Cultural Musings

(X)HTML and Beyond

Marc Loney — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:00:52 +0000

In my previous article (X)HTML Wars (The History of HTML) I looked at the history of HTML, standards and browsers. What I left out of my article was where these technologies are going. With the release of the (X)HTML5 draft we see the direction W3C want to push but I post the question is HTML a dying language? After writing my previous article I had a discussion with a work mate on the nature of HTML in conjunction mainly with my closing remarks. This discussion led to a number of interesting ideas a few of which I want to discuss here.

(X)HTML is a XML-based language, meaning it uses the XML format to store its data. At current, HTML is moving further towards defining only logical structure of web documents but we still have some remnants of style elements (such as header and list tags). This trend in web development, the transition to object or container based programming, namely assigning styles through css to div elements containing data. This trend began early this century as we saw the transition of table-based layouts to div-based layout. The advantage of course is the ability to create tier-based frameworks, or to separate styles from logic elements making it easier to traverse documents. I believe that the direction HTML should go is to continue this trend and rather than bowing to the ever further reaching of the search engine giants (no follow from google?) we should be creating HTML documents that use single type containers or divs.

While tags like h1 are useful due to their default behaviours and search engine benefits I believe the advantage of removing them far out way the advantages. Google and other search engines have a mandate to follow the web trends of the industry rather than defining them and the default behaviours can rather easily be replicated using simple CSS leaving very little left except an argument for simplicity.

When we get to this level we can truly explore the nature of the web as I would pose the question is XML even the right format we want to use for HTML. At the time of XHTMLs inception XML was the latest buzz technology on the town – everyone was writing formats of XML and with the inception of SOAP and XSLT it gathered wide spread popularity. I would question though whether it was XML as a format, which gathered the popularity or the fact that up until this point the concept of industry standards-based formats hadn’t existed. To be honest a format such as JSON can do just as good job as providing the structure of the document as XML, if not better. Look at the following example contrasting HTML in XML first and then in JSON.

Untitled Document

This is header



This is content


This is footer

And now in JSON:

{“html”: {“head”: { “title”: “Untitled Document” } }, {“body”: { “header”: “This is header”, “content”: “This is content”, “footer”: “This is footer” } } }
JSON and XML are both self-describing formats meaning they are languages or protocols that have human readable tags. Unlike XML though, it is significantly faster to write JSON.

If you know your JSON you may have noticed a mistake in the above example. Rather than defining a container called div and giving it an attribute of id like I did in the XML example I just straight created a container with the div’s id.

This is just one of many examples of how HTML is becoming an almost obsolete format – I know when I work with data in Javascript I work with strictly JSON these days rather than XML. The point of my example though is that it is possible to take this even further and produce web pages that include no HTML at all. We should be able to write a web document completely in a scripting language– defining our ‘containers’ or ‘div’s in any format we choose to (whether that be JSON or XML or any other format.)

Due to HTML’s universal and simple nature I’m convinced we won’t see dramatic and sweeping changes like what I suggest here for many years but I am convinced that this is the direction that the web is going. The ability to handle web documents in any format of choice not just XML (even object based formats!) means we can take standards-based documents to a whole new level – not having to make sacrifices on readability and efficiently traversing documents.

(X)HTML and Beyond by Marc Loney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

Art of a Hacker

Marc Loney — Sun, 17 May 2009 12:56:14 +0000

Inevitably anyone who hangs around on tech related forums or works in a tech related industry will stumble upon a wealth of ‘hacking’ or ‘cracking’ related knowledge known as ‘the underground’ . This ‘community’ seems to encompass everything computer security related – legal or illegal. Some seem fascinated, some seem scared – most though are misguided in their understanding of this wonderful realm of knowledge and the true art of a hacker.

