Microsoft sends flowers to IE6 funeral

‘Thanks for the good times…’

By Cade Metz in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Applications, 5th March 2010 19:13 GMT

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Microsoft sent flowers to last night’s IE6 funeral, thanking the browser for “all the good times.”

The nine-year-old IE6 was laid to rest yesterday in Denver, Colorado, after suffering a “workplace injury” at the offices of a certain search giant in Mountain View, California. Mourners unable to attend were asked to send flowers, and Redmond’s Internet Explorer team was among those who did so.

“Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven,” read the card, a reference to this month’s MIX tradeshow in Las Vegas, where the company is expected to announce the arrival of a new browser, Internet Explorer 9.

“We want to give thanks to Internet Explorer 6 for its service for nearly a decade,” one of Microsoft’s IE6 mourners tells The Reg. “Internet Explorer 6 was built for a different world, a different time. While some customers may grieve the loss of Internet Explorer 6, we will continue to support it in its afterlife as we promised to do.”

As funeral organizers put it, Internet Explorer 6 is survived “by son Internet Explorer Seven, and grand-daughter Internet Explorer Eight,” with IE9 on the way.

“We understand the loss our customers feel when moving away from such a familiar aspect of their lives. With time’s passing, comes new life, and we encourage people to turn to Internet Explorer 8. Internet Explorer 8 is the modern browser for today’s online world – with rich built-in security and surfing tools that make it easy, fast and safe for customers everywhere.”

It should be noted that Internet Explorer 6 continues to drive nearly 20 per cent of all web access from beyond the grave. ®

just gotta love it, but when is this really gonna happen.

In a series of swiftly developing events, it appears that the Chief Technical Officer of Infinity Ward, the studio behind the record-breaking blockbuster game Modern Warfare 2, has been fired by parent company Activision. Though the lucrative series will no doubt continue at Activision’s behest, Infinity Ward’s contributions have always been of a higher quality and so the series’ reputation is now at stake.

According to a report published by Activision on March 1, 2010, the company was “concluding an internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward,” which would “involve the departure of key personnel and litigation.”

The absence of those key personnel will be a concern to those who have been following the Call of Duty games, and in particular Infinity Ward’s contributions which have provided the backbone for the seies.

Since coming up with 2003’s Call of Duty, Infinity Ward developed three further associated titles: Call of Duty 2 (2005), Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007), and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009). The rest, including 2010’s expected iteration, were handled by other developers.

Review aggregation sites such as Metacritic or Game Rankings show that Infinity Ward’s games routinely scored higher than their franchise counterparts. Though other games in the series sold well, they were unable to emulate the stratospheric success so far enjoyed by Infinity Ward.

Modern Warfare 2 was the best-selling game in both North America and Europe for 2009, despite its November release, and the fastest grossing video game of all time after making $310 million in one day, $550 million in five days, and $1 billion by January 2010.

Jason West, the company’s now ex-CTO, was said to have met with Activision on Monday morning accompanied by fellow studio head and Chief Creative Officer Vincent Zampella. However, neither returned to the company’s offices in Encino, California.

Instead, Jason updated personal profiles on social and business networking sites Facebook and LinkedIn respectively, both confirming that he was no longer holding a position at Infinity Ward. Zampella later did the same with his own LinkedIn profile.

Meanwhile, employees reported that several minders from a security firm had turned up at the offices, but were refusing to explain their presence outside the building.

It is thought that over the last few months, a good number of studio employees had become agitated by the prospect of solely developing for the Call of Duty series.

Though it’s not known what lies ahead for West or his colleague, he is no stranger to forming breakaway companies. Infinity Ward itself was set up after his previous company were taken over by Electronic Arts, another publisher known for its emphasis on franchise development.

wow now that a blow, internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination, mmmmmm i wonder what happened there then.

No-tags Google Analytics Integration: Pion Lite from Atomic Labs

Tuesday, March 02, 2010 | 10:35 AM

We occasionally see a particularly inspiring integration with Google Analytics. Our latest source of inspiration comes from a product called Pion Lite by Atomic Labs. Pion Lite collects your traffic data and populates your Google Analytics reports — without using Google Analytics page tags. Atomic Labs offers Pion Lite free to Google Analytics users.

Pion Lite passively “listens” to all of the network traffic between web servers and visitors. This approach reduces the overhead traditionally required to capture visitor data with page tags, and also provides complete data about site visitors including those using mobile devices and RSS readers.

