Apple just released Safari for windows a couple days ago. Why would Apple do something like this? It makes NO SENSE! What possible market do they see on the Windows Environment? Even if Safari is better than Internet Explorer, which it probably is, no one is going to switch to it. IE users have had alternatives for a long time already. Apparently the security flaws and mockery Microsoft has made to the W3C standard don’t bother them. The only other market left are Firefox users and they DEFINATELY won’t switch to Safari (except for kicks and giggles). Safari is by far an inferior product compared to Firefox. The only reason anyone uses IE or Safari is because it comes with the operating system. And unless Safari is shipped with Windows, which is a joke, I don’t see a significant percentage of Window’s users moving to Safari. I am even more convinced of this after reading Joel on Software’s article on Safari’s Font Rendering. After saying all that, I don’t think Steve Jobs is an idiot. Apple does have a bigger plan for Safari. It will be interesting to see what happens next. My guess is that it will be connected with iTunes. I guess, we will just have to wait and see.

Well… I’m officially a geek. For those that don’t know, Facebook allows you to develop applications for it now. The first project I designed was an rss reader for jkwiens.com. Now all my friends on Facebook will be updated whenever I make a new blog post. Also, it will show the last five blog posts on my profile page. You can check out my application here.

As a side note, the Facebook API is really easy to use (if you know PHP). I probably will play around with it more. I just need to get some creative ideas. Perhaps I will integrate webDirectory into it.

Since the emergence of Facebook, I always had a really low view of the website. There didn’t seem to be much functionality and it seemed… well… lame. Anyways, several months ago, my wife got into Facebook. She got right into it… and I started hearing a lot more of it (especially when someone she knew posted pictures). However, it didn’t change my perception of Facebook. If anything, it just forced me to view more baby pictures. Eventually, a few of my friends invited me to join Facebook. Considering all the hype it was getting, I decided to give it a whirl. Although I still think it is kinda lame, I started to appreciate it more. The first thing that got me was how many of my friends actually used Facebook. I seem to find more friends everyday. Also, for some reason, I get a sick satisfaction whenever someone writes on my wall. I don’t know why these things seem so appealing… perhaps it is just the simplicity of it. Anyways, Facebook is starting to become my guilty pleasure. There is one particular thing that I’m getting excited about though. Facebook is creating a platform which will allow developers to create applications inside Facebook. This should give Facebook a little more depth and allow users to make their page more unique. This CNN article goes into more detail about it.

I always had a problem keeping my address book up to date. Email addresses and cell phone numbers seem to change far more frequently than my address book. I still have email addresses in my address book that are a good 5 years old. Not to mention, I always seem to forget to include cell phone numbers in my Address Book. Anyways, it prompted me to write a small address book program called webDirectory. I know it is a lame name. If anyone can think of a better name, I am open to suggestions. Anyways, the cool thing about webDirectory is that multiple people can share the same Address Book. This way you don’t have the responsibility of keeping every contact up to date. The added bonus is that you can get access to your Address Book anywhere you have a web connection.

Anyways, I am officially releasing webDirectory to beta. You can find out the details on my Software page. I currently have two address books created. One is called beta, which is open to everyone, and another called myFriends which is for all my friends. If you want to join an existing directory or create a new directory, you can do so here.

I finally got Gallery 2.0 to work. What a pain in the butt! The root of the problem was that Gallery 2.0 Templates are written in a reporting language. This means that I couldn’t write any php into these templates. I thought I had a possible solution by using a wordpress plugin which would do all the dirty work for me. However, it created a whole set of different problems dealing with Album Permissions. Anyways, I ended up re-writing some of Gallery’s php code so that I would get the outcome I wanted. I am going to have problems when I try upgrading Gallery… but at least it works. If you run into any problems with the gallery, including how the UI is being displayed, please leave a comment or email me at jkwiens@shaw.ca.

Anyways, I will be putting a few albums up this week. You will need to login to view any personal pictures, so send me an email if you want a username and password.