Over the past 12 days, if you've ventured over to Liquidicity you may been a little disappointed to see a blank page telling you that we've been "having a break". We apologise for this. However, that apology isn't satisfactory unless you know why it happened and what we're doing to make sure it doesn't happen again. So here goes...

What's up? What's down?

We were a little startled when we woke up to find our stats showing just 300 visitors for whole day, in fact I am sure you know the feeling if you've ever owned a site yourself. We immediately looked into the reasons for our low level of traffic, and it didn't take us long to realise we were down. Our first intention was to work out why were down, and then to try and get back online before too many people noticed.

Unfortunately, we didn't go down due to our server being overloaded with excessive numbers of Digg users, or Stumblers, or even Twitter followers. Not that it's acceptable to go offline when you get a sudden popularity increase, but it's better than going offline for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Obviously, there was a reason for going offline, but it wasn't a reason that could be found by looking at the Digg homepage. In fact, the reason for our down time continued to puzzle us for days.

We established that the problem was nothing to do with the levels of traffic we were receiving, so we tried disabling the entire site and then re-enabling certain parts of GoSquared in turn to see what was causing our server's resources to be completely consumed. We eventually managed to isolate the problem to Liquidicity. We anxiously enabled Liquidicity again and kept a close eye on all server and traffic activity on Liquidicity. We were expecting to see a large number of visitors reaching a certain page or file that forced the server to process excessive amounts of information, or at least a steady build up of resource usage that culminated in the server giving up at full capacity. But we saw none of these common signs. Instead, after a few hours, Liquidicity appeared to simply stop, and any traffic reaching the site after that point was simply met by wonderfully unattractive "Server not Responding" error.

Priorities

Our main priority was to ensure the main GoSquared site, that hosts the GoSquared Ad Network was online. When our Ad Network suffers downtime, currently it can cause Sites that show Squares to also suffer slow response times, and in the worst of cases can cause Sites on the Network to go offline. Obviously, this is the last thing we could possibly want - the Sites on our Network mean everything to us, and we owe them the best service we can possibly provide.

As we have mentioned before, we are working on the next major version of GoSquared - it's taking much longer than expected, but we are rethinking everything from the core. The next version of GoSquared will not only be a lot faster for all Sites on the Network, but we are doing everything to ensure that problems with the GoSquared site do not affect the entire GoSquared Ad Network.

Why so Ugly?

As you can see, Liquidicity is back up (which we're pleased to say) but it's looking the worst it ever has (which we're not so pleased to say).

Why have we got the default theme on here? We've further isolated the problem to a file contained in the theme we created for Liquidicity a few weeks ago. We're still trying to work out exactly what it is in that file that is causing such a hiccup to occur, and until then, we're afraid you're going to have to put up with this "classic" Wordpress design.

Essentially, we would prefer to get our resources and articles back online and available for consumption rather than show absolutely nothing.

We hope you understand while we fix the problem. The Liquidicity you know will be back soon.

Update

We've managed to get the Liquidicity theme back, so things are almost entirely back to normal. We're not showing feed subscribers and we have a few other plug-ins disabled currently, but other than that it should be service as usual. Thanks again for your patience.

Apologies, and thanks for your patience,

The GoSquared Team

Apple's latest version of Safari is out (in beta), with some evolutionary interface changes, and a dramatically faster javascript processing engine. The release of Safari 4 was not anticipated by any of the typical rumour sites, so it came as a surprise to just about everyone. As always, though, it was no surprise to see Apple's bright and simple marketing pages selling the browser as the best thing since sliced bread.

The Mac maker's marketing team appear to have had a field day promoting all 150 of the fantastic new features of their latest browser. But is everything they say completely true? Have they pushed the boundaries of honesty with their sensationalist slogans? Taking a look at the list of new features, I started to get a little suspicious. Just about none of the new features listed on Apple's website are original - most are already out there in other browsers, having already been invented by the likes of Google, Mozilla, and the open source community. Or they've actually been features in Safari already, but Apple are drawing more attention to them in this release.