Hacking – The Myths

‘Hacking’ is one of these terms that everyone seems to know about and likes to throw around but no one seems to be able to tell you exactly what it is. You have those on one side of the fence who give into media misconceptions of grandeur placing the humble ‘hacker’ along the ranks of criminal masterminds with their ‘hacking into banks’ and ‘stealing all your credit card information’. You then have those on the other side who generally come from a tech related industry such as programming, networking who are a little more clued on. You would be surprised though at how many of them too believe the myths surrounding this taboo subject.

“What is a hacker?”

So I think the real question everyone who is reading this wants to know is what is a hacker? Is a hacker someone who can write viruses? Are they someone who can break into your computer and read your files? There seems to be this idea floating around that there just is some magic program a choice few people have that you run and type in a few commands and then suddenly that gives you control of another person’s computer.

Believe it or not there isn’t any secret program that ‘hackers’ use to gain access to other peoples computer. If anything this is quite far from the truth. As anyone who has read an introduction to ‘hacking’ tutorial you will see the usual disclaimer at the beginning that states that ‘hacking’ is not all about gaining access to others computers but more about the art of exploring technology – that in actual fact most ‘hackers’ are not even interested in illegal computer related activities at all. True hacking is more about a paradigm of creative exploration and curiosity exploring past the boundaries put in place.

Let me explain further. Any designed system sufficiently complex enough can be used in ways not originally envisioned. Whether these ways are illegal or legal, malicious or harmless is a whole other debate. Computer systems today are incredibly complex – with many subsystems, networks, services, etc all with their own routines, subroutines, languages and protocols. All of them, in some way, can be exploited to do what they are not meant to do. A true hacker is someone who has gained information about a system, who sufficiently understands a system to understand what it can and can’t do. This information could be as easy as just knowing SMTP or POP3 protocols (the protocols to control email) or as hard as reverse-engineering communication protocols of proprietary software packages.

For those of you who are still struggling to grasp this concept let me use an analogy. If you study martial arts you could be a student of any number of different disciplines. Different disciplines have different styles and different techniques but all of them at the end of the day come under the category of martial arts. Not everyone who studies martial arts will go out and commit violence-based crimes.

Hacking is just like this. There are many different aspects that are encompassed in hacking but all involved expert understanding of systems. While being an expert in a system gives you the ability to cause malicious activities it doesn’t necessarily mean you will.

That being said though just like there is people out there who have criminal intentions for martial arts so do those who understand computer systems so be vigilant just as you would on the streets.

So Where to?

Typically, those who get into any exploit-based industry whether illegal like racketeering or extortion or legal like security need a solid foundation to begin on. In computer security this foundation is typically computer programming. As most computer systems are originally conceptualized in a computer programming or scripting language. To better understand a book, learn the language and style it’s written in – it’s the same with computer systems. Programming gives you the tools to interact with systems from the back-end and the means to further your knowledge. Bottom line: learn a programming language. Secondly, understand that this industry is endless and continually evolving so to better your skills I recommend finding something you’re interested in and specialize in learning about it. Lastly, understand that true hacking is not about exploitation contrary to popular belief – it’s an art form where your canvases are servers and network systems and your paints are exploits, vulnerabilities, viruses and deception.

Art of a Hacker by Marc Loney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

(X)HTML Wars (The History of HTML)

Marc Loney — Wed, 06 May 2009 02:26:29 +0000

One of the most used languages in the web developers arsenal is Hyper Text Markup Language or the humble HTML. Where did this technology come from? Where is it going? I would like to trace its history and roots back to a time long ago where tags were tags and the web browser was the emperor.

In a galaxy far, far away.

Our history lesson begins back in the year 1991 with the first mention of ‘HTML’ in a document called ‘HTML Tags’ released by physicist Tim Berners-Lee, an independent contractor of then CERN. The nature of the original specs for HTML was to allow a language to provide dynamic markup or formatting to web pages. At this stage this basically amounted to producing a language to define standards of ‘bold’,'italics’,etc. For the next few years draft after draft were thrown around but finally a set of 22 tags where chosen – 13 of which still remain in (X)HTML today. In the truest sense, HTML 1.0 never existed. It is a term now used to describe the original set of technical draft of this technology.

