TechEvangelists

November 29, 2007

The House that Opera Built

A couple weeks ago Opera released Opera Mini 4. This was a huge advancement in Mobile Browsers! Now I know the iPhone could already do much of what Mini 4 can do and more but only a small percentage of the population is on the iPhone, the rest of use on mobile phones need a better solution to the internet on our mobile devices. Opera Mini takes much of the same features that Safari on the iPhone does. Opera Mini gives you a full screen view of the page you are looking at and lets you zoom into the specific content you want, compared to Opera Mini 3 this is probably the biggest improvement.

This leads me to a bigger disscusion about Opera. They have been making all of the right moves, placing themselves in the three major markets: Desktop Computer, Mobile Devices and Gaming Consoles and all of them built with standards in mind. Opera has positioned themselves very well in the past couple years, I find myself browsing around the web with my Opera browser more and more. Although it is a nice browser it still has it's short commings but what browser doesn't? I spend about 1 - 2 hours with Opera Mini 4 a night and I hop on my Wii from time to time and on to the Opera browser.

Now I know what you are thinking "We get it Opera has a lot of browsers who cares? Get on with it!" Opera has in my opinion positioned themselves so well that an entire generation will now be using the Opera Browsers in many different areas in their life. A generation that is now spending more time online than watching TV. Now I am not smoking that much crack, I realize that more is going to have to happen for Opera to take over or even be considered with the big boys (IE and Firefox)

Mozilla has been slowly chipping away at IE for awhile which in a sense can only help Opera. I am by no means saying that Opera is poised to take over the Browser market tomorrow but keep your eye on them, their day will come, they are putting out great stuff on many different platforms.

Posted by revans at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)

February 15, 2006

Opera for Nintendo DS

As someone who carries their Nintendo DS with them at all times, I would really like to see Opera for Nintendo DS released in the US. I hope it's not terribly expensive, however, because I am also used to getting my web browsers for free.

Posted by Martin at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2005

Greasemonkey

MozillaZine has a nice roundup of recent articles about Greasemonkey, a firefox extention that allows you to change the content of a website to suit your own tastes.

Wired news reports that greasemonkey users have: "... added a delete button and permanent search folders to Gmail, made their browsers show only print pages of online news stories, reconfigured all the content on a popular music website and removed Reuters stories on the Michael Jackson story from online newsreader Bloglines."

Greasemonkey adds a whole new layer of customizability to the web-browsing experience that was previously more difficult to obtain. Unfortunately, using the extention seems fairly archaic and may prove quite daunting to the average end-user.

Posted by Martin at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)

May 16, 2005

Dropping Acid

My husband showed me this tonight and I had to pass it on: Safari passes the ACID2 browser compliance test.

The Acid2 test is a page (created by the Web Standards Project) that's full of every weird piece of CSS, PNG, and HTML that current standards allow. It also includes some invalid CSS which is designed to fail.

To pass the test, a browser has to understand all the page notation. Then it has to handle the errors gracefully. See how your favorite browser fared.

Posted by Meghan at 08:26 PM | Comments (1)

March 28, 2005

Browse the web wirelessly on your PSP

Gizmodo reports the Wipeout game for PSP is shipping with a relatively functional web browser built-in. Step by step instructions are available, (required DNS hacking not included).

I hadn't been excited about getting a PSP until I read some really positive reviews of Lumens. One game is still not enough to get me to buy one of these, but if someone released a copy of firefox for the psp... I have to admit I'd be very tempted.

Posted by Martin at 06:35 PM | Comments (0)

March 03, 2005

Supported Browsers

I don't mean to pick on anyone in particular but here goes...

Maconomy, which many of you are familiar with, checks which browser you are using and if it is not on their supported list, they don't let you in. This doesn't make sense. It would make sense to warn people with unsupported browsers that things might not work right. To disallow access entirely eliminates the possibility that it might work fine!

Maconomy is not alone in this. Bruce Schneier has an article entitled Bank Mandates Insecure Browser where a bank specifies exactly the 1 specific browser that is allowed under their terms of service.

This represents a major misunderstanding of Internet technology. To be successful with your web applications they must be widely accessible. This means you need to chose web developers who can write applications that are widely accessible. Like us! ;)

Posted by Michael at 03:50 PM | Comments (0)

February 24, 2005

Firefox Update Release, BugMeNot and Mandatory Registration

For those of you who enjoy using Mozilla's Firefox web browser, there is an updated version (1.0.1) available for download. I recommend that you get this updated version immediately. If you are interested in the improvements, you may view the release notes for Firefox.

