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Introduction
 This issue comes to you from several thousand feet as Team
SitePoint wings its way to Sydney for the annual Web Directions South conference,
where we'll undertake our annual recruiting drive.
A little surprisingly, I'm fairly relaxed about being away from the
office for a few days. Some of this comes, no doubt, from the fact that I
don't have a big book project weighing on my shoulders (Matt Magain is
toiling away on a draft of The Art & Science of JavaScript in
the seat next to me). But the main reason, I think, is that I'm on a bit of
a productivity kick at the moment.
Having done some reading on the Getting Things
Done (GTD) methodology, I've spent the past couple of months adopting
it across the different parts of my life. A couple of days ago, I sat down
with the rest of the team at SitePoint HQ to talk about how it works, how
it helped me to get my email inbox down to zero and keep it there, and how
it's generally made me a happier, more relaxed person. If email is a
problem for you, I can highly recommend Merlin
Mann's Inbox Zero talk as a starting point.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team back at SitePoint HQ is hard at work on
the launch of the Web Design Business
Kit 2.0. It's our best-selling product, and before I left I promised
Shayne the marketing guy (who does exist, for those who've asked!) that
I'd mention it here, so there you have it. Check out the sample PDF if
freelancing is your thing.
Yahoo! Acquires Zimbra
Yahoo! acquires all the coolest companies. First it was Flickr, then del.icio.us, and now it's bagged Zimbra (for a reported US$350 million!),
which I dare say is the company with the most Ajax know-how on the planet
(with the possible exception of The Google).
 "How
will Yahoo! change Zimbra?" in the SitePoint Forums
If you haven't heard of it already, Zimbra is an open source email, address
book, and calendaring server based on open source technologies tied
together with a bunch of Java code. It competes with Microsoft Exchange,
and is most noted for its rich web interface that makes heavy use of Ajax.
We use Zimbra at SitePoint.
Zimbra was doing Ajax-powered email before Google made it cool. The
company has also contributed a great deal of Ajax know-how to the world.
Zimbra released of one
of the first industrial-strength Ajax libraries, it helped to spearhead
the OpenAjax Alliance, and has published
numerous blog posts that have
illuminated the sometimes murky waters of real-world Ajax development.
Now that Zimbra
belongs to Yahoo!, I would only expect to see these trends continue.
Yahoo! has made amazing contributions of both code and knowledge to the
community lately, especially through the Yahoo! Developer Network. This open
and sharing approach to web development seems to be something the two
companies have in common.
As for how Zimbra the product (as opposed to Zimbra the company) is
likely to change, that's something many people are
a little more nervous about. Yahoo! has seemed—at least from my
vantage—to favor PHP over Java for server-side development, and is
reportedly looking to leverage its investment in Zimbra to make inroads
into new markets. What changes to Zimbra might this strategy prompt?
"How
will Yahoo! change Zimbra?" in the SitePoint Forums
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A New Standard for HTML Email
If you're one of the many lucky readers of the Tech Times who
use Outlook 2007—whether by choice or not—then chances are
you've noticed this newsletter and many others haven't looked quite right
since the upgrade from Outlook 2003. Could the solution be standards for
HTML email?
"A
New Standard for HTML Email" in the SitePoint Forums
Long time readers of the Tech Times may remember my rant in Tech
Times #156 about Microsoft's choice to replace the Internet Explorer
rendering engine in Outlook 2003 with a new engine based on Microsoft Word
in Outlook 2007. Yes, that Microsoft Word. Clippy is reading your
email as we speak.
The fine folks at Freshview, the
makers of the Campaign Monitor
service for creating and sending high-quality HTML email newsletters, have
led the ongoing efforts to get Microsoft to see reason and reverse this
move, which frankly sets email technology back a decade.
As it seems these pleas continue to fall on deaf ears, Freshview has
proposed a new tack: define a (relatively) easy-to-support subset of HTML
and CSS as a standard that HTML-capable email clients may strive to
support. By setting a more achievable goal than the full HTML/CSS support
we expect of web browsers, the theory goes, we may be able to drum up some
interest in improving the HTML email landscape from vendors like
Microsoft.
This plan is outlined in a
very thoughtful post on the Campaign Monitor Blog, which has since been
followed up by an
initial proposal for the baseline standard.
Do you believe creating a new standard for HTML email will help improve
the sorry state of standards support and interoperability in email
clients?
"A
New Standard for HTML Email" in the SitePoint Forums
PC vs. Mac Redux
The forum threads associated with my editorial last issue, Mac
vs. PC: What Floats your Boat? and Mac
vs. PC and the Future of the Web, are running hot with nearly 400 posts
at last count.
"Is
Apple Hardware Crummy?" in the SitePoint Forums
A few of you did write in via email, however, to let me know your
thoughts. More than a few of you suggested that moving to Linux will get
all the benefits of Mac OS X that I mentioned and without getting locked
into Apple hardware. Having not given Linux a fair shake on the desktop for
a few years now, I have to admit that Ubuntu and the like may be a very
good option for the extra adventurous who don't need commercial apps like
Photoshop to get by.
Speaking of Apple hardware, Tech Times reader Bob Deloyd wrote in with
this perspective:
"I have friends who have Macs and it seems that there is always
something going wrong with the logic boards or other parts. [...]
"You buy from Apple, you are stuck with Apple. Why don't they
just let their OSX run on any INTEL machine? I would love to have it run
on my Toshiba laptop, or my Dell desktop machine. I do have an INTEL
MacBook because I want to get better acquainted with OSX for my business.
I like it for its 12" screen and lightness, but I will keep my
AppleCare up to date!!!"
Many of the Mac users here at SitePoint have been plagued by similar
hardware issues, Bob. I seem to have lucked out with this MacBook (knock
on rounded, black plastic), but I certainly keep my system well backed-up
and protected by a solid warranty.
What do you think? Is Apple hardware crummy?
"Is
Apple Hardware Crummy?" in the SitePoint Forums
By the time you read this, Web
Directions South 2007 will be done and dusted. Be sure to watch
SitePoint for continuing coverage of the event, and a few "bonus
features" from the conference in the week that follow!
Kevin Yank
techtimes@sitepoint.com
Editor, The SitePoint
Tech Times
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