Just saw this on Ajaxian - Google has released the AJAX Libaries API which allows developers to load the appropriate AJAX library or libraries directly from Google servers. This will be a great improvement as there is only one place you load the files from, rather than calling them from various different places as is the case so far.

There are basically two ways to load a library - directly or indirectly (using the AJAX Libraries API), as shown in the examples below:

<script language=”javascript” src=”http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.js”>
</script>

or

<script src=”http://www.google.com/jsapi”>
</script>
<script>
// Load jQuery
google.load(”jquery”, “1″);
</script>

Thus far, developers can access Prototype, JQuery, Scriptaculous, MooTools and Dojo, but other libraries will be included over time. The idea is to create a big repository of all the major AJAX libraries used in web development. Plenty more in depth information on Ajaxian and the official Google AJAX Library page.

I am working on a small project right now that actually relies on JQuery quite heavily, so I’ll give this a go. Given the power and reliability of Google’s infrastructure, I expect things to go quite smoothly.

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VIA has released the open source notebook project - the VIA OpenBook. It’s not a product you can buy at the local electronics dealer, but rather a unique approach to mobile computing. VIA has opened the architecture of its latest product design to the public, making CAD drawings available. Basically, if you’ve got the resources to manufacture the casing, and put together electronic components, you can build your own custom tailored open source notebook.

Some of the specifications are:

• Processor: 1.6GHz VIA C7®-M ULV Processor
• Chipset: VIA VX800 unified chipset
• Memory: DDR2 SO-DIMM up to 2GB
• HDD: 80GB Hard-Disk or above
• Screen: 8.9″ WVGA 1024X600 LED screen
• Graphics: VIA Chrome9 HC3 DX9 3D engine with shared system memory up to 256MB
• WiFi and Bluetooth
• webcam, and more…

Here’s the video in which Richard Brown (VIA Technologies) explains how the idea of an open source notebook came to be:

It would take a hell of an enthusiast engineer to put this together as an individual, but the project will allow small manufacturers to make some very interesting variations of the new notebook. I am guessing some pretty interesting products are about to hit the market, and for a low price as well. BTW, the new notebook can run Windows XP or Vista, and most (or all) Linux distributions.

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Just watched the videos showing how Microsoft’s latest, the Touch Wall, works in real conditions. I am very impressed with the whole thing, especially since it can be up and running for a few hundred dollars worth of hardware (and software naturally), although I doubt it will be available for so small an amount once officially released. Basically, the panel which is used as a projection area is scanned by small cameras found at the bottom of it facing upwards. Every time a user approaches the screen, they know it, and begin tracking movements and execute appropriate actions withing the interface.

Here’s a video featuring Bill Gates using the Touch Wall at their annual CEO Summit (you’ll need Silverlight to view this), and here’s another video of Michael Arrington who got a chance to test Touch Wall first hand. I’ll embed this video here, although it wouldn’t hurt to see the post on TechCrunch.

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Okay, this is going to be a very short post…

Just a few days after Google’s Friend Connect was announced, Facebook suspended its participation in it. Facebook explains that the way Friend Connect collects and distributes data doesn’t comply with its privacy guidelines and decided to bail out (for now anyway). Turns out, according to Venturebeat, that Google has no business relationship with Facebook and included FB data on its own.

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Google released Friend Connect, which is a neat way to add social networking to your site. Basically, it comes down to embedding some JavaScript into wherever you want the widgets to appear. The main thing however is that this tool allows webmasters to use it as a social promotion tool, having people comment on the content and spread it amongst their friends on the various networks that the Friend Connect communicates with - Facebook, Google Talk, Hi5, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Orkut. Basically users can log in through the widget with an existing Google, Yahoo, AIM, or OpenID account, but it also does data retrieval through APIs from Google, Facebook and MySpace.

Here’s a video presentation of what Friend Connect can do for a website that’s missing the social networking dimension:

Although Friend Connect couldn’t be easier to implement on a web site (simply cut and paste), there are things that can be viewed as limitations or issues - Friend Connect works from an iFrame on the page, so basically the webmaster has no control over the way it looks at all. There is thus far no way to mix the tool with other applications to create a more unique richer experience, basically you’re stuck with what you get … so far anyway. Then there are privacy/security issues - how do users from wherever access information that they may not have permission to access (we’re talking about social network profiles). Users will have to be given the option whether to expose sensitive information to other sites or not.

The goal was to allow sites without a social dimension to use the benefits of social networking, and this is definitely a great start. The ultimate goal is to allow people to connect from wherever they are with everyone else regardless of the social network they are on.

Here are a couple of good posts to see about this, giving an in depth look into Friend Connect:

Google Friend Connect (Google)
Google confirms Friend Connect (TechCrunch)
Google brings Friend Connect to the Masses (news.com)
Google Friend Connect tries to strangle the social (ReadWriteWeb)
How Google Friend Connect will affect SEO (BlogStorm.co.uk)

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StomperNet decided to open up again. Las year it was for 72 hours, this time there is no specific time frame. This video features the cases of several sites (one of which a newbie at the time), and a site that did quite well and raked in plenty of organic traffic from Google, and then was dropped from the Google index, causing its traffic to reduce by about 50%. The site pulled through, but not only that, it increased its revenue and client base as well. This was done through a unique approach to PPC advertising - by doing all the wrong things! Check it out, and BTW it’s about 53 minutes, so grab a coffee and concentrate (trust me, when the ball starts rolling you’ll have to make an effort to keep up):

Interesting stuff in there! For example, the OCI (Online Commercial Intention) tool developed by Microsoft was a great reminder. Also, a few nice pointers when doing PPC campaigns for your site, like the AdWords Triangulation Method (quite interesting).

