Apparently the Chicago area is supposed to be hit with the biggest snowstorm in 28 years for December 1st. So, in celebration, I've turned on the snow in my blog header. For those with cool web browsers like Firefox 1.5+ or Opera 9 (or even the not-cool browser Internet Explorer with the Adobe SVG Viewer plugin) you might need to right-click in the image frame to force reload ... or wait until your browser's cache pops. For those curious, the SVG does not display at all using Emiasys' Renesis plugin ... pooh.

Anyway, sorry for the CPU hit, but 'tis the season. If anyone can let me know if a Safari nightly build displays the snow yet, that would be awesome - you can consider it your Christmas present to me.

Hm, I wonder if I should try to modify the library to use the Dojo2D API in the Dojo toolkit for that true cross-browser effect. That might prove to be a fun little project and a good way to dip my toe in the Ajax toolkit pool...

[Update: Merry Christmas to me. Allan Jardine tells me in his comment below that it's snowing in Safari too. Great news!]


§297 · November 30, 2006 · Adobe, Ajax, Firefox, JavaScript, Life, Opera, RIA, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · 1 comment ·


The good folks at Opera have quietly rolled out the first Beta version of their Dev.Opera website, a "community resource site where developers can share tips, tricks, extensions and more".

There are some articles on the site that delve into SVG, JavaScript, Ajax, etc. I'm writing a series of articles there about integrating SVG into web applications, so walk on over there and check it out (read Part One).


§286 · November 7, 2006 · Ajax, JavaScript, Opera, QuickLinks, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · Comments Off on Dev.Opera Now In Quiet Beta ·


I try to summarize the most relevant news from the world of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) every month. Here’s the digest for July 2006. Read the rest of this entry ...

§274 · July 31, 2006 · Ajax, Firefox, JavaScript, Laszlo, Opera, QuickLinks, RIA, Software, SVG, Technology, Web, XML · 1 comment ·


The Laszlo blog announced yesterday that OpenLaszlo will use and contribute to Dojo. For the uninitiated, Dojo is one of the many DHTML/Ajax toolkits that help DHTML developers get their work done. Since OpenLaszlo is moving towards supporting more runtimes (other than Flash) and DHTML is one of those "runtimes", this sounds like a great idea (rather than have the Laszlo team write their own toolkit from scratch). The fact that they'll be bringing their contributions back to Dojo sounds like a win-win.

§251 · April 26, 2006 · Ajax, JavaScript, Laszlo, QuickLinks, RIA, Software, Technology, Web · Comments Off on OpenLaszlo Teams With Dojo ·


This may be slightly stale news to folks who keep their ear to the wire, but the Laszlo folks announced last month that they are planning on supporting DHTML as a compilation target some time this year. The current release of their Laszlo Presentation Server 3.2 supports compilation to Flash SWF6, SWF7 and SWF8. The next version (code-named "Legals", likely 4.0) will support compilation to DHTML and SWF9. You can also read their wikified current plan. If nothing else, you should check out the DHTML demo application to see what Laszlo will be capable of. Read the rest of this entry ...

§245 · April 4, 2006 · JavaScript, Laszlo, RIA, Software, SVG, Technology, Web, XML · Comments Off on OpenLaszlo To Support DHTML ·