The main new features list promoted by Apple:

• Top sites: suspiciously like Chrome's "most visited" section on opening a new tab. But of course it's all shiny and in 3D, which makes meel feel like I'm in the Matrix - so I like that bit.
• CoverFlow: OK, this isn't currently in any browser, but we got there first!
• Full History Search: this has been around in Opera for a rather long time (since the betas of version 9.5 back in September 2007), and was actually available to some extent in the previous version of Safari - they promoted it as a "new" feature back then.
• Tabs on top: Chrome - did we even need to say? But that said, Opera again had the idea of putting the tabs above the addressbar waaay back in the day. They could at least put the little favicons in the top corner to help easily identify different sites on different tabs - isn't that the point of a favicon?
• Nitro Engine (Squirrel Fish wasn't up to scratch for Apple's Marketing Department): notice how in the performance graphs they've subtlely left off Firefox 3.2 and Chrome 2.0 betas, both of which have amazingly fast javascript engines.
• Windows native look and feel: I could go on and on about this for ages, but I won't. The transparent tabs are really quite ugly (Chrome definitely had the better idea there) and the whole thing with darkening the inactive areas of the title bar really doesn't do it for me. Plus it's all misaligned in the Windows 7 beta. But all the same, even in vista, where it does work - I still much prefer chrome for simple native interface feel.


Good one Apple. However, both Safari 4 and Windows 7 are still in beta, so I'll let Apple off for this one.



Seriously, what's going on there? Which would you choose?

• Developer Tools: Is it just me, or hasn't this been in Safari for a while now? I use the developer tools in Safari 3 all the time (all the time I actually even use Safari that is - Firefox FTW!) I can see they've changed the icons from Safari 3 in the web inspector, but other than that can anyone point out to me what they've added?

Ok, I won't go into a huge wealth of detail about all the other features, but here's a couple more from the 150 features page that were tagged as new which really caught my attention:

• Full page zoom: Unbelievably, the first time I came across this was in IE. I don't know if it was around before then though.
• Phishing and malware protection: IE again unbelievably.
• Smart address field: Firefox Awesome Bar, and then the Chrome Omnibox.
• Inline Progress Indicator: Firstly, this isn't new, even for Safari, and more importantly, it looks to me suspiciously like this has been taken out rather than introduced.

Acid 3

And then there's Acid3. I don't like being too pedantic about this matter, but the Acid3 test isn't just about getting a pixel-perfect rendering. To pass the test, the animation has to be smooth as well. I've tested the beta on a couple of different platforms and while it produces an absolutely infallable rendering, the animation is by no means smooth. Test 69 continually takes more than 50 attempts to succeed. So when Apple are professing to be the "first browser to pass Acid3", they are actually wrong in that they're not the first (Opera betas have passed before this one), and they don't actually pass the test! What really puzzles me about this matter is that all the WebKit nightly builds for quite a long time now have passed perfectly with a perfectly smooth animation. So have Apple put a 6 month old version of WebKit into "the World's most innovative browser"? It would appear so.

Toolbar Troubles

The toolbar is only a gripe for the Windows version - it's slightly different in OS X because the menu bar is separated so a few buttons are differently arranged, but the issue can be summed up very well with a simple screenshot:

Spot the difference anyone?

See what I mean? Just for those of you who don't recognise it, the top one's the toolbar from Google Chrome, and the bottom one's the latest Safari. There's just the tiniest bit of a similarity there methinks.

The idea of compressing the main menu bar into a couple of dropdown buttons is quite established (first seen in IE7 I believe), but the simple fact that the two toolbars are so alike is what bothers me. Back and forward buttons at the beginning: a standard UI convention that makes perfect sense. Add bookmark button attached to the left side of the address bar: getting a little bit suspicious. Then the address bar is a bit different (as an aside, I think the refresh button is in the wrong place, but maybe that's aimed at users who have only just got used to the fact that IE decided to put it there too for no reason). The refresh button's new location is also a result of its placement within Mobile Safari on iPhone. But then there are the two dropdown buttons. Now I know these aren't there on the mac, but that's because the menu bar's already at the top of the screen so there's no need for them. Still - they're EXACTLY the same buttons effectively. Come on - they've even nicked one of the icons! OK so the actual content of the two dropdowns is slightly different, but the sheer fact that they are both essentially for the same purpose in both browsers shows unquestionable similarity to Chrome.

On the plus side, the installer for the latest beta FINALLY no longer insists on adding an icon to my quick launch, as per the latest Windows 7 guidelines. Many's the time I've got inordinately annoyed by icons appearing after every time I run an Apple Software Update. I appreciate that one Apple.

And of course I love the fact that the wording of their info pages implies that Safari has only 150 features. That's all. No more. Wouldn't be much of a browser if that were true.

