Go to www.google.com

Type in: find Chuck Norris

Then click the I’m feeling lucky button

Actually, if you didn't already notice this is just a very clever trick and has nothing to do with Google, it's just that this page below is the top result for 'Find chuck Norris':

 http://clients.arranschlosberg.com/chuck/

Looks like the Webkit team have proved they are the leading player in standards compliance as today they have released a public build that passes the Acid 3 test.

It can be downloaded here: http://nightly.webkit.org/

I wonder how long it will take for the other browser manufacturers to catch up? Considering that the Acid 3 test, tests for things that are not actually adopted standards, whether other browsers should want to pass the test at all?

http://webkit.org/blog/173/webkit-achieves-acid3-100100-in-public-build/

I don't like Chinese or Indian takeaways, the only takeaway I can stomach is Pizza. Since the last time I ordered a pizza was back when I was at University I thought that it was about time I 'got me some carbs'. I had a Pizza Hut Cheesy bites meat feast, Crunch chicken and Potato wedges... It was rank. The pizza was ok but the side orders were horrid. Completely devoid of flavor , I was half wondering if it really was chicken or some limp greasy Soya based rubbish.

After eating it I felt dirty, the kind of dirty scrubbing can't wash. I vowed never again to order from Pizza Hut.

It got me thinking what's the worst takeaway you can get? So I turned to Google: An American chain "Outback Steakhouse" sells a dish called Cheesy Fries. 1 single portion (and bear in mind this is a side order) contains 2900 calories!

FAT BUGGERS!

I just downloaded firefox beta 4 to test and see if it passes the Acid 3 test. Sadly it no longer passes the opening up test. Could firefox be the flakiest beta browser ever? Looks like safari are going to have a few more converts this month.

"In many ways it (Firefox 3) is much more stable than anything else out there," Mozilla Corp Vice President of Engineering Mike Schroepfer. - IS THIS MORE STABLE MIKE?

I'm not currently a user of Office 2007 but this video from Jensen Harris made me realize what the ribbon bar was and why they'd so radically changed the Office User Interface.

http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/UX09.wmv

This video shows how science is used to create something that's beautiful and useful.

Every User Interface Designer should view this.

I’ve been stuck on RIA’s now for a few days and after reading Sebastien Arbogast blog What Does it Take to Be a Good RIA Platform? It got me thinking, all of the points he raised can be answered by existing AJAX technology and with AJAX support improving at the Browser Level are RIA's really bringing anything valuable to the Internet?

I remember being told back in 2000 that an a few year all websites will be flash based… Quite obviously they were wrong infact people disliked full flash website's because they often broke key functionality:

• You can’t cut and paste
• You can’t link back to your exact point with a URL
• If you refresh you back to the start of the application
• SEO problems
• If you press stop you may not end execution
• Back and forward buttons are broken.

Of course all these tiny problems can be addressed, but none are fixed out of the box and many developers neglect to deal with them. This means users are often confused by what’s happening in an RIA and what they expect to happen on a website. This is the case in Flex and Silverlight.

So back to the 5 points of good RIA – lets take a look and see how many Ajax answers:

1. the runtime has to be as widespread and portable as possible:  - AJAX is available on more browsers than flash or silverlght
2. behind the fancy stuff, the code has to be simple, clean and state-of-the-art: Ajax is now a breeze to code. Visual studio 2008 has intellisense and full step by step debugging of JavaScript. There are even engines which can now convert C# code into JavaScript . Even PHP/Ajax debugging is made easier in the latest version of Microsoft Expression. Fact is it’s never been easier to write an Ajax application.
3. it has to be supported by a wide variety of development tools: It can be produced and consumed on all systems and published on all servers, its about as supported as an Internet technology can be.
4. RIA is all about the presentation layer, so it has to be connected to some backend to be useful, and the more backends it supports the better: Connecting Ajax to a backend is in many ways easier than Flex and silverlight.
5. it has to be deployable on any platform: Of course it is.

You may be thinking; Well what difference does IE 8 make? LOTS, if you take a look at the browser it’s fixed a great deal of issues that relate to Ajax development.

• Browser back button is now fixed.
• An event has been in place to tell you when a connection to the Internet has been lost so you can switch to offline database storage.
• IE8 is a fully standard compliant browser so developers won’t have to worry about different browser interpretations.

A real difference is the visual effects and smoothness of a RIA, but to be honest I think http://www.mindmeister.com/ is probably better than the user experience of http://www.musicovery.com/

The other benefit of RIA is speed because RIA's are compiled and aren't performing all that costly server client communication, but with all that said, facebook seems plenty responsive to me.

I still think it’ll be a longtime yet before we see RIA take over AJAX in popularity. Over the next year I think the trend will be mixed applications (AJAX and silverlight interacting together) rather than stand alone RIA's.

Macs are better than PC’s, Flex is better than Silverlight, Ajax is better than Flex, Steve Jobs has a better turtle neck than Bill Gates… Do you ever get fed up with all the Jingoistic mud flinging that goes on between developers? Have we really not grown up past the playground days of “My dads stronger than yours?”

