From Googles website

At Google, we want to help developers build better web applications. That’s why we have created APIs and tools to quickly enhance those applications, integrate with Google products and reach millions of users.

That is also why we are holding Google Developer Day.

Google Developer Day is a chance for programmers around the world to meet Googles developer product teams and learn something new be it an introduction to GData or a deep dive into KML. Its also an opportunity for us to listen to you and hear about what youre doing today, what you would like to do in the future and how we can help make that happen.

Whether you are writing an AJAX application with the Google Web Toolkit, integrating Google services through GData or using Google Maps to create geo applications, we hope you will leave Google Developer Day with a new set of building blocks to use in your next project.

Nothing is perfect (and that is why we have QA) by Olivier

“The way a bug was found and fixed in the Feed Validator is not disturbing, I actually think it was an inspiring proof that all the aspects of its QA process worked:

1. There is a public feedback channel (several, indeed) for a problem to be reported to: Brian sent a message to the W3C QA mailing-list, asking whether someone could make sense of the problem he was facing
2. The tool is implementing public specifications: I was able to look at the RSS taxonomy module spec, and compare its prose with the implementation in the Feed validator
3. The validator is open source: 10 minutes of browsing around clear code was enough to find the issue, and create a patch, which was promptly reviewed and applied by Sam Ruby, one of the maintainers of the validator.
4. There is a test suite, to which I submitted a revised test case: now that the bug is fixed, we know that it will never appear again without being spotted automatically.

Time between original feedback and applied patch: about 24 hours.

There is nothing shocking about this bug, but the speed at which it was processed and fixed. Maybe that was lucky, I just happened to have a bit of time to look at the issue and the bug was easy to fix. Other, more complex bugs in tools that we (W3C’s QA Tools development effort) maintain are not so lucky, and indeed Brian is right in pointing out that we could use more help and resources to make our tools better. But I can not agree with his slightly provocative title that Validators Don’t Always Work. The Feed validator works, and so does its Quality Assurance process, as demonstrated in the prompt fixing of a small bug in its implementation of a faulty, not widely used specification.

Validators are extremely important tools for the adoption of technologies, and it is perfectly normal to be concerned about their quality. This is why finding bugs is good news, and the best use of one’s energy is not to worry about them, but to help find them, report them, patch them and build regression test cases for them.

Nothing and noone is perfect, that’s why we have QA.”

From Alice

This was a great example of how things have changed for the better and evolved over time at the W3C when handling issues and bugs but I would also like to stress that there was nothing wrong with the way otherÂbugs and issues were handled in the past.

From the W3C News

“The Web Application Formats Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of Widgets 1.0 Requirements. These design goals are the requirements for device-independent standards for scripting, digitally signing, securing, packaging and deploying client-side Web applications (widgets). Also known as gadgets or modules, widgets are small programs like clocks, stock tickers, news casters, games and weather forecasters that display and update remote data and run on the Web browser environment. Read about Rich Web Clients.”

They have a really great graphic on the W3C web site showing the inner workings of a widget, which is really cool.

Have been using Macromedia software to make my websites since as long as I can remember. Was a little tiffed when I read the headline stating they had sold out to Adobe. I had hoped Google would have bought them and gave away the software for free, not that I do no think it is not worth every penny if not double it’s going rate, but I wanted the world to be able to use the best web authoring software in the universe so the web would be a better place. One of the programs I love in the Studio 8 package is Flash Professional 8 it has so many features and works well with other programs like Swishmax. For making mobile web applications like games websites and animations and a ton of other great things but that is what I use it mostly for and reccommend anyone looking to start amking mobile content to check out this software first before buying or even trying another program.

It’s fashion season! The ubiquitous “valid” icons, present at the bottom of about half a trillion Web pages in their signature “gold” color, now also come in W3C-ish blue.

In addition to the usual two raster image formats (PNG and GIF), the icons are now also available as vector graphics (SVG and EPS).

The full list can be browsed on the W3C QA website.

By Molly E. Holzschlag

This article has been written on behalf of the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) and has been cross posted on The Web Standards Project, Lachys Log, Molly.com and 456 Berea Street.