I think that's just about enough ranting for now. The point is, these features may not all be entirely original, but I'll admit bringing them together in one browser makes a pretty good package overall (apart from the Windows interface I don't really like). Let us know what you think on the matter, especially those of you who, like me, aren't complete Macheads (like James.)

Update: June 9th 2009
Following yesterday's launch of the final version of Safari 4, some of my gripes have been fixed.

• Apple have obviously seen the light and put tabs back where they belong. Which is good, because I personally couldn't see the visual appeal of having them at the top. They basically just looked awful on both the mac and windows versions.
• Along with that, the Windows Native Look and Feel, as they call it, is therefore greatly improved. No more of those silly shadow effects along the title bar.
• The refresh button has now taken on its own special little "Loading" message in a blue box while the page is loading, much better than the pathetic little spinner they had in the beta.
• And a few other things that I can't quite put my finger on, but which do make the general experience better than it was in beta

However (and sorry for this), there are still a few things that really get up my nose...

• The toolbar's still the same, a Chrome ripoff. OK, I wasn't expecting Apple to go and drastically change it from the beta, so I won't go on. I did enough ranting about that earlier.
• Acid3. Aaahh, good old Acid3. Come on Apple, you've been going on about 100% compliance for a while now and you're just about getting there. But still, although the rendering's great, the speed still falls down in test 69. Now I know the speed is somewhat hardware-dependent, but I've run it on a couple of machines with pretty decent specs, and it still isn't up to scratch. I'll just take this opportunity to reiterate that old WebKit nightly builds were coping fine, ages ago. But there you go...
• And maybe I spoke too soon about the installer not putting icons everywhere. Apple Software Update still insists on shoving shortcuts in my desktop and quick launch. I don't need them! They just clutter everything up! If I wanted shortcuts there, I'd have put them there in the first place on the original install!

And I know this is advertised as a bit of a rant, and well I suppose it is. But in all honesty it is a bit harsh. Safari's a pretty damn decent browser, truth be told. But I'll stick with Firefox for now - FireBug just has the edge over Safari's developer tools for me, at the moment anyway.

280 North, the guys that brought you 280 Slides (the slickest web app yet for building Keynote style presentations) and the next generation web app development framework Cappuccino, have just announced their latest creation - 280 Atlas.

280 Atlas is a web app, built with Cappuccino, designed to make it easy for others to build advanced, beautiful web apps with unrivalled ease. Check out the video to get an idea of just how simple they have made the UI design process. It in some ways makes me think of Interface Builder in the development tools that come with OS X, but I have to remind myself that these are online. It's not this easy to build web app interfaces in any desktop apps I can think of.

When you think of what Adobe is doing, attempting to make it easier for design professionals to get building applications on the web and the desktop (via AIR), this puts them to shame. The web will be a better place with more web apps built on open source technologies like Cappuccino. If the next round of web apps are anything like 280 Slides, then things are going to get very exciting around here.

Keep your eyes on 280 Atlas, and the 280 North team. They are moving the industry forward at a staggering pace, and it's up to us, the developers and designers, to start building web apps that not only compete, but outperform what's on the desktop.

I'm not too sure how long this has been available, but it would appear that Google are now putting a search field inside the embedded YouTube video player that you see everywhere. I tried it again just now and the search bar didn't show up, so I would give an educated guess and say Google is still playing with the idea and testing it out on a selection of videos.

I found thus just as I was browsing around after checking my thousands of RSS Feeds, I decided to pop over to MacRumors and read up some more on the upcoming Classics app. It's gonna be fantastic - plus it's had the influence of awesome designer Sebastiaan de With which can only be good thing.

Today, we're introducing our all new Help Sheets. You loved our original CSS and HTML Help Sheets, so we went back to the originals, tidied them up, and gave them a sprinkling of coolness.

We're also pleased to bring you an entirely new Help Sheet - the PHP Help Sheet. This should be a saviour for you hardcore coders when you forget the odd array function or two.

You can download the full set as a ZIP (5.4MB) right here:

The all new PHP Help Sheet. Everyone needs a handy reference now and then, so go ahead and print this off. Stick it on your wall and never get lost again!

Get the PDF [1.9MB]

The HTML Help Sheet has been updated and tidied up, so now you have no excuses for not decorating your office notice board with snippets of usefulness.

Get the PDF [1.9MB]

The CSS Help Sheet - our first ever, but updated to match the set. Never forget those styling options with this at your side.

Get the PDF [1.9MB]

We hope you like the new Help Sheets, and would love to know what you want us to Help Sheet-ise next: JavaScript? Actionscript? JQuery? Tell us in the comments!

