20
Welcome to the Universe of HyperText: the first Web site and Web server, 20 years ago at CERN on a NeXT; http://eicker.at/20
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Gerrit Eicker
Web Fonts
Guide to most common (Web) fonts on Windows, Mac, Linux: serif, sans-serif; http://eicker.at/WebFonts (via Design Tagebuch)
Gerrit Eicker
Web Design Application
Santa Maria: We should have native tools to do our jobs, a real web design application; http://j.mp/cpGqbU (via @rivva)
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Gerrit Eicker
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Washington DC Web Designer
Interesting, this is something I’ve overlooked as a web designer.
Gerrit Eicker
State of Web Development 2010
Web Directions State of Web Development report 2010 covers technologies, techniques, philosophies; http://j.mp/ahPSyK
Gerrit Eicker
Chrome and OS X: Squeezing Windows
Google is aiming at the bottom of the OS market, Apple at its top: squeezing Windows in between; http://j.mp/61MK3j
Gerrit Eicker
How to Install: Google Chrome OS
TechCrunch describes how to install Google Chrome OS: step-by-step guide, done in around 15 minutes; http://j.mp/3SugT3
Gerrit Eicker
Google Chrome Operating System
Google has annouced the natural extension of Google Chrome: the Google Chrome Operating System; http://tr.im/rlnd
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. … Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple – Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.”
TC: “Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. … But let’s be clear on what this really is. This is Google dropping the mother of bombs on its chief rival, Microsoft. It even says as much in the first paragraph of its post, ‘However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web.‘ Yeah, who do you think they mean by that? … So why do release this new OS instead of using Android? After all, it has already been successfully ported to netbooks. Google admits that there is some overlap there. But a key difference they don’t mention is the ability to run on the x86 architecture. Android cannot do that, Chrome OS can and will. But more, Google wants to emphasize that Chrome OS is all about the web, whereas Android is about a lot of different things. Including apps that are not standard browser web apps.”
NYT: “The move is likely to sharpen the already intense competition between Google and Microsoft, whose Windows operating system controls the basic functions of the vast majority of personal computers. … Mr. Pichai and Mr. Upson said that the software would be released online later this year under an open source license, which will allow outside programmers to modify it. Netbooks running the software will go on sale in the second half of 2010. The software is compatible with processor chips made by Intel and ARM, the company said.”
RWW: “With this, Google can obviously put its own web apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs at the center of the user experience, and this is surely part of Google’s motivation behind releasing this OS. But given that Chrome is simply a browser, any other web app would obviously also be able to run on it as well.”
VB: “But the battle is also going to have some interesting sideshows, as Google’s move could also bring it squarely into opposition with its sometime ally, Apple.”
pC: “With Google Chrome OS, as it is supposed to be titled, its vision of everything delivered through the Web may come a little closer. It will also mean apps would run within Chrome when users are offline (it has already started doing that with some of its services like Gmail).”
Gerrit Eicker
The Lego OS
Coldewey speculates about life after Microsoft Windows and thinks it’s Lego-time now; http://tr.im/c9ug
Gerrit Eicker
Azure: Microsoft’s Cloud
Microsoft declared a third era of operating systems: Azure names its (pretty late) cloud plans; http://is.gd/4Xqj
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Gerrit Eicker
Winer: “I was hoping Microsoft would hit the home run, but it seems not. Why wouldn’t the Windows company just offer Windows in the cloud – nothing more and nothing less? The marketing people seem to have figured it out, they call the new offering Windows Azure, but what does it have to do with Windows other than sharing a brand? I don’t know. … Looks like I’m going to bet on Amazon.”
RWW: “Earlier in the day I’d asked Daz Wilkin, of Microsoft’s platform group, how Microsoft Azure compares to Amazon’s cloud offerings. Wilkin stated that Amazon’s system can be thought of as an ‘empty vessal’, because developers basically pour all their software and effort into Amazon’s system. Microsoft Azure on the other hand, according to Wilkin, is a ‘compute fabric’ – the developer can focus on building the business logic and then scaling the platform to the demand. Azure takes away the ‘lower level complexities’, according to Wilkin.”
Handelsblatt: “Microsoft reagiert mit dem massiven Einstieg ins ‘Cloud Computing’ auch auf die Bedrohung seiner Geschäftsfelder durch Wettbewerber wie Google, Amazon, SAP, IBM und Salesforce.com. Sie bieten bereits Software via Internet an oder lassen Unternehmen ihre riesige Datenzentren online nutzen. – Kunden von Microsoft dringen seit langem auf mehr Öffnung hin zum Web. Für den Softwareriesen drohen dabei große Gefahren: Der US- Konzern muss seine nach wie vor wichtigsten Ertragsbringer, die Programme Windows und Office vor zum Teil sogar kostenlosen Konkurrenzangeboten via Internet schützen.”
Santa Maria: “The web and its related disciplines have grown organically. I think it’s safe to say the web is not the domain of just the geeks anymore – we all live here. And those of us who work here should have sophisticated, native tools to do our jobs. … So why not build a desktop app for web design around WebKit? I’m not talking about an in-browser AJAX toolkit for dragging elements around and changing fonts, but an actual desktop application built with WebKit as the core to its display. It could have accurate rendering and previews for the way page elements would look, but with some of the WYSIWYG tools desktop design apps have. We wouldn’t just approximate pixels in a flat comp, our CSS would be baked in to the layouts we draw and create on the page. And as Webkit grows, so to could this new app, always taking advantage of the latest and greatest functionality. Just like a browser, it could pull assets from remote servers; and just like a desktop app, it could make use of local processing power and OS level functionality. This would allow it to effectively combine some of the best of both worlds, with a foot firmly planted in the web. – The advantages would be monumental, allowing a strong creative and explorative process, while seeing how things could react on a live stage. It would fulfill many of the items on my wishlist because these are already part of core browser functionality. We would essentially be designing with live page elements; not a picture of a text field—but a text field you could click into and start typing, and then drag to a different area of the page entirely. – I know I’m generalizing; I’m a designer first and most certainly not a developer, but I’ve been occupying this space and using these tools long enough to have a hunch for what works and what doesn’t. An application like this could change the process of web design considerably. Most importantly, it wouldn’t be a proxy application that we use to simulate the way webpages look – it would already speak the language of the web. It would truly be designing in the browser.”