Web building – Page 16

Goplan supports microformats

I’ve been playing around with Goplan and really like the feature set so far. One of the invisible features that is now visible thanks to a post by Fred Oliveira is their support for microformats — namely hCalendar:

I’d like to take some time to highlight the icalendar integration and microformats support. We’ve been fans of the Microformats project for quite a while, and are working on bringing Microformat compability for events (in the calendar, as well as due tasks) and people. This allows us to provide developers with more ways to export project-related data. For more information on microformats, see the microformats project homepage.

This is smart development. Though it might not seem entirely obvious how Goplan users can take advantage of this small addition, over time I think we’ll see excellent integration with tools like Greasemonkey, browser scripts and user styles or rendering engines. Can OpenID support be far off?

Exposing microformats

After getting a new tool for composing microformats, we now have a new technique for exposing those newly minted microformatted hcards.

Jon Hicks has created expose-mf.css as a browser CSS add-on that will reveal hcards inline, as opposed to external to the page, like Tails.

While there are some obvious bugs, this technique demonstrates how revealing embedding microformats in webpages can become a great tool for data discovery and manipulation.

Outfoxed tries going Lijit

Browser-based trust aggregator Outfoxed has been rebranded as Lijit and launched a new beta site (built on Drupal — which seems to be having some issues… ah well).

Lijit essentially allows you to connect with friends and based on how much you trust them, use them or their connections to filter search results or “advise you” on the legitimacy of any arbitrary website. You can sign up for the beta on the homepage.

Goplan offers competition to bellwether Basecamp

GoPlan logo I got an invite from the good folks at WebBreakStuff today to check out Goplan, their latest product beta (but it’s apparently not a beta).

If you’re not on the invite list, you can go check out their Flickr set or mine (very cool to offer that, by the way).

The base feature set includes Notes, Blog, Calendar, Tickets, Tasks, Files and Campfire-like Chat rooms. When creating new Projects, you can select which of these features that you want to include.

I have to say that I love the feel of this app… if they can offer single sign-on with something like OpenID and Microformats, I think I’ll be in love. Or infatuated at least. For a little while.

There are a few quirks (like the Add Event form and date validation) but the biggest problem so far seems to be adding other users… unless it’s a project space of one, this might be the loneliest collaboration software I’ve ever seen! 😉

So bottom line — Basecamp still has the edge, but with competition like this (no word on the pricing model yet), I’m eager to see how these loose pieces coming together can help empower the independents really building the future of the web.

. . .

While I’m at it, I should shout out to Fred and co. for organizing a very successful BarCamp in Portugal. Perhaps the most inspiring result of this event relates directly to Goplan:

The event was a success and made us consider working closer to the portuguese IT market – something we’ve been kinda skeptical about mainly because it always seemed like it wasn’t ready for the kind of services we offer. Check out the event photos over at Flickr.

If BarCamp can bring a tighter focus on local communities outside the valley, that’s a true accomplishment, and a goal that we set for the event from the very beginning.

We are not robots

Microsoft has delivered what looks to be its competitor to iLife, codenamed MicrosoftMax (a codename is kind of like saying “beta”, except that they can change the name and confuse you later on). And by “competitor to iLife”, I’m looking squarely at the Podcasting, Photocasting and SafariRSS features and product.

According to Niall, it features news displayed in a newspaper layout and two-pane interface, a bit different approach than many other aggregators on the market.

Sounds also like an attack on Google’s Reader but what do I know? I can’t install it on my Mac anyway.

Anyway, Flock might also take note, since this technology does indeed, from the outside, look pretty attractive — and hints at more to come in the realm of syndicated content in Vista and beyond.

Oh, and the team building it are not robots, according to their own reports.

Where Revver’s API?

Video-blog site Revver claims to have an API. But where’re the docs? Am I missing something? Is an API an API if it’s not open?

Meanwhile, work on Blip’s API continues unabated.

LinkedIn refreshes?

Hey hey, anyone else notice that LinkedIn is sporting some fancy new Web 2.0 gradients and open white space? Just in time for OpenBC’s OpenDesign contest conclusion!

Too bad they didn’t get on the microformats tip. Kinda seems like a waste of effort without them, don’t it?

Mootools released

In my continuing campaign to make AJAX + XHTML + CSS the future of application development, I wanted to point out the release of Mootools, an excellent compilation of scripts that perform a subset of things similar to Dojo, but is a much smaller library that’s a bit more accessible to code against. Digg and enjoy.

PimpMyHTML

The Multipack are throwing a Zen Garden-esque contest called PimpMyHTML. They really should have called it PimpMyMicroformats given that they’re using the follow microformats:

The rules are pretty straight forward, and as I’m a fan of constraints and AJAX+CSS+XHTML, I’m looking forward to the entries:

You can’t change the HTML at all.
Use Best Practices of both CSS and JavaScript.
Limited to a maximum of 20kb of JavaScript.
No more than 5 image files can be used. (If you use your noggin, this isn’t much of a problem.)

And as you’re limited in filesize, it might be worth your while to go check out the forthcoming Mootools and read up on some ideas on exploiting CSS instead of using JavaScript. And while you’re at it, Molly has two articles on microformats definitely worth a gander.

OmniWeb 5.5 out, based on WebKit

Moving off of outmoded WebCore, The Omni Group has come out with OmniWeb 5.5, based on WebKit. In my tests, it still has some bugginess loading certain websites, but on the whole, it’s a solid browser that I find using as my trusty secondary (after Camino, of course).

This release is important because it adds yet another to the growing stable of WebKit browsers in the wild.

It also sets a number or precedents with regards to visual tabs, customizing your surfing experience web-wide or at the individual site level and adds RSS subscriptions to its standard feature set. It’s still not the perfect browser, but it’s certainly a contender (though with a $30 price tag, I’m not sure anyone but Omni fans will be willing to ante up with so many decent competitors out there).