EP Interactiv

Microsoft Embraces Web Standards, IE8 to be Fully Standards-Compliant by Default

Tim — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:41:26 +0000

“Our initial plan had been to use IE7-compatible behavior as the default setting for IE8, to minimize potential impact on the world’s existing Web sites. We have now decided to make our most current standards-based mode the default in IE8″

This is killer. In spite of a long history of making life difficult for standards-aware developers, Microsoft has reversed their proposal of targeting versions of Internet Explorer within IE8. Yesterday, Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer 8 will indeed render using the new fully standards-compliant IE8 engine by default.

Back in January Microsoft announced they were proposing to have Internet Explorer 8 render like IE7 by default, unless a particular meta tag was added to the the document explicitly targeting which version of IE to use. If no version was declared via this method, it would default to use IE7’s engine by default. Crazy, I know. I thought so too. Essentially, they would have been implementing full standards support on an opt-in basis only.

An article was posted on ALA by Aaron Gustafson claiming that this was the “Light at the end of the tunnel” for developers. This ignited an extensive debate across the blogs of industry experts. Roger Johansson, Andy Budd and Jeremy Keith fought the good fight all the way through, while Zeldman, Meyer and Jonathan Snook defended Microsoft’s proposal.

Personally I feel that the Version Targeting would have been a step in the wrong direction for the Web Standards movement and how far it has already come. I am thrilled Microsoft has acknowledged how important this truly is. Web Standards have shaped modern web development in alot of good ways, and it’s a big deal and enormous benefit to have Microsoft completely on board. The last thing we need is more IE lock-in.

John Resig posted on reddit yesterday: “Yeah, this is huge for a ton of reasons - largest of which is that Microsoft is effectively saying “Web Standards are so important to us that we’re willing to potentially sacrifice market share in order see them succeed.” Which is a big thing for a dominant company to do.”

And despite selling the proposal aggressively in his initial ALA post, Gustafson ended up retracting his inital pitch. “…I have to say I’m glad they’ve reversed that decision. In the end, this does put more pressure on them to get the word out about how version targeting can prevent a recurrence of the issues that came about when IE7 released, but, personally, I feel their product (and the web at large) is better for it.”

A good day for the web, no doubt. For further reading, Digital Web has a great list of many of the relevant blog posts.

Web Photo Browsing Has Never Been So Easy

Rich — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:56:14 +0000

Every once in a while a Firefox add-on catches me off-guard and becomes quite the handy tool. This particular one, though, simply knocked me over the head, picked me back up, and shoved me down Photo Browsing Easy Street.

PicLens by Cooliris instantly transforms web photo albums into a “full-screen, 3d wall experience.” Dragging, clicking and zooming through the interface is as smooth as butter, and photos load in at speeds that still baffle me. There is also integration with all the major photo sites such as Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, and many more. As impressive as all this is, what really makes this add-on worth its weight in gold is the fact that you can simply open PicLens at any time and perform a Google image search. No more tedious pagination. No more time-consuming page reloads. Google images simply appear out of thin air as you drag your mouse. Genius! And something I now can’t live without.

ScribeFire - Blog From Your Browser

Kevin — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:01:57 +0000

Every so often I stumble on a new tool that makes my life easier (how nice those moments are.) Hopefully this is another one of them. I just found a nifty Firefox Add-On called ScribeFire: Fire up your blogging. It basically lets you post to a number of popular blog formats, including a custom wordpress install like this one, right from within your browser. So, here is my first post (hopefully of many) using ScribeFire. Enjoy.

Mobile Review - Encyclopedia Britannica

Rich — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:38:26 +0000

Now that I’ve had my iPod Touch for a few months now, I have truly grown to appreciate it’s version of the Safari browser. I haven’t seen a mobile device nail the task of web browsing quite like the iPhone and iPod Touch. As good as a job that it’s browser does displaying regular web pages (except for Flash, don’t get me started), every once in a while someone goes the extra mile, develops an iPhone version of their site, and puts a nice big smile on my face.

