Complete Web Guide: 2008

2008/07/30

Mozilla FireFox 3

Mozilla FireFox 3
After months of testing, Firefox 3 (code name Gran Paradiso) is available for download from Mozilla. With its new Gekko 1.9 engine, the browser rocks, rendering pages faster and uses fewer system resources overall. As with any new browser, some add-ons created for Firefox 2 may not work, but give them time. Firefox 3 touts faster rendering, a vastly reduced use of system resources, and clever new data-mining tools for your bookmarks and browser history. Most notable is that Firefox 3 includes many security-related features baked right in, such as the best of breed antiphishing protection, making Firefox the most secure browser on the market today.

Firefox 3 touts faster rendering, vastly reduced use of system resources, clever new data-mining tools for your bookmarks and browser history, and more security features than any other browser.

With its new Gekko 1.9 engine, the browser rocks, rendering pages faster and uses fewer system resources overall. As with any new browser, some add-ons created for Firefox 2 may not work, but give them time. Firefox 3 touts faster rendering, a vastly reduced use of system resources, and clever new data-mining tools for your bookmarks and browser history. Most notable is that Firefox 3 includes many security-related features baked right in, such as the best of breed antiphishing protection, making Firefox the most secure browser on the market today.

Firefox 3 now provides a native look and feel (for example, the Linux version matches the Linux user interface), and smooth scrolling of open browser tabs. What will draw the eye are more icons near and within the address bar itself. A company logo, if available, will appear before the URL; after the URL there's the new one-click bookmark star and the familiar RSS icon. Other tweaks include those to the Password manager, Add-Ons manager, and Download manager.

Returning within Firefox 3 are several core features, such as Sessions Restore, built-in spell checking, integrated search, pop-up blocker, clear private data, and automated behind-the-scenes updates.

Enhancements within Firefox 3 include changes to the Add-Ons manager. Now Firefox presents a list of popular Add-Ons without redirecting your browser to a Web page. From the manager you can install the recommended Add-Ons directly. There is still a link to the addons.mozilla.org page where you can find more than 5,000 add-ons written for Firefox. Another enhancement is within the Download Manager. Mozilla has added search and improved the ability to start and resume downloads.

For developers there are new Web-based content handlers, greater search engine keyword support, a new password manager, something called Extension Manager (EM), the beginnings of an intentity network, better integration with Mac OS X's look and feel, some offline applications support, and site specific preferences. There's also an early look at FUEL (Firefox User Extension Library), a JavaScript library designed to make it easier for extension developers by minimizing XPCOM formality and using more "modern" JavaScript ideas.

As for performance, Firefox 3 does significantly reduce the amount of system resources used when compared with Firefox 2. That alone makes Firefox 3 a worthy upgrade. Throughout our informal testing at CNET, Firefox 3 has been stable enough for day-to-day office use since Beta 5. Although there have been some minor, intermittent glitches when accessing Google-related pages, those problems appear to have been addressed in the final release. The performance, features, and security make Firefox 3 stand out as the best Internet browser available today.

Please note that starting from version 3, FireFox will no longer support Windows 95, 98, and Me; same with Mac OS X, versions 10.2 and earlier.

Mozilla Firefox 3 for Windows

Even though Internet Explorer dominates the Web browser market, you might wonder why if you spend some time with Mozilla Firefox. This light and nimble Web wonder brought tabbed browsing into the mainstream (IE7 recently jumped on the bandwagon) and offers countless ways to customize it through extensions and themes.

Mozilla Firefox 3 for Mac

Though it's difficult to unseat Safari as the preferred browser of Mac users, Mozilla Firefox garners attention through its solid design and extra features, making it a worthy alternative.

Source: C|NET

2008/04/09

Book Review: Mastering Joomla! 1.5

Mastering Joomla! 1.5
Extension and Framework Development
Author: James Kennard
Published by Packt Publishing (November 7, 2007)
ISBN: 1847192823

Recently, a PHP class of mine was nominated to PHP Programming Innovation Award. Thanks to that, I was honoured with a prize of my choice. I have chosen this book because I use Joomla and followed the evolution between 1.X to 1.5.

As anybody using Joomla will know, the platform went through some pretty steep changes for the better, so the online documentation is a bit unhandy to use. Planning to write a few extensions for sites I host, I was looking for a book that could at least be in part a replacement for this documentation.

