Take Your CSS to the Desktop with Adobe AIR!
Take Your CSS to the Desktop with Adobe AIR!:
“Did you realize that if you know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript then you know enough to create your own desktop applications using Adobe AIR? In this article Ill demonstrate just how easy it is to create your own desktop app, complete with custom window design using nothing but CSS and jQuery.”
(Via SitePoint.com.)
Iran Has Built a Censorship Monster, With Help From Western Tech
Iran Has Built a Censorship Monster, With Help From Western Tech:
“When it comes to online censorship and monitoring online activities, the first country that usually comes to mind is China and its Great Firewall. This, however, may soon change, as it seems that Iran has built one of the most advanced systems for monitoring all online traffic, with the help of technology built by Nokia and Siemens.
The Great Firewall of Iran, as it will undoubtedly be dubbed, involves deep packet inspection, a technique that examines both the header and the data part of internet data packets and can be used for eavesdropping, censorship and data mining.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran’s online monitoring and censorship system digs through data at one big choke point, which is made easy by the fact that the government owns a telecom which holds a monopoly over the country’s online communication. This is different from China’s Great Firewall, which is far more decentralized, but it makes it even more advanced than the Chinese version, since it’s easier to monitor traffic at one point than having to synchronize such efforts at many locations. This is enhanced by the fact that China has 300 million Internet users, compared to Iran’s 23 million Internet users.
The equipment that enables such measures has been provided to Iran, in part, by a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens, and according to the WSJ, the spokesman for the venture, Ben Roome, has confirmed this. However, the company has since sold the business of ‘and interception of all types of voice and data communication on all networks’ - as described in the company brochure - to a Munich-based investment firm Perusa Partners Fund 1 LP.
The morality of creating ‘intelligence solutions’ such as these and selling them to oppressive regimes is subject to debate. However, what the end user needs to be concerned with is stopping and preventing such measures. One approach, which I’ve mentioned in a couple of earlier posts, is encryption. The idea is for a critical mass of users - perhaps 30% of all Internet users - to start encrypting their Internet traffic, which would make it too expensive and too complex for any organization, even a government of a wealthy country, to monitor it. Several initiatives that help end users easily encrypt traffic have emerged in recent years; hopefully, some of them will soon enter the mainstream and make any censorship and online monitoring effort futile.”
Tags: censorship, iran, Nokia, Siemens
(Via Mashable!.)
Tweetdeck Launches iPhone App and Better Version of Desktop Client
Of all the Twitter apps out there, Tweetdeck seems to be one of the most popular. It’s a desktop app using Flex and Flash, not a web browser, which makes it unique among the apps I know. It functions pretty well, allowing for those you follow to be grouped by category. It also takes up the full width of my monitor when using categories. I’m not sure I like having to scroll across the screen but I do like having topic categories for my viewing.
Tweetdeck Launches iPhone App and Better Version of Desktop Client:
“Tweetdeck, one of the most popular Twitter clients on the desktop launched its iPhone app today, just in time for the release of the iPhone 3.0 update. That, by itself, would be interesting news, but TweetDeck’s desktop app also got a major overhaul, in part to support syncing with the iPhone app. In addition, TweetDeck on the desktop now gives users the ability to mange multiple accounts and the 10 column limit has been lifted. Among other things, TweetDeck now features a ‘conversation window,’ which presents an entire dialogue at once. TweetDeck can now also recommend new and interesting users to follow, and it is now very easy to block a user and report a spammer directly to Twitter.
Sponsor
The iPhone app is available now (iTunes link), the desktop client will be available for download at 9pm Pacific tonight.
iPhone App
We weren’t able to test the iPhone app in detail yet, but based on what we have heard about it and the screenshots we have seen, as well as the information we have received from TweetDeck itself, this app looks like it might be a winner. Overall, the iPhone app will recreate the look and feel of the desktop app, with the ability to flick back and forth between different columns, create and manage groups, etc.
The most important aspect of the app, though, is that changes in one app (desktop or iPhone) will automatically be synced with the other app (this includes groups, columns, etc.).
Update: we got to play with the iPhone client a bit more now, here are some of our observations:
- you need to register an account with TweetDeck to enable syncing
- the animations for switching between columns are very smooth - switching between columns also feels very natural
- the app doesn’t work in landscape mode
- adding users to a group is a bit complicated, as you have to go through the ‘columns’ menu - you can’t just look at a user’s profile and add him/her to a group
Overall, after having tested the app for a bit longer, this is clearly going to be the iPhone app to beat now. It’s easy to use, fully featured, and fast, even with hundreds of new updates coming in with every refresh. At least for this author, TweetDeck will probably become the default Twitter client on the iPhone.
Desktop App
On the desktop side, we are very happy to see the end of the 10 column limit. As we tend to use TweetDeck as a research tool, we love the fact that we can now see more groups and searches right in TweetDeck without having to resort to other tools.
Another neat new feature is the addition of a ‘reply to all’ feature. Thanks to this, you can easily reply to all users mentioned in a tweet, instead of just the user who sent the message.
There are also a number of other new features in the desktop app, including the ability to reference another user (marked as ‘RE’ in tweets), support for video playback from Qik and 12seconds, as well as the ability to see a list of local (instead of Twitter-wide) trends.
This is Big
Overall, this is an important new version of TweetDeck, and the addition of the iPhone app with syncing is probably the killer feature here. Other Twitter clients also feature desktop and mobile apps (Nambu, Tweetie, and Twitterific, for example), but while a lot of TweetDeck’s competitors have promised a similar feature, none have delivered this functionality yet.”
(Via ReadWriteWeb.)
Cutts Explains How Blogs Can Rank Higher In Google
Cutts Explains How Blogs Can Rank Higher In Google:
“If you want your blog to do better in Google’s search results, Matt Cutts recommends WordPress. According to a presentation Google’s Webspam captain gave at WordCamp San Francisco, Word Press takes care of about 80-90 percent of SEO mechanics.
The presentation, which spans 50 pages, is available at Cutts’ blog in Google Docs or PowerPoint. Other than how WordPress helps automatically, Cutts gave tips about how to get a blog to rank better in Google. The two biggest ones are be relevant and be reputable.
Being Relevant