I’m thinking of making a “Video of the Week” category, in which I’d post a video I thought was an interesting to watch for whatever practical reason (fun included). There have been a few in the past months that are worth mentioning. I don’t know, I’ll see how things go…

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Just looked at the new HTC Touch Diamond which has just been officially released. My first impression is that the device is a very pretty piece of hardware. The design is sleek and the interface seems to be a good implementation of something resembling the iPhone in many ways (including motion invoked portrait/landscape display change).

Comparison with iPhone is inevitable both because of the motion detection and the user interface itself, but these things are becoming the way of the future and are probably going to be included in future mobile devices, so enough with the iPhone praise.

The specs (on the HTC site) are alright, although pretty standard for a smartphone nowadays. My P1i has pretty much the same abilities (minus the design and screen implementation), although the W960 would be a much better comparison to the Touch Diamond. It has plenty of internal memory (256 MB ROM, 192 MB DDR SDRAM) and 4 GB of internal storage space. The screen is a TFT LCD flat VGA touch sensitive screen. It covers a broad range of connection speeds (HSDPA, WCDMA, GSM, GPRS, EDGE), and sports GPS/aGPS support. The camera is 3.2 Mpixels with auto focus. Connectivity wise it’s got WiFi, BT 2.0 (EDR), HTC ExtUSB (11-pin USB and jack all-in-one). It’s got Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional as the OS of choice.

Crave C|NET has a nice gallery of the HTC Touch Diamond, so check it out.

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If you were thinking about getting an ultra-portable PC or sub-notebook, you’ll have to gather information about a lot of new devices that have appeared in the last months. Brad Linder over at Liliputing.com wrote a great post which gives an overview of ultra-portable devices along with specifications. A great list that should be helpful if you’re still wondering what to get. The list includes:

• Asus Eee PC 701
• Dreambook Light IL1
• Everex Cloudbook
• HP 2133 Mini-Note (HP Mini)
• Asus Eee PC 900
• ECS G10IL
• Everex Cloudbook Max
• MSI Wind
• 2Go PC
• 3k Longitude
• ACi Ultra-mini
• Airis Kira
• Blue Digital Systems Deep Blue
• Elonex One
• Fukato Datacask
• HCL MiLeap X
• Jisus
• Kohjinsha SCC
• Medion Akoya Mini
• Noahpad
• Nohrtec Gecko
• Proview Handbook PC-81001
• Sungjut TangoX
• Gigabyte M912

So, there you go. This should you give a lot to think about before you buy.

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In the spirit of Acid tests for web browsers, now you can test your mobile web browsers for compatibility with web standards. The Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group at the W3C has published a test for mobile browsers consisting of twelve checks. The result is displayed as a twelve-square grid where each square represents a single check. If a square is green the mobile browser has passed that particular part of the test, and if a square is red or white, it hasn’t. Here is the checklist (taken from Ajaxian):

1. CSS2 min-width
2. Transparent PNG
3. GZIP support
4. HTTPS
5. iframe inclusing of XHTML-served-as-XML content
6. Static SVG
7. XMLHTTPRequest
8. CSS Media Queries
9. Dynamic SVG
10. The canvas element
11. contenteditable
12. CSS3 selectors

On the top right is a screen capture of Opera Mini (hifi ardentopium sr v.4.0.10406, 20080228) on my Sony Ericsoon P1i. The grid shows my Opera Mini doesn’t support “iframe inclusing of XHTML-served-as-XML content”, “Static SVG” and “Dynamic SVG” (I am assuming the grid layout is a standard matrix layout).

Here’s a screen shot of how FF 2.0.0.12 renders the test page:

Here’s the QR code (if you have a QR enabled phone):

or simply enter one of these URLs:
http://tinyurl.com/37e33p
http://dev.w3.org/2008/mobile-test/test.html

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For years now, every now and then when checking for a domain name, I tried using Google just to see if it will serve me a direct result pertaining to basic domain registration (registration and expiration date for starters). Somehow it seemed logical that a simple “whois …..” query in Google should do that. If queries like “define: …” return definitions for words, why not do the same for domains. Well, Google now returns basic domain information if you type “whois [domainname]” into the search box. I realized this a couple of days ago.

Today, I saw a post on the domain information query on Google by Danny Sullivan on Search Engine Land, and from the comments it seems other people are seeing this as well, but the feature is still sporadic, as some people are saying they aren’t getting domain info in their results. I’ve tried queries for .com and .co.uk and they worked alright. It doesn’t seem to work for .yu/.co.yu (now .rs/.co.rs), which are Serbia’s domain extensions for example. I wasn’t expecting this to work but thought I’d try anyway. Others are reporting they are still not seeing anything for domains ending with their own country extension. A post on Matt Cutts’ blog showed up a couple of days ago, which points out this new feature as well. It seems Google is using Domain Tools for domain information queries, and since this is still kinda fresh, bugs and limited availability are expected, until the addition is rolled out worldwide.

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