A new version of my Vista-like Ajax Calendar (vlaCalendar) has been released:
version 2.1 is made compatible with MooTools installment, version 1.2, and offers some new features:

Documentation, examples, and the download are available here.

If you made a new style (theme) for the calendar and you want to share it, send it to rcz<at>base86.com. If you used the calendar and/or datepicker some where, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know by adding a comment!

Update September 6, 2008: VlaCalendar version 2.1.1 released. Minor changes in the PHP code.

Today is the Firefox 3 download day: Help Mozilla to set a Guinness World Record by downloading Firefox 3 by 11:16 a.m. PDT (18:16 UTC) today!

The initial start time was 19:16 on 17th of June but due to heavy server load on the start of the download day servers went down. Anywho the servers are back up. At the time of writing the counter is at 5,700,000 total downloads!

And it's fast! And more secure, has more performance, has more features (working zoom, eat that IE7!), is better personalizable. What are you waiting for?!

Grab Firebug for Firefox 3 while you're at it.

Update: The download day is over and they exceeded 8 million downloads in a 24 hour period! Guinness World Records is currently validating the record attempt.
Update: How sweet, the IE team send a cake.
Update: Btw, Opera 9.5 was also released.
Update July 3, 2008: 'We' set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in 24 hours with 8,002,530 downloads!

At first I wanted to make the vlaCalendar compatible with mootools 1.2 when its gets out of beta stage. After receiving lot of emails and comments from people wanting to use the calendar with the beta version, I decided to make vlaCalender v2 also compatible with mootools 1.2 beta2!

New mootools 1.2 beta2 compatible files are added to the download packages.

Update June 10, 2008: Working on mootools release 1.2 compatibility
Update July 2, 2008: vlaCalendar version 2.1 released, compatible with mootools release 1.2

A new version of my Vista-like Ajax Calendar (vlaCalendar) has been released!

The vlaCalendar is a unobtrusive web version of the slick and profound Windows Vista taskbar calendar, by use of the mootools javascript framework, AJAX, XHTML, CSS and PHP.

Key features:

New features in version 2:

The Vista-like Ajax Calendar version 2 script is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 3.0 License.

Documentation, including (code) examples, and the download are available here.

Update June 04, 2008: Added mootools 1.2 beta2 compatibility
Update June 10, 2008: Working on mootools release 1.2 compatibility
Update July 2, 2008: vlaCalendar version 2.1 released, compatible with mootools release 1.2

As you may have noticed: the site has a new look. I've gotten tired of the old design, its useless features and crappy code.

This new design has a reduction of 40% lines of HTML code and uses the lightweight mootools javascript framework, instead of the heavier Protoype, combined with script.aculo.us, framework. Still tweaking the looks. If you have any comments on the new layout please leave them behind.

Ow yeah I did not pay too much attention to IE6 and older. With success: no nervous breakdown this time.

During my internship I dived into the world called (automatic) testing. As a PHP webdeveloper this was a totally unknown area. Testing is a common iteration in medium to big software projects (usually talking about .NET and Java projects), using iterative Agile oriented methods. Even some of our species swear by test driven development; making tests first and then code.

When testing relatively simple web projects, as 'simple' website developers, it usually comes down to basic functional black box testing. But have you ever endlessly tested registration forms by filling out hundreds of fields by hand? And have you ever changed a minor detail and later came to the conclusion it broke the whole form process? If this sounds familiar automatic testing brings the solution.

Yesterday Microsoft unveiled the first beta version of Internet Explorer 8. Promised is, that this version includes better predictability when designing sites, full support for CSS 2.1 at release to manufacturing, and integrated developer tools to quickly debug HTML, CSS and scripts in a 'visual environment'. “A lot of the end user or consumer features are not featured on this build because it really is targeted at the developers and the designers” according to Matthew Lepsen, Microsoft IE development team. User features that are included are basicly integrated Live services.

Three days ago the Web Standards Project (WaSP) released the new Acid 3 test. “The Acid3 Test is designed to test specifications for Web 2.0, and exposes potential flaws in implementations of the public ECMAScript 262 and W3C Document Object Model 2 standards. Collectively known as DOM Scripting, it is these technologies that enable advanced page interactivity and power many advanced web applications such as web-based email and online office applications.” - WaSP.

DrunkenFirst.com took some screen shots of browser Acid 3 test scores. They call it a 'Fail parade'.

Adobe is finally shipping Flex 3 and Adobe AIR today!

• Adobe Flex 3 software is now available in Standard and Professional editions. The Standard edition offers new features including code refactoring, SWF size reduction and improved skinning and styling workflow. The Professional edition offers memory and performance profilers, automated functional testing support, and enhanced charting components including the new advanced data grid. Try Flex Builder 3.

• Adobe AIR lets developers use familiar web technologies, including Adobe Flex, HTML, Ajax, JavaScript, and ActionScript, to build rich Internet applications that deploy on the desktop. Download the Adobe AIR Software Development Kit.

Can't wait to try some. To bad I'm involved in too much at the moment.