Read on to learn about an extremely handy Firefox extension for the BugMeNot service.

BugMeNot and Registration Woes

In related news, I just discovered the BugMeNot Firefox extension, courtesy of Eric Hamiter. Suppose you're browsing the New York Times website and click an article. Uh oh, you're not registered, are you?

The NYT is one of many websites that require compulsory registration in order to enjoy all of the features available. This is all well and good, but to me there is no value whatsoever for opting in and providing the NYT with vital demographic information. In fact, I am personally opposed to such disclosure.

What's a privacy-minded geek to do when confronted with the following page?

Never fear! This is the sort of thing BugMeNot.com was created for. BugMeNot is a repository for disposable login and password combinations. In other words, one person creates a login with completely bogus information, and then shares it with everyone else. End result: no privacy is lost, and the NYT thinks users like "joebleaux" really, really like the web site.

The BugMeNot Firefox extension makes this process completely painless. I right-click the username field...

After clicking on "BugMeNot", BugMeNot.com is automatically contacted, a login is randomly selected and submitted, and...

A Lesson for Website Developers

Tech like BugMeNot is always going to develop in response to annoying registration schemes and the like. Requiring registration without giving the user something in return is quite arrogant. In order to get something, you must first give. Therefore, when desiging web sites that require registration, I believe it is essential to give the user value in return for their personal information. A heavily personalized, customizable web site is one example of such added value.

I firmly believe that a technological arms race will continue concerning data collection and marketing on the web. The only solution is to generate content and provide service that users want, rather than using content as bait for personal information.

Coming up...

In a later article, I'll discuss another great Firefox tool: Adblock. This extension may change the way ads are distributed and displayed on the web—forever. Stay tuned.

Posted by Matt at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)

February 03, 2005

Spreading Fire: Community-based marketing

Mozilla Firefox is a powerful, open-source web browser that I've mentioned before. Since its version 1.0 release, it has been downloaded 22,000,000 times. Want to find out how Firefox acheived such popularity in a market utterly dominated by Internet Explorer? Read on.

Introduction

At times, the web can seem like a very close-knit community. The so-called "blogosphere" has contributed to this small town feeling---when a popular blog features a link or story, other weblogs across the net link to or mirror the content. Soon, a single page story becomes an internet phenomenon.

An Example

"All your base" is a prominent example from the internet's past. "All your base are belong to us" is a poorly translated phrase from a Japanese video game called Zero Wing.

Amused fans created a Macromedia Flash "All your base" movie and distributed links to it. The original humor made the movie an instant hit, and soon every web site imaginable referenced the "All your base" movie.

So what about Firefox?

Firefox isn't a humorous spoof on a poorly translated video game; yet it is far more popular. The underlying answer is brutally simple: a good product will attract willing advocates.

The Firefox browser has won over many tech-savvy internet users through sheer quality. Its features, streamlined interface, and pop-up blocking were enough to make it an instant hit. However, its true success is a direct result of its users' endorsements. Leveraging this force was the brilliant idea that brought this browser to the masses on a shoestring budget.

Spread Firefox

SpreadFirefox.com was developed as a community marketing blog---a way for Firefox enthusiasts to discuss how best to inform others about the browser. The website offers several branded banners for easy download and placement on web sites, as well as interesting incentives for its users.

Each sfx (Spread Firefox) user receives a free blog along with her account, and a unique affiliate ID. An sfx user will then place a link to getfirefox.com on his web page. Each person that clicks through to the Firefox website generates a point for that sfx user. Top-ranked users are displayed on an honor roll of sorts. Additionally, each visit to the sfx web page will show you the most recent referral at the top of the page.

For example, clicking on the following button will add sfx points to my account:

sfx points are mainly provided for bragging rights within the community, although top point accumulators are linked from the SpreadFirefox main page (a valuable reward), and some are awarded sfx e-mail addresses, t-shirts, and iPods. Apparently this is incentive enough; there are tens of thousands of sfx users, according to the SpreadFirefox.com web site, and more joining every day. The download count (since November 9th) speaks for itself. Clearly, Firefox's team has hit upon a simple but powerful way to drive community-based marketing.

Applying the principle

How can Firefox's success be matched? What are the requirements?

1. Provide a useful product or service. It's hard to get a community to rally behind something pointless. Many of sfx's users are weary of typical advertising, and distrust what they are told to like---a common trait in the online community. This is not surprising given the barrage advertising a person sees while browsing the web, watching TV, walking outside, or reading a magazine. Overuse will dull even the sharpest knife.

