Big release day on the webbernet

So I guess it’s simply the time of year. Many big releases today… software, APIs, and more!

First, the biggest. IE8 has been released in initial beta. The release was also included a general overview of IE8’s new features and fixes. It’s actually quite a lot of information to absorb all at once. I’ve skimmed a number of the IE8 whitepapers, and feel the biggest changes are W3C’s WIA-ARIA support, Acid2 compliance, the javascript selectors api, and their assertion of achieving CSS 2.1 compliance. Of course, the devil is in the details, and there is no company for which that statement is more true. They have a lot of work ahead, and we know they talk a good game. The big upside, however, is that they are actually talking about it. Out in the open. Big step, and I applaud them for that.

The other biggest buzz of the day was from Yahoo, in announcing the beta of their Fire Eagle service, an API for broadcasting your physical location to the web. I wouldn’t call it earth-shattering, but I think that there’s a good chance a number of cool things are built with it. Watch the video of it’s introduction, and then take a look here to quickly get an idea of the details. It would appear from the details that it was written in a highly usable way.

Of more direct importance to me, Google has announced their Contacts API. I despise when sites ask me to enter my username/password for other sites. The most offensive request is for Gmail. I don’t have any interesting emails, let me tell you… but I certainly don’t want to let others read them. The Contacts API is a safe way for distribution and use of your Gmail contacts, without threatening the security of your Gmail account or your other Google-stored information. With this, I should be able to sync my Gmail contacts with my desktop mail contacts. I’m very happy about that.

Heading up the long-since-overdue category, AOL has announced they’ve opened their Instant Messenger Protocol, OpenAIM. Finally. I remember ages ago when… well, it’s all in the past now. That’s one big wall that has been broken down between protocols, and hopefully Yahoo and Microsoft will fall in line. It will be great if other apps can finally use the features that have been limited to the AIM client for all this time. I use Adium and Pidgin most of the time (Adium, I believe uses Pidgin’s core), and look forward to seeing what they do with the new open protocol. (On a personal note, hopefully this doesn’t spell any negative news for my friends who work on AIM.)

Internet Explorer 6 still stinks

Another day with a considerable chunk WASTED on IE6. What a totally irresponsible release.

Expression Engine

I created a fresh installation and played around with it for a little while. Upon moving these WordPress posts over, it broke. Since I still had all of my pieces lined up, I removed everything and did a second fresh install. Posting broke that one too. I guess that I am going to have to actually watch the videos on the website to figure out what is going on. (I hate having to read the manual! I’d much rather just start playing with it.)

That being said, it did seem pretty nice. Looks like little pieces of html/css can be specified for each component you are placing on the page. True to their what I have heard, you can customize everything this way. The downside is it takes a lot of work and planning to customize EVERYTHING. Add to that the {template syntax} and it looks like quite a bit of work. We’ll see how much time I have given all of the other stuff I am working on.

I placed an order today and should receive $200 worth of books from amazon sometime soon. Programming, OOP, design, and typography, and that Microformats book. Those, and the other books sitting on my shelves waiting to be read should be more than enough light reading for a while.

blog software

Upon seeing a few different write-ups in the last few days (that I stumbled upon without searching for), I think that I’m going to [already] change this blog software to ExpressionEngine, which I hear is the most customizable tool out there. It’s not that I am planning on doing crazy design things here, but I would like the chance. We’ll see what the programmer in me says when I see it.

I did find a tool called Symphony that sounds rather interesting, and it uses XSLTs for the backend (somehow). Since I have been learning XSLTs at work, I am probably going to give that a look as well. Plus I like the musical reference.

Was going to do this yesterday, but my sister got her hands on free Nationals tickets. Boring game until the 8th, when they hit 2 HRs (Dimitri Young was one!), but then stupid Kerns got caught off second on a fly ball to right. Way to go.