Leslie Franke

Dustin Diaz has compiled a nice CSS shorthand property reference guide.

Roger Johansson has just finished up the final part of a very useful series on CSS 2.1 selectors. The articles make it a little easier to understand selectors and how they work. If you are new to style sheets, or even an old pro, make sure to read these articles. Selectors are fundamental to the whole style sheet process.

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

I have updated the Rapid Web Development with Mozilla Firefox presentation. Changes include the following:

• A minor change to the way the document is laid out. The presentation has been split up into coding/testing extensions, bookmarklets, and extensions designed to replace/compliment desktop development tools.
• The addition of pages and links to the following extensions: Accessibility Extensions for Firefox, Add & Edit Cookies, CodeTch, MozImage.
• The addition of links to the following extensions: Accessibar, Firefox View, Inspect Element, Opera View, View Cookies.
• The removal of the Zoomy extension. Zoomy is not really a developer extension but more of an enhancement to Firefox’s user interface.
• Added a page about bookmarklets, including the Slayer Office Favlet Suite.

A French translation has been created from the original version. See this article at Framasoft.

Note: As Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 is still the official version of Firefox, several extensions that are currently not compatible with the new Firefox 1.5 beta are still included in the presentation. At the time of this writing the following extensions will not work, out of the box, with the new beta: Add & Edit Cookies, CodeTch, Inspect Element, Live HTTP Headers, Opera View, View Rendered Source.

Original Post: Rapid Web Development and Testing with Mozilla Firefox

A topic that has not gained a lot of attention until recently is a proposal to transfer oversight of the Internet from ICANN and the United States to a multi-governmental UN bureaucracy. Basically, it is a call from countries like Brazil, Iran, China, and the EU to assert control over the Internet’s core management functions. This issue has jumped back into focus as Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman has introduced a United States Senate resolution that calls on the Bush administration to oppose transfer of Internet control to the UN or any international body. In his statement, Sen. Coleman stated that:

“There is no rational justification for politicizing Internet governance within a UN framework. Nor is there a rational basis for the anti-U.S. resentment driving the proposal. Privatization, not politicization, is the Internet governance regime that must be fostered and protected.”

Exactly. Under the control of the United States, the Internet has thrived. Under UN control it is a rare program that is successful. The success of the Internet can largely be attributed to the fact that there has been no politicization of the the Internet’s technological backbone. The argument boils down to the fact that some UN countries do not like the fact they can’t exert the influence over the Internet that they would like. They cannot use control over the Internet’s addressing system (see Iran, China, etc) to impose anti-democratic policies on the Internet and their citizens. They cannot take domain names because they do not like site contents. They cannot use the Internet to levy taxes on domain names. They cannot regulate and ban businesses (see VoIP and Skype) to protect a government state monopoly.

ICANN has managed things quite well. The UN should be making sure that ICANN is not interfered with, not imposing more restrictions and regulations on them. Those calling for change have not communicated any real technical reason why this change needs to be made. Their problem, with the current systems, appears to revolve around an axe to grind over certain US foreign policy decisions and/or a desire to impose restrictions on the flow of information to their own citizens.

As Carl Bildt, the former prime minister of Sweden, wrote recently,

“It would be profoundly dangerous to now set up an international mechanism, controlled by governments, to take over the running of the Internet. Not only would this play into the hands of regimes bent on limiting the freedom that the Internet can bring, it also risks stifling innovation and ultimately endangering the security of the system. Even trying to set up such a mechanism could cause conflicts leading to today’s uniform global system being Balkanized into different, more or less closed systems.”

OpenOffice 2.0, a free alternative to Microsoft Office, has just been released. Open Office features a Word compatible word processor, a Excel compatible spread sheet program, and a Power Point like presentation software. Two nice features in OpenOffice are the ability to create PDF and Flash files. The main drawback to OpenOffice still seems to be it is slower than Microsoft Office when opening and saving documents.

Note: For those Palm users out there remember if you want to ability to save files as DOC files you need to do an custom install. When the program asks for a list of features to install find the section labeled mobile device filters and under Palm click on the drop down box selecting ‘this feature, and all sub features, will be installed on local hard drive’.

Dave Shea and Roger Johansson are both talking about why Mozilla Firefox has seen a slow down in its growth rate, stopping at a market share of around 15%. This probably should be excepted. It matches a typical slowdown in interest for any new software release as time passes. Firefox has gotten the base of early first adopters and now must try to pick up everyone else, which is a lot harder against a competitor that is so entrenched in the marketplace. The initial Firefox enthusiasts have converted people, those who have been converted are not doing any converting themselves.

For Firefox to continue to grow above the 15% being discussed, the browser needs to come pre-installed, as the default, on boxes from major manufactures. Most people do not know what Mozilla Firefox is. They know they click on the blue ‘e’ to get to the internet and when they click on a link in their email client a web page loads in a piece of software. They are not interested in taking the time to figure out how to download another browser, when they already have one that they believe meets their needs. For most people Internet Explorer seems good enough. It will be interesting to see if the growth picks up some more with the impending release and publicity of Firefox 1.5.

The Firefox Tweak Guide has been updated so that all the tweaks in the guide are compatible with Firefox 1.5 Beta. The tweak guide is full of tons of ways for both Firefox veterans and newcomers to get the most out the browser.