Opera Web Applications Blog

It's so easy to fool yourself into thinking that the browser race is a two racer contest. I find it easier myself to think of just IE Firefox and Safari, but Opera is gaining by leaps and bounds, and even me - mr. diehard Firefox - am impressed with some of the cool things opera is doing. This site is their new web applications blog - with very cool news about canvas and 2d gaming. (Dear to my heart)

Social Software as a Game

I've been thinking about this idea for a while now, and hoping that I'd have time to implement something - I've had several sorta aborted attempts in the past, perhaps now that I'm learning PHP on my own and I have some domain space - finally something will materialize...

Anyway this is a short article pointing to some great ideas about social software and game mechanics.

Putting the Fun in Functional

This is the HTML version of a powerpoint side about taking game mechanics and employing them in more traditional software. This echoes back to my own idea of "playful applications"

All time top 5 web designes

Of course its an opinion piece. But its an interesting read to see what one designer things are his top 5 well-designed websites.

First there was AJAX now there is COMET

Nice article about a new style of web2.0 communication. However I've been using COMET style connections in Laszlo for years. Yet another old tech becomming new again :)

The Little Coder's Predicament

Here's a great article about why big co's should bundle some kind of scripting or programming language in their consoles.

Popurls - popular urls from popular aggregators

You dont change your default homepage that often. If ever. Right? Well this is the first page I've been to in a long time that seriously tempts me to make it my "homepage". This aggregates top urls from sites like reddit, del.icio.us, digg, etc. and places them in a nice unified format. Great for getting that firehose of links you desire every morning.

It's official - Internet Television is here! In2TV

While you may have many varied opinions of AOL ( I know I do) you cannot deny the cool factor of their latest project called In2TV. Basically, for free, you get to watch over 100 different shows (over the year) straight from your PC - on demand.
Sure the shows arent the latest, but with things like Babylon 5, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and Wonderwoman - at least there's enough diversity to keep your interest.

Imagine someday if you could watch Whatever show you wanted, Whenever you wanted to. And give feedback directly to the directors, actors, etc.

youos - javascript based web operating system

After seeing tons of Web 2.0 apps, you start to get jaded. Yet another web desktop, blah blah blah. But before you pass this one by, take a second look. It seems that they are sincerely trying to build a javascript language based operating system for web apps that is extensible and the ide is quite fun.

Amazon Web Service: Storage

This is huge! Imagine if you could scale up to massive amounts of storage for your company/web service. Amazon allows you now to use their scalable infrastructure to store and retrieve huge quantities of bits for pennies on the Gig. Amazing.

Pixie - an Open Source Renderman Clone

Help support open source by trying out this new Renderman clone called Pixie. If you want an idea of what this tool should be able to do, think Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles.

AJAX Toybox

If you are just starting out in the world of AJAX - which really is just javascript, html, and some http connections as glue - you might find this collection of AJAX based scripts interesting.

Flow in Games - a flash game with serious cool

This game, called Flow is an experimental game which you can read about on the site. Basically you start out not knowing anything about how the game works, and gradually you'll figure it out -- its peaceful, fun, and you'll find yourself spending hours before you realize it.

Javascript Optimization

This is a great article about how to modify and optimize your javascript code for greater speed.

You Know You Are Web 2.0 When...

This is an interesting article about the state of "Web 2.0" and how the term seems to be falling out of favor with techies. It also spells out a short list of features that the author believes signifies what Web 2.0 sites tend to have.

Free Application / Website Icons

Many "free" icons sets are actually just "royalty free" meaning you buy the rights to use them for one instance. These icons however are truly free and are yours for the taking (and using for cool things!)

Laszlo to support DHTML / AJAX

This is astounding news! I just visited the Laszlo site and discovered they have a demo up of the new DHTML runtime for Laszlo:

Compare: http://labs.openlaszlo.org/lzpix-flash

with : http://labs.openlaszlo.org/lzpix-dhtml

in Firefox 1.5

-- Amazing! This is huge folks. You will be able to author applications in one language and output to different runtimes!

Mollio - simple CSS templates

If you are working on the web, chances are the design you want to implement has been done before. Probably done tons of times. So why spend all that time recreating the wheel when you can simply use existing code and templates? This site presents a series of CSS based templates for you to use and be inspired to mashup for your own works. Enjoy!

Wetpaint - web 2.0 meets wikis

Aqua - style buttons, AJAX up the wazoo, and brand new to boot! What more can you want in a new web 2.0 website? Wetpaint is a snazzy new wiki hosting service that has gobs of eye candy. Check it out!

Forget addEvent, use Yahoo!’s Event Utility

Dustin Diaz has a great article about the Yahoo Event (javascript) Utility. You'll never us the native addeventlistener again...

Spore Gameplay Video

This is a simply an amazing video describing Wil Wright's new game Spore... Astounding.

Layout Gala: a collection of 40 CSS layouts based on the same HTML

If you are just getting your feet wet with learning CSS, this is a good site to go to see what kinds of layout variations you can do. Quite educational.