Best4C: Best4U?

I was interested to read Vic Keegan's column in the Guardian today:

This week I bumped into a number of people who had no office to go back to. But there is no need to feel sorry for them. It was not that they were too poor or unemployed, they just did not need an office to work from.

the reason being, of course, that they mostly use web-based apps.

I'm not quite office-less, since I do tend to work in the same room, but I'm certainly big into web apps, and I'm always on the look-out for new additions to my collection.

Here's one, the wonderfully literalistic Best4C:

Best4c(Best for chart) is a Web-based, online diagram tool that allows you to create, edit and share charts anytime, anywhere.

The interface is rather clunky, and the icons almost indecipherable, but, do you know what? It works, and has a lot of nice computer-related artwork. Not that I have much need for any of this, but if I ever do, at least I won't need to go to an office.

Of course, it's not open source in the traditional, client-side, sense, although the underlying server-side code probably is (LAMP etc.). Which raises the whole issue of what's to be done about such web services that take so much from the free software commons without always giving back. But that's a post for another day.... (Via China Web 2.0 Review.)

Welcome Back, HTML

Younger readers of this blog probably don't remember the golden cyber-age known as Dotcom 1.0, but one of its characteristics was the constant upgrading of the basic HTML specification. And then, in 1999, at HTML4, it stopped, as everyone got excited about XML (remember XML?).

It's been a long time coming, but at last we have HTML5, AKA Web Applications 1.0. Here's a good intro to the subject:

Development of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) stopped in 1999 with HTML 4. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) focused its efforts on changing the underlying syntax of HTML from Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) to Extensible Markup Language (XML), as well as completely new markup languages like Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), XForms, and MathML. Browser vendors focused on browser features like tabs and Rich Site Summary (RSS) readers. Web designers started learning Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and the JavaScript™ language to build their own applications on top of the existing frameworks using Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax). But HTML itself grew hardly at all in the next eight years.

Recently, the beast came back to life. Three major browser vendors—Apple, Opera, and the Mozilla Foundation—came together as the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WhatWG) to develop an updated and upgraded version of classic HTML. More recently, the W3C took note of these developments and started its own next-generation HTML effort with many of the same members. Eventually, the two efforts will likely be merged. Although many details remain to be argued over, the outlines of the next version of HTML are becoming clear.

This new version of HTML—usually called HTML 5, although it also goes under the name Web Applications 1.0—would be instantly recognizable to a Web designer frozen in ice in 1999 and thawed today.

Welcome back, HTML, we've missed you.

Now We Are Five: HTML5, XHTML5

Anything that talks about HTML5 and XHTML5 gets my attention pretty quickly. I don't pretend to understand all the implications of this, but it sounds cool:

This specification introduces features to HTML and the DOM that ease the authoring of Web-based applications. Additions include the context menus, a direct-mode graphics canvas, inline popup windows, and server-sent events.

...


The scope of this specification is not to describe an entire operating system. In particular, hardware configuration software, image manipulation tools, and applications that users would be expected to use with high-end workstations on a daily basis are out of scope. In terms of applications, this specification is targetted specifically at applications that would be expected to be used by users on an occasional basis, or regularly but from disparate locations, with low CPU requirements. For instance online purchasing systems, searching systems, games (especially multiplayer online games), public telephone books or address books, communications software (e-mail clients, instant messaging clients, discussion software), document editing software, etc.

I can't wait. (Via Vecosys.)