Table of contents: issue42

Mozilla Firefox for Rapid Web Development and Testing

editor — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Patrick Lauke takes a quick look at Firefox, the new browser released by the Mozilla Foundation, and points out useful features and extensions for Web developers.

Mozilla Firefox [1] is a free, open-source Web browser based on the Mozilla codebase.

Version 1.0 was recently released after two years of development, so now may be a good time to evaluate this browser's capabilities.

"Out of the box" Mozilla Firefox offers a variety of features catering to both occasional Web surfers and power users. The more advanced functionality can be particularly noted as a real time saver during the Web development process.

Looking for a Google Box?

editor — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Sebastian Rahtz gives us his evaluation of the Google Search Appliance.

Most Web sites of any size want to offer a facility to perform a free-text search of their content. While we all at least claim to believe in the possibilities of the semantic web, and take care over our navigation aids and sitemaps, we know that sooner or later our readers want to type 'hedgehog' into a search box. Yes, even http://www.microsoft.com [1] returns plenty of hits if you try this.

Web Focus: Experiences of Using a Wiki for Note-taking at a Workshop

editor — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Brian Kelly describes how the Wikalong Wiki tool was used to support note-taking at a workshop.

Wikis: are they the latest cool Web technology or a pointless tool which merely duplicates features provided in content management systems and virtual learning environments? I have heard both views expressed recently. To some extent both views have some validity: a Wiki is a technology which has been adopted initially by those in Web developer communities (such as the Semantic Web community) to enable collaborative documents to be produced quickly and easily.