and Drop. (remember to check drag&drop in other technologies: Scriptaculous,Dojo,Jquery)

At Last, Satyen's talk provides a fantastic introduction to the value proposition of YUI 3, explaining the big decisions Yahoo people made moving from the YUI 2 codeline.

WEB DESKTOPS: A glance to where Rich Apps want to get

2009-09-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

It seems everything is turning into RIA apps., and everything seems just so NEW and exciting, ..I still remember 8 years ago, not 1,2 or 3, 8 years ago, when I built my first windows like menu with js, or a wolfestein like game all made with js (I have to say it only worked in explorer and not in netscape)....snif, reading my words I realize I am a bit old!!, ..hey, just a bit!!, still at my 30s!! :)

So now web desktops are coming, many, but let me just talk about 3.

Mocha(ui);
A list of libraries to create advanced user interfaces. What can we choose from?? windows, buttons, menus, lists, treelists, selectors...

It is based on Mootools so the code is firefox, explorer, safari, chrome... ready.

Get the libraries at marvellous google code site, or just get to mocha(ui); homepage.

It also comes with PHP app which helps you integrate all these tools or libraries in your PHP projects.

Comet Desktop
A powerfull open source web desktop ".. that every one can use, and an application framework that will allow developers to build anything they can dream of" as the creators like to say. It seems very powerfull, but let's say that 75% of the solution is thanks to extjs, ...or haven't you seen this before :)

Obviously not extJS is all we can get with it, for example it supports web sockets, a secure login, integration with google analytics, ajaxterm support, and much more..

You can get a good article about extJS here, ...mine!! :), ..although these guys have thought about using Mojolicious (http://mojolicious.org/). I am not sooo into perl but i have heard many good stuff about this web framework for "perl".

James Luterek Web OS??
Nope, not talking about OS, but an OS like user interface or let's just call it a window handler..., OS involves soooo much, ..but know knows what James brings us for the future... By now we have this:

* Start Button
* Task Bar - view open windows and set focus/minimize
* Windows (Create, move, maximize, minimize, resize, etc.)
* Show Desktop on right click
* Properties (Theme Color, Text Color, Background Color, Background Image)
* Properties saved in cookies for next visit

Get to this project.

What's next??
Web Operating Systems??, ...why not??, actually have you ever take a look to eye OS??. You are going to like it!!,

..some new projects will come to live as skylight Project Javascrip Os development , as well as other closed down as youOS.

Since I mentioned wolfenstein before, ..I suggest you to relax and play for some minutes to this oldie, now in JS: Javascript Wolfestein 3D

SEO: 9 Strategies

2009-09-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

This happy week has started. How is it going??? For sure a bit hateable because is monday but, in the other hand, full of new projects and dreams to achieve!!.

I have been mentioned, within my blog, about SEO Strategies so I will give you 9 general recomendations which will help you to position your portals and developments at the top of the rankings:

URLs or Links Optimization: When Googles, or any other seach engine, indexes a page, it also uses the info at links to that page, as well as it does to the links within the page. Try to include in the link text or in within the URL any word who might be significant!!. For example if using wordpress select the option which include the title of the post in the url, and not the ID.
Bloguer PageRank: Create not less than 3 contents in your blog in the weekly basis, and try to get linked by other bloguers, ....links from other sites do always help. I still remember a friend who created 10 blogs and linked one to the other..., this trick helps a little at the beginning but who is able to maintain 10 blogsss??. I still laugh at him when I meet him and joke about that funny idea.
Microformats or microtags: These are XHTML standard solutions used for specific cases. Some examples can be rel="nofollow" which google will discard for a vote to that page in the pagerank, or adding rel="tag" to a hyperlink, a page indicates that the destination of that hyperlink is an author-designated "tag" (or keyword/subject) for the current page.

Tags: Always include tags in all your contents. Those will be registered by all the tags search engine (del.icio.us, digg, reddit, flickr, technotati, etc.).

Social Networking/Media: You have many friends, ..more than you might think, ..so publish your site by your name at msn, facebook, Googletalk......
Use the Personalized search engine by Google.
Wikis: Set the name of your Portal at any wiki!!. Start with wikipedia.
Peek on your visitors: which words are used by your visitors to get to your portal??. Used those words to increase your post or contents about those topics.
Friendly Titles.

JQUERY: Easy dropdown Window

2009-09-27T13:59:00.001-07:00

This is just an easy example for a Dropdown Window or menu, ..very easy one :)

Pop! is this easy way to have pop menus, and very important unobtrusive javascript.

As usual to include Pop! is just a question of adding the js and css files:

<link href="/pop/stylesheets/pop.css" media="all" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
<script language="javascript" src="/pop/javascripts/jquery.pop.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

To initialize it:


<script type='text/javascript'>
   $(document).ready(function(){
     $.pop();
   });
</script>

And just the class "pop" to the div you desire to apply the effect:


<div class='pop'>
   <p>you can put anything you want in here!</p>
   <p>images, links to freakzion posts, My demos!</p>
</div>

JQUERY: Twitter Visualization by tori's eye

2009-09-26T04:42:00.000-07:00

The weeekend is here and as usual I have little time to post.., so time for a quick post!!. some weekes ago a crashed into a cool way to visualize twitter!!. ...using jquery. The name of it, Tori’s Eye, by Luis Abreu and Quodis Labs

It fetches search rss results and for each result it spawns and animates a paper bird that flies through the screen.

As I usually suggest you can get great ideas about Jquery coding sneaking into someone's else awesome code!!. Since i was changing part of my code from scriptaculous to jquery I took a look, ..a pity I am going back to scripty2!!!

JAVASCRIPT: Join your JS files all together!!

2009-09-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

Sprockets!!, ..it seems a word someone would scream out loud when being angry, but it is just a nice and handy way to make one js file out of your, perharps, messy javascript.

When is it usefull??. Let me point out some examples:

You are developing a portal framework tool and within the project you come up with a nice code to manage windows and dialog boxes. Suddenly your heart and mind decide to share that library with your friends, bloggers, techies.., ..use sprockets to take all the code used for that purpose to share it!!.
As we all know, it is faster for the browser to handle one .js file of 100kbs than 20 .js 5kbs files . just because of the different calls to get files from the web server . So join up all your js files for speed your website.
Work with seperate organized javascript files into separate folders, ..sprockets will just join them up.
Having comments in your code is the normal way to work, and more baring in mind a big development. But comments translate into kbs, and we need our code lightweight..., hmmmm, no problem use sprockets to strip those comments!!.

So, remember, when your javascript code is ready, just say SPROCKETS!!. and see magic happens...