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Mozilla)
It's been just under four months since Mozilla launched its pilot program for contributions, a way for users to donate to add-on developers for their time and effort.
The program was launched in tandem with a redesign of Mozilla's add-ons site that gave developers their own profile pages. Many add-on makers were already running donation programs through their own sites, but wanted the option to show up in Mozilla's catalog too.
Already it appears to be working, but on a smaller scale than some developers might have hoped. For the half dozen developers that CNET News talked to, none has made enough from it to, say, quit their day job. While Mozilla would not reveal specifics on which developers are getting the most contributions, it did provide us with the total amount given: around $20,000. An organization spokesperson said that most of that came in September and October.
Of the 500 or so developers who are participating in the program, the average contribution falls somewhere between $5 and $6, with the largest thus far being $150. All have gone through PayPal, which is the sole way to pay through Mozilla's add-on site. PayPal then gets a small fee out of each transaction, something that comes out of the developer's pocket, although this varies based on how much the user gives.
Other ways to make money
Some developers believe Mozilla has gone about the payment problem in reverse. With the current contributions program developers are given the chance to ask for money before the user even downloads the free add-on. So why not give them a way to ask for a contribution after a user has downloaded and installed it?... Read more
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Xobni)
A few months ago, e-mail search app Xobni told us they were creating a version for BlackBerry. At the BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco on Monday, we got a look at it.
Xobni on the Windows PC is an Outlook add-on that quickly finds e-mail messages and attachments. On BlackBerry, Xobni will integrate with your e-mail account, where it will extract addresses, phone numbers, and social networking details to automatically create a secondary address book for your phone. You'll be able to use Xobni for BlackBerry to quickly find contacts--including those you have not physically added to the native address book yourself. That expanded address book goes for everyone who has ever sent you an e-mail, been cc'd in an e-mail, or even mentioned in a message.
With the premium Xobni Plus Outlook add-on, you can access this secondary address book by typing into the Compose field. Integration isn't quite so tight in BlackBerry. On the Bold, Tour, and new Curve 8900s, you'll access contacts by flicking up on the track pad to get to to the stylized Xobni address book.
Then search by a contact's name, domain name, or by a keyword to speedily find the person you're looking for. As with Xobni on the desktop, you'll be able to send your calendar availability to a contact, get Facebook to supply contacts' Xobni profile picture, and view Twitter feeds and LinkedIn and Hoovers information from the BlackBerry.
In creating its own address book--instead of adding contacts to the native address book--Xobni makes a statement. Unlike Gwabbit, which adds the information from a signature block into a new record, Xobni finds e-mails and phone numbers anywhere in the message. Besides that, Xobni CEO Jeff Bonforte believes that inserting contacts into your native address book means "you've already lost the battle." Instead of adding contacts one-by-one, Xobni builds you a social roster behind-the-scenes, and adds social networking plug-ins in the process.
As far as time lines go, Xobni is looking at a closed alpha release sometime in December. Bonforte expects a beta early next year, and the final release a few months after that. The pricing model is still undecided.
Xobni for BlackBerry will first be available on the Bold, Tour, and Curve 8900. Storm users will have to wait a little longer.
iStockphoto's Kelly Thompson
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)Google's Gears technology may not have caught on widely in the world of Web programming, but operators of the iStockphoto photo sales site have become believers.
Among other things, Gears enables browsers to store data on a local computer, which most notably means that Web applications can be adapted to work even while offline. But for iStockphoto's purposes, it primarily means better performance for people using the site and secondarily lower operating costs for the Getty Images photo sales subsidiary.
"We're not requiring anyone to install Google Gears," the company said on an explanatory Web site. "If you do install Google Gears, though, iStock will work much faster."
Google launched the open-source Gears software in 2007, but so far, the sites that use it--among them Gmail, Google Reader, WordPress, and MySpace--are the exception rather than the rule.
Speed and money
The main motivation for the change was getting a faster site, which benefits iStockphoto's financial results, said Kelly Thompson, iStockphoto's chief operating officer.
"It was 95 percent performance and end-user experience, but let's face it: if I can get more pictures pumped out faster, with more searches, we sell more," Thompson said. "Cutting down a page load time for a user is more valuable to me than the money I'll save on bandwidth."
The company adopted Gears with no prompting from Google, he added. "We did this on our own," with Web programmers jumping on the project because "it's sexy for them to work on it."
iStockphoto activated its Gears support September 30, Thompson said. In the first 16 days of use, Gears saved the company from paying for the transfer of 132GB of data over the network and lightened its Web servers by 8.7 million communication requests--and that's with only 19,000 Gears-installed users, a "tiny portion of our traffic," he said. Those without Gears benefit, too, since iStock's Web servers are unburdened somewhat by those who do use it.
