Firefox has released the full feature release candidate which is said to be quite stable, but its not yet the final release. From what the bloggers have been publishing about this release candidate it seems quite evident that the features are simply eye popping. The major surprise comes in the form of a fast browser loaded with features. One thing the Mozilla guys have stuck to their mission, is improving the browser speed and load capabilities. From the reports on comparisons of the performance of various browsers Firefox 3 has passed out with flying colors. Also the new version sports a more native look and feel of the underlying OS. This means, but obviously, that, you must switch over to Firefox 3 once it releases.

If you are thinking that a speedier browser owes to compromises on its feature set, then Firefox 3 is all set to prove you wrong. The earlier much wanted features are already there. In fact, they have been upgraded to a marvelous level. If you loved the last update in the clubbing of add-on and themes manager, this time they have put in a search right within it! Believe it or not, Firefox 3 will allow searching for plugins and themes right through your add-on/ theme manager.

If you are indeed a hard core surfer then you must be having loads of bookmarks stacked up in your folders of the Firefox bookmark manager. But if you always thought that tagging was a feature required to quickly access the bookmarks then you thought it right. Firefox 3 has upgraded its bookmark manager and made it “places organizer“. With the new organizer, you can now tag your bookmarks along with some nifty smart searches and time line ordering of bookmarks.

One of the most difficult things to work within Firefox 2 is the download manager. When I download a particular thing I always save it to a different location. But later on, I always tend to forget the location where I had downloaded it from because of my frequent downloading habits. Firefox 3 is going to be a major upgrade for me in this aspect, since it includes a download manager which shows the link where the download came from. It also would be supporting resume states in event of a system crash. I am not sure if this, because till now my resumes have never worked, especially in Firefox 2. But I am being confident this time around.

Besides the above major upgrades, they also have made many other tweaks, which include, their password remembering prompt. It is not obtrusive any longer with the popup every time you try to log in. This time, it allows remembering only those passwords when you actually log in, which means, no storing of wrong passwords.

Firefox 3 is about to arrive. I am excited and absolutely thrilled about it. Its gonna be a wild ride yet again. Gear up!

Images Courtesy: Lifehacker

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The answer to these questions always comes in as “it depends” because requirements differ project wise. It might not be the case that the project which you might be working on will be requiring the same framework used in the prior projects. Requirements vary all the time and the framework which comes very close for implementing the specified tasks would be the best framework for you.

Having said that it is important to list down the key points on why you choose a particular framework. It is never a good reason to choose a framework just because others say it is cool. Let us focus on the key points for deciding a framework. Keep in mind, I am not trying to impose the usage of suggested framework for any particular project. This is a topic of general discussion in case where you might be eager to try out a new framework but are stuck to the choice of framework to start from.

The key points which might help you to make your choice are (not in any particular order):

• Popularity
  • Helps in getting acquainted quickly (eg: Groovy)
• Market
  • Easier to find jobs (eg: Struts)
• Convenience
  • Should not take a huge learning curve (eg: Tapestry)
• Time to implement
  • Should make the task get completed quickly
• Scope
  • Should be pluggable with other frameworks (eg: Spring)
• Documentation
  • Most important without which you will get stuck easily
• Forums
  • The more big the community the easier is your work done
• Bug tracking
  • If at all you tend to go deep, ticketing support should be present
• Reference Books
  • Essential since online searching can eat up your time
• Light weight
  • Complex ones will do no good if is not used much (eg: EJB 2.x)
• Robust
  • There should not be any known bugs for the features you want to implement
• Features
  • Makes good the time spent if one is more powerful than the other.

These are the 12 key points which I feel are very important when I look forward to work on a self project or am willing to learn a new framework. It is not necessary that all the 10 will be satisfied by one single framework. So it would be more beneficial to make a subset of these key points for shortlist your choice of frameworks based on your project.

How to finalize on a particular framework?

First, decide on comparing 2 to 3 frameworks at the max. The more you have in mind, the more confusion it will create. Plan out which features you want to implement for the given set of requirements. Do an exhaustive search on Google whether the features are provided by the frameworks you have in mind. Give points out of 10 for each of the subset key points. Compare the frameworks for the same subset of key points.

