Ajax Girl

Ed Burns (of Sun and the JSF expert group) has created an automated testing framework for Ajax in Java called MCP.

This framework stems from an old, old Mozilla project called the Mozilla Web Client started in 1999 as a part of the Sun/AOL/Netscape alliance. The ambitious misson statement of the project is:

The webclient project aims to provide the premier browser-neutral Java API that enables generic web browsing capability. This capability includes, but is not limited to: web content rendering, navigation, a history mechanism, and progress notification. The actual capabilities implemented depend on the underlying browser implementation.

You can tie unit tests into browser ajax events by using an AjaxListener and getting access to items such as the responseText/responseXML/HTTP headers, and more.

Check out the two part screencast of this in action:

Part One, Part Two.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/automatic-testing-of-ajax-from-java

I’ve just joined the “NewTube” media call with NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker and News Corp. COO Peter Chernin. Notes to follow.

Chernin is kicking things off. It took him about 2 minutes to say “Web 2.0″ for the first time. Saying this will be the largest premium video network on the web. Extending offer to other distribution partners, wants to work with everyone.

Zucker is now on. Talking about importance of “significant IP protection” as a primary goal. Second - this provides an excellent opportunity for advertisers, who want to be associated with premium video. Five charter advertisers already yesterday (Cadbury Schweppes, Cisco, Esurance, Intel and General Motors). Two more today (Royal Carribean is one).

Revenue will be split between News Corp and NBC, with a portion going to distribution partner.

Going immediately to questions.

well, I just got cut off from the call.

Back on, but I missed about 5 minutes.

Washington Post: Are you talking to YouTube to partner? Is this a YouTube Killer?
- Chernin: This is obviously not a YouTube Killer. There’s no stand alone site. Seriously IP protection
- Zucker: we want ubiquitous distribution. saying this is the right product for this stage of the development of the internet
- Chernin: this will be the largest advertising platform on earth.

AP: Will there be a delay between TV broadcast and online? Also asking about economics of partnership.
- Chernin: delay window will be several hours after shows air in Hawaii.
- Zucker: “we’re obviously not going to talk about economics”

Will this be the exclusive online channel for content?
- Zucker: says yes, this is the only place they’ll put their content online, and says this isn’t exclusive since they will partner with anyone.

Financial Times: Any plans to focus outside of U.S.? Do you think that this will hurt broadcast revenue?
- U.S. is focus for now. They believe this will not cannibalize broadcast revenues.

MSNBC: Says “Hi Boss” to Zucker. Asking about legal stance towards YouTube.
- Saying they continue to talk with YouTube to remove pirated content. They say this new company gives people an alternative to watching pirated content.

???: asking about the history of the partnership
- we’ve been in discussions for a long time, there have been ups and downs throughout, but News Corp and NBC remain committed throughout the process. This came together in the last week when distribution partners jumped on board.
- this is a very complex deal. There has been “unwaivering commitment” by NBC and News Corp.

WSJ: will other networks be able to come in as equity partners? mobile strategy?
- “we haven’t given it a lot of though. we are comfortable with the current arrangement but would consider other things.
- saying this is a web distribution venture, not mobile. (??)
Is American Idol going to be included?
- Chernin: no plans to include it right now.

TV Guide: Asking about pay per view movies. What will be for sale v. free?
- most movies will be available for sale. Some deep content will be free.
- Some TV content will not be free either. If on iTunes for pay, will also be for sale there. Pricing will be like MovieLink, iTunes, etc.
What will be free then?
- “most will be for free”. They were really hazy on answers here.

Marketwatch: will it take user generated content?
- yes.

[note: there are some serious red flags popping up around this service]

InternetNews: what kinds of advertising?
- “we will try to maximize the effectiveness of our ads”
- we will experiment. want to maximize our monetization. want to provide users with a great experience.
- Zucker: we are shocked at the willingness of the consumer to sit through the whole show with ads on NBC.com”

New York Post: YouTube has issues policing their own site. How will they control this?
- distribution partners have promised to protect content.

CNNMoney: Will this be fully open to user generated content? On movie side, are they looking to have movies done as downloads, streams, or what format?
- there will be user generated material, but focus is on premium content, and that’s the value proposition
- with films, looking to download to own model

[end call]

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/103658804/

HP announced the acquisition of Cambridge, Massachusetts based Photo printing site Tabblo this morning. The price is not being disclosed.

Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote about Tabblo last September. The service launched in July 2006.