The technology works by locally storing various Web page ingredients--photo thumbnails, JavaScript program code, Cascading Style Sheet formatting files, for example. Older files are flushed periodically so the users' hard drives don't get too cluttered.
"It's a pretty basic implementation right now: the second time a user sees any image or requests a JavaScript file, it loads instantly," Thompson said. One of his developers described it as "the opposite of a drug dealer: the first hit isn't free, (but) every subsequent hit is."
Google is trying to propagate Gears, which is available as a browser plug-in. In a more aggressive move, it built Gears into its Chrome browser. And in the longer term, the HTML5 standard under development reproduces the local storage abilities of Gears, a move that stands to spread the technology more widely.
HTML5 good, IE 6 bad
Thompson is a fan of another HTML5 technology: built-in video. iStock licenses video content, as well as photos and other content, and currently streams it with Adobe Systems' Flash technology.
"We'd love to be able to ditch Flash on the video side, but it's probably a ways out," Thompson said, citing widespread use of Internet Explorer.
IE is widely loathed among Web developers for its slow performance and lack of standards compliance, and even Microsoft wishes that people would upgrade from IE 6, but it's still the single most widely used browser out there, even though Microsoft released it in 2001, just before Windows XP arrived. Microsoft released IE 7 in 2006, and it tried to improve standards compliance and security with the release of IE 8 this March.
People are gradually shifting away from IE 6, but not fast enough for Thompson's taste--or plans.
"We announced we'd drop official support for IE 6 in 2010 back at the beginning of the year. I'm not sure we're going to be able to it: the percentage of users is dropping--just not quite fast enough," he said.
From August (top) to September (below), Internet Explorer lost a bit of usage share, compared with rival browsers.
(Credit: Net Applications)According to Net Applications statistics, IE 6 is used by 24.4 percent of people on the Web today, followed by IE 7, IE 8, Firefox 3.5, and Firefox 3, in descending order of popularity. Overall, IE has 65.7 percent share of usage.
iStockphoto has more early adopters in its population and therefore different browser preferences. The top five browsers on the site are Firefox, with 37.8 percent; IE, with 34.4 percent; Apple's Safari, with 22.3 percent; Google's Chrome, with 3.4 percent; and Opera, with 1.7 percent.
Among iStockphoto's IE traffic, the majority of people use version 7, but the tide is turning.
"We've seen an almost 2 percent migration of (IE) 6 to 8 in the last 60 days alone. We're hoping Windows 7 will push it even more quickly," Thompson said. "For us, even though it's a shrinking percentage, it still represents over 1 million visits per month, so I can't cut them off at the knees."
"I think we're dominated by geeks, designers, and small businesses, all who move more quickly than the enterprise--not to mention we're 35 percent Mac, with the iPhone about to overtake Linux for third place" among operating systems, Thompson said.
A native application development kit has been released for Android developers, offering a way to create certain kinds of high-performing applications for handsets running the Google platform.
Android applications run through the Dalvik virtual machine, which emulates a Java virtual machine. On Thursday, the Android Native Development Kit (NDK) was released, allowing coders to create parts of their Android 1.5 applications outside Dalvik, using native-code languages such as C and C++.
This approach would not ordinarily produce a massive performance boost, but it does allow developers to reuse existing C and C++ code for Android applications.
Android engineer David Turner wrote in a blog post that the NDK, which is an adjunct to the standard Android software development kit (SDK), could be used for writing higher-performing applications, but also had its drawbacks.
"Your application will be more complicated, have reduced compatibility, have no access to framework APIs, and be harder to debug," Turner wrote. "That said, some applications that have self-contained, CPU-intensive operations that don't allocate much memory may still benefit from increased performance and the ability to reuse existing code. Some examples are signal processing, intensive physics simulations, and some kinds of data processing."
David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.
I've been working on a new Web site for the past few weeks. But instead of doing it alone, I decided to get some help from Firefox extensions. They've made my work a lot easier, and they all can be downloaded in just a few seconds.
Aardvark: Aardvark lets you select elements from a Web page and perform various actions on them. I use it to analyze the structure of a page. You can also remove and isolate elements or generate DOM code. I highly recommend it.
Find any code for the color you want.
