Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Friday, November 1, 2002

Native SVG in Mozilla -- Comment()
I have been using OmniWeb as my principal browser, and Mozilla as my secondary choice. The advanced features of Mozilla are making me use it more and more. Today I learned about the native SVG in Mozilla:

The Mozilla SVG implementation is a native SVG implementation. This is as opposed to plug-in SVG viewers such as the Adobe viewer (which is currently the most popular SVG viewer).
Some of the implications of this are:

Mozilla can handle documents that contain SVG, MathML, XHTML, XUL, etc. all mixed together in the same 'compound' document. This is being made possible by using XML namespaces.
Mozilla is 'aware' of the SVG content. It can be accessed through the SVG DOM (which is compatible with the XML DOM) and manipulated by Mozilla's script engine.
Other Mozilla technologies can be used with SVG. XBL coupled with SVG is a particular interesting combination. It can be used to create graphical widgets or extend Mozilla to recognize other specialized languages such as e.g. CML (chemical markup language). There are samples of these kinds of more advanced usage patterns on http://croczilla.com/svg/.

-- Comment()
Mac OS, SCO, Tru64 Are Safest OSes: "The Apple Macintosh, SCO Unix and Hewlett-Packard Tru64 Unix operating systems are the platforms least prone to hacker attacks and damages from viruses and worms, according to a study released Thursday by security firm mi2g." [Google Technology News]

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) -- Comment()
I saw today an impresive demo of an SVG-based www application. SVG is an XML-based format for publishing scalable (and scriptable) graphics on the web. On Mac OS X, Mozilla (versio 1.2a) managed to show and print SVG without downloading any additional plug-ins. For IE you probable need to download software from Adobe.

The best feature of the format: you can generate SVG files from your programs, and also post-process and combine SVG files using XML tools. The new versions of FreeHand and Illustrator can edit SVG files. You can also render (with freely available tools) SVG graphics into JPEG, GIF, or PDF files, if you want. But many features (such as zooming, scripting and editability) are then lost. Here and here you find some SVG examples. There is also SVG FAQ. And you can test the SVG rendering of your browser.

Windows is a cult? -- Comment()
Yesterday I talked for some time with a senior university researcher I have known for several years. He asked questions on how to get certain Unix codes running on Mac OS X (the codes used OpenGL for graphics).

The researcher mentioned that he was unable to get help from the IT support people, because they were a kind of cult, familiar with only the Windows world. They were unable to cope with anything outside their scope. I'm not sure how usual this is, but perhaps there is something cult-like in the Windows support in many places: "I'm the expert and I know how things have to be done."

-- Comment()
How Apple Is Expanding Its Universe: "OS X is good, but its promise is even better. Think of Apple's new operating system as a launch pad for an arsenal of new technologies. These features will change not only Macs but PCs, too, as their makers follow Apple's lead in innovation." [osOpinion]