The Standards Menace

The largest buzzwords of today’s web development industry wasn’t introduced until around 1995when the specifications for HTML 2.0 were released and the concept of ‘standards-based‘ programming also entered the arena. Until this time HTML, like all other new and un-adopted languages consisted more of documents outlining technical specifications and the implementations were rough. HTML had an upwards battle to face and at this point no one could envision that this battle was actually going to turn out to be a war.
In 1996 the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) entered the playing field and from that point on has maintained the documentation of standards for use by compliant web browsers.

Attack of the Browsers

With the benefit of foresight this war could have been prevented. Between 1996 and 2000 we saw what I would call the ‘standards war’ in which the three main players W3C, Microsoft and Netscape all played a dangerous game, each with different weapons and different agendas. W3C was interested in using HTML to define only logical structure leaving the arenas of visual effects and styles to other technologies. The problem was the two main players in the web browser game, Microsoft and Netscape, had other ideas – and who had the real power? W3C had no authority to have a say over how a web browser should implement a tag and could only really provide debate into the benefits of standards. Netscape, the largest player at this stage, wanted to use HTML to define visual effects as well introducing a wide range of Netscape-specific tags used to style web pages. Microsoft soon followed implementing many of the tags Netscape introduced and a few of their own.

Revenge of the Browsers

W3C was powerless throughout this time but rather than giving into the enemy they stood their ground and eventually came out triumphant. As we can see from today, HTML is now used to define only logical structure – all visual effects and styles are defined by Javascript and Cascading Style Sheets.

A New Hope

In 2000 XHTML 1.0 was introduced and the browser players began to take more notice to the benefits of standards-based browsers. XHTML was based around the 1997 specifications of HTML 4.0 which previously introduced Transitional, Strict and Frameset flavours. XHTML extended this but in a strict XML environment. With the buzz of XML in the air and global debate on the benefits of using XML based formats for data transfer the standards war began to come to an end.
At this point we see the death of Netscape – once the unopposed champion of web browsers, Microsoft’s dominance in the operating systems industry gave them the edge needed to topple this empire.

The Empire Strikes Back

Then entered Internet Explorer 6.0. If you are in the web industry then this browser needs no welcome. The last remnants of a time when Microsoft thought they had the right to define the industry – Internet Explorer’s poorly and wrongly implemented box model has plagued the web industry for years and will continue to do so for years to come.
Coming up from the death of Netscape though was the Mozilla project – an open source ‘rebel’ which was clearly interested in implementing standards put down by the W3C. The Mozilla project never took off in the mainstream but paved the way for its successor Mozilla Firefox – a true competitor to the now triumphant emperor of web browsers Internet Explorer.
This is the era we are in. For a while we were left at the mercy of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer but the rebellion began and slowly more and more members grew to join Firefox such as Opera, Chrome, Safari – all with one vision, to provide browsers that correctly implement W3C standards to provide all browsers with a standards-based browsing experience. While the standards war is gone the browser war has just began…

Return of the Standards

W3C won the standards war. We now have standards-based browsers with Internet Explorer 8′s release and a wealth of competitors. (X)HTML, over a decade after its original inception does what it was designed to do – provide logical structure to web pages elements. Style and visual effects are handled externally. What does the future hold? On the table are now the drafts of (X)HTML 5.0 – but that is a whole other story.

The future?

As we go forward though I wonder whether XML is the right format for defining logical structure of web pages. We are moving into a time where, as a developer, I know a lot of my pages structure is dynamically generated from Javascript. In some ways I feel that (X)HTML isn’t designed to understand this logic and is more of a survivor than a reigning champion from the days that tags were tags and the web browser was the emperor.

