63908
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Hitwise today announced that the market share of visits to the iTunes website was up 413 percent on Christmas Day 2006 (December 25, 2006) versus Christmas Day 2005 as new iPod owners flocked to the web to download iTunes. The market share of visits to Zune.net showed an increase of 1,030 percent on December 25, 2006 versus the previous Monday (December 18, 2006). However, this strong initial performance was overshadowed by the iPod.
63904
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Ruby on Rails provides an excellent platform for building Web applications. Discover how to use the built-in Asynchronous JavaScript(TM) + XML (Ajax) features of the platform to give your application the Web 2.0 rich user interface experience. Even if you don't envision yourself shipping a Rails application, I recommend that you download one of the Instant Rails or Locomotive applications and try it out.
63318
submission
Anonymous Cowboy writes:
Maddox Kent has written a novel called Living Things, published via Bob Young's post-Red Hat venture Lulu.com — and a whole chapter is written in a script language inspired, according to the author, by the bash shell. A significant portion of the novel takes place in an MMO, and there's even reference to a "GTA-Persistent" thirty-odd years from now...
Ender's Game arguably made videogames into a literary device: are there any other novels (bar the Halo/Splinter Cell spinoffs) that feature games as a significant factor? If cinema can grasp gaming as a storytelling device (The Last Starfighter, Tron, even Hackers at a pinch) why is it still so rare in literature? We are always badgering gamemakers to tell better stories: Tom Clancy aside, who outside the industry is willing to engage with games as a storytelling medium?
1479867
story
Mini-Geek writes
"Code-named Bon Echo, the first Alpha of Firefox 2.0 is now officially available. You can download it at ftp.mozilla.org. From the article: 'Here are some new features in Bon Echo Alpha 1 that require feedback: Changes to tabbed browsing behavior, New data storage layer for bookmarks and history (using SQLlite), Extended search plugin format, Updates to the extension system to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions, Support for SVG text using svg:textPath'"