1. RIA (Rich Internet Applications) growth: We will start seeing more and more sites using AJAX, XAML, and Flex 2.0. With the release of XAML and Windows Vista, .NET Ajax sites will start becoming more popular. Adobe's (formally Macromedia) Flex 2.0 builder will allow non-flash savvy programmers to build full Flash RIA’s using nothing but declarative XML syntax. XUL will slowly fade away. RoR will attract php programmers, but will not find its way to the Java, .Net, or CF community.

2. AJAX Platforms IDE’s will arise, making building user interface components with back-end integration through AJAX achievable without having to program with core frameworks. This new software will do for AJAX exactly what Flex 2.0 is doing for flash: allowing visual authoring capabilities by using new IDE’s, or by building plug-ins for existing IDE’s such as Eclipse.

3. With quick growth of SOA, Web Services, and Remote Calls, data security will start becoming an issue. A greater effort will be devoted towards encryption, authentication, and authorization.

4. Blogging will continue to rise, but as it does, a new, smarter filtering mechanism will have to be developed. Corporate IQ cannot depend strictly on tagging and aggregators. Probability based algorithms will analyze the personal relevance of every post.

5. Mobile applications will start getting popular. AJAX for mobiles and Flash Lite will start hiring to build full mobile RIA’s.

6. Some 25-year-old kid will become millionaire after coming up with a way for search engines to RELIABLY index AJAX and Flash applications.

7. By the end of the year, Wi-Max will start becoming available in mayor cities, threatening ISP’s and cellular phone providers. VoIP wireless devices will slowly replace cell phones, providing more reliable, less expensive, and more sophisticated capabilities. Blackberries will loose market share.

8. VoIP, IMS, SIP, XMPP, and SOA will continue to grow. Web 2.0 and VoIP 2.0 will merge. Unified messaging will get more popular among corporations.

9. People will continue paying premium for self-service and software applications will loose market share to shared services.

Firefox is a great browser, and even better, when it comes to plug-ins or extensions. I use countless extensions in a day-to-day basis, so I'll mention the ones that I like the most for development, or personal use. Please comment and recommend others, because I'm sure that there are many out there that are great and I'm missing out.

Live HTTP Headers (sniff http traffic, great for AJAX)
I use this extension every single day, it monitors every single http packet and it's extremely easy to use. I can see banner calls, JavaScript loading, Ajax calls, you name it. It is not as complete as Ethereal, but it's much simpler and therefore more useful for an everyday basis.
http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/

Web Developer (most tools web developers need)
The name is self-explanatory, it has every single utility that a web developer needs. Web Developer just released version 1.0, after a full year of development. I will not even name everything because it does a lot. The functions I use everyday are viewing CSS, JavaScript, and response headers, but again, there will be something in there for you; I guaranty it.
http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/

RoboForm (fill up forms, save passwords)
I use this to store my unlimited passwords for hundreds of sites I use. It is also extremely useful when you're developing forms and need to test out data… or even if you're just browsing and this one site requires you to fill up a bunch of unnecessary fields, just click one button and RoboForm will do it for you. It also has a built-in password generator that I use sometimes, and protected notepads… I only wish there was a way to synchronize my profile at home and at work.
http://www.roboform.com/

FasterFox (improve performance)
FasterFox is awesome. It allows you to customize network performance, although I just set it to max and leave it alone. The other reason that I love this extension is completely unrelated: you can right click the task icon and clear your cache. Although this sounds silly, I found that Firefox always caches your SWFs and there is no other way to refresh than clearing your cache. If you're a Flash Developer, or have to deal with some, this fact alone is worth installing it.
http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/

Console2 (better JavaScript / CSS Console)
Firefox 1.5 modified a little the JavaScript console, yes, now it's the JavaScript / CSS console, and keeps throwing errors that you do not really need to see. It may be useful for someone, but it is a pain for me. Console2 made a good job by allowing you to filter your errors and only display the ones relevant to you.
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=318102

Sage (nice RSS reader)
I am now actually using SharpReader, but until not too long ago, Sage was one of the best and easiest to use RSS readers that I could find. It is already built-in my browser, so I don't have to open any other software, and I really like the way it displays my feeds.
http://sage.mozdev.org/

