Microsoft's Silverlight at the end of the tunnel?

Now I'm not a huge fan of Flash and other rich webpage technologies mainly because they are mostly used unnecessarily for graphics and animations which don't really benefit anyone. Turning sites into something resembling a slow to download TV advert and reducing browser compatibility is something we can all do without; however one cant ignore the fact that sometimes rich browser technologies really are necessary. For example at the moment I am editing this blog entry in a Javascript based rich text editor called TinyMCE; without it editing my blog online would be considerably more painful.

Posted by Daniel: 9:31, Fri 28th Sep 2007

Gizmo of the Month - The digital keychain

I just came across this in a Dabs catalog. I have no idea whether its any good or not but the concepts blatant use of technology for the sake of it made me chuckle.

Its basically a keychain with a colour display and a USB port for uploading pictures. If it had been more than 8MB it might have actually been useful but unfortunately as it stands its just a toy.

Posted by Daniel: 23:46, Thu 27th Sep 2007

To bundle or not to bundle?

Whilst touring the Internet recently I came across this (or more importantly this). Unlike some of the other crazy plans in the past the EU have come up with to try and balance out Microsoft's monopoly this one caught my attention. Forcing PC's to be sold without Microsoft Windows, surely thats an idea that could be beneficial?

Posted by Daniel: 10:14, Mon 24th Sep 2007

Go away Google!

Now don't get me wrong I'm not a Google hater; after all back in the days when we all happily trawled through Altavista (the supreme search engine at the time) Google was like a free gift to spods everywhere. A fresh new look and a fresh new indexing technique all at the power of our fingertips. We could now quickly and easily find what we wanted in the rapidly growing collection of unsorted paperwork which was the Internet.

Posted by Daniel: 21:28, Wed 12th Sep 2007

Are the W3C going down the toilet?

For those of you that are new to web design you may or may not have heard of the W3C so before we start heres a quick summary:

About the W3C

The W3C are basically a consortium dedicated to creating standards and guidelines for the code that makes up web pages. Now the first thing you might say is "what gives them the right to make those guidelines?", well nothing I guess but since their director is none other than Sir Tim Burners Lee the guy that invented the 'World Wide Web' in the first place, I think its only fair that we at least give them a chance...

Posted by Daniel: 20:32, Sun 9th Sep 2007

Instant Messenging - Setting up your own server...

Instant messenger has a bit of a strange existence. Similar to texting on mobile phones, many consider it as a bit of a joke or a toy application associating it with kids chatting online about their favorite pop groups. However as with text messenging dismissing IM in this way could mean you miss out on many opportunities.

Posted by Daniel: 0:07, Mon 3rd Sep 2007