The State of the Art in Australian Web Development

Very good article which is taken from a presentation by John Allsopp at WE05 (Web Essentials 2005) 30th September, 2005. Westciv's John Allsopp takes a good hard look at just exactly how major Australian websites are developed, and how well (or otherwise) they adhere to best practices.

http://westciv.com/style_master/house/good_oil/best_practices/

One Billion Internet Users

From Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, December 19, 2005:

One Billion Internet Users
Summary: The Internet is growing at an annualized rate of 18% and now has one billion users. A second billion users will follow in the next ten years, bringing a dramatic change in worldwide usability needs.

Some time in 2005, we quietly passed a dramatic milestone in Internet history: the one-billionth user went online. Because we have no central register of Internet users, we don't know who that user was, or when he or she first logged on. Statistically, we're likely talking about a 24-year-old woman in Shanghai.

According to Morgan Stanley estimates, 36% of Internet users are now in Asia and 24% are in Europe. Only 23% of users are in North America, where it all started in 1969 when two computers -- one in Los Angeles, the other in Palo Alto -- were networked together.

Adobe Announces New Web Bundle

Application developer Adobe completed its takeover of Macromedia on Monday, and promptly unveiled three software bundles for graphics designers.

The Adobe Design bundle contains Adobe's Creative Suite 2 Premium and Macromedia's Flash Professional 8. The Web bundle contains Creative Suite 2 Premium and Macromedia Studio 8. Both bundles are available from Adobe's Web site.

Firefox 1.5 Released

Firefox 1.5 released today (and new website too) http://www.mozilla.com/

WaSP to Collaborate with Microsoft to Promote Web Standards

This press release is a piece of reassuring news...

"Today the Web Standards Project (WaSP) announced it has formed a task force with Microsoft Corp. to provide support as the company increases Web standards support in its products including Microsoft Visual Studio and ASP.NET. The group will work together to better understand and execute on Web standards as defined by standards bodies such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)"

W3C Launches Mobile Web Initiative

This is important (I think?). We've been trying to build websites to standards with the notion that "one day" our sites will be viewed on devices such as mobile phones and hand held PDA's. It was all so in the future but today it has taken a leap forward towards reality with this news release from the W3C...

"The World Wide Web Consortium, W3C, has started a Mobile Web Initiative designed to improve the quality of the web experience for mobile devices"

News from the IE development team

The Microsoft Internet Explorer development team have released some details on the (northern hemisphere summer) beta release of IE 7. The good news they will at least bring their browser into the 21st century in terms of full PNG support and fixing a couple of their most notorious bugs. I will be very interested in giving IE7 a test-drive when it comes out but will be sticking with Firefox as my browser of choice.

Adobe Acquires Macromedia

Wow - this one has got the design forums buzzing today. Must admit I am shocked but I guess this is business in the cut-throat corporate world of the 21st century. Looks like the aim of the takeover is to build up the armoury for an assault on some of the territories of Microsoft (or should that be barricade the walls in defence?). Will keep an eye on this one...

Microsoft Fonts - on sale for the first time

How about this as a sign of the times...Everyone is used to getting the Microsoft core fonts free with Windows and Office. Now you can buy Verdana, Georgia, Tahoma, Trebuchet and (ahem) Comic Sans for the first time from Ascender Corp. Check out the Microsoft press release and the Ascender Corp website for more info. I'm wondering if Microsoft may be preparing to withdraw their free fonts when Longhorn is released...??

First blog entry errrrrrmmmm...

Better think of something better to say than reel off quotes from Tolkien. BRB...

PAUL
SkyRocket Design Co
http://www.skyrocket.com.au

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.