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In this presentation, Matt Biddulph, CTO at Dopplr discusses how they worked with Facebook and also JavaScript (using JQuery) to create the social widgets and plug-ins that are essential to Dopplr’s make-up.

Matt also spoke about other critical stages in the development of Dopplr - including how they used the internet as a platform, and how they deal with user identities.

This session is from Future of Web Apps London 2007, hosted by Carsonified. You can listen to the entire MP3 and download Matt’s presentation at the FOWA past events page.

The next FOWA is in Miami this February 28th - more details at the usual place!

Good morrow 9Rulers,

In the process of designing my website I seem to have gotten myself into a little pickle. Having used the Extended Live Archive plugin on a previous incarnation, I thought adding it to the new theme to be a simple business. Unfortunately this has not proved to be the case.

- I've downloaded a few versions given that the latest are betas.

- There is some talk on the interweb that there are issues for Wordpress version 2.3 and above, yet I am (rather ashamedly) still on 2.1.

- I have, to the best of my knowledge, followed 24FightingChickens' tutorial.

Evidently I've done something wrong, so I wonder if people had some pointers. With the various things I've tried, the page either shows up blank, or with content that is listed vertically in one column down the page.

One possible issue I have is precisely what should be contained within the php template file? For instance, amongst other things, I've tried:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Extended Live Archives
*/
?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
<?php if (function_exists('af_ela_super_archive')) {af_ela_super_archive();} ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>


Should you look at it, my website currently has everything relating to ELA deleted off it out of frustration. The Archive there currently is running the SRG Clean Archives plugin.

Nielson/Net Ratings has released new search engine statistics for Nov 2007. Google has really increased market share over the Feb 2006 search engine results we posted last year. Google jumped from 48.5 to 57.7 for a 9.2% increase in market share. Google captured just over 4.2 billion searches in Nov alone. There were over 7.1 billion searches performed in November.

Search Engine	Share of Searches
Google	57.7%
Yahoo	17.9%
MSN	12.0%
AOL	4.5%

With that many searches happening in a month, I hope you understand the importance of good Search Engine Optimization.

Ok, so this is probably something simple, but I'm no javascript queen, so if someone could help me do this I would be so appreciative.

I'm using Javascript to rotate the 5 featured stories I choose via a Wordpress plugin. So right now it looks like this:

http://cssgirl.com/demos/slashfilm/wordpress

I've put the two code samples on pastebin so that makes it easier for anyone to read (Javascript | HTML)

So, via this plugin I'm given several variables to use to display the image, the title, the tagline and url. I'm using a very simple (and probably really clunky) Javascript to rotate the big image (and it's attributes) every few seconds. What I want to do is have the border of the thumbnail change when the big images matches the thumbnail. So for when the "img5" story shows in the rotater I want the thumbnail of that image to have a border.

This is the javascript I am currently using:

Javascript

So I have a p tag in my body section and then the large image is rotated via that.

I know the logic of what I want, but I'm not sure how to accomplish that via javascript. I know I want it to say "if the ID of the big image is img1 than put a border on the image with the id of img1_thumb (each of the smaller images has an id of img#_thumb)", if it's img2 than the border goes off img1 and onto img2, etc up until img5/img5_thumb.

This is currently what I have in the body where the image displays:

HTML

I'm in the process of learning Javascript/DOM scripting, but just haven't quite got what it takes to code it without the expert knowledge of others, so again anyone that could help it would be great.

So...... I think my site is full of Javascripts and I already deleted some useless plugin like the "Wordpress let it snow" plugin

Im debating on removing Mint and use Google Analytics instead because Mint is a database whore

What do you think?

Mint? or Analytics?

Demystifying the green bar on the Google Toolbar. Learn what PageRank is, what are good links and how PageRank influences your search engine placement.

2007 Website Statistics from multiple websites show that the top three website browsers are still IE 6, IE 7, and Firefox.

Here are some browser statistics for 2007.