More on the Tabblo blog and GigaOm.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/103641443/

The rumors of a joint venture to counter the perceived Google-YouTube threat, dubbed “Clown Co.” by Google executives, are now confirmed, although the name of the new company is not yet available. In a press release, Peter Chernin (COO News Corp.) and Jeff Zucker (CEO NBC Universal) are announcing “launch the largest Internet video distribution network ever assembled with the most sought-after content from television and film.” Content from at least a dozen TV networks and two major film studios is promised. Initial distribution partners include AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo.

Chernin says they will have access to “the entire U.S. audience” at launch. The service is promised for this summer, with “thousands of hours” of full length televisions shows and movies, as well as shorter clips. Users will have unlimited and free access to content on the site.

Good content lineup:

At launch, full episodes and clips from current hit shows, including Heroes, 24, House, My Name Is Earl, Saturday Night Live, Friday Night Lights, The Riches, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, The Tonight Show, Prison Break, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader and Top Chef, plus hits from the studios’ vast television libraries, will be available free, on an ad-supported basis, within a rich consumer experience featuring personalized video playlists, mashups, online communities and video search. Plus, the extensive programming lineup will include fan favorite films like Borat, Little Miss Sunshine, Devil Wears Prada, The Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy with bonus materials and movie trailers. Post-launch, plans will be considered for acquiring additional content as well as producing and licensing original programming for the new site’s audience.

The content will be provided through distribution partners through a customized embeddable player.

The new company will be located in New York and Los Angeles. NBC Universal’s Chief Digital Officer, George Kliavkoff will transitionally head up the new entity at launch, with permanent management coming soon. No word on capitalization, other than “each company will devote a significant marketing and promotional budget to the new site’s launch.”

There is a media conference call today at noon with Chernin and Zucker to discuss the announcement. Hopefully more details will emerge then around the new company, and we’ll get a better understanding of how this thing will compare to YouTube, Joost, Netflix’s recent offering, and other IPTV offerings.

Things we don’t know yet:

- delay if any from TV broadcast to content being on the site.
- will there be a centralized site for the service, or will this only be distributed through partners?
- Will users/viewers be able to upload their own videos as well (lots of this on MySpace Video already, could be incorporated)?
- format and “skipability” of advertising

More as this develops and more details emerge.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/103617559/

Thank you
It’s been just over 36 hours since we officially launched Tuesday afternoon. We’ve been overwhelmed by the response. All things considered, the launch of Highrise has been our most successful product launch ever. Thank you!

Some early stats
Highrise is definitely getting a workout. Here are some early stats on the amount of data that has been added to the system so far:

• Over 150,000 contacts
• Over 15,000 notes
• Over 10,000 tasks

Another interesting stat is that 9% of the people signed up are using OpenID. Lots of early adopters on board!

We heard you: Here come Cases for everyone
When we launched we only offered Cases on Plus, Premium, and Max plans. There was a fair bit of negative reaction to that decision. We hear you. So today we’ve made a change. Now all plans include some Cases.

• Plus, Premium, and Max continue to include unlimited Cases
• The new Solo plan (explained below) includes unlimited Cases
• Basic includes 5 Cases
• Personal includes 3 Cases
• Free includes 1 Case

These case numbers are for open Cases. That means you could have 12 cases on the Basic plan, but only 5 could be open at one time (the others must be closed). This is exactly how Active/Archived projects in Basecamp work.

We hope you like this change.

Don’t need to share Highrise? Go Solo for $29/month
Another interesting bit of feedback we received was that there seem to be a fair number of people who will be using Highrise on their own. They don’t have a staff, they don’t have co-workers. They are independent contractors, or freelancers, or contract salespeople, or real-estate agents, or 1-person business owners, etc. They want to get the most out of Highrise, but they don’t need a muti-user account.

So we’ve made a new plan just for them. The Solo plan. The Solo plan is basically the same as the Plus plan, except it’s only for a single user. You get 1 gig of space, unlimited Cases, SSL, 20,000 contacts, but only 1 user. If your company grows or you want to bring multiple users in down the road you can just upgrade to Plus and you’ll have up to 15 users.

More contacts on Free and Personal too
We’ve moved the free plan up from 25 contacts to 250 contacts. Personal also gets a boost from 250 to 500. We hope that helps free and entry level customers get more out of Highrise.

Did you go Plus too early?
If these subscription changes have you reconsidering whether Plus is the right plan for you, it’s easy to change. If you’re on the 30-day trial, you can downgrade (or upgrade) before the end of the trial and only be charged for the plan you’re at on the day of billing. If you already paid for plus by upgrading from free and would really like a refund for the difference between plus and the plan you choose, write us and we’ll give you a credit.