Just recently Encyclopedia Britannica did just that and launched a mobile iPhone edition of their site. I must say that it’s one of the better designed iPhone sites that I’ve seen so far. First of all, like so many other iPhone-specific sites, they took away the need to “double-tap” zoom to read their content. The home page is not only striking in appearance, but overly simple. One button to search and a few suggested searches to help get the user started. Mobile needs to be simple…to the point. The search button brings up the oh-so-familiar iPhone keyboard. If it works, why change it? (more…)

The Incredible, Embeddable Web

Kevin — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:34:30 +0000

Distributed content on the web is nothing new. RSS feeds, widgets and other embeddable content (videos, images, slideshows, etc…) have been popping up in blogs, personalized homepages, and social networking profile pages for several years. As marketers however, this illustrates a major point that needs to be considered. People are off your site, much more than they are on it. We can’t expect people to come to us for information, we need to be where they are.

Technologies such as RSS are basic tools to address this, but recently Chip showed me an app that allows anyone to create dynamic flash ~~widgets~~ sprouts that can be embedded throughout the web. The technology is called Sprout Builder, and after trying it out I was amazed at how easy the interface was to use. As my friend Mike Gowan once said, “Any simpleton could do this!” It took me about 20 minutes to build a simple EPInteractiv sprout that was fed via RSS, a Google Calendar, and a set of photos.

When you get a moment, check it out. Thank TechCrunch for the beta signup.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/lBiW1CcygM4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Sprout

Kevin — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:42:47 +0000

4 Free Über-Handy Apps/Tweaks for Windows

Tim — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:46:53 +0000

Moyea FLV Player
If you’ve ever tried to view a local .flv file with the default Macromedia configuration, you know that you simply get an empty flash player window. Whether you just want to preview an .flv prior to uploading it to your server, or you like to collect .flvs off of the web for local archiving and viewing, this is a great solution. After installing it, I set Windows to associate the .flv file extension, and from there it’s great. This is the best one I’ve found thus far. Other apps such as Riva do enable local playback, but lack features such as window resizing and full screen viewing, as well as the ability to save snapshots. VLC will play a local .flv file, but it will not scrub the timeline.

Notepad++
One of the most obnoxious things about Notepad is the lack of multiple undos. Notepad++ is an excellent Notepad replacement that features syntax-highlighting, line numbers, a tabbed interface and much more. You can completely customize all the code formatting for different types of files within the the Style Configurator. Don’t let the lizards scare you away! This one is a must-have.

XP Powertoy Calculator
Microsoft has released PowerToys for years. They’re basically OS tweaks developed by Microsoft that don’t ship with Windows. One that I have found to be very useful for common tasks is the PowerToy Calculator. After installation, I typically have it switched to the ‘Numerical Calc’ view. It’s much more friendly and feature-rich than the default calculator.

Royale Noir
This is an ‘unreleased’ Microsoft Theme for Windows XP that surfaced on the web well over a year ago. I have been using this for quite a while now, but I often run across people who have yet to hear about it. This has a black color scheme, and it is a variant of the ‘Energy Blue’ Royale theme that Microsoft released with Windows MCE 2005. Microsoft later released a theme to accompany their Zune media player. It is widely assumed that Royal Noir was a beta of the Zune theme. They are indeed a bit different and I definitely prefer Royale Noir.

DataPortability Gains Momentum

Kevin — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 01:36:21 +0000

This is a follow up to a previous post, but the DataPortability Workgroup has gained some momentum in the past week or so garnering support across the web. This video was just released and does a good job explaining the importance of the DataPortability movement.But why does this matter to marketing folks? Well, for one it means that there a fewer barriers to creating a one on one dialog with our audiences. We have created countless websites where users had to set up accounts and spend time coping over personal info that they have already filled out 100 times before. This sort of standard will help us eliminate the need for our customers to re-enter a lot of information, making it more likely that they will utilize whatever personalization features our sites may offer. In addition, it allows us to create social networking components to a site without having to create a whole social networking architecture. A standardized data platform will allow us to spend less time building the foundation, and more time building functionality that leverages data in a more useful and engaging customer experience.

And speaking as a consumer myself… if I don’t have to fill out another user id / password creation form again it will be too soon.

EPInteractiv TV - Live Internet Video Broadcasting

Kevin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:08:13 +0000

Tune in to our live internet TV station! (This is a test of Mogulus Studio - Live Internet Video Broadcasting)

We’ll have some fun with this technology for sure. You can edit the video feed on the fly with predetermined storyboards composed of YouTube clips, recorded video and yes… live video.

More to come on this.

EPInteractiv TV

Kevin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:25:03 +0000

Tune in to our live internet TV station! (This is a test of Mogulus Studio - Live Internet Video Broadcasting)