(X)HTML Wars (The History of HTML) by Marc Loney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

Web 2.0 – Now in 3D

Marc Loney — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:35:24 +0000

Google for a long time has been at the forefront of web development technology. We’ve seen an amazing search engine develop and from the resources the engines pooled many applications like Gmail or Google Docs have been released. Google has now jumped the barrier into the web software arena – with the release of their browser Chrome and began an assault on the very nature of our web browsing experience. At the forefront of its assault is the paradigm shift in how we define a web site or web document – and what function requirements does the engine powering it need.

As a follow on from my last post on Web as a Software Platform I had a look into some of the other exciting technologies that Google has been coming up with. One in particular stood out to me – O3D. Google for the past year has been working on a browser plug-in that gives your web browser accelerated 3D graphics capacity. Essentially O3D gives a web-developer the ability to access the higher graphic components of your computer namely the graphics card and use it, through Javascript, to create stunning visual effects and 3D applications directly in your web browser.

Now you may be asking what does this mean? Well up until now to do any type of 3D styled effects external plug-ins like Flash and Silverlight had to be used. Now while O3D is also an external plugin not native to web browsers (for now) its advantage is that rather than requiring its developer to learn a new language such as Flash’s Actionscript – the developer can work natively in Javascript. In my personal opinion most Javascript engines, the two main players in the game at the moment being Mozilla’s TraceMonkey and Google’s V8 engine, are significantly faster and more compatible with web technology than Actionscript. More to the point, I feel that we’re getting to a point where the main players in the game are already defined – XHTML, CSS, Javascript – and that maybe rather than creating new languages we should be designing better standards for existing technology and developing better engines in our browsers to interpret their commands. A web-browser based alternative that works directly with the graphics processing power of your computer also means you can take direct advantage of your resources rather than using the limited capacity of Flash. It means there is a possibility that the latest graphics-intense games can be coded in such a way as to play directly out of your web browser.

Now the concept of 3D applications isn’t new – back in the early XML days a standard known as Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) was developed but didn’t go anywhere. In fact Google isn’t the only player in this new industry – Mozilla has teamed up with Khronos the overseers of OpenGL to begin developing their own open standard 3D web interface.

The question I would ask is where is this taking the net? There is no doubt that technology like this is really pushing the foundations of what is a web page. As I discussed in my previous article the very fundamentals of the web is changing. The internet is no longer just a way to just access information – it is now about a fully fledged browsing experience. I can imagine a web where all software streamlines perfectly with the net – where we use ‘the cloud’ on a day to day basis to store our files, where we use the net to load all our applications including games. At the end of the day though there’s no doubt this is an exciting time to watch the changes in the landscape of the web.

Web 2.0 – Now in 3D by Marc Loney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

What Am I Defending Against Online? (5 Online Attacks You Need To Know About)

Marc Loney — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:01:40 +0000

The chances are if you’re reading this you’ve encountered sypware, malware, viruses, or ‘hackers’ before. We are all told to keep our firewalls and antivirus up to date but how many of us actually know what we are defending against though?

I read an interesting article lately entitled 10 easy ways to boost your online security. A great starting point if you want to get to know the basics of a good internet security practice. What I think the article fails to mention is what I consider the biggest asset to any avid computer user – know your enemy. It’s a concept dating back thousands of year past computer security and politics to war and tyranny, popularised by Sun Tzu in the art of war and used as a common strategy in almost any security company today. If you don’t know what you are defending against how can you defend effectively?

If you don’t know much about computer security the following terms may seem foreign to you but hopefully you’ll be able to get a better appreciation for what is out there. Below is a discussion of the 5 most common online attacks a normal user will encounter.

XSS (Cross Site Scripting)

One of the most common online attacks encountered is something called Cross Site Scripting. Cross Site Scripting is when a website has a vulnerability that allows someone to put malicious code (HTML, Javascript) into a non-malicious and trusted website. According to CSO almost 68% of sites out there are open to this type of attack.