Pion collects analytics information within a website’s data center and removes all personally identifiable information (such as visitor cookies and IP addresses) before sending the data to Google Analytics. This new, privacy-friendly approach to web analytics data capture gives marketers the information they need without the risk of privacy violations.

Pion 3.0 includes a new setup wizard that makes it easy for new users to get up and running with Google Analytics by just answering a few questions. Pion talks directly with Google Analytics to populate your reports, offers customizable data capture, real-time data processing and integration, and supports advanced Google Analytics features such as custom variables and events, ecommerce and campaign tracking.

If you’re attending SMX on Wednesday, you’ll have a chance to learn about Pion Lite in person. Atomic Labs CEO Mike Dickey and Phil Mui, Google Analytics Senior Product Manager, will be giving back-to-back presentations at the SMX Expo starting at 1:20pm on Wednesday, March 3rd.

200 Russian tanks found abandoned in forest

The Russian army is embroiled in an embarrassing scandal after 200 of its tanks were found abandoned near a forest in central Russia, unguarded and unlocked.

By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
Published: 2:18PM GMT 28 Feb 2010

The tanks have been sitting in the forest for almost four months covered in snow Photo: LIFE NEWS

A news website near the city of Yekaterinburg posted a video of the forgotten tanks showing passers-by clambering inside the vehicles and playing with empty ammunition belts. The only items that seemed to be missing were live rounds and the keys to the tanks’ ignitions.

“There are tanks all over the forest, abandoned,” an unnamed reporter on the video says. “If you need one, come and get it.”

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Locals in a nearby village said the tanks had been sitting there for almost four months covered in snow. The armoured vehicles were identified as a mixture of T-80 and T-72 battle tanks, the workhorses of the Russian army.

“We were shocked,” Pavel L, a local, told Russian media. “It is like you can sit behind the wheel, start up the engine and drive off and nobody would notice!”

A military spokesman claimed the tanks were in fact being guarded by special patrols and were in the process of being dispatched to a military base. But military prosecutors appeared sceptical about his claims and opened an official investigation. Wary of further bad publicity, the army has urgently begun relocating the tanks.

The scandal comes days after one of Russia’s top military commanders suggested the country did not need half of its 20,000 tanks and might scrap many older models. Tanks played an important role in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, with Russia capturing dozens of Georgian tanks in the short conflict.

brilliant, it would have been funny if someone had hot wired one of these bad boys and taken it for a spin really.

Google welcomes Picnik

3/01/2010 12:42:00 PM

(Cross-posted from the Google Photos Blog)

More than ever before, people are sharing and storing their photos online. But until recently, you had to edit your photos using client software on your computer. Today, we’re excited to announce that Google has acquired Picnik, one of the first sites to bring photo editing to the cloud. Using Picnik, you can crop, do touch-ups and add cool effects to your photos, all without leaving your web browser.

We’re not announcing any significant changes to Picnik today, though we’ll be working hard on integration and new features. As well, we’d like to continue supporting all existing Picnik partners so that users will continue to be able to add their photos from other photo sharing sites, make edits in the cloud and then save and share to all relevant networks.

We’re very impressed with the Picnik team and the product they’ve created, and we’re excited to welcome them to Google. We’re looking forward to collaborating closely with them to improve the online photo editing experience on the web. In the meantime, we encourage you to head to Picnik, import some of your photos from Picasa Web Albums, Flickr or Facebook and try your hand at photo editing in the cloud!

Posted by Brian Axe, Product Management Director

seems like an interesting product to me ive never used it myself but as i have photos already in my Picasa web albums i might just sign up and take a look at what its all about.

As web developers, we all hate Internet explorer to an extant. But in my earlier post, I wrote why not to hate Microsoft and IE. It is the people who use out dated software (IE6 is almost ten years old) and try to run our CSS3 level high Ajax’s web 2.0 designs.

border-radius

Last year, I published an htc file, which makes Internet explorer 6 to have rounded corner DIVs. For other modern browsers, we can have border-radius CSS property. For mozilla, you need to prefix -moz- and for webkit based browsers (Safar, Chrome) prefix -webkit- . SO the CSS for a DIV with rounded edges will have following styles.
.curved { -moz-border-radius:10px; -webkit-border-radius:10px; border-radius:10px; }

As IE wont support these CSS properties, you will have to add one more line of css and an HTC file. Here is more explanation how to make rounded corner divs in IE.

Good news : Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 is expected to support border-radius property.

Early this month, Nick Fetchak of fetchak.com sent me a new htc file with support for IE5 to IE8 which is amazing and working well. You can find the latest version that file here.

box-shadow

Box shadow is another simply amazing CSS3 property, which is unimaginable to work in IE. It works on Safari 3 and Firefox 3.1 onwards and Google Chrome. I am not aware of Opera this time. So what you think about making this work on IE6 ? No kidding..