Oh and another thing, the other day one of our readers sent in a photo of our CSS Help Sheet on his office notice board. If you're using our Help Sheets at your office / home / garage / Starbucks we'd love to see! Email us a photo or upload to Flickr with the tag "GoSquared".

Enjoy!

Read the Top 100 Requests on Dear Adobe and see if you agree.

Adobe has a lot of work to do to please their customers. This is a site that has been set up for us poor developers, designers, animators, and general creatives to vent our anger at Adobe - the company, the products, and their pricing. If Adobe ignores this site, and sees it as a small number of angered individuals determined to destroy Adobe's reputation they will be much mistaken. This site has comments from some of the most loyal users of Adobe products, from the people that genuinely care about their business, and these are also the most vocal - they are the core users that matter most to Adobe.

They are telling Adobe, directly, and in crystal clear English, exactly what is wrong with their current business. They're even telling them how to put it right.

Dear Adobe, Ignore this site at your peril.

Parallax is a really cool, powerful use of javascript from Stephen Band. Think of looking through a camera and having layers of objects at various distances moving around. Parallax achieves that effect using a combination static images, one for each layer.

"Parallax [is a jQuery library that] turns a selected element into a 'window', or viewport, and all its children into absolutely positioned layers that can be seen through the viewport. These layers move in response to the mouse, and, depending on their dimensions (and options for layer initialisation), they move by different amounts, in a parallaxy kind of way."

The Future of Web Apps (FOWA) Expo is back in London for October 8th-10th at the London ExCel Center and boy, it's going to be one hell of a show!

Speakers include Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Kevin Rose (Digg), Blane Cook (Twitter) plus many more from the likes of Google, Salesforce, AOL, and Mahalo. Also attending (and speaking) are the guys from 280North, creators of 280Slides and Cappuccino that we wrote about a while ago.

We are very excited as we were unable to attend last year's FOWA and will be there on October 10th ready to chat, share, learn, and party!

Kevin and Alex are also going to be there shooting a live diggnation from the main stage at 7:30pm on October 10th where Google will be providing the (alcoholic) refreshments. After which, the wrap party will get started with Facebook and Digg kicking things off. (I've heard that Facebook are going to be sponsoring an open bar.)

The celebrations are going to be epic. We hope to see you all there and look forward to meeting a wealth of interesting people that are changing the web as we know it. There will ofcourse be free wifi for all (probably provided by the Cloud) so you can keep those posts coming even while you're having lunch.

Get your passes for all 3 days of the event over at Carsonified's FOWA site.

See you there!

Quite a useful update to the UI of the iPhone Capacity meter in iTunes. Before, Apps showed up as "Other".

Also, in case you hadn't heard, the iPhone 2.1 Update is out, which promises to fix all those annoying little (and large) bugs that have been driving us crazy for a while.

Do you remember earlier this year a web application called 280Slides?

Let's refresh our memory a little bit - 280Slides was a stunning piece of work both on the beautiful UI that felt like a native OS X app, right through to the core that was an entirely new framework that promised to make developing web applications just the same as building desktop ones. Well today that framework has been launched to the public (with a suitably beautiful icon) as open source, and it's called Cappuccino.

There's not much I can say about Cappuccino right now that isn't on their site, other than give my full support for this truly advanced framework. What sets it apart from other javascript frameworks such as MooTools (which we love and use extensively by the way), script.aculo.us, and jquery is that Cappuccino is built specifically for developing full blow web applications, not just sprucing up existing web pages and adding a little dynamism. Cappuccino, in fact, is so far removed from existing ways* of building web applications that they claim you won't need to know very much about web development at all:

"With Cappuccino, you don't need to know HTML. You'll never write a line of CSS. You don't ever have to interact with DOM. We only ask developers to learn one technology, Objective-J, and one set of APIs."

This is a massive step in the right direction for existing desktop application developers (especially those already developing for OS X) as they can relatively easily start building similar applications "for the cloud" and harness the power of the web to push the boundaries of their application design.

We are really looking forward to having a play around with Cappuccino, and we highly recommend you popping over to their site simply to check it out and learn more.

* Sprout Core also takes a similar view to building web applications (rather than adding AJAX to HTML pages), but it's a different framework that still requires you to learn web based languages. Sprout Core was covered extensively (around the same time as 280Slides) when Apple released MobileMe which is built using Sprout Core.