There are two types of technical books. Reference manuals are useful; you always have them to hand, and you can jump in and find a particular page which gives you the stuff you need to know. They're an indispensable reference tool, unless, say, you have access to the internet. Then, well, maybe they're not as handy. On the other hand, there's the other sort of technical book; the sort that's a pleasure to read in itself, and you only realised you've learned things afterwards. Such a book is Introducing HTML 5, by Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp. As they say at the beginning of the introduction: welcome to the Remy and Bruce show. The book manages to be both a thorough introduction to the swathe of modern and new web technologies masquerading under the name of "HTML5", and a personal voice which comments on the state of web development today and in the near future. The tl;dr summary for people who don't want to read the rest: good web book is good. Get it.

The book successfully and intelligently covers the new markup in HTML5 (nav/header/section/article, new input types in forms, and WAI-ARIA accessibility) as well as the vast proliferation of new APIs available to modern web applications (canvas, multimedia, offline storage, workers, and geolocation, among others), drawing on the authors' experience of user questions and articles at their html5doctor site. Fortunately, it's not a hagiography, and they don't hesitate to stick the boot in where it's warranted; the current mess that is native drag-and-drop support in browsers and the ridiculous codec war inherent in online video both come in line for a justified kicking. Each chapter covers its material in decent detail, without devolving into a mere list of APIs; the book is full of both worked examples and links to relevant extra resources. Unusually for a book of this type, the examples are fairly real-world; instead of a contrived writeup to show off a feature, they show how to mark up the home page of the Guardian newspaper with HTML5 elements.

Conspicuously missing from the book are the major changes to CSS currently being implemented in browsers. A chapter covering the transform and similar CSS3 declarations (-webkit-transform, -moz-transform, and the like) would have fit nicely, and it's a shame that this wasn't covered -- yes, it's a book about HTML5, not CSS3, but the authors themselves admit that by "HTML5" they actually mean "HTML5 and related specifications that came from the WHATWG", and they throw in geolocation just because "it's really cool". Advances in CSS which give dynamic effects not only would fit well with the other subject matter but would also make a few of the examples perhaps easier.

The canvas chapter doesn't bring much more than innumerable web pages covering the basics of the canvas API for drawing, but it covers those basics well and in a readable way. Importantly, there's also a discussion of the difference between using the canvas element for drawing and using SVG, and when you'd choose one rather than the other. It's been difficult to find that sort of summary; it's equally difficult to decide yourself which to use for some new project, and the chapter's sidebar (or <aside>?) discussion of "when to use which" clarified the distinction well, especially when going beyond reimplementations of Super Mario Bros inside the browser.

All is not sweetness and light, mind. The data storage chapter, explaining how to use HTML5's new in-the-browser storage objects, breathlessly explains that this means an end to cookies (which are "rubbish" according to the authors). However, this is where their client-side bias seems to be coming through. Cookies are shared with the server, too; snazzy HTML5 storage is not. Any even reasonably detailed web application will have a substantial server component, and abandoning cookies will make it jolly hard to have the server and the front-end share data. This does seem rather like excitement over the new tech without thinking about how it can actually be used in real-world situations, and is disappointing from a book which goes out of its way to give suggestions that are actually useful to people.

Another area the book falls down is in its editing: there are typos scattered throughout the text (including in a heading in the introduction, for goodness' sake!) and these should have been caught by an editor; noticing them distracts the reader from the material, and it's a schoolboy error which damages the impact of the book.

I know both the authors, and they're both well-known and respected in the web development community; Introducing HTML5 does them credit, and it's worth your time. Go forth, get Introducing HTML5, and make great web stuff.

Hi guys,

I have talked briefly about a new project I wanted to undertake and so here it is!

‘wasiliana’ verb: communicate (swahili)

Wasiliana is a new email client that specifically targets small-form-factor devices such as netbooks. It combines the flexibility and beauty of HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript, with the speed and extensibility of Genie/Vala.

Not only will the design be beautiful, but it shall be practical, especially on small devices.

I am still in exams and so haven’t started coding yet but I have made some mockups and there is a video of a prototype I made.

Launchpad Page
https://launchpad.net/wasiliana

Mockups (5)

http://and471.deviantart.com/gallery/#Wasiliana

Video of Prototype

I was inspired to make this as I have yet to see any mail client that really delivers on a netbook.