This will help you to make a matrix out of your choices and will further make it much easier to finalize your choice since now you would be sure of the reasons you are making a decision.

What are your key points when you first think when you pick a framework to work upon? It would be an interesting discussion to follow up. How did you shortlist your framework for learning or working on a project?

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BEA is known for its well diversified technology stack of Weblogic Java Application Servers, SOA products and the Aqualogic suite of ESB and BPM products. Also to mention that BEA holds a strong integration of all the above suites into its Weblogic Workshop which has been built around the Eclipse platform.

Oracle on the other hand too has an array of similar products including Appservers, ESB, SOA and BPM. Then the question arises as to why Oracle is acquiring BEA? Some insights to the things apart from the product suites clash should be taken in consideration here to understand Oracle’s point of view.

Oracle entered into an acquisition with BEA Systems after it offered $19.375/share which is nearly a 40% premium over the October 2007 price when Oracle had done its first bid. This can be seen as a state of urgency on the part of Oracle to acquire BEA. Some speculation can be allotted on to the latest SOA offerings of BEA which could have made Oracle think for a big upgradation in their services.

Thinking other ways, Oracle might just be preparing for a tussle with the other giants such as IBM and SAP for gaining the market share in providing SOA infrastructure. With the BEA acquisition, Oracle will be in ready position to flash a list of clientele from BEA’s portfolio to match with the competitors. With the future plans of BEA for SOA, Oracle’s merger plans must have been really thought out.

It might be also a case of killing the competition. Big players often tend to downsize the smaller fish by making them surrender. This can be a case with Oracle too. Having a chance to get the customer base from BEA, it can simply kill off the competition by either junking off all BEA products off the line or by carefully integrating BEA products with its middleware and offering separate flagship services, just as it has done after acquiring PeopleSoft and JDEdwards.

Organizations today are keen to have a single suite of products to manage their businesses and middleware competition is on the rise. This probably makes Oracle’s target to claim for a one vendor many solutions more justified. But for the developers its more than a platform choice because now it would be choosing between their career paths too. I also have worked on Weblogic App server with Oracle database as the backend. With this acquisition, developers like me will have to decide on which path to opt for.

If Oracle junks off BEA products for killing the competition it might give rise for fear within the Weblogic community. Hopefully, if Oracle makes a decision of providing a flagship line of BEA products, the developer community will be more than happy to flash the name of Oracle on their resumes. This will be clear only in the mid of 2008 when the acquisition will be completed. The major question now lies as to what would a Java EE developer do in such a situation?

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But by the time I had written about the API, I noticed that people were coming up with great new ideas in order to reduce the burden of making the chart. And the ideas are practically impressive and have great scope for improvement.

A JavaScript Library
Chris Heilmann has created a script which converts simple HTML tables to charts and vice versa. He has implemented a Javascript library which generates the chart for you. So the example I had mentioned in the tutorial can be simply put in the form of the following HTML table,

<table class=”tochart size300x100 color990000” summary=”Browsers for this site, March 2007“>
<caption>Browsers</caption>
<thead>
<tr><th scope=”col”>Browser</th><th scope=”col”>Percent</th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td>Firefox</td><td>60</td></tr>
<tr><td>MSIE</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Opera</td><td>10</td></tr>
<tr><td>Safari</td><td>5</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>

The script pulls up all the tables present in the page which have the class set to “tochart” and puts up Google API generated charts in their place. Smart, isn’t it?

An Online Utility
The above script would definitely save your time in making the charts, but it is only created for a single type of chart, namely, the 3D pie chart. But if you require other comprehensive charts then you would have to make use of an chart generator developed by Jon Winstanley. It is a put-values-get-chart utility which makes the chart making process even more simpler. The utility takes care of all the factors required for a chart and also allows to create all types of charts.

But one element which goes as a negative aspect of this utility is that it is not flexible. You put in the value, get the encoded URL and then use it in your web page. Eventually, if you want to modify the chart later you would have to undergo the same process of putting in values again.

What I would like to see is, an implementation of both the above aspects. That is, have the put-values-get-chart utility but at the same time it should generate some XML format like the HTML table which should then used to generate the chart. In this fashion we would be able to modify the chart as and when required. Does it sound like the need of Google Chart Framework?

