‘Cloud Computing’ is the next big thing that’s eminently happening on the Internet. It’s unclear who coined the term initially, but I’m sure most are aware of its meaning. While its current implementation is patchy, Microsoft is making a first leap at delivering it in an integrated form.

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The [recently released] Acid3 test, like its predecessor, allows for subjecting modern browsers to advanced testing of its standards compliance. Acid2, which most current browsers pass (including IE8 Beta 1), was mainly focused on CSS rendering.

• WaSP Press Release
• Take the Acid3 Browser Test
• Acid3 Overview

Acid3 - on the other hand - doesn’t evaluate a single technology. It was designed to test the whole Web 2.0 experience (ECMAScript, W3C Document Model 2, etc.). It basically determines the level of interactivity a browser can deliver.

Firefox 3 B3
vs.
IE7

This extremely hard test evaluates a series of 100 criteria and exposes a number of flaws in all leading browsing suites, including IE, Opera, Safari and Firefox. Upcoming versions of Safari and Firefox are to score in the 80-90 range, whereas IE8 scores in the disappointing sub-50 range.

IE7 has been reported to flunk completely with results not even peaking above the 20% mark.

Web design and icons naturally go together, whether it’s to merely spruce up the scenery or to accentuate important link elements on a page, there are no two ways about it. Some glossy or matte professional looking icons can really add that extra level of finesse to any design. The word ‘professional’ doesn’t always need to imply costliness, though.

Many talented graphics artists alike are producing sleek icons without wanting a dime back for them. All you need to do is use them gracefully and give the creator some well-deserved credit.

NX06 is a slightly older set of Windows icons which could nicely do for web design as well. It’s prominently black and would perfectly fit designs that feature a lot of blacks or grays. It was inspired by Longhorn (Windows Vista’s codename) and OS X.

PNG format, size 192*192 px.

• Click here for NX06 at DeviantArt
• Direct download link (DeviantArt)
• Artist’s DeviantArt Profile

This artist has not published usage guidelines for this work. Use respectfully and give credit to the rightful owner of the work.

I’ve come to appreciate Notepad++ as a full-blown source code editor, whereas in the past it used to be a second-class citizen, somewhat. I kept it around because it operates and loads blazingly fast, especially handy when you don’t have the time to start Dreamweaver. Though Notepad++ is a lot more than a quick app…

It supports everything you’d expect from a well-seasoned code editor, amongst other features:

• Syntax Highlighting & Syntax Folding
• User Defined Syntax Highlighting
• Code Auto-completion
• Regular Expression Search/Replace
• Zooming
• Brace & Indent Highlighting
• Macros
• Integration into the shell

You should see Notepad++ as an all-round replacement for Windows’ built-in Notepad and a lot more. It supports a vast array of programming languages, yet is specialized enough to be used for web authoring, too: it’ll recognize nested languages effortlessly, e.g. XHTML, CSS, PHP and Javascript in one page.

Notepad++ is completely free of charge and subject to the GPL license.

• Hop over to Sourceforge and download Notepad++ for free.
• Visit this project’s homepage.

Every browser has its own set of default styling for web pages. In case a particular website doesn’t provide enough styling for a certain element, it applies these instead. The differences between browsers can result into unforeseen results. A good example of this behavior is the difference in margins and paddings defined for lists (<ul>, <ol>, <dl>).

One technique you could use is:

* {
	margin: 0; padding: 0;
} 

Yes, this will neutralize everything to 0 margin and padding, but it’ll also have its effects on headings, forms, blockquotes, etc. Everything will be aligned crisply to the left side of the page, while this may not entirely be your intention.

@charset "utf-8";
/*-- Initialization Stylesheet --*/

/* v2.1, by Faruk Ates - www.kurafire.net
   Addendum by Robert Nyman - www.robertnyman.com */

/* Neutralize styling:
   Elements we want to clean out entirely: */
html, body, form, fieldset {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
	font: medium Calibri, Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

/* Neutralize styling:
   Elements with a vertical margin: */
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, pre,
blockquote, ul, ol, dl, address {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
}

/* Apply left margin:
   Only to the few elements that need it: */
li, dd, blockquote {
	margin-left: 1em;
}

/* Miscellaneous conveniences: */
form label {
	cursor: pointer;
}
fieldset {
	border: none;
}

/* Form field text-scaling */
input, select, textarea {
	font-size: 100%;
}

I believe the future is the web, even to the extent that we’ll be putting all of our data, including the OS, up in the cloud and compute from there. eyeOS is one example of a possible implementation of this concept. As much as I’m behind cloud computing, I and many others agree we’re still far off and might never reach this utopia to the full.