(Credit: ColorZilla)ColorZilla: If there's a color on a Web page that you like, ColorZilla will find the precise code for it and allow you to paste it into your coding program. You can also create custom colors with its built-in palette browser. It saves the most-used colors for easy access later on. It's powerful, it's simple, it's a must-have.
CSS Validator: CSS Validator adds a right-click option in your browser, sending the CSS to the W3C CSS Validator. It opens the results in a new tab. CSS Validator is a nice tool that will come in handy often.
CSSViewer: No Web designer should be working without CSSViewer. The add-on informs you of all the CSS information you'll need from a site. Simply click on the page you want, open it in the Tools menu, and it will display CSS information. I use it almost every day.
FireBug: Firebug is one of those extensions that you simply can't be without. It lets you edit, debug, and view CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. Once you make a change to the HTML on the site, Firebug automatically displays it in the same pane. It's extremely powerful.
FirePHP fills you in on all the issues with your PHP.
(Credit: FirePHP)FirePHP: FireBug is a fine tool for CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, but FirePHP, which only works when you have the FireBug extension installed, creates a full-featured development experience. With the help of both add-ons, you can view the quality of your PHP and find errors. It's a great aid.
Font Finder: Font Finder allows you to highlight a font you like on any site, right-click on the selection, and after choosing "Font Finder", view the full CSS text styling of the selection. You can then paste that into your own Web page.
HTML Validator: HTML Validator is an extremely powerful tool available to Windows users only. The add-on gives you feedback about errors on the page. It also lets you know where problems need to be addressed. But unless you're an advanced Web designer, stay away from this tool. It's very complicated.
IE View: As long as you're running Windows, IE View is a helpful tool. The extension adds an "Open in IE" option in the right-click menu, allowing you to quickly open a site in Internet Explorer. It's a great way to check how a page looks in both browsers.
... Read moreDon Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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CNET)
For the past two years, several independent Mac software developers have teamed up to put together a bundle of award-winning Mac apps at a vastly reduced price--with 25 percent of the purchase price donated to the charity of your choice (chosen from a list). The whole thing takes place at a very well-designed site called MacHeist.com and over the past two years, thousands of Mac users have snapped up the limited time offer--it's really a great deal! The fun part about the MacHeist offer is the developers of MacHeist make it into a kind of scavenger hunt. They let users search for clues by watching entertaining videos and solving puzzles to win software and other prizes before the final bundle is announced.
This year, they've done it all over again with MacHeist 3 featuring a new bundle of indie software, the contents of which were announced yesterday. If you were to buy these programs separately, it would cost you almost $1,000. The list of software has products from all categories including a cooking app, photo-retouching software, an audio editor, Web-design tools, and 3D-modeling software. The scavenger hunt part of the offer is already over, but at least you're here in time to take advantage of an awesome deal. The bundle of a dozen Mac programs will only be offered at the reduced price of $39 for the next two weeks, so make sure not to wait too long!
HP is set to announce on Monday a free tool that developers can use to check for holes in the Flash applications they write, which can lead to data leaks and other security problems on Web sites.
HP SWFScan decompiles Flash applications and searches the code for vulnerabilities and violations of Adobe's best security practices guidelines, said Billy Hoffman, manager of HP's Web Security Research Group. The tool works with all versions of Flash.
With the Flash Player installed on more than 98 percent of Internet-connected computers globally, Flash applications are a popular target for attackers. HP analyzed nearly 4,000 Web apps developed with the Flash platform and found that 35 percent violate Adobe's security best practices.
For example, encryption keys and other sensitive data have been found inside client-side Flash code, Hoffman said.
Flash, traditionally used for creating animation and games, has been increasingly used for Web 2.0 apps destined for enterprise use, for which tighter security measures are required, he said.
Hoffman explains how a Flash app vulnerability can be exploited in this video.
This isn't the first tool aimed at Flash developers. IBM last month announced its Rational AppScan, which automatically scans Flash and Ajax-based applications for security defects. The standard version of that product costs $17,550 for a one-year license.
Last year, HP was called upon by Microsoft to develop a free tool, Scrawlr, that developers can use to test for SQL injection vulnerabilities in apps on Microsoft's ASP platform, according to Hoffman.
While developers are striving to write more secure Flash apps, Adobe occasionally is forced to deal with security holes in the Flash Player itself. For instance, Adobe recently issued a patch for a hole in the player that could allow an attacker to remotely take control of a computer.
There's a new OpenID extension for "social browser" Flock, and it was created with the help of password management service Vidoop and News Corp.-owned social network MySpace.