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Image Credit – mountaingoat

If you are bewildered about the fluid and fixed terminology then their concepts are somewhat self-explanatory:

Fixed Layout – The dimensions of blocks in your web design structure are defined by pixel length and not by percentages. The design gets defined by hard coding the pixel lengths. Such designs are displayed uniformly on screens of any resolution or size.

Fluid Layout - The dimensions are on the contrary made in such a manner that they become fluid. Its similar to the concept of water taking the shape of its container. The fluid designs take the shape of the resolution in which the design is being viewed.

After trying my hands on a fixed layout for designing a theme for Techtracer, I felt somewhat relaxed over my earlier efforts of going for a fluid scheme. I am feeling a necessity of sharing it with the readers of this blog, what pros and cons I consider for fluid and fixed layout when it comes to designing your web site from what I have gathered till now.

Fixed Layout vs Fluid Layout

A fixed layout as defined simply means that the length which you give for a certain area will remain the same no matter what. If that is the case, then I am happy because I know that the change in the resolution of size of the screen wont cause problems for my design.

But in case of a fluid layout the area widens on a big screen and if the screen is really huge then your area will be stretched like a rubber band. In short, the mood of the design is dampened. The main problematic area for a fluid layout is the rendering of text.

An Example

Suppose you are viewing the article 5 Rules For A Good Web Design in a 15″ screen of resolution 1024 x 768 then you would notice 7 lines of text in the first paragraph. But this design is built on the fixed layout so even if I view the same article on a wide screen then still it remains the same. But suppose the design was made with the fluid layout then you would have seen,

• 10 to 12 lines on a resolution of 800×600 because of squeezing of content area
• 2 lines probably on a wide screen with larger resolution because of expanding of content area

The large screen with less lines of text make the site look more with large spaces and less content and the reading become harder. Similarly on low resolution, the content area gets squeezed making it look ridiculous. The impression for the design falls down.

For that matter a fixed layout would be perfect because even if the screen comes to a lower resolution the content remains intact. In this case, a scroll bar appears on the browser to view the content placed beyond the browser area. But I would be comfortable with this because the essence of the layout remains as it was designed to be.

For the above reason I believe that fixed layout reigns over fluid layout and I would continue with the same thought. I think this will give a food for thought to the web designers who are in a dilemma of whether to go for a fixed layout or a fluid layout.

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The bookmarking sites are fast enough to load on entering its URL. But it is somewhat distracting to get to the required article or site by getting redirected from the bookmarking site. This is the time where the browsers URL history comes in to utmost important. And it is not a small feature to be missed out on. For me, it is THE most important feature.

An Example

For a small depiction, some URL’s like the admin interface of this site is not something I would like to bookmark nor the subscriber dashboard of feedburner and not even the statistics page from my webhost. I need them regularly and thats why I thank the browser implementation of caching recently accessed URL’s. I am a Firefox lover and here I would like to mention how Firefox scores over Internet Explorer (IE) when it comes to accessing your history URL’s with ease.

How Firefox Beats IE

It wasn’t until recently that I noticed the manner in which Firefox helps me access my history URL’s. When I type in the first letter of the site I want to visit it not only shows me list of links but the first link is always the one which I want to visit right now. I wondered to myself as to how Firefox understood where I wanted to go, at that particular moment of time. If there are 100 of sites starting with the letter “T” which I had visited in the past, sorting all these sites alphabetically, my site “TechTracer” would have ended up somewhere in the middle of the list of links. But Firefox always shows me the first link as “TechTracer”.

You would find this happening to you too but its so smalll and we are so busy that it might have gone unnoticed. However when I used IE, the thing always annoyed me that the link I was trying to reach from history always remained hidden in the list and is not shown as the first link as Firefox does. This is the point where FireFox makes a subtle yet amazing exploration at usability. And mind you, it is the most amazing yet simple concept.

The secret is simple. Firefox knows that if you have visited any URL more number of times than any other then it assumes that probably you would be visiting the same URL once again. Lo and behold! the next time you are in the thought of visiting the site then Firefox promptly displays you that URL as the first one in the list of links. It actually saves your precious time to browse through the long list. Similarly the other links in the list are also sorted according to their frequency of access.