‘Eye’ at the clipping from the official website:

clipped from www.eyeos.org eyeOS was thought as a new definition of Operating System, where everything inside it can be accessed from everywhere in a Network. All you need to do is to login into your eyeOS server with a normal Internet Browser, and access your personal desktop, with your applications, documents, music, movies… just like you left it last time. Currently, with the base system you can find a full suite of applications bundled, some for private use, like the file manager, a word processor, a music player, calendar, notepad or contacts manager. There are also some groupware applications, such as a group manager, a file sharing application, a group board and many more. eyeOS is Open Source If you want to start using eyeOS, you can join the International eyeOS free server, or create your own eyeOS server easily and be able to decide who can join it and customize it to your needs. Creating your own eyeOS server is actually very easy. All you need is a web server with PHP support

First off, I haven’t yet taken the time to elaborate on the full technicalities of the actual server installation of eyeOS, so I can’t pitch in on how that works out. I’ve only chiefly played with the free server, which allows you to initiate your own eyeOS account. The idea of running a OS within and OS, more concretely in your browser could be chilling for some, so you’ve been warned.

Account creation

When using the pre-configured free server over at eyeos.net getting started is a 2-step process. The only thing it requires is the desired username and password and you’re up and running. The simplicity is soothing to this point.

The UI
***

Design and user interface have been done in a simple but pleasing fashion and looks a lot like the Mac’s, which is generally a Nice Thing, yet rarely original. The sparing use of ‘eye’ candy makes the system snappy enough for real-time interaction. Windows move around swiftly, yet the system shows some inconsistencies when dealing with multiple instances.

Swift as it may be, whether this system would be eligible for use with low-speed connections is questionable.

(Any more Apple-esque design features, and I’d start to question the creativity of this project…)

Your basic toolkit
**

Booting to the ‘desktop’ (dare I say ‘webtop’?) takes less than a your average Joe can say “Holy baloney”. The blank workspace contains a shortcut to your home folder and the trashcan. Atop the screen sits a tiny launcher-like menu and contains a few commonly used applications. An enumeration of the most noteworthy ones (the synchronous naming scheme is similar to Apple’s I-syndrome — really cracks me up):

• eyeFiles (X-files, anyone?): your basic file manager
• eyeDocs: a primitive word processor, contradictorily, it only manages to process ONE type of document
• eyeCalendar
• eyeNav: a browser that browses, in your browser, go figure.

This brief list can be augmented with additional applications contributed by the community. Although many needs are met even with this small allotment of apps, functionality feels crippled somehow and road bumps make the trip a bit uneasy.

eyeFiles

The file manager has adopted the XP-styled task-based sidebar to provide you with the common file operations, since the right-click thing hasn’t made it debut yet (version 1.1 ‘Dahlia’ — hmz, flowers).

All the usual suspects are present, like creating directories, deleting, renaming and copy-paste operations. I guess you could compare this thing to an online storage solution where you provide the disk space yourself. Services like Strongspace (paid) and Windows Live SkyDrive (free but limited) provide this functionality too, save the bells and whistles of an OS.

Drag-n-drop is lacking in the iteration, though, unless dragging an icon behind another one counts for deleting.

TorrentSpy is being sued again. This time because they refuse to spy on their users and break their own privacy policy in the meantime. It’s starting to look like the MPAA just needs a black sheep for more lawsuits! As Leo Laporte jokingly commented during a previous airing of one of his podcasts: “Why sell songs/anything at all? Just give it away and sue the people over them”. What a thought, it must be taking off too.

TS has been in legal entanglements with the MPAA in the past and it doesn’t seem to be seizing any time soon. Earlier this year, the MPAA went after them because they allegedly provide illegal services to people in search of malicious torrents. TorrentSpy isn’t actually hosting any illegal files, as everyone knows. In response, access from US-based users to the site was blocked.

Yet, the MPAA will try to lift the aforementioned and force TorrentSpy to ’spy’ (good choice of words, indeed) on its users. This, to me, is utter idiocracy and above all pretty hilarious. The crew at TS must think so too, I gather.

• TechDirt article
• TorrentSpy.com (oh MPAA, don’t sue me now)
• LeoVille Blog
• TWiT