2. Involve the customer. Too often products and services sales form a one-way relationship: the customer receives goods for money and is rarely asked to give anything else. Unfortunately, such a child-like role can make individuals feel powerless---why would the company listen to them?

SpreadFirefox is successful because every "customer" has a voice. Each person can contribute their own ideas with an expectation that they are being heard. This is a difficult feat to accomplish. In traditional marketing, the testimonial or case study is an attempt to show "involved customers" and address this issue. After all, if Joe Regular from Peoria likes product X, then it's good enough for me!

This tactic is no longer effective. People are becoming jaded; it's easy to imagine Joe Regular in makeup before the shoot, being carefully primed to say exactly what the target market wants to hear. People want recommendations from real people.

3. Provide means of communication. Involved customers and a quality product mean nothing if it is not discussed. SpreadFirefox.com is an excellent example of using cutting-edge tech (the blog) to spread a controlled idea (Firefox is a good browser). The natural solution is a web site with some ties to the user community. It may be moderated by the company, but to a minimum degree.

Trust is crucial here; if potential customers believe they are being tricked by intentional censorship or omission, they will form a strong, negative opinion of the brand. The person to person bond must be maintained.

4. Offer incentives. Every product will have advocates. However, people are increasingly busy. Few happy customers are willing to donate hours of their time promoting their brand of laundry detergent---unless there is incentive.

Some people genuinely want to help each other out. A good product or service is worth sharing with friends and acquaintances; however, this will not become a priority unless there's a reward system in place.

sfx has up-to-the-second stats tracking for each of its members. Users can see exactly how many people clicked on their web page button, or read their blog entries. Points are earned, and may be redeemed for prizes, drawings, or website traffic (a valuable commodity). A website that provides utility to the promoter as well as the potential customer will serve the best of both worlds.

In fact, potential customers may wish to become advocates themselves. The snowball effect in action; building an internet phenomenon, even on a small scale.

Summing up

Well, I've written more than I intended. SpreadFirefox is doing all the right things, and has successfully brought Firefox to many, many people: through the website itself, a full-page ad in the New York Times (funded by donations!), and the recommendations of satisfied users. Uniting a product's backers using technology is a brilliant idea with corporate distrust on the rise. Therein lies the power of the community: people are much more likely to take a friend's (online or otherwise) word over that of a print ad. The trick is to encourage existing customers to become willing brand advocates.

Community power combined with the technological power of the internet can create a truly awesome force. These are not the days of the 1-800 comments line printed on the back of a box; this is the era of the community website.

Posted by Matt at 10:35 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

January 27, 2005

What the heck is Firefox?

I've received some comments on my previous post, Firefox + WebDeveloper: a powerful combination and it seems that I should begin at the beginning instead of the end.

Read onward for a brief summary of the Firefox web browser and what it can do for you.

Introduction

Mozilla Firefox is a web browser, like Internet Explorer, Netscape, or Opera. It is a rewrite of the web browser portion of the Mozilla suite. Firefox is designed to be a fast and easy-to-use web browser. It was built from the ground up to provide only the features that users need, such as pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing—its beauty lies in its simplicity. Other people seem to think so, too. The Firefox logo recently graced the cover of Wired magazine, as well as a full-page ad in the New York Times.

Unquestionably, Firefox is a growing phenomenon. So, why should you use Firefox?

Simplicity

Firefox was built with simplicity in mind. Most people never use the myriad of bells and whistles built into Internet Explorer and Netscape. In fact, those extra features contribute to slow performance and security flaws. Firefox is different; it focuses on one thing, and one thing only: displaying web pages. It will not attempt to interface with instant messaging (IM) programs, display weather information, etc—unless you want it to.

Simple design means that you can begin using Firefox without reading a manual, or fear of "breaking" something. If you have used a web browser in the past, the basic features of Firefox are one click away.

Speed

The lack of superfluous features means that Firefox loads and displays pages exceptionally well. There are additional options for power users to allow for downloading web pages in parallel—why wait for one image to finish, when you can be downloading ten images simultaneously? Firefox has excellent performance.

Extensibility

Firefox's spartan design may be too basic for some. Extensions are a way to address this problem. I mentioned previously that Firefox won't do some things, but it can if you want it to. Hundreds of programmers have written extensions, add-ons to Firefox that give it new features.

With the aid of extensions, you can block banner ads from displaying on the screen, disable flash animations, view the guts of a web page (like in my previous article), and do many more things. Firefox's feature set is limited only by the imagination of its developers.