Try this out in Internet Explorer. And you would see that IE stores the URL history sorted alphabetically and leaves you at the peril of finding yourself the link that you were interested in. FireFox is currently light years ahead of IE in terms of usability and such simple features sometimes makes me wonder at the ability of the product development team to take care of the minimalist of the surfer’s behavior.

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Ajax had redefined the web application just a couple of years ago. It definitely changed in the way web apps were being developed. This promoted rise of different interesting possibilities that more than widened the eyeball of a regular surfer. Web Operating Systems were at that time being touted as being able to replace the desktop operating system altogether in the future. But all these breath taking ideas have fallen flat to a place where the idea is still traditional. The usage of web browser.

Web applications have and still are web applications and I have not come upon any idea so simple yet so revolutionizing as the WebRunner. To update you upon the news surrounding WebRunner, Mozilla has converted the WebRunner project to a Mozilla Labs Project with a new fascinating name, Prism. When I saw Web Runner I was not amazed at this app itself. My mind was already seeing the future of web applications. It’s behavior was similar to the nature of a desktop application. Yet it ran on the web! It was the perfect example of how we can expect to put our web applications for our future projects.

I think I may be a little too far a bit sooner, but I can see how Prism an impact our surfing lives. Imagine a day, you start your computer in just a moment, without any startup utilities coming in the picture. You have several Prism apps lying on your desktop. You double click an application and it is launched in another moment. This is something I am dreaming of, something which will definitely be backed by todays high speed connectivity and robust network infrastructure.

Well,a question in your mind would be how would Mozilla’s Prism contribute here. The direction I am seeing for Prism is not something out of context from my dream. A lite browser without the unnecessary facilities of the browser like the back button, the menu bar, the history, the bookmarks which only matter while surfing web sites. Prism is just enough to provide the basic foundation for connecting to the web, minus the normal browser behavior, yet retaining the background services like session management and security. Web applications don’t need them and all the more should not be taken care when they are being designed.

Prism comes to mind when we require a web application to work in their own self with the support of the design which the web application has itself provided and not that of the browser. This is a thing of the past where web applications are designed with a thought process of developing a web site. Kind of traditional way which considered styling, the cross browser compatibility and many other aspects which form a part of the web site and not of the web application.

With Prism I am sure that one day the project would take us to a time where web applications would not require any HTML, CSS or JavaScript. It would be just like designing a desktop application just as we do it currently in .NET and Eclipse IDE’s. Drag and drop your required widget, give a theme for the app, and execute the app in Prism and later distribute it as a web application. The users of the Prism would just have the need to Prism app installed on their system. This is just like Java where only the JVM needs to be installed and the Java Programs come to life. Similarly install Prism and the required web application will come to its life. Isn’t this a great feeling in itself?

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This fashion of advertising has been long displayed many histrionics in the massively trafficked world of the internet and espcially blogs. Google which started as a search engine provider quickly went on to become the biggest advertiser on the world wide web. Due to this blogs have started to increase in numbers exponentially because Google has the Adsense program which helps blog owners to earn some money for the information they provide freely. The impact of blogs is quite commendable to the way the internet has got structured.

The trends in advertising after the launch of Google Adsense has never been the same. I have known some techniques of advertising which are worth appreciating because they don’t harm the view of the reader but in fact help the reader gain more quick access to the information available on the exhaustive web.

Some of the great advertising campaigns which have come into my blogging tenure till now have been Google Adsense which does the work of displaying targetted ads. The ads displayed have relevance since a script crawls through the content to judge it and then display the ads accordingly. This has helped bloggers and web site owner’s immensely because of the least time required to set it up and use it wherever they like. Yet too much of ad display is a huge turn off for some people.

I was totally enthralled with another type of advertising technique which came in the form of peel away ads. This is a unique kind of ad which does not make you crib since there is nothing displayed until you actually want to see it. Now you would be surprise as to why would anyone want to see the ad himself. But believe me you would. Thats the marvel that peel away ads bring to the world of innovative advertising.

I recently saw the post from Mani Karthik from the DailySeo Blog which triggered me to write this post on the innovations in the field of advertising. However, the plugin he mentions is quite old in its traditional usage. Such ads have been prevalent for long time now. I would however advise him to try some combination like integrating the ad strip with the lightbox advertising plugin. It will be interesting to see how they work together.