There are two main XSS attacks you should be wary of – non-persistent and persistent attacks. A non-persistent attack is when a site has a vulnerability that allows someone to display code in a website where it isn’t meant to be displayed. An example could be using a site that has a search function to inject HTML into the search results. At first glance it doesn’t seem to be that much of a problem but what if I injected HTML code that contained a known Internet Explorer vulnerability that installs a virus on your computer? Say this flaw existed on say a Microsoft website? What that means is I can now send out URLs to a trusted website that in fact now performs a malicious activity.

A persistent attack works the same way as above but is when a vulnerability exists in information stored online. For example when you submit a comment on a blog/social networking site/forum if a vulnerability exists in this system your malicious code will be stored on that site for anyone who accesses it to see. Whenever someone views your comment they will run your malicious code. A trusted website performing a malicious activity.

Viruses and Worms

Viruses and Worms are so similar in structure they can be thrown in the same category. Viruses are generally malicious programs designed to cause harm to a victims computer either through disrupting regular use or destroying files. Viruses usually distribute by infecting files on a target computer which may be sent to other computers. Worms on the other hand are malicious programs designed to seek vulnerabilities on other computers on your network and attempt to take advantage of the vulnerability to distribute.

A common misconception about both viruses and worms is that just by viewing an email you’re infected. While this can be true it doesn’t really tell the full story. All software needs to be activated to run. If you want to start an application you need to first double click it to ‘run’ or activate it. Applications already running can make other applications start as well. An application can’t just ‘magically’ start – nor can a virus. For a virus to just start it will need to take advantage of a vulnerability in your email software, such as using an XSS attack in an email sent to a hotmail account or a vulnerability in your Outlook software which is a lot more complex to accomplish.

Trojans

Trojans are similar to Viruses in that they are applications but, aptly named after the Trojan horse, they are actually malicious programs hidden in trusted software. Generally trojans will inject themselves in to applications and will install themselves at the same time you are installing some legitimate software. Many viruses and worms create trojans in applications already on your computer, injecting themselves into your other applications in case you distribute these to friends.

‘Hacking’

Hacking is one of these buzzwords that gets thrown around a lot but most people don’t understand what it means. Now i’m not going to bore you describing the difference between ‘hackers’, ‘crackers’ and ‘script kiddies’ and how who most people think are ‘hackers’ are actually ‘crackers’. What I am going to discuss is a general definition and that is of someone, not a computer or computer program, attempting an unauthorized visit to your computer with malicious intent. There are many ways someone may attempt to access your computer without resorting to viruses, xss or other attacks. Most people seem really paranoid about someone ‘hacking’ into their computer but to be honest I would draw attention to something I would call the law of malicious ‘hacking’.

“A person attempting to access a computer in an unauthorized fashion will only continue such an attempt as long as the amount of effort required match’s the reward obtained‘

What basically is illustrated above is for the average ‘hacker’ it is way too much effort and too little a reward for hacking into an average joe’s computer. Let’s face it – you don’t actually have anything that is valuable to anyone and if you do you probably have a team of security experts making sure you don’t leave it hanging around on your home computer. This is a subject that could require a whole book on to discuss further but if your interested in discussing ‘hacking’ attacks further (DoS, remote access, software vulnerabilities, etc) comment away below.

Social Engineering

Everyone has heard of those Nigerian email scams but what most people don’t realise is this is an example of social engineering. Social engineering is basically the art of getting access to information you want my manipulating people. Why hack into someones computer and try to steal the password to their online banking when you can just ring them up and pretend to be from the bank and ask them for it? Social engineering has become one the biggest problems online today and is something your antivirus or firewall will be able to defend against. Be vigilant.

These are just a small selection of what’s out there in the world of internet security and while most people seem happy with just a virus scanner I would say the most important thing is a bit of knowledge. If you keep in mind whats out there and use a bit of common sense you shouldn’t have too much problems. Just remember not to give out your credit card information online anytime soon.

