From The Front End - ZDNet Edition
My ZDNet version of my blog. Will feature news my mad opinions and relevant posts or partial quotes from my blog - http://www.fromthefrontend.co.uk
Topics: Wed Standards, Tools and Services for Designers, Photography and graphics, Accessibility and other Front-End Webdesign related info.
Monday 29 January 2007, 2:20 PM
Which Windows Vista (if any) is right for me?
The UK windows Vista launch is nearly upon us. The 30th of January 2007 will see the first new operating system from Microsoft in 5-6years.
With potentially a huge leap in performance, security and features it will be high on a lot of people's wish list. However, picking the right vista edition isn't as easy as it could be. This mainly because there are so many new features. To understand what is missing from a premium edition compared to the ultimate (for example) you have to try and find out what the features are, understand what they will do and figure out if you really need them.
First of the easiest one to explain is Vista basic. This is designed for low end systems or people that simply don't have the budget for a superior version. It will run on pretty much any PC that XP did. I only recommend this edition to two groups of people
1 - You have a low end system and don't plan to upgrade your hardware for a very long time.
2 - You have no OS for a new self built system and are on a tight budget.
Otherwise even if your system can't handle all the features of a premium edition now, you can still use the premuim or ultimate editions in Basic mode until you upgrade your hardware. If you are really strapped for cash then it may not be worth getting Vista at all right now as XP isn't going anywhere. The benefits are a more secure and possibly faster windows with the new intergrated search features.
Apparently, whatever edition you get you are provided with the same content on the disc. It is your license key that unlocks the features you have paid for. This means you will likely be able to upgrade you edition at a future date with just a code, but why pay twice, get the right edition now.
The Business and Home Premium Editions are contain more of the new fancy features including the new Aero desktop experience. This adds impressive visual effects that not only look great but can aid in actually using your PC more effectively. You also get access to Windows Meeting Space which enables you to link up with other vista users through the web. Both will also include voice recognition, Gadgets (like mac widgets), Animated desktops and host of other features that I won't go into as we are looking to find the differences.
The home Premuim edition will feature windows media centre features such as DVD video editing/burning and tools to access your music, video and pictures in smart ways - even through an xbox360. This will be the main edition for the home user.
What the Business edition misses out on in the entertainment side it makes up for with business tools. Although Premium edition will include remote desktop the business edition will include more advanced remote access tools allowing you to connect to secure networks and has virtual PC, roaming profiles etc. This is aimed at the business user. However, if you do not require the backup, or domain join for windows features or have 3rd party software that already does this for you, you may want to consider the Premium edition anyway for the fun features.
Ultimate editoin includes all the fun entertainment features of premium plus the remote access and backup features of business with some extras. Exlusive to Ultimate edition is BitLocker Drive encryption and Ultimate Extras. The Ultimate extras will enable you to download addons for windows free as they are released. These may include simple things like new desktop themes, but it will also include useful applications and gadgets. At CES microsoft demoed one such freebie as a photo editing tool. It enabled the novice user to simply take the best elements of two different pictures and seemlessly merge them into one good picture.
I personally wanted the Home Premium Edition as it represents value for money (£100 cheaper than Ultimate) had all the features I wanted. However the Ultimate extras may sway me to pay that bit extra.
Pricing:
Basic: Upgrade £100 | Full Retail £170 | OEM full £60
Premium : Upgrade £150 | Full Retail £220 | OEM full £73
Business: Upgrade £180 | Full Retail £250 | OEM Full £95
Ultimate: Upgrade £250 | Full Retail £370 | OEM full £120
Further reading - check the comparison charts found on Microsoft and ZDNet's websites.
An excellent video overview made by CNET on the ZDNET site which you can view here
Tuesday 23 January 2007, 10:11 AM
Firefox 3 on the horizon
You can download this blog post in audio format here (right-click and save target/link as..) or play it using the podcast player on the right.
Firefox 3 - code named Gran Paradiso is under development. It will use the Gecko 1.9 engine and the latest build released already is said to have passed the CSS Acid2 test. Although Opera, Safari have already achieved this it's a big landmark for Firefox and a good sign of things to come. Firefox 2.0 already features the most advanced CSS 3.0 support including CSS rounded corners and alpha transparency and Firefox 3 is set to have full support. Other features include improved graphic rendering and support for Javascript 2.Of course we can expect there will be many bug fixes and tweaks making Firefox faster and more stable. It has been optimised to make better use of your systems hardware so if you have a good graphics card you should notice big improvements both in visual quality and speed for sites that take advantage of this.