Community Support

Firefox is an open-source project. This means that anybody who wishes to contribute to the effort can download the program's code and fix bugs or add improvements. The Mozilla foundation manages Firefox development, and ensures that the final product is one of quality.

With developers around the world working on a single project, bugs can be addressed very quickly. Microsoft's Internet Explorer, for example, will often go unpatched for weeks after a critical bug is found. With Firefox, developers are on the case the minute it is reported.

After all, Firefox developers are not being paid to work on the project per se; they are simply doing what they love to do.

Lack of major security flaws

Compared to Internet Explorer, Firefox has had far fewer serious security breaches in its code. Personally, I have encountered many users who have had their Internet Explorer literally hijacked by malicious software. An out-of-date Internet Explorer can open the door to virus or spyware infestation on your computer.

Running Firefox poses much less risk than running Internet Explorer.

Innovative features

From the beginning, Firefox has included advanced features for the internet user. Foremost among them is its excellent built-in pop-up blocker. Everyone has had some experience with pop-ups—visit most any major media site today, and you will see an ad or two pop up over the web page you are trying to view. Using Firefox will completely eliminate pop-up ads while browsing.

Tabbed browsing is another powerful feature of Firefox. Ever want to follow a link but don't want to leave the page you're on behind? In Firefox, simply middle-click the link (with your scroll wheel), and the new link will open in a new tab, inside your current window. As I write this, I have eighteen pages open within a single Firefox window, each with its own tab.

When combined with bookmarks, tabbed browsing becomes even more powerful. For example, I read several news web sites every day. If I group them into a common folder called 'News' in my bookmarks, I can simply middle-click on the 'News' folder to open every page within it in new tabs. You can even set a group of tabs to be your home page.

Need to find text in a page fast? Firefox includes powerful find as you type technology. Simply press CTRL-F (or choose 'Find in this page..' from the 'Edit' menu) and a search box appears at the bottom of your browser window. Start typing the word or phrase you want to find, and Firefox will automatically jump to the word as soon as it has enough letters to find it.

Finally, Firefox includes native support for RSS feeds, as mentioned in two previous articles here at TechEvangelists. When you view an RSS-enabled web page in Firefox, a small icon appears in the corner of the window. You can then bookmark an RSS feed and view the contents directly from the bookmarks menu.

So what are you waiting for?

I have outlined just a few of the features and benefits that set Mozilla Firefox apart from other web browsers. Firefox provides an easy-to-use interface coupled with powerful features. Privacy and security are paramount concerns; browsing the web with Firefox is far safer than with Internet Explorer. Pop-up blocking is automatic. Customization is possible with different themes and extensions, so you can add only the features you want to Firefox. Finally, the project enjoys worldwide community support from many talented developers.

Firefox is freely available at GetFirefox.com. Virtually every operating system is supported, and many different languages as well. The installation process is as simple as downloading the program file and running it on your computer.

If there is sufficient demand, I will continue to highlight my favorite browser in subsequent posts—there's still a lot to Firefox!

Posted by Matt at 06:02 PM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2005

Firefox + WebDeveloper: a powerful combination.

XHTML and CSS development can be a lot easier with the proper tools. Mozilla's Firefox web browser can be a web template designer's best friend when paired with the Web Developer extension.

Read on for a quick overview of what's possible with Firefox and Web Developer.

The DOM Inspector

Firefox includes an optional accessory called the DOM Inspector which allows developers to view the computed CSS styles for any HTML element. One can also look at a web document's entire markup tree, and click on elements of interest to examine their properties.

The DOM Inspector is available under the `Tools' menu in Firefox. Please note that you need to select the ``Developer Tools'' option when installing Firefox.

Web Developer

The ability to use third-party extensions is one of Firefox's greatest strengths. One such extension is called Web Developer---an extremely useful swiss army knife for examining web pages.

You can have Web Developer display all hidden form fields on a page, allowing you to view and edit their content. Other nifty magic tricks include converting GETs to POSTs, discovering broken image links, and much more. However, I have one favorite feature. Web Developer lets you view a site's CSS (including imported files) and edit the style rules on the fly. You can change a background color, and it will instantly change in your browser window. I use this technology to rapidly prototype new stylesheets, and try out new layout ideas without going through the save, upload, view cycle.

Firefox is a powerful tool for web developers who need to deal with XHTML and CSS on a daily basis. I've but scratched the surface of what this application can do.

Posted by Matt at 02:47 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack