Turning point for Browsers

Both Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and Firefox 2.0 became available around October 2006. Since then their rise has been fast and steady. At this point, it looks like they are not taking over each other's market share, rather they are replacing their previous versions - Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox 1.5. Internet Explorer 7 may reach a plateau at around 80% at the most, then we'll see if starts going down as Firefox goes up.

These new versions are built to address the evolving changes in the internet. Whereas Firefox has been continuously changing with frequent updates, MS Internet Explorer development had been stalled for the past 6 years. I was able to attend a Webstock conference in May last year, where Tony Chor, the Program Manager of the Internet Explorer 7 team explained the circumstances. After the launch of Windows XP operating system, most of the Internet explorer team had disbanded and there was lack of expertise to pick up the threads again. The start of the Internet Explorer 7 project mostly consisting of bringing these people together again. Tony promised that they plan to issue updates more frequently in the future. Ben Goodger, Google employee and lead designer of Firefox, at the same conference, was focused more on the future, all the way up to Firefox 3 and its possible features.


Ben Goodger and Tony Chor

At Tony's session, one of the participants asked him, "If there was an arm-wrestling match between you and Ben, who would win?". After the laughter had died down, Tony good-naturedly replied, "probably Ben". In the conclusion of the conference, Kathy Sierra remarked that somehow Tony didn't look very sincere when he said it.

Both Firefox and Internet Explorer have implemented a plug-in architecture, where users can find other small programs that can be fitted into the browser to perform 'cool' features. In Firefox, many of these plug-ins go on to become part of the standard installation in the next version. Independent developer enthusiasts contribute these plug-ins. This architecture has already been around in Firefox for some time, and the browser has a large community contributing lots of plug-ins. Internet Explorer has just started on this path, and it's community is minuscule. Microsoft is actively encouraging corporate partners and its developer community to become contributors.

As for Safari, nobody except Apple technology enthusiasts use this, and that's restricted to 5% of the computers market for now.

If mobile phones become a significant platform for access to the internet, then the whole scenario might change. For example, if Apple's iPhone becomes as popular as the iPod, there will be far more people using the phone to access the internet than computers, and the mobile phone browsers will dominate and determine web interface design. A likely scenario is that all models of mobile phones are going to evolve to provide internet access. Whether that access is practical or satisfactory remains to be seen.

The future of browsers is important to us techies as browsers are increasingly the basis of delivering software services, and we have to design the web pages to work on as many browsers as possible. For believe it or not, not all the browsers follow the standards correctly or in the same manner - the same web page will behave differently on different browsers. In taking care of all possibilities, resource and time constraints force us to choose which browser to build for and which browser to ignore.

Looks like it's Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Firefox 2.0 for now.

Summer Fiesta in Wellington

This has been a very busy summer in Wellington, in terms of events we've attended.

On 10th February we had the X-Air games in the morning and the Petone Fiesta in the evening. On 17th February, Petone Fair with the parallel Gypsey Fair carrying on till 18th. I may write about these later, but last weekend, it was the Cuba Street Carnival in central wellington.

A very large crowd including suburbians, converged in central Wellington. There was plenty of fun to go around. With professional performers displaying their skills at various points along the streets. Food vendors sold snacks, roaster nuts, corn, even spanish paella.

Our favourite among the performers were the Pan Pipes group. They seemed to be native South Americans and calling their group, 'The Cherokee spirit' or 'Los Incas' depends where you check. They performed amazing, soul-stirring music on pan pipes of every shape. I never realised that pan pipe instruments were capable of such a range. It sounds so much better live.



Among the other street performers, there was also an acrobatic hulahoop group, the regular juggler, a Charlie Chaplin impersonator (the one who charged our camera), a juggling unicyclist and many others.

There were several stages on various points with music bands programs. The adventurous also took their chances with the thrill rides.

Then at 9:15pm, we had the carnival parade. The pictures and video's below will describe it all.

Pictures:



All the photos can also be viewed at here.

Videos:
(Note: if the window below says "Want to see more video's from this playlist? Click here", then refresh the page and choose the next video to play.)



All the videos can be viewed at here.

Introduction to the Book

We all know when printing first started, but when was the first book compiled will always be a bit of a mystery with different civilizations staking their claim.



In India the tradition of passing detailed philosophical and spiritual knowledge from Guru to Shishya (student) was largely done through oral tradition. No doubt, the knowledge in question may have suffered distortion and amplification through such a medium, before the first written manuscripts were compiled and made into standard reference.

Following is a fun take on the 'introduction of a book' to European monks. It analogous to what it's like to introduce someone to new computer programs.