The 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps

Do you instinctively know them before looking at this video?

Form Validation Engine 1.6.4

Version 1.6.4 is now online. One major upgrade, you can now validate from any function in your script. You are no more bounded to the custom regex engine. And a minor update, you can now click on the bubble to make them disappear, in case they are in the way.

Here how it works:

In your field add:

In your language js file have something like (nname is the function name to call):

Now the custom function that could be anywhere in your JS

In video: Optimizing your javascript!

If you are in a company that build corporate websites, chances are you probably never had to optimize your javascript. Websites in general have 3 or 4 ‘widget’ that in the end do not really slow down the page load.

But when you start doing web applications, you start to feel the load you impose to your browser at every page. This is where optimizing your javascript becomes crucial.

Server change alert! position-absolute move to webfaction

For now more than a year position-absolute.com has been hosted by linode. Linode offer great unmanaged VPS hosting. This has really been beneficial for my own experience to delve in the Linux world and build my web server from scratch. Buuuutt the time comes when I don’t want to play in apache and mysql config anymore.

Webfaction is a great semi-managed VPS hosting. You get half the ram you would get with an unmanaged VPS but installing an application is as easy as using wordpress. For example, you can deploy a Django application in about 5 minutes.

Things might be unstable for a couple of days.

Give Internet Explorer 9 a test drive

Want to look at what is under the wheel for internet explorer 9? You can download a test drive at this address http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/.

For now it is confirmed that IE9 will support addEventListener (lol) and border-radius, it score 55 on the Acid3 test. It was also said that IE9 will be GPU powered, from what I can gather, this is only true with SVG.

Canvas seems to be out of the question, every drawing demo are done with SVG.

Update: the complete change list http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/info/releasenotes/

A call to all web developers, launching a twitter campaign to force webkit to implement a position fixed in mobile webkit

Hey guys,

I need YOU for 2 minutes,

Some of you guys might not know that it is impossible to have a fixed toolbar in mobile webkit, this is because we can’t fix anything to the gridview webkit produce.

This is something we need if one day we really want to be a contender to replace native applications.

If you have 2 minute sign the petition by going to http://www.abettermobileweb.com and click on the big button at the bottom.

Rework, think you know how business work? Think again.

When I heard that Signals37 was launching another book, the first thing I did is run to the local Chapster to get it.

If you do not know Signals37, you probably know one of their online product, like Basecamp (psssstt they also created ruby on rails). These guys have pretty strong opinions on how a business should be run and their view is really refreshing. This is not your typical business book, this is about 3 guys who wanted to get things done, that didn’t want to grow to much and not accept venture capitals.

Rework

This book is for you guys that are doing web apps late at night and you the freelancer and you the small web business owner. You can feel between the…

In video: The Future of Web Apps

Ben Galbraith & Dion Almaer – The Future of Web Applications from Øredev on Vimeo.

“The Ajax revolution saw a sea change in web application development. By taking advantage of long-dormant browser capabilities, we were able to take our craft to new levels–reinventing well-established genres, challenging desktop applications, and jump-starting a renaissance in web start-ups.”

In this presentation, recorded at Øredev 2009, Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith (Creators of Ajaxian.com) examine the many factors contributing to the web as platform and also explore what the next stage of evolution for the web might look like.”

Update: Please click on the video, I unfortunatly can’t embed it on the site

State of Internet Explorer 9 progress

I recently found an old article (3 months old) I did not read about IE9 progress.

There are some good news in it, first the javascript engine has been improved a lot. It is now comparable to others modern browsers (just a bit slower). Also, somewhat good news for CSS3 compliance, border-radius will be in IE9 and some other tweaks too. No word on border-shadow yet.

It is worth the read, of course we will know more in 1 week, at MIX2010.

Microsoft to Double Down on HTML5 With Internet Explorer 9? Really?

I was pretty surprised to read this week an article on Webmonkey that was saying that Microsoft would certainly double down in IE9 on HTML5 and CSS3. I suggest you read it yourself, but basically it was saying that Microsoft would go on the offensive at the upcoming MIX2010 presenting IE9.

Silverlight…

I do not see Microsoft go on the offensive, I am pretty sure in fact that it will not implement any ‘Multimedia’ feature like Audio, Video and Canvas any time soon, and certainly not before it is kind of obligated because Youtube, for example, switched to html5. Why? Silverlight… This technology is a competitor to all these technologies. If you are not really into extranet and intranet development, you might not even know what Silverlight is, well…