What Am I Defending Against Online? (5 Online Attacks You Need To Know About) by Marc Loney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

What this Chrome user misses about Firefox

Marc Loney — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:47:20 +0000

Since Chrome was released late last year I was a quick convert. Its slick designed ‘chrome’ and lightweight aesthetics and speed leave little to complain over. Time to time though I do think back to my time with Mozilla Firefox and what I miss about it.

Google Chrome is the lightweight web browser released by Google late last year. In their words “Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.“

Personally, my conversion happened after only a few hours using it. Unlike most other mainstream web browsers it sports a minimalistic design, with only your current tabs open and ‘omnibar’ on display at the top of the page. One of my pet hates of Firefox leads back to before its time to the original Mozilla project. In those days Mozilla wasn’t really an alternative for anyone – it was the big, clunky prototype. In time they’ve streamlined it more but I still always notice that extra few seconds it takes to load Firefox. Chrome is lightweight and opening it up doesn’t feel like a burden.

Chrome also sports an easy to using ‘tabbing’ system similar to other browsers but with some significant differences. When you open a new tab In Chrome you are presented with a page that shows you the most common sites you visit, your bookmarks and the last closed tabs. A handy feature for getting access to your websites quicker. When you are already in a tab and open a website in a new tab rather than placing this new tab on the end of the queue its inserts it right next to the current tab your working in effectively providing ‘groups’ of tabs.
Chrome has many sleek features but time to time it happens that there are a few reasons I think back and consider the conversion back. Here’s a selection of a choice few.

Chrome Closes without Confirm

When you are running Google Chrome and accidently slip and click on the nice ‘x’ on the top of the screen you suddenly see one of Chrome’s immediate flaws. Chrome does not confirm with you before you close multiple tabs. If you are anything like me, I’ll have 8-10 tabs open in each Chrome window at any one time and when they all suddenly disappear this can get quite annoying.

Javascript

Chrome spouts a completely rewritten Javascript engine which supposedly out does the speed and efficiency of all other browsers. Too bad at times it seems to be poorly implemented. There has been many a site I have visited where the behavior of Javascript in Firefox/Internet Explorer is non-existent in Chrome. To be fair it degrades quite gracefully in most cases – but if I have no quarms about using Javascript why should I be restricted?

View Source

I work as back-end developer working mostly with PHP. Chrome seems to have an interesting way to manage the ‘view source’ feature opting to not actually ‘view the source’ of your current page but to view the source of your current URL. The problems comes when you’re working with dynamically generated pages (index.php?q=1) and rather than viewing the actual source of what you are displaying in the browser you get the source of the page without any arguments (index.php). I’m not sure if there is a way around this but currently I’m forced to revert back to another browser to do something as simple as view the current source of my current page.

Plug-ins

I miss Plug-ins. Firefox had a great community of developers and it was nice to see what people were coming up with. In many cases such as Gestures, Firebug or Greasemonkey the new functionality gave a whole new web browsing experience. I also miss tool bars especially my Google toolbar. I know Chrome has implemented a fancy ‘omnibar’, its miracle cure but I miss knowing what the PageRank is of the site I’m visiting. It’s Google’s browser for heaven’s sake! – Why can’t I see functionality they have already created implemented in it.

Conclusion

To be fair Chrome has only just come out of its BETA and like any of the great pieces of software we use today we will see many a revision before it resembles a highly useable and functional software suite. I believe in the vision of Chrome for many more reasons that what I have listed above (probably going to be a topic of another blog post) which is why I am going to continue to use it, for now, regardless of the above gripes

It gets you thinking though – if you sit back and take an objective analysis on your web browser can you honestly say you would still use it? What annoyances and frustrations does it give you? What reasons do you have for not converting to an alternative?

The Redundancy of SMS

Marc Loney — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:15:08 +0000

Mobile phone’s have changed so much in the last 10 years its not funny. Now one of the most common devices (along with your electronic car keys and your iPod) found in your pocket the humble mobile phone introduced many early players to the information game. Let’s explore its evolution.