It's now available for download for all Flock users who have upgraded to Flock 2.0. For MySpace, which initially announced its support for OpenID back in July, this is also a push for Data Availability, a universal-login project that the social network announced in May but has since only rolled out with a few partners.
Yahoo, one of MySpace's launch partners for Data Availability, has also thrown its weight behind OpenID.
"As three companies dedicated to empowering users to easily share content and experiences, this was a very rewarding--and relatively fast--collaboration," Max Engel, MySpace's Data Availability product manager, said in a release. "Our goal was to eliminate some of the work involved in jumping between social experiences on the Web so that people can focus on their connections and the incredible content that's out there. This Flock extension will give millions of people an easier way to expand their experiences and expression without boundaries."
The OpenID Flock extension allows for easier credential management within the browser and makes it more apparent when a site will accept an OpenID login. A handful of OpenID extensions already exist for the open-source Flock, but this one's got the seal of approval from some big names.
There are deeper reasons for MySpace being so vocal about OpenID support, though. The standard has seen its toughest rival yet in the form of Facebook Connect, a data-portability project which enjoyed a high-profile New York Times writeup this week and will reportedly be ready for a full debut very soon. (It's already been implemented on a number of sites.)
Flock, unfortunately, isn't an enormous player in the browser space. It has tons of bells and whistles, but is still well behind the likes of Internet Explorer and Firefox in terms of downloads, and has newfound competition from Google's Chrome.
Regardless, MySpace has been paying a lot of lip service to open standards recently, and it's always good to see real developments.
The Google Chrome Channel Chooser lets people get the latest updates to Google's Web browser.
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Through a new developer program, Google is letting people try the latest versions of its Chrome Web browser, and the first update is available.
Those who want the newest Chrome versions can install the Google Chrome Channel Chooser software from Google's Chrome Dev Channel site. The switcher lets people choose whether they want the latest cutting-edge Chrome builds or the less frequent but more stable beta versions.
"Google Chrome now provides a way for people to get early-access releases automatically: the Dev channel," said Chrome Program Manager Mark Larson in a Chrome mailing list posting late Monday night. "The Dev channel lets you test the latest fixes and get access to new features as they're being developed. We will release new builds to the Dev channel about every week so that you can preview--and provide feedback on--what's coming in Google Chrome."
The 'About Google Chrome' dialog box lets people update to the latest version.
(Credit: CNET News)The first update available through the program, build 1251, is geared more for programmers and willing guinea pigs than for those who merely are curious.
Build 1251 fixes bugs with areas including Microsoft's Silverlight software, tab behavior, video playback with YouTube and other Flash players, and scalable vector graphics, and it suppresses full-text indexing of sites accessed with encrypted Web connections, according to the release notes. It also enables two switches that can be set when the software boots that let users activate two developmental features, new technology for networking and for managing Chrome windows.
How to update
After running the Google Chrome Channel Chooser software, users can find if there's a new version by clicking the wrench icon in the upper-right corner of the Chrome screen, then selecting "About Google Chrome." If a new version is available, users can update there, then reboot restart to enable the changes.
The newest Chrome version is 0.2.152.1.
(Credit: CNET News)My update to version 0.2.152.1 went smoothly--but afterward, the browser couldn't figure out whether another version was available. Instead, it said "checking for updates..." for a few minutes until I closed the dialog box.
Chrome is an open-source project, meaning that Google may draw on other work from Firefox, WebKit, and Microsoft, and that others may help Google. Judging by a couple of "thank yous" in the release notes, outsiders are in fact starting to submit patches.
Such submissions require programmers to extend copyright to Google, which means Google can have its way with the Chrome code, for example changing the open-source license under which it's offered.
Also, either Google is still hiding details of security-related Chrome fixes in the release notes, or some of the links are missing in the release notes.
Despite the outages, shortages, and related hand-wringing associated with last Friday's iPhone 3G launch and Thursday's release of the iPhone 2.0 firmware, Apple says there were nevertheless 10 million downloads from its new App Store in its first weekend of existence.
And those long lines? A total of one million iPhone 3G units were sold. The millionth phone was sold on Sunday.
"The App Store is a grand slam, with a staggering 10 million applications downloaded in just three days," Apple overlord Steve Jobs said in a release Monday. "Developers have created some extraordinary applications, and the App Store can wirelessly deliver them to every iPhone and iPod touch user instantly."
And on the phone sales, Jobs said, "It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world."
There are currently about 800 applications available for download in the App Store, over 200 of which are free; at launch, there were about 550.
