Firebug video

Joe Hewitt demos firebug. If you’ve been using firebug a lot, this will mostly be a review, but I saw several things I hadn’t noticed before:

  • calling console.profile in your javascript to turn on the profiler for specific regions of code, rather than the bazooka style profiling that the profile button gives you.
  • There is a “log all calls to” option in the right click menu when you are inside a function definition in the script tab. Params are logged! If you want to log the stack traces, use console.trace.
  • I use the box model display often, but I didn’t notice before that rulers are added to your page when you mouse-over the box. Nice.
  • When you are editing an attribute in the HTML or the CSS edit modes, you can use cursor keys to increase or decrease dimensions.
  • Documentation for the firebug API is coming soon!
  • Ctrl-Click while debugging will “run to the clicked line”.
  • When you are in the DOM tab, the variables you added to the name space are in bold at the top… handy.
  • When you paste multi-line text into the console’s command line, you get a larger text area to enter your code.
  • The copy button in that larger javascript area mushes together the current javascript into a string suitable for bookmarklets.

Questions:

When will Javascript be directly editable in Firebug?

When will Javascript have syntax highlighting?

CeBit is Blocking Pro Bloggers?

Given how fast the tech world changes, I’m surprised that a conference like CeBit would not grant press passes to electronic journalists. Specifically, it sounds like Steve Paine, who lives right there in Germany and has been one of the most consistent and fair news sources on UMPCs, won’t be invited to CeBit. It’s a shame, if you ask me.

The iPhone Screen

This article discusses the iPhone’s screen and how it may be more expensive to make than originally estimated.

2 N800s in a Dual Screen Configuration

Here are some ideas as to how such a configuration would work. Please add your thoughts.

What are we talking about?

Two Nokia N800 Internet Tablets fastened together. The hinge would connect the bottom edge of the