Im really glad to say that the IE8 dev team have reversed their position and have decided that IE8 will run in the most standards compliant mode by default.
This is great news and a step in the right direction.
Sites requiring different compatibility modes will need to use a meta tag to tell IE how it should render the page. It’s good to see that the team really do give a rats arse what’s going on and are, at least in part, listening to the community’s views on the subject.

You can read more details on the IE blog and on Ajaxian

Technorati Tags: IE8, Compatibility

I was reading an older post from Ajaxian yesterday which introduced WaveMaker an open source Drag and drop browser based Ajax application builder. I watched the demo this morning and it looks pretty good. Building a user interface that is hooked into different data sources is a breeze and you can easily test your app as you go along to make sure you are getting the results you need.

If you have used a RAD development tool before you’ll feel at home with a tool pallete on the left and a properties box on the right. In the demo a three tabbed application was built that hooked into a mySQL database and web services as well as a custom service written within WaveMaker studio.

It certainly is feature rich. When you are done developing the app and want to distribute you can easilly create a jar file at the end which you can distribute.

If, like me you are not so hot on the java front this may be a good way to learn some new stuff, but as a dev studio this looks pretty cool indeed.

Technorati Tags: WaveMaker, Ajax

Scott Guthrie has posted some nice details on the upcoming Silverlight 2 public beta.  Interestingly this version is touted to be cross browser and cross platform with the inclusion of a .NET framework that will allow it to be so. I didn’t see mention of Linux but Mac OSX and windows (obviously) were mentioned, hopefully there has been decent collaboration with the Mono guy’s to allow the linux compatibility also.

This release focuses on RIA development so I guess they are targeting Adobe Air with this version time will tell if this is the case. It certainly looks to have a few nice features in there and I like the fact that the silverlight download has everything you need to enable all the features and get it running.

Aparently Beta 1 is a 4.3MB download that takes 4-10 seconds to install on a machine that doesn’t already have it. Scott has also included a tutorial to help us all get up and running and wil be posting more as it nears release.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight 2, WPF

It’s been almost a week now since I attended the focus on imaging show at the NEC Birmingham and I realised I didn’t write an entry. If you are not aware of focus, it’s pretty much a show for Photographers. The latest camera’s printing technology and imaging software is all on show along with new framing ideas. There’s a big orientation to the pro photographer of course but it’s great to go along and pick up a bargain or two while you rub shoulders with some of the best photographers in the business.

Last year I picked up a Pantone Huey to calibrate my monitor, a very nice piece of kit that allows you to get decent calibration on a budget. This year I set my sights a bit higher. I bought a Sigma lens from the show a couple of years ago, a nice super zoom that has been an absolute joy to use, this year I was determined to get a wide-angle lens as I have been itching for one almost since I bought my current camera. My brother-in-law had managed to borrow one a couple of weeks back and the results were stunning.

So 10 minutes after arriving at the show we both had a shiny new Sigma 10-20mm USM lens in the bag.  The lens retails at about £300 in the shops and you can get it for £289-ish online, the show price saved us a tenner on that so we were both happy bunnies.

Canon were at the show this year displaying all their latest models and I got a chance to take a look at the new EOS 450D a 12 mega Pixel model with anti-Dust technology built in. It’s small light and has a huge LCD screen on it. It looks a little more like the pro models but in minature, and has borrowed technology from the EOS 1D.

The show itself had a couple of common themes, Black and White is definitely in vogue, as are acrylic frames, mount cutters and photo books. There were some nice images on show and a couple of them got me inspired a bit.

Of course, having last week off work was very useful as I managed to get out into the Peak District, where I live, and get snapping. A couple of the pictures have made it onto my Photo Gallery already.

Focus is on every February so if you live in the UK and are into Photography, I highly recommend it.

Technorati Tags: Focus on imaging