URL Musings

As I posted yesterday, I don’t see the notion of hiding the browser URL bar as particularly revolutionary, although some users will doubtless appreciate it (just as some choose to autohide their Windows taskbar or Mac dock). However, it does point to a larger question: are URLs themselves an outdated mechanism for referencing websites? On [...]

Chrome Drops H.264: Good, Bad or Indifferent?

The announcement by Google that they will be dropping support for the H.264 video codec from their Chrome browser pivots nicely off my (fairly) recent posts about the problems with web standards. There has been much discussion in the wake of the announcement about the merits of open versus proprietary technologies. Some have accused Google [...]

The Trouble With Web Standards, Part 2: Top-Down Doesn't Work

When I first got into SGML, about 15 years ago, I remember someone remarking that to write a fully conforming parser you would have to “have the resources of the U.S. government or be James Clark.” This was both an indication of James’s incredible hacking chops and his dedication to making SGML a success (and [...]

The Trouble With Web Standards

Another of the trends underlying the supposed death of the web is the shift from web standards to proprietary languages for developing networked applications. This is exemplified by the iPhone app ecosystem, which is inhabited largely by apps that could be websites but have been implemented instead using Apple’s Cocoa Touch API. I touched on [...]

In Defense of Chrome Frame

Web technology’s pace of evolution is vexingly slow, the result of the wide range of browsers (new and legacy) that must support any innovation in order for it to take hold. Even back in the good old days (basically any time before 2005), when only the Netscape lineage of browsers and Internet Explorer were significant, [...]

Deconstructing Rich Internet Applications

A post by my Prism partner in crime Mark Finkle sent me spiraling back in time along an interlocking blogathon of attempts to nail down the term Rich Internet Application. Intense speed-reading of so many mammoth posts can scar the psyche, so let me paraphrase them and save you the trouble. James Ward, What is [...]

Another TechCrunch Guest Post on Single-Site Browsers

My first guest post for TechCrunch, on the subject of single-site browsers, attracted a lot of interest and no small number of questions. Without seeing them in action, it’s pretty hard to grasp what’s so great about what sounds like a stripped down, less functional version of a normal web browser. I’ve followed up with [...]

Microsoft, Good Standards Citizen

In response to widespread outrage at their decision to make the Internet Explorer 8 handle web pages by default in the same broken way as IE7, Microsoft has now announced that they have seen the light: Our initial thinking for IE8 involved showing pages requesting “Standards” mode in an IE7’s “Standards” mode, and requiring developers [...]

Do We Really Want the European Commission to Regulate the Web?

Opera CTO Håkon Wium Lie continues to promote and defend his company’s legal action against Microsoft for anti-competitive practices with a guest editorial in The Register. One thing seems incontrovertible: Microsoft should not be allowed to tie Internet Explorer to Windows and strong-arm hardware manufacturers into refusing bundling deals with other browser vendors. Assuming this [...]

What is Googling Gearing Up For?

All the communication around Google Gears seems to center on its role in adding offline storage capabilities to the browser. In reality, Google’s vision for the product goes far beyond this. On his personal blog, Gears developer Dion Almaer spills the beans on the sprawling array of services they are planning to roll out. Remember [...]