More disk space
We’ve also increased the file storage limits on all accounts.

• Max moves up to to 50 gigs (was 20 gigs)
• Premium moves up to to 10 gigs (was 3 gigs)
• Plus moves up to 3 gigs (was 1 gig)
• Basic moves up to 500 megs (was 400 megs)
• Personal moves up to 250 megs (was 200 megs)

Regarding integration and a Highrise API
For those asking about Basecamp/Highrise integration: We have some ideas. First things first. We wanted to get the Highrise basics right. We’ll be working on some integration ideas this year for sure. The Highrise API is also on the way. We’re excited to see what people can dream up. Stay tuned.

So there we are!
Off to a great start! Thanks again for the feedback, thanks for your ideas, and thanks for your business. We have some great stuff planned for Highrise. Stay tuned.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/332-highrise-early-stats-cases-for-all-the-new-solo-plan-and-more-disk-space

Join me on Twitter, and follow every last detail of my glorious life. You can see updates like “2 am…blogging” so you’ll know just what I’m up to.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/103628398/

Kayuda is a new web based mind map tool that makes it easy to create and share your maps.

The application has been released as an early alpha, and is based on Dojo. Create a map and play around with it. It performs really well, and feels Pipes-y.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/kayuda-dojo-based-mind-map

Pete LePage of the IE team has created a new Virtual PC IE6 image that allows designers and developers to do testing in an emulation layer.

This image is for Virtual PC 2007.

They didn’t do a version with IE 5.5 because:

We did do some investigation of shipping VHD’s with IE5.5, or earlier, but decided that due to the low browser usage share (less than 1% total usage for all IE versions before 6), it wasn’t going to be beneficial for enough developers and designers.

You will see that people jumped on this discussing how their stats are showing many mor IE 5 users

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/ie6-virtual-pc-refresh-now-available

Zoho just launched a private beta for Zoho Meeting, their new online meeting application that will overlap with the important features of WebEx (recently acquired by Cisco) - desktop sharing. They’ll be bleeding new users in - sign up on the home page to request access, or watch the embedded video at the end of this post to see a demo.

Zoho Meeting lets each member view (zoom in/out) and remotely control the host’s desktop, chat, add participants, email the host, and view meeting details. Sessions can also be recorded and downloaded by users (AVI format, Flash coming soon). Chat is handled with Zoho chat, which will soon have VOIP capability as well. Basically, if you want to demo something remotely, Zoho Meeting is going to be a very compelling choice.

In order to host a meeting, you create a meeting in your Zoho account, set a date, description, and invite participants by email. However, to broadcast your desktop, you also have to install an ActiveX controller (732 Kb), which makes hosting Windows only.

They’ve gone to great lengths to make the viewer work everywhere by making three different flavors: ActiveX (Windows only), Java, and Flash. This means Zoho meeting can work across Mac, Windows, and Linux machines. The Flash client came with some latency, bobbing between 1.5 and 1.8 seconds, with the Java and ActiveX clients performing better.

But Zoho didn’t include a Flash viewer for just for kicks. The Flash viewer will let users embed meetings anywhere flash is accepted, such as a website or Zoho Show. This will allow hosts to remotely demo to a large crowd of observers.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/103537693/

We are constantly getting asked about how Flash fits into Ajax (if at all) and the open web in general.

Dan Webb has changed his opinion, and tells us how It’s time to expand your toolbox.

Flash has some really quite incredible features that we struggle with implementing with HTML/CSS/JS: Sound, Dynamic vector drawing, Sockets, local storage, video. I could go on. Why the hell are we struggling with and VML? Comet is essentially a hack while XMLSockets are built in to Flash…and then you have Red 5. To add to this, Apollo has just been released which is looking pretty interesting. See what I mean?

The sweet spot for JavaScript and Ajax has always been for those small, progressive enhancements rather than for creating rich interfaces. It seems to me that the more you head in that direction with JavaScript the more serious limitations you encounter. Browser JavaScript is never fast, has memory leak issues, browser bugs, CSS bugs and all manner of other tom foolery that, when you get to the stage of building something like for Google Maps gets really time consuming and messy. There are many efforts (WHATWG, Tamarin etc etc) that are working toward solving many of these problems but for now and for the foreseeable future we are stuck with em. This, I think, is when it’s time to bring out Flash. Not for the whole app of course, but used in conjunction with HTML/CSS/JS. Flash however is not without it’s problems.

There are many sides to this story. Brendan Eich wrote a provocative piece on The Open Web and Its Adversaries.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/flash-vs-ajax-its-time-to-expand-your-toolbox