I like innovations in any field and advertising is no different from it. The intention to capture a viewers mind is very challenging and the more innovative an ad is the more audience it will get. I hope I am not missing out on any revolutionizing ad campaign out here. Or am I?

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But after getting an experience of Snapfish it feels good to know that such a service now does exist in India and moreover its got a branded name too which is, HP.

A quick search on Google reveals the news,

Snapfish, HP’s web photo service, has finally made its way to India as www.snapfish.co.in. With around 40 million members in 15 countries, around a quarter billion pictures are added to Snapfish every month.

I made an account with Snapfish to get an experience with it. The first thing that impressed me to open an account with Snapfish was the price. Rs. 2.95 for a 4×6 photo print and Rs. 399 for a printed T Shirt is quite reasonable. The printed mug which my friend purchased for a sum of Rs. 300 comes only in Rs. 195 at Snapfish. This smells like value for money.

To get a feel of what Snapfish account has in store for you after you register in it let me show you some snapshots. First impressions are a little pale in comparison to Flickr, the photo sharing site. Snapfish itself maneuvers too as one, but the looks won’t make me move to Snapfish unless I have an urge to get something printed for a gift. It has rather an amateurish look.

Uploading of Photos

Snapfish provides you option of uploading photos either through a installable downloader or through the site page itself. The loader is pale if, again, compared to Flickr.

Viewing and Sharing

You can make albums for categorizing your pictures and later on using the same for either sharing it, emailing it to your friends and viewing it in a slideshow format online.

Printing Options

There are many options available for making a choice of a print. They include Photo Prints, Poster prints, Calendar, T-Shirts, Mouse pads, Mug, Key ring. Once you select the required product you are taken to their designer. Their is a choice of editor is a nice little feature to have since you can view how the dimensions of the selected pictures would turn out to be in the end product.

You can crop, rotate, preview before selecting a perfect fit for the product to be printed. The approved print is then shown besides the product. This can be a less impressive experience since one would expect the picture to be shown on the product itself rather than besides it.

I particularly like this print option in their list. The Calender print makes for a nice gift which has a lasting impression for a year! It allows you to first make a calender pattern choice and then gives you the option for putting in different pictures from your albums for each month of the year. The cost is something around Rs 700.

HP Snapfish is a good service for the online buyers in India and with a reasonable pricing tag it can well be afforded by any one having a credit card in hand. The courier pricing however is excluded from the above mentioned prices. If you get registered now you will get an offer of 20 free prints. So I don’t see any reason which might stop you. Now at least, I have some advice at hand for someone who asks me for a choice of a gift.

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I have been a Java EE lover for quite sometime now. But currently I am in the field of Data Warehousing. I was a little bit reluctant to venture out in an unknown field altogether, but some reading from the greats in the field of technology changed my mind. It was just recently that I started to read about Larry and Sergey in The Google Story.I completed the book in just a week because it was so addictive to look in the lives of the now global leaders so close and personal.

Search Engines at that time was considered a side business and a commodity amongst the heaps of portals coming up. But Larry and Sergey, with their astounding vision and determination for achieving their goals despite the fact that everyone disbelieved their intentions crossed with some remarkable success has made them world leaders in the field of technology today.

The book has made to wonder for myself and now I am realizing day by day that technology is not much important as compared to the needs you are able to solve in the quickest and the most efficient manner. You have to know technology for that of course but being an enthusiast in a particular field just doesn’t help. Many factors make for this realization. Being a jack of all trades sometimes helps since you get the adage of being a true owner of all round knowledge.

I am currently reading the book “iCON Steve Jobs – The greatest second act in the history of business” and just reading the 1st chapter was mesmerizing from the fact that Steve Jobs being an orphan and a violent brat in his childhood had a vision in the field of electronics and his self built abilities of empowering over his comrades.

Such biographies often makes me wonder as to if such incredible personalities had such treacherous past and now they have achieves an iconic status even we belonging to much better life styles can do something that can change the way the world works today.

I would definitely like to know if any such book inspired you to change the way you perceive your ambitions and has shown you a path worthy to strive for.

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