CSS for box-shadow is:
box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #888; padding: 5px 5px 5px 15px;

For older version of Firefox, you might have to add -moz- and for Safari and Chrome, try -webkit- as prefix. (My Chrome is already supporting without any prefix).

So, here what you need for IE to make box-shadow.

behavior: url(box-shadow.htc);

Download the htc file here or Demo here. The project is hosted on Google code.

havent had a go of using this yet myself so not sure how well it works, but i’ve used previous .htc files for other ie6 fixes such as transparent png. a few people have commented on how they have a few issues with this .htc file. i also see that Remiz has a rounded corner div file for IE. not really had much use for this yet, as nothing that i have built so far has really had rounded corners in the layout, but im sure in the near future there will come a time when something like this will need to be looked at.

whats your thoughts on this, are you the kind of developer who doesn’t mind not having the css3 style apply to IE and just have it work for newer browsers? I myself believe that this is the better option as long as the IE 6 version of the site look ok and works as intended there is no real need to add all the extra fancy look features and just leave them for the newer browsers as long as this is explained to the client before work begins.

Android vs. Apple: The flyover states

Posted by Philip Elmer-DeWitt

February 26, 2010 9:30 AM

Google phones may outsell iPhones in eight U.S. states. Can you guess which ones?

Click to enlarge. Source: Myxer

Here’s a bit of geographical trivia that may have business consequences.

According to a Myxer BoomBox Report released Friday morning, smartphones running Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system have closed the gap and may actually outsell Apple’s (AAPL) iPhones in eight states U.S. states.

Unfortunately for the manufacturers of Android phones, the states where they are selling best, according to this report, include some of the least-populated in the country.

They are, in alphabetical order:

• Arizona (2009 pop. 6.6 million)
• Maryland (5.7 million)
• Montana (974,000)
• Nebraska (1.8 million)
• New Mexico (2 million)
• North Dakota (647,000)
• South Dakota (813,000)
• Wyoming (544,000)

States where the difference is less than 10%, Myxer counts as swing states. They include Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, South Carolina and Virginia.

Source: Verizon

Why the geographical differences? It’s tempting to read into the BoomBox map some kind of anti-Apple resistance in the so-called flyover states. But we suspect it has more to do with the holes in AT&T’s (T) 3G coverage made famous by Verizon’s (VZ) “There’s a map for that” ads.

And take the whole thing with a grain of salt. Myxer bills itself as “a go-to consumer destination for mobile entertainment and personalization — with one of the world’s largest catalogs of ringtones, wallpapers, videos, applications and games.” There’s enough sample bias in that description to fill the wide open spaces of Wyoming.

makes for some interesting reading, yes the states might be the least populated but things are a changing. with the release of the Desire i would like to see some more of the green on that map. lets hope more android App development is on the cards.

Android mini collectibles

New from artist Andrew Bell and Google’s Android™ platform comes Android mini collectibles series 01!

Andrew, an avid Android user himself, teamed up with some friends at Google to bring their little green mascot to life. Series 1 features 12 different designs in blind-boxed cases of 16. Pick up a few and try your luck, or grab a whole case to secure a nearly-full set. Be on the lookout for some super rare chase editions. Each vinyl figure stands 3” tall and features a rotating head and arms.

Check back throughout the next few weeks for more photos and info!

Series 1 will be available later this month right here in an online Android collectibles shop and in specialty retailers. For wholesale inquiries contact DKE distribution.

Android™, related logo and character design are trademark Google Inc. and are used under license.

Posted by dyzplastic at 12:00 PM

Labels: Android, collectible, figure, google, mascot, mini, series 1, toy, vinyl

i know what im getting when they come back in stock, i think they would look great on my desk at work

12 Reasons You Need a Facebook Fan Page and 5 Easy Steps for Creating One

by Alyssa Gregory

Facebook fan pages aren’t just for large corporations interested in getting involved in social media. Small businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers and other professionals can benefit from having a fan page on Facebook.

Separate from your personal profile, a Facebook fan page is a public profile that lets you share your products, services and related information with other Facebook users. Here are some of the biggest reasons you should create a fan page today.