Customize Google
It adds a bunch of little features, such as the Google suggest, which is working great… I don't know why it's still on Beta. It also adds direct links to Google Images, and remove banners from your gmail.
http://www.customizegoogle.com/

foXpose (Mac-like page split)
I barely use this, but I still think it's great. This extension adds a little icon to the bottom-left corner of your browser, and allows you to see all your tabs simultaneously in a Mac-style view.
http://viamatic.com/firefox/

Session Saver (save current tabs, cookies)
So if you're a web developer, saving your cookies may be a bad idea… but this extension doesn't force you to do it, it allows you to. What I like the most of this, is that if FF ever crashes, or say Windows crashes, you can open FF and all your tabs will still be there.
http://adblock.ethereal.net/alchemy.cgi/SessionSaver

Page Saver (save image of full length web page)
If you need to send screen shots, print-screen will only save the viewable area, and saving to a pdf may not include all the elements of the page… this extension allows you to save exactly what you see to a PNG. When you install it, it is set to save 25% of the viewable resolution by default, which I found crappy. I recommend changing it to 100%, and if you need to scale it down you always can.
http://pearlcrescent.com/products/pagesaver/

Happy New Year, and may god give you the wisdom to come up with the next ground breaking million dollar idea that will revolutionize technology and establish a new direction in the digital era.

How can you tell if a site is being viewed mostly by a developers' community? While the normal site has 90%+ I.E. visitors, my site has the following stats:

Google Desktop: 10.8% Views; 39.7% Visits
Firefox: 46.1% Views; 20.9% Visits
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x: Views 27.3%; 9.6% visits

Which means that most of the people added my RSS feed to their Google Desktop that pulls my feed infinite times a day … followed by the typical developer that uses Firefox, and last but not least, the business man that is searching for Web 2.0 and AJAX information that uses I.E.

It is amazing how stats change drastically from one site to another… I have other sites where I.E. is 97%, and some others that are viewed mostly by Ad Agencies where Safari reaches almost 40%.

That is exactly why you need to QA for every single browser out there!

So the usual company sends a nice xmas card to their customers; the eccentric people at iChameleon Group decided to send out a candy cane smackdown xmas card instead. You can unleash your rage beating down the key people of our company with a candy cane.

It’s actually very funny. I know some of our clients were beating me for ten minutes when they got this email… j/k, not me, our project managers.
Check it out and let me know what you think.

Happy holidays.

Business software maker Oracle won permission from the European Commission on Thursday to buy rival Siebel Systems in a $5.8 billion deal.

Since January, Oracle has closed seven acquisitions, including its recently completed $10.6 billion hostile takeover of PeopleSoft.

If the deal closes, Oracle--the No. 1 database maker--will be running neck-and-neck with SAP to lay claim as the world's biggest CRM software seller, market researchers IDC and AMR have said.

more [here]

I just logged into my Google Analytics account and was shown the following message:

For those business people out there that like catchy phrases and buzzwords, this one really caught my attention when reading about web 2.0 the O'Reilly web site.

Leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head.

Web 2.0 Companies should adopt the following principles:

• Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
• Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
• Trusting users as co-developers
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
• Software above the level of a single device
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models
  

I’m a proud user of FireFox 1.5

Firefox 1.5 came out today, and I didn’t think it twice before upgrading. I use plenty of extensions and most of the ones I had worked.

Two of the ones didn’t work are: Roboform, and Live HTTP headers.

I downloaded the latest Roboform extension from http://www.roboform.com/browsers.html and it got it working immediately.

Live HTTP headers is a must and I use it everyday. I also found the latest extension at http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/ but site is acting extremely slow and I haven't been able to download it.

I always admited google for their ideas and originality. An article just came out announcing google’s click to talk with an advertiser. This actually sounded good at first, but they’re not doing it over ip; instead, you have to provide with your own phone number and google will connect the two legs. Now that, I don’t think it’s a good idea… please are freighted with personal information, such as phone numbers… I personally would (never say never) not provide anyone with my phone number for free marketing calls… Still original, not the right method.