On my almost green 1.5GHz VIA computer running linux you can immediately tell that firefox 3 rc1 is a lot more responsive than Firefox 2. The problem is though it doesn’t have support for some of the my Web Development plugins, namely Firbug, HTML Validator and Web Developer. I know beta versions of these are available for firefox 3, but I’m feeling a little lazy now to hunt them down and install them. It’ll take more clicks than I’m willing to spare right now! 
Keep reading »
Javaworld has an interesting article on using OpenOffice as the server for a web based spreadsheet like Google Spreadsheets. They use servlets running on Tomcat to communicate with OpenOffice.org, while using Dojo for the web tier.
It handles all the standard spreadsheet functions, but I’m thinking this could be a very useful resource for people needing web based mathematical/statistical applications. It appears you can integrate it with a Java/J2EE application with a little effort, saving you from reinventing the wheel.
Links:
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-05-2008/jw-05-spreadsheets.html
Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 has been released to the wild. The ACID2 test could not be reached for a good while after ie8 was released. I guess everyone who downloaded was running the test. While it does seem to pass the ACID2 test (provided you OK the ActiveX dialog box), it still fails on some CSS 2.1 tests in the W3C CSS 2.1 suite.. I couldn’t run as many of the test I wanted, as IE takes up around 95-99% of CPU time on the test list page. Keep reading »
Well, it would appear that microsoft is realising it made a mistake in choosing version targeted quirks mode as the default for Internet Explorer 8. I guess they didn’t anticipate the uproar from developers, and so decided to do a U-Turn and enable standard compliance mode by default. Keep reading »
Despite of being around for years, adoption of GNU/Linux based operating systems in the mainstream desktop has been slow. But now it is getting more coverage thanks to distributions such as Ubuntu, and for being included with some new computers from manufacturers such as Dell.
More people are asking what can I run on it, and what do I use for writing documents, editing photos etc. In this series of articles I will cover a number of common use applications that should be relevant to most people. I’ll start with the mostly used applications in todays average computer. Keep reading »
In a previous article I showed you how easy it is to create a constrained fluid layout i.e. one with a minimum and maximum widths. While this works on all standards compliant browsers, it doesn’t work in Internet Explorer 6. Keep reading »
Microsoft are looking to punish web users and developers by releasing another broken version of internet explorer in its 8th incarnation. They say they are helping people by not making it standards compliant, that people want things to remain the same. Well, web developers have to work bloody hard to make sure their content looks nearly as presentable in IE as it does in standards compliant browsers.
They say that if they start following standards, the web pages of their current userbase will no longer look right. That’s the same argument they’ve been using since version 6, and if they carry on, the issue will still remain in 10 years time. Keep reading »
Users of the web all have different screen sizes, and not everyone uses the browser in the maximised state, especially those with large screen sizes. There are also a wide variety of portable devices with web browsing capabilities e.g. the Nokia n800, n810 and of course the iphone. Even many of the Portable Keep reading »
While it would be nice if there was a cross-browser cross-platform font downloading system for the web, the current system of Cascading Style Sheets isn’t too bad. It does allow you to select a number of fonts that the browser can cascade through.
This gives you the option to select fonts that fit the look you’re after, but may not be widely available. You can cascade down to fonts that are more widely available fonts.
Or you may wish to use a font that is available on only one platform. In such a case you could check to see if there are similar fonts available in other systems which can be used as a fallback. You can check the commonly available fonts on various systems in this font list. This will also flag the fonts not available on your computer.
If you want to check the similarity between a number of fonts to narrow your choices or to determine the order of the cascade, this font comparer will help your decision.
I’ve collated a list of common fonts available in different operating systems as well as other free fonts. This will help you select the fonts you should use for your web site without having to limit yourself to verdana!