12 Reasons You Need a Facebook Fan Page

1. There isn’t a limit to the number of fans you can have. This makes fan pages especially valuable for Facebook users who reach, or are approaching, the 5,000 friend limit.
2. It’s free.
3. It gives you a way to talk to and get feedback from your target audience, because like a user profile, you can update your fans with statuses that will appear in the news feed.
4. You can promote events.
5. It’s an SEO boost. Facebook is currently the second most popular site on the Web according to Alexa.
6. You can customize the design using FBML, Facebook’s version of HTML. Check out the Static FBML app for more.
7. You can create brand advocates.
8. You can easily promote it with tools provided by Facebook.
9. The Facebook Pages Insights analytics tool gives you useful information about your fans and their interactions.
10. You can build a community for your clients and prospects.
11. It’s another funnel to your website.
12. You can add unlimited photos and videos.

5 Easy Steps for Creating a Facebook Fan Page

Step 1: Go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Step 2: Select a category and enter the name for your page (you can set your fan page to be private until you’re ready to go live).

Step 3: Add a picture and become a fan.

Step 4: Edit your page settings. This is where you customize your page, including country and age restrictions, wall settings, tabs, fan permissions, and applications.

Step 5: Publish and promote your page. You can promote with a fan box, a Facebook ad, by suggesting to friends, on your personal profile and in your other networks.

Bonus: Once you hit 25 fans, go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ to create a vanity URL for your page.

How have you used Facebook fan pages for promotion?

great little article short and sweet. do you currently have a facebook fan page? any recommendations of any apps to add to the page? im currently creating one for a website im running so really looking for a few things to add to it, i will be using the FBML app for sure.

A new patent awarded to Facebook this week could have some big implications for the entire social media industry. The world’s largest social network now own the patent for the news feed.

Patent #7,669,123, first unearthed by All Facebook, credits Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg and seven other current and former Facebookers as inventors and assigns the rights to the patent to Facebook, Inc.

Depending on what this patent actually covers, Facebook could use it to protect its intellectual property and force other companies with news feeds — e.g. MySpace, Google, and Twitter — to change or take down their technologies.

First though, we have to begin to understand what this patent is all about.

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Overview: The News Feed Patent

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While we’re going to take some time to really dig into this patent, is basics are simple enough. The patent awards Facebook protection for technology “dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network.”

While that synopsis is very general and could definitely apply to a lot of well-known social media apps and startups, the patent’s abstract focuses less on status updates and more on the display of stories to the user.

Here is the abstract in its full form:

“A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items. The method further may further include displaying the news items in the assigned order to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewers and dynamically limiting the number of news items displayed.”

As we see it, this patent is focused on the technology that displays the news feed, rather than the delivery of status updates that often compose them.

However, the patent also specifically covers the auto-generation of a user’s activity and the display of that to friends. That means the news updates you get when your friends upload videos and accept friend requests is covered by Facebook’s new patent.

Facebook pioneered news feed technology when it launched its News Feed feature back in 2006. While there was a lot of controversy about it back then, it is now a standard feature on multiple social networks.

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The Potential Impact of the Patent

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Facebook and its leadership are now credited as the inventors of the news feed, or more specifically several elements of the news feed. The big question that we have to ask is this: Could Facebook force other social media companies to stop using news feeds?

Here are a few potential scenarios we’ve come up with:

1. Facebook sues companies such as MySpace, Twitter, and Google to take down their news feed features. They succeed, pushing Facebook way ahead in the game.

2. Facebook sues companies in defense of their patent. They win a few and strike out on a few.

3. Facebook sues companies, but the courts don’t side with Facebook because their technologies are significantly different from Facebook’s news feed technology that it doesn’t infringe on the patent.

4. Facebook controls the patent, but doesn’t exercise its right to defend its invention.

Let’s be clear: we don’t know what Facebook wants to do with its patent, and we are not patent lawyers with years of experience in this space. With that said, we do believe this patent could become very significant, very quickly. It covers a lot of technologies that are seemingly in use almost everywhere.

If Facebook can make news feed a Facebook-only feature, then it drains the usefulness of countless social networks while boosting its own. However, the process of exercising that patent would get very ugly, and we’re not sure if Facebook has a lot of incentive to jump into the snake pit and incur that type of PR damage.

We’re going to take some more time to research this patent and consult with experts to see what impact this thing could have. In the meantime, let us know what you think about this new development in the comments.

Update: Facebook sent us the following statement:

“The launch of News Feed in 2006 was a pivotal moment in Facebook’s history and changed the way millions of people consumed and discovered information on the site. We’re humbled by the growth and adoption of News Feed over time and pleased with being awarded the patent.”

well this is interesting, will they wont they? makes you think really, i wouldnt have thought they would even be able to patent such a thing, but i guess you can