Firefox 3 is still in Alpha 1 since december but is expected to reach Alpha 3 the first quarter of this year and Hopefully a full beta will be with us before end of the summer. Final release is still unknown.By final release Mozilla expect to have near perfect web compatibility meaning nearly all pages and webapps you may struggle to use in the current firefox release should work smoothly. They also promise a reduction in system resources used. Currently my firefox averages 100-130kb of Ram.On the agenda is also improved start up times for opening the browser and load times for actual pages. They will also be attempting to make as many as many of the existing extentions and themes compatible.More details on what we can look forward to with CSS 3 and what is already possible will be featured here soon
Monday 22 January 2007, 4:21 PM
Rip-off Ryanair take it a step too far!
Although off topic this issue got me so fired up I had to post it. This was motivated by a plain-text email that I received from Ryanair this afternoon.
Irish Airline Ryanair has recently been getting a reputation on being a rip-off with the many hidden charges that inflate a seemingly low cost air fair to premium prices. These increases in charges come with no increase in quality of service. An advertised price of £2-10 can soon escalate to £60 when taxes, baggage and credit card fees are applied.
Now Ryanair may have taken it a step to far. Customers that have existing bookings due to take place after 1st of Feb will have received an email today notifying them that their tax on their flight will be doubled! As a budget airline in many cases the tax on the flights is more than the air fair as it is, with the tax being doubled this makes a significant change to the value of the booking.
Ryanair offer no opt-out of your flight - just notify you that your credit card will be charged the extra fee automatically. They take no responsibility for the additional fees - blaming the fee entirely on MP Gordon Brown. The email is very unprofessional - no offer of further information, no option to cancel flight for a refund, no link to a customer service page or a contact number. Instead an email address to the government ministers to complain about Gordon Brown is provided.
This is simply unacceptable.
Calling their support number (at 10p/min) will get you into a long queue with no help or alternatives offered by the representatives when you get through.
When I finally did get through I spoke to a rep called "Anna" and requested my flight be cancelled and I be refunded. She told me "I will lose this ticket and this money" if I didn't want to pay the additional fee.
Team Leader "Lisa" confirmed Anna's comments and said that all airlines will be doing the same.
I contacted British Airways. They confirm they WILL NOT be passing this fee onto their customers.
With so many other airlines either offering better service or better prices it doesn't seem Ryanair has a lot to offer.
Wednesday 17 January 2007, 10:31 AM
Map APIs a comparison
Since been back at work after the Crimbo break I've had the chance to work on interactive maps for the first time. Having avoided javascript as much as possible during my time as a front-end designer I suddenly found myself wading in with Ajax.
The project was for the atlarge.com home page as previously mentioned on this blog. I had a look at several 3rd party APIs and settled on Yahoo! Maps as being the best option.
It was the easiest to implement and control, had the most features and I had working map with most of the effects I wanted in an afternoon. However, I had to stop using the Yahoo! API because of 3 major problems.
1) The Yahoo map breaks if scaled to anything smaller than 260px high (if someone knows how to make is smaller I stand corrected)
2) You are limited to 50,000 hits per month for your API key.
3) It is strictly not for business use.
Due to the lack of features or stability or just the fact they looked naf I didn't attempt some of the other 3rd party APIs I found and instead tried Google.
Google can scale down as small as you want, does not have an access limit only a URL restriction which means you need a different API key for each domain you want to use the map on. Google also states it is for non-commercial use but as long as your site is not charging for using the map or any of it's features then this is not a problem.
Implementation - the Google API was far harder to implement. The documentation was example driven but not as thorough or detailed as Yahoo!'s. As a javascript novice it soon became clear that I would need outside help. Even then it was tough trying emulate some features that come as standard or require only minor tweaking in Yahoo! Maps API. This included things like mapping zoom functions to the scroll wheel on the mouse.
Google's API is no doubt powerful and has a lot features under bonnet. Just getting at them seems to be harder than need be. In the end we manged to put together quite a handy airport finder.
You can view the finished homepage here: http://www.atlarge.com/
Comments and suggestions on further tweaking are welcome. Much credit to Alan Milford for doing the Ajax magic for me. The airport markers appear once you zoom in close enough to an area. Want to know if there is an alternative airport near the destination you are trying to visit - now you can.
This has forced me to consider learning javascript. I've put it off so long and had plenty or reason to do so. Back in the day when it was used to make annoying pop-ups, dancing scroll bars of nonsense etc. However, the web 2.0 uses of this tool and the standardisation of javascript 1.5/ECMAscript v3 makes it a much more attractive option.
In addition to web use the concepts and syntax used is almost identical to the style of action script in flash and the scripting used in Neverwinter nights world building tools.
I've purchased O'Reilly's definitive guide - will I become a scripting wizard? watch this space...