As I went through Packt's site, my eyes fell on this particular book because of the example chapter they make available for free. Now that I got the book, I am in no way disappointed with it.

In a first look at the book you can see it offers clear tables and lists. It is accompanied with a lot of examples on how to use and implement the Joomla framework to build your own extensions.

In my opinion you can use the book in two ways: either as a complete piece of course-ware that teaches you step by step to use the framework, or as a kind of reference manual of the framework classes.

The book is targeted to the PHP developers who want to understand Joomla with a view to advanced customization or extension development. In my opinion it might have been a good idea to state in the book that a good knowledge of PHP and working with classes and objects is an important requirement.

When I look at a many of the available extensions in the the Joomla Web site and see how they are written, I think that some people will have a hard time getting into the book, or at least get a good understanding of all the concepts. Besides that, for professional developers, the book is a great help. It may help shedding some light on subjects that otherwise you would have to make some effort find help in forums or other resources.

James Kennard has chosen a logical approach for the content of the book, starting off with an introduction to Joomla before he proceeds explaining how to start of with extension development. Most important here is the introduction to the main classes and the coding standards.

After this he quickly enters important matters by tackling the database structure. That is one of the most important aspects of Joomla. Database access was one of the most important changes in Joomla 1.5. It became more secure but database access has also become easier, as long as you stick to the principles laid out in this chapter.

After this James tackles the framework components and especially the MVC setup of components. I never heard about this until the development of Joomla 1.5, but its refreshing logic made me an advocate. Get into it and you will probably start rewriting anything you ever developed, even outside of Joomla. I go strictly MVC now.

The next three chapters focus on modules, plug-ins and extension design. These chapters give a clear picture of the place of your code and how it should interact within Joomla.

The next most important chapter teaches how to render your extensions output. There is no use of having your code do things without showing anything, right?

This chapter shows clearly how you may use templates in your code before stepping into the next chapter that shows how to customise pages and take care of translations and Javascript effects.

The following chapter shows how to use Web services and and ever so popular APIs. It shows you how to incorporate AJAX, LDAP or email into your project, but also covers Web services of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Do you like to toy with XML? This is definitely a chapter you should not miss.

Then we move on to another winner, a chapter about error handling and security. This is chapter is worth every penny you have to pay for the book. Look at it as if you are getting the rest for free.

Most security problems arise of poor programming. This chapter points out how you can make your extension as secure as possible. SQL injection exploits have been and still are a major source of problems on any platform. Here you find info on how to prevent this from your code, as well how to use error handling and access control lists (ACLs) in Joomla.

The last chapter is filled with goodies in the form of utilities and useful classes. Here you will find a lot of info about date and time handling in Joomla, the special helper class, and how to make use of the JLog class.

At the end of the book there is the appendix. It is certainly not the least useful part of the book. It offers a detailed look at the core classes, parameters and configuration of Joomla. It is organized in a way that it can be used as a easy accessible reference during development.

Since Joomla is very dynamic in its development, James points out that additional info can be found on api.joomla.org. I think this means the book presents additions and erratas in this appendix as much as possible. And this is like it should be for any good book.

I am very happy with this addition to my book collection, if you develop for Joomla it is a must have. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give it a all round 9 (I do not give 10).

In sum, this book will help you to quickly learn how to write extraordinary Joomla extensions that otherwise would be hard to find. James Kennard shares his knowledge of the Joomla framework in a clear and understandable way.

Reviewed by R.L. Renkema

Customer review from Amazon.com (by C. Webb):
I recently read "Mastering Joomla! 1.5 Extension and Framework Development" by James Kennard, and I must say I really enjoyed it. Every time I read a book about Joomla! framework and extension development, I get all sorts of new ideas. This time was no exception. The book provides a thorough description of the topics surrounding Joomla! 1.5 extension development, and it is a great reference book. I would not recommend reading the book cover-to-cover, but I think it is a great resource to have handy when attempting to develop extensions for Joomal! 1.5. The book was written for experience PHP developers who already have a working knowledge of Joomla! For those wanting to learn Joomla! extension devleopment, I recommend starting with Joe Leblanc's book, "Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development", and having "Mastering Joomla! 1.5 Extension and Framework Development" as a reference for getting more in depth with the framework.

2008/01/10

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