Programs such as Anjal have gone in the right direction, but in has the hindrance of being based on bloated Evolution and trying to still use GTK widgets. I also believe current mail clients have it all wrong when it comes to design regarding contacts etc. and so I wanted an opportunity to fix this.

My mockups were obviously inspired by the great danRabbit and they use the elementary icons. I am not ready to begin coding but if anyone is interested/wants to find out more, please don’t hesitate to contact me via the comments below.

Any comments?

This is more a memo to myself than anything else.

I want an app on my phone that displays my Ubuntu One stuff; notes, files, contacts, that sort of thing.

I do not want to have to write it in Java. Nor do I want to have to port it to Objective-C so iPhone people can have it. I want to write an HTML5 app, because then it works everywhere, there's only one codebase, and (critically) I can do it.

Data in Ubuntu One is stored in CouchDB (well, files aren't, but let's leave files out of this for now; they'll work a similar way). CouchDB is all HTTP. So it should be possible to write an HTML5 app that retrieves my data from CouchDB.

Problem 1: an HTML5 app can't access CouchDB on another server, because JavaScript can't request data from another server.

Solution 1: Cross Origin Request Sharing, a W3C spec. Implemented by Firefox 3.5 and by the WebKit in my Nexus One, at least.

I want my app to work offline, of course. I shouldn't have to be online to read my notes.

Problem 2: web apps don't work offline, they're web apps.

Solution 2: use a manifest. Checklist, an HTML5 app, does this beautifully.

But how does the phone store data offline? That's not even worthy of a "problem" statement; offline HTML5 storage has been available for ages.

How does one authenticate to Ubuntu One to get the right data? Well, we use OAuth, deliberately because it enables this sort of thing. So that's all doable, too.

It feels rather like all these different puzzle pieces are slotting together. And that I have another project to write. Game on.

Sebagai kelanjutan tulisan saya terdahulu, sekarang saya ingin mencoba salah satu fitur HTML5 yaitu Video, dalam hal ini saya mencoba 2 format, yang pertama adalah Ogg Video.

Format video Ogg adalah format yang selalu saya gunakan dalam merender video dari Pitivi dimana hasilnya saya unggah ke youtube.com. Dalam tulisan ini saya menggunakan hasil rekaman Ultah ke 3 anak saya.

eh… omong2 ultah… todays my birthday…

Anyway… browser compatibilty video berformat Ogg adalah sebagai berikut :
1. Out of the box untuk
– Firefox 3.5+ (sudah saya coba di FF 3.6)
– Opera 10.50 (saya mencoba Opera 10.10 dan tidak berhasil)
– Chrome 3.0+ (sudah saya coba di Chrome 5.0)
2. Safari perlu menginstal XiphQT
3. IE perlu menginstal vlc plugin

Format kedua yang saya sediakan adalah MP4, katanya sih browser Safari dan Webkit lainnya di Mac bisa langsung memainkan Video tersebut (mungkin temen2 yang pakai Safari di Mac bisa kasih feedback setelah mencoba tautan di bawah)

Agar kedua format tersebut diproses dengan benar oleh Web Server, telebih dahulu saya memastikan apakah masing2 Mime Type sudah teregister… perintah

wisu@silver:~$ cat /etc/mime.types | grep “ogg\|mp4″

memberikan keluaran sebagai berikut

application/ogg ogg ogx
audio/mp4a-latm
audio/ogg oga spx
video/mp4 mp4
video/ogg ogv
video/mp4v-es

ternyata server Hardy Heron saya telah mengenali ogg video dan mp4 tanpa harus melakukan modifikasi.

Langkah berikutnya adalah menempatkan file2 ultahsekar.ogv dan ultahsekar.mp4 serta file video.html berikut

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Mencoba HTML5 Video</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Mencoba HTML5 Video</h2>
<video type=video/ogg src="ultahsekar.ogv" controls>
<video type=video/mp4 src="ultahsekar.mp4" controls>
<p>Browser anda tidak men-support HTML5 Ogg/MP4 video.</p>
</video>
</body>
</html>

ke salah satu direktori di webserver, sehingga hasilnya bisa anda coba pada tautan berikut : Video

Keren juga… hanya sedikti code dan nggak perlu Flash…

Update 8 Feb 2010: Iseng coba akses dari Chrome di Debian Lenny pakai kernel AMD64… lancar jaya… tanpa flash…