I’m guilty… I know… If you read my, why silverlight is nailing Flex post, you'll realise that on occasion I hold a bias towards Microsoft products. Perhaps bias is an understatement; if Microsoft released a Zune phone I'd be more excited than Amy Winehouse would be to see a syringe.

Supporting or promoting your favorite technology is always a bit counter productive. I guess by spouting about how bad another companies product is, all I’m doing is pissing off the exact people I’m hoping will join in on the fun.

Therefore, I’m not going to tell you why I don't like Flex but give you 5 reasons I like Silverlight. I’d appreciate it if you could provide 5 reasons why you prefer the RIA environment you use, try not to repeat other posters comments.

1. Developer support is Awesome. For Example Microsoft have paid Vertigo to build this open source YouTube style Video Hosting application to get developers up and running: http://codeplex.com/videoshow. (P.S. This application lets you host and stream 4gb of video for FREE using Windows Live Silverlight Streaming.
2. Design is completely separate from Code. Developers can pass over the engine and designers can create the body by either opening up notepad and crunching XAML or by using Microsoft Expression. Designers can collaborate  and without treading on each others toes.
3. Ajax, JavaScript and Silverlight work together as one. The XAML on the page can be accessed directly from JavaScript in precisely the same way you would access any other Dom elements. This means you can have the best of both worlds. A really cool Ajax site that integrates seamlessly with Silverlight rich elements (My currently preferred use of silverlight)
4. Adaptive streaming on video content, means that depending on the network speed the stream quality automatically adjusts. Meaning you don’t have to ask a user what bandwidth speed they have, the application is checking in real-time as the video is playing back. So if the network activity peaks Silverlight will reduce the feed quality to ensure playback is smooth and uninterrupted.
5. You can use the same XAML code in both silverlight and WPF. Meaning experiences that you’ve created for vista applications can be cut and pasted into Silverlight.

So you work for Google:

• You Get Paid a fortune
• You get some ridiculous perks.

Why would you release a website that looked this disgusting?

Google Sky

Perhaps the designers are all too busy playing on their in house slide:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7290322.stm

Over the past year there has been a huge debate between web developers all over the globe about what will become the standard in rich Internet applications. In the past few months it's become apparent that Flex just doesn't have the same developer buzz that Silverlight is receiving.

To understand why Flex hasn't taken off we need to look at the history of the product. Flex grew out of Flash which was such a huge success as it enabled designers to create rich interactive interfaces for the web that could look great and operate more like applications. Most designers latched on to the technology since it's out of the box timeline support meant that even if you had no programming experience, with a few timeline tricks you could make an application do things that looked so much more impressive than what was happening in HTML at the time.

As designers got more experienced they moved away from timeline work and begin using the JavaScript like syntax of ActionScript with data provided in XML by either PHP or .net backends.

This history creates a problem for Adobe, since Flex is sophisticated development environment they have a product that pitches outside of their core users comfort zone. Most Flash developers have never dealt with concepts like  inheritance, encapsulation or polymorphism.

Flex and Silverlight are aimed more at the development market than at the the designer market; and this is where Microsoft are strongest. Ever since the release of ASP.net and more noticeably since the release of Visual Studio 2005 Microsoft have compounded their customers into a development community, a community that's willing to push boundaries and which are capable of higher level developing than their Flash counterparts. For most Microsoft developers Silverlight is easy to pick because it uses the same language and the same Object Orientated and tiered approach that most C# and Vb.Net developers are familiar with. For Flash developers Flex is a huge transition, not unlike the transition that Microsoft developers went through 4 or 5 years ago when they moved from asp to asp.net.

The simple reason that Silverlight has more buzz than Flex is because Flash developers aren't willing to become programmers.

To see Silverlight 2 in action check out the the latest Hardrock Cafe demo: http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/

To see the Buzz Trend i'm discussing view here: http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22Adobe+Flex%22%2C+%22Microsoft+silverlight%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

In business we’re often told that we need to be able to give the customer what ever they want, whenever they want it. Many believe this to be a key success factor for any business, However, making sure you're always there for your customer and always able to provide them with what they want will actually lead to inefficiencies that will cripple your business.

Coming from a business background rather than a computer science background has held me in good stead for a career in Web and software development. Where as most developers will come to a project and make their software do everything. I realised early on that software should be specific, if it performs it's main function and nothing else, then you’ll be able to satisfy 90% of your potential market. Is it really worth spending an extra year’s development time to satisfy the extra 10%?

If you try and make your software do everything, you soon discover you’ve invested a great deal of Research and development in hundreds of functions that only a small percentage of your users will use.

Therefore to be more profitable you should offer the customer what you have, not necessarily what they want.

If you run a restaurant, cut down your menu and focus on key dishes.

If you sell products focus on selling specific brands.

If you design websites only use one development language.

The reason this works on a large and small scale is that by concentrating on just one area you will naturally be more efficient than competitors that try to operate in multiple areas. There are greater efficiencies in operations (fewer suppliers), marketing (fewer diverse campaigns) and in sales (Smaller floor space).

Do you think that you can make more money by offering less?