I was thinking back the other day to when I first got a mobile phone, an old Nokia 3210, back when I was 13. This reminiscing of my old phone lead me to think about the changing trends in mobile phone technology. I remember when the concept of video calling was science fiction and yet now everyone’s phone can do it (doesn’t mean we use it though.) At one stage all phones were black and white, now we have some quite stunning GUI’s such as the latest Symbian release, Android or the iPhone GUI. It use to be the most advance functionality of our phone was Snake 2 yet now the ability to download software and information on demand is a must and couldn’t be easier. The origins of Txt-talk began, as most phones only allowed you to send a maximum of a single sms message per an sms as opposed to now our multi-sms messages.

All of these things represent some quite drastic changes in mobile phone technology but I think over all there are two that radically stand out to me as ‘paradigm shifters’

1) Mobile Phone Caps – This one is more on the carrier end then the actual phone technology. Mobile phone caps have radically shifted the way we interact with this technology. Why, you ask? Well up until the introduction of caps, mobile phone plans, to be completely honest, were just way to darn expensive. Unless you had a decent work plan or just had lots of cash you just couldn’t afford to call someone for a ‘chat’. I remember buying $15 top-ups for my prepaid phone and treasuring the single phone call I would make from it, choosing to spend the rest on SMS’s (a teenager’s primary form of communication!). With the introduction of caps I can now not worry about these things – the price of phone calls and SMS’s are essentially (in a roundabout way) dropped significantly. I now can make almost unlimited calls and SMS’s in a month and most of the time not care that I’m going anywhere near my cap limits.

2) Mobile Internet – The second one is actually phone technology related. I remember when WAP was first being introduced. Being a web developer there was a lot of hype around this format yet see if you can meet someone who can tell you the last site they went to that uses it. Mobile Internet has evolved from nearly inexistent to a solution where you can now cost-effectively check your emails on your Blackberry or post a Facebook snap of you and your mates at the local pub.

The combination of these two ‘technological’ changes has led to the creation of devices that encompass completely the concept of ‘information-on-demand’. If you need to know something call, it costs you nothing. If you need to go to a website, go there – it costs you nothing.

This line of thinking started pushing me down another path though relating to how we currently use short message technology (or SMS). I now use SMSs a lot less than I use to, more to the fact a lot of the information I’m looking for can easily be achieved through jumping on my good old Opera Mini web browser on my mobile phone (My weapon of choice is now a Nokia N95), and hit up Twitter or Facebook. People check these services so often that most of the time if I’m trying to plan a night out all it takes is a ‘drinks up tonight?’ on the good old status change and then a flood (or a drizzle) of interest is generated. If I can’t get my information through one of the many social networking resources there is always calling someone up – it costs far less now and a lot less messy than these back and forth SMS conversations.

To be honest the amount of time we spend SMSing people I believe will significantly decrease from now on. With the rise of social networking we no longer want to interact with people on a purely ‘flat’ text plane. We want to see people, know what they are doing and what they have done, know who else is interacting with this person – we want this information, and we want it now on demand.

I can already see the progression – look what the iPhone does when you have an SMS conversation with someone. It displays it neatly as if you are having a ‘conversation.’

I think SMS technology is now just a legacy technology from a day where you would say ‘3G what?’ Soon enough we will be saying that about 2G phone calls. I’m waiting for the day when I have a phone that operates all phone calls using VOIP, that runs all my SMSs through Facebook PMs and all my images are auto loaded to my online profile. My current phone already has the ability to connect to Wireless network connections and then access the internet through it. Why can’t I just extend that and do everything through this connection? I already have SIP technology in the phone – we’re getting to a stage where it will be just as effective (if not more so) to scrap almost all the technology that mobile phones have given us and give into the net-ages buzzwords.

When will we consider SMS technology in the bucket of legacy and move on?

Web as a Software Platform

Marc Loney — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:43:14 +0000

The Web 2.0 Revolution redefined the way we use the internet. With the rise of social networking (like Facebook and Twitter) and Rich Internet Applications (like Google Docs or Mozilla’s Bespin) the web browsing paradigm has radically shifted! Let’s explore the revolution as we enter Web 3.0.

Up until now the humble web browser use was simply to browse websites, a collection of static or dynamically generated web pages linked together using hyperlinks. Whether the website we browsed was generated dynamically using CGI or PHP (in the case of forum software like PHPBB) or generated statically using HTML, the way we interacted with the web browser was standard – you scroll up and down the page to read more text and to access a new page or more information you click on a hyperlink. This was the language of Web 1.0 and it worked. What didn’t work were the web browsers and even now we are suffering at the hands of the past oppression of bulky browsers (yes we’re looking at you original Mozilla project) and incorrectly implemented web standards (can you say box model Microsoft?).

This all changed with Web 2.0. The language of the web was no longer web pages, hyperlinks and site maps… and then entered the Document Object Model. Web pages evolved no longer just static pages they became XML documents (outlining content), fully styled (using CSS) and fully functionalized (using Javascript).

Then entered AJAX and the revolutionary language of Web 2.0 really took off. Until now web applications were clunky, requiring refreshes whenever information needed to be exchanged. AJAX provided asynchronous communication with our web server allowing applications like email, forums or control panels to now function like software. The ability to access information on demand, streamlining the information process was a major innovation.

The final noun of the information highways revolution was cloud computing – providing a centralized repository of knowledge accessible from anywhere with a web browser. No more worrying about interchangeable data formats or carrying software on CDs.
These 3 innovations; DOM, AJAX and cloud computing is the language of Web 2.0. We now had all the tools to produce Web Applications in a way now resembling their close cousin binary software – but with the added advantage of a streamlined network infrastructure (the web!) and a platform everyone has access to (the web browser!)

No longer are we interacting with Web 1.0 sites but fully functioning Web 2.0 software. These applications are lightweight, running straight out of a browser; accessible, following the latest web standards; and most of all scalable, hosting accounts are easily increased in performance, size and bandwidth to reflect usage. Keep this in mind as we explore the latest innovation from Google – the Google Chrome browser.

Google Chrome complete with a lightweight ‘chrome’, supercharged javascript engine and GEARS – Google’s innovative response to providing web browser applications offline, we now have what I refer to as the beginnings of the Web Platform. No longer is the Web Browser just a tool to access web pages but a platform to run applications.

This leads us to the discussion point of this blog. With the direction we see hardware technology (such as the Asus EEE box PC capacity to load up a web browser instead of an operating system) and software technology (lightweight web browsers with javascript and supporting library extensions like JQuery or Mootools) we could be seeing the Web 3.0 revolution or as I see it the point that the Web browser stops being software but becomes a platform. Think about it, Google already has started envisioning it with a built in graphics engine in Google Chrome. All your software is now stored remotely (using cloud computing) or cached locally (using Google GEARS) and as Software As A Service (SaaS) we no longer have to worry about security patches or updates. No longer will your computer be slowed down due to complicated procedures taking up precious processing – the only think your computer needs to concentrate on is rendering the extract from your centralized repository! Google’s already cut down the size of the ‘chrome’ in Chrome – how long until we see it removed all together and we only access the web through shortcuts to online applications (another Chrome innovation).

My question though is, is this the direction we want to go? While the technology that brings us the Web 2.0 revolution is amazing are we not just reinventing the wheel? Microsoft has produced a perfectly good operating environment (the Windows API) to produce applications in. Is it necessary to reinvent the architecture model behind software development? On the other hand is the web platform just a new paradigm in software development? Consider it provides a lightweight, cost-effective alternative to traditional software development (such as Rapid Application Development).

What I think I’m really asking is should the web browser remain the humble web browser or should be let it unfold and evolve into the innovative web platform?