Browser	Site 1	Site 2	Site 3	Site 4	Site 5	Site 6	Site 7	Averages
MSIE 7.0	43.52%	18.32%	37.59%	35.54%	35.55%	36.97%	38.89%	37.31%
MSIE 6.0	30.88%	24.62%	46.60%	41.05%	47.73%	51.08%	42.45%	38.66%
MSIE 5.5	0.51%	0.16%	0.39%	0.17%	0.17%	0.17%	0.23%	0.34%
MSIE 5.0	2.37%	0.20%	0.39%	0.60%	0.31%	0.13%	0.46%	1.04%
Firefox	18.86%	48.07%	10.29%	17.04%	13.16%	8.91%	12.80%	18.03%
Safari	1.12%	6.22%	3.88%	4.83%	2.59%	2.01%	4.47%	3.03%
Netscape	0.42%	0.23%	0.71%	0.42%	0.22%	0.64%	0.45%	0.46%
Opera	2.32%	2.18%	0.15%	0.35%	0.26%	0.09%	0.25%	1.13%

 

It looks like more and more people are installing IE 7 although more people are still using IE 6. Firefox is still a bit hit in the tech sector as seen from Site 2. Overall it looks like Firefox lost a little ground to the IE 7 movement compared to last years browser statistics .

Just curious, it seems when ever I talk to other web developers it's always either PHP or Ruby. Am I one of the few that still uses Perl for all of their web programming needs?*

*All personal projects, projects for clients it's up to them...if they don't care it's usually Perl. :)

2007 has been an interesting year for the internet, and for web design in particular. We have seen the rise and fall of Web 2.0, the increase of lobbying for web standards, and the growth of interest in CSS3 and HTML5. And these three things are just a few out of many other topics and trends that have created a wide swath across the design community, leaving storms of debate and discussion that are not soon to fade away. Web design is becoming much more diverse than ever before; with this in mind, it is essential to take a step back to look at the big picture: at where design trends are really headed. A few questions arise when designers do this, primarily this: are we working ourselves into a rut of design trends and cliched frameworks? And what is it that remains after the rise and fall of these bubble trends in web design?

What is “cool” in web design today is certainly not what was cool six months or a year ago, though the Web 2.0 swelling had begun to recede by the summer of 2007. Designers as a whole have grown tired of the gloss, reflections, and gradient-filled rounded corners. As a visual trend, Web 2.0 had a slightly immature look to it. But the decline of this style has helped the design world to mature and increase in depth.

Lately Jeff Croft, a major voice among professional web designers, has created stir with his opinions on mainstream issues such as CSS frameworks and web standards. Other prominent figures such as Andy Clarke, Alex Russell, and Roger Johansson have created similar discussions and memes.

Many bloggers say the future of web design is unclear, and the advancement of the tools we use to create our work, such as CSS and HTML, is even more uncertain. The reputation of working groups organized for the revisions of these tools are being questioned all across the board, as they slowly work their way forward.

Many of us know in the back of our minds that the future of web design is closely connected with the future of the computers themselves, but we fail to realize the coming situations, where nearly everything we’ve learned (and practiced) is going to be challenged by the release of new operating systems from Microsoft, Apple, and the vast Open-Source community. The only thing we can do now is help to improve the tools we use to design and build websites, and unite to stand firm against bad influences and trends that threaten our standards and practices.

It’s hazardous to our health

What is cool today in web design? That question cannot be answered definitely. Many of us are certainly glad that the bulk of the Web 2.0 design styling has been put behind us, but where do we go now? It’s time to put much more energy and time into producing creative and innovative things. One designer states that the internet may be becoming too crowded and uninspiring; most of us would beg to differ, but it makes a good point. We cannot stand for a moment to stop pushing ahead at full throttle to uselessly look back on our past. And even more importantly, we cannot afford to be bogged down in bubble design trends such as Web 2.0 or (heaven forbid the term) Web 3.0. It’s simply not healthy.

Whether knowingly or unknowingly, we have modelled and treated the internet like our lives outside of computers - where fads come and go, but certain things remain. Gloss, 3D imitations, reflections, these things will soon be a thing of the past, just as tiny text, comic sans and flashing text have already been retired. But certain things remain from all stages of the internet’s past growth. Using tables for page layout has been replaced by CSS and proper HTML structural elements such as the div tag. This is one thing that will undoubtedly remain, until something far superior replaces it.

The programming and coding side of Web 2.0 will certainly last for a while longer, because it is arguably one of the best things that has developed since the beginning of server-side development. Firmly founded social networking websites like Facebook and Digg are not soon to fade away; people have seen the great advantages of such systems.

Maybe it is time to try something crazy, as Jeff Croft puts it. Time for a creativity revolution, a greater independence among web designers, and a greater unity to improve the design world we have worked so hard to build and develop.

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