There has been a lot of discussion about the W3Cs recent decision to continue the development of HTML around the web lately. Blog posts, and messages that have been sent to mailing lists or posted on forums, revealed many questions and misconceptions about the future of HTML (including HTML 5 and XHTML 2), the WHATWG and the W3Cs new HTML Working Group.

Some people asked for new features; others were wondering if formerly deprecated elements would return; some had comments and criticisms about the decision itself, the WHATWG or W3C process; and a few raised concerns about the WHATWG and W3C ignoring the needs of particular groups. The WHATWG, who are in the process of developing the next version of HTML (called HTML 5), feel that it’s important to not only listen to all of this feedback, but to actively seek it out and respond so that we can develop a language that meets your needs.

There are many ways in which you can participate. The most direct approach is to make your voice heard by subscribing to the mailing list. However, not everyone has the time to participate, or keep up with the high volume of messages sent to that list. Some people feel that the current drafts of HTML 5 (Web Applications and Web Forms) are rather daunting. Others feel that because they can not afford the substantial W3C membership fees, they would not be listened to anyway.

A group of organisations including IBM, Mozilla, Zimbra and Dojo have announced a project to develop a common set of AJAX interfaces, plugins and widgets for Eclipse. The project is aimed at providing a common target for tools developers to support, as opposed to the myriad open source and proprietary toolkits and libraries available today.

You can read more on the Dojo projects site

The Mobile Web Initiative’s goal is to make browsing the Web from mobile devices a reality, explains Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the Web. W3C and mobile industry leaders are working together to improve Web content production and access for mobile users and the greater Web.

I could not write it any better so I used a paragraph from the homepage just wanted to let all those interested in the Mobile Web to start here they have listings of working group discussions, events and news and more related to the Mobile Web. They also have a great blog

The W3C validator is a great tool. It allows developers to quickly and easily find and fix the inevitable problems that creep into any markup document.

As well as the quick and easy version, the advanced interface allows you to get a more verbose output. Until recently, one of the options was to view an outline of the document being validated. I found this feature very useful: I could see at a glance whether or not the order of my headings (H1, H2, etc.) made sense.

A little while back, the outline functionality disappeared. This was not deliberate, but it turns out that it was due for deletion anyway. There is actually a different dedicated service for examining the semantic structure of documents: the semantic data extractor. This tool will do outlining and more. Personally, I think it is a bit of a shame that validation and outlining have been split into two different services, but both services are immensely useful in their own right.

For a quick and easy way to validate the current document in your browser, drag this bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar and click on it whenever you want to run a check:

Validate this

Here is a bookmarklet to do semantic data extraction:

Extract semantic data

If you need to do batch validation, check out this desktop validator, which is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.

But do not forget that the W3C validator is there for your benefit. If you think it can be improved in any way, be sure to give your feedback. Consider joining the mailing list, or simply hanging out in the IRC channel, #validator on the freenode network.

If you can contribute to the ongoing improvement of the validator, you’ll be in good company. Sir Tim Berners-Lee recently said:

The validator I think is a really valuable tool both for users and in helping standards deployment. I’d like it to check (even) more stuff, be (even) more helpful, and prioritize carefully its errors, warning and mild chidings. I’d like it to link to an explanations of why things should be a certain way.

The W3C validator is already a great tool. With the help of developers like you, it can become even greater

The New Voyagers – Find Information about Web standards

Voyager 1, already the most distant human-made object in the cosmos, reaches 100 astronomical units from the sun on Tuesday, August 15 at 5:13 p.m. Eastern time (2:13 p.m. Pacific time). That means the spacecraft, which launched nearly three decades ago, is 100 times more distant from the sun than Earth is.

It is often quite difficult to find information related to your domain of activity. Weblogs are pouring information about technologies: opinions, rants, technical details, jokes, everyone is taking a part of it. But you need a probe to travel from planet to planet, some Web sites are aggregating this content. Here comes a list a of resources we are using:

• HTML and CSS
• Mobile Web Initiative
• Apache: HTTP (for this one it would be good to fix the links.)
• Semantic Web
• Semantic Web (French)
• SVG
• Mozilla