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Google has provided advice for website designers on how to make sure their site is correctly displayed on the company’s new browser, Chrome.

Maile Ohye, a developer for Google writing on the Webmaster Central blog, recommends using HTML rather than AJAX coding, as this will help search engines find the site.

And to achieve a uniform look across all browsers, validated code should be used, while designers should make sure that they have tested the usability of the site and not just its aesthetics.

‘When your site renders poorly or is difficult to use on many browsers you risk losing your visitors’ interest and, if you’re running a monetised site, perhaps their business,’ she wrote.

‘It’s possible that the clickable area of a linked image or button may change from browser to browser.’

According to research firm Net Applications, Chrome has a one per cent share of the browser market.

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There is a lot of good work being done by the development team. I have been monitoring the changes using CommitMonitor and also looking at the Wordpress Milestone 2.5. But from what I can see even though all this updates are coming its going to be a tough given that the deadline has been moved twice (once because 2.4 was never released | WordPress 2.5 Delayed a Week) now. Not to mention there are over 400 Active tickets as I am writing this.

I wish the developers good luck in getting it done in the next 6 says. But I am not hopeful that they will be ready for to release it by then.

According to lorelle “Indeed, WordPress 2.4 has now been removed from the WordPress Roadmap, and WordPress 2.5 is still scheduled for March 24, 2008″. Now that seems more positive and reasonable to me.

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Mozilla is about to release Firefox 3 beta 3. The new Firefox 3 is faster, more secure, easier to use, more personal and provides an improved platform for developers. The release notes for beta 2 give a good overview of the new features. There’s an interesting discussion on Ajaxian about Cross-Site XHR Security in Firefox 3: this feature will make cross-site communication easier, but possibly introduces security risks.

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The Open Handset Alliance (OHA), a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies with Google at the forefront, have developed Android to become the first complete, open and free mobile platform.

The system will allow users to access core mobile device functionality through standard API calls and hopes to include such innovative features as combing information from the web with data on the phone, such as contacts or geographic location.

Google’s Android Software Developer (SDK), first released in November, is part of OHA and is based on the Linux 2.6 kernel using an operating system, middleware stack, customizable user interface and applications.

The preview version of the platform was released without real support for the hardware, while instead developers were given a software emulator based on Qemu.

Credited as one of the first developers to use Android in a hardware platform is Ben Leslie from Australia, using the Armadillo-500 from Atmark-Techno based on Freescale’s i.MX31L mobile processor.

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Last week Ajaxian and Burton Group’s Richard Monson-Haefel conducted a survey amongst Ajax developers. It showed that more and more developers are using Ajax frameworks instead of hand-coding Ajax. Although the total number of frameworks has increased, there is a limited number of frameworks that is really popular.

What is astonishing is the nearly complete lack of commercial Ajax frameworks. Backbase has had a lot of success making a comeback after loosing some market share in 2006, but other commercial Ajax frameworks have not been so lucky.

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Help - Cyclone Sidr- Victims in Bangladesh

The Effect of Climate Change Education, Environment and Spirituality

Creative Graphcis and Communications designed the logo and also developed the micro site for the Newhomeland Strategies and Campaigns’ Cyclone Sidr fund raising event.

With our expert help Newhomeland Strategies and Campaigns has been able to collect donnations and also sell tickets for the event on-line.

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Search engine Google has announced a new open source development platform for mobile phones.

The Android platform, a result of collaboration between Google, T-Mobile and Motorola, among others, will allow developers to create software for a wide range of mobile devices and comes after much speculation over the rumoured launch of a specific Google phone.

It comprises an operating system, middleware and a user-friendly interface and applications and has been launched with the aim of lowering the cost of mobile handsets and other gadgets for both businesses and consumers.

A total of 34 companies have joined to form the Open Handset Alliance, with the first handsets utilising technologies from the initiative set to launch during the second half of 2008.

‘Today’s announcement is more ambitious than any single ‘Google Phone’ that the press has been speculating about over the past few weeks,’ commented Google chairman and chief executive Eric Schmidt.

‘Our vision is that the powerful platform we’re unveiling will power thousands of different phone models.’

The announcement came shortly after Google announced the release of its OpenSocial platform, which will allow developers to come up with social networking applications for use across the web.

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Search engine giant Google has announced that it is to allow developers to create applications based on its own open system.

The OpenSocial system will enable developers to come up with applications, which will potentially be able to be used across a number of different social networking websites, using three application programming interfaces.

Google’s new initiative follows in the footsteps of Facebook’s highly popular system, where developers can create numerous applications that users can install on their profile pages.

About a dozen OpenSocial partners have been signed up by Google so far, including Friendster, Orkut and LinkedIn.

‘The distribution message is really useful for developers in getting their applications spread across multiple sites,’ Google product manager Joe Kraus told eWeek.

Google was recently trumped by Microsoft in the race to secure a stake in Facebook.

Microsoft eventually paid $240 million (£115 million) for a 1.6 per cent holding, valuing Facebook at $15 billion.

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The first release candidate for WordPress 2.3 is now available.

New User Features

• Tagging (for use in Themes see the_tags and wp_tag_cloud)
• The default Blogroll links to WordPress resources Development, Documentation, Plugins, Ideas, Support, Themes, and Planet WordPress.
• Improved Post and Draft Management using filters
  
• Improved publishing workflow with a new post status of Pending Review
  
• WordPress and plugins updates available notification
  
• If you change the post slug it redirects to the new one

The first release candidate for WordPress 2.3 is now available.

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Researchers have developed a new form of biometric identification that could phase out the use of passwords, pin numbers and credit card numbers.

Scientists at the University of Houston have developed facial recognition software that recreates faces in three dimensions, providing a completely unique identifier.

The URxD application could be used to help people obtain access to secure facilities and authorise credit card transactions, according to the researchers, led by Professor Ioannis Kakadiaris.

‘Pins and passwords are not only inconvenient to memorise, but also are impractical to safeguard,’ he commented, adding: ‘The solution is to be able to tie your private information to your person in a way that cannot be compromised.’

A recent report by research firm Global Industry Analysts suggested that the worldwide market for electronic access systems, including biometric applications, will grow to $6.1 billion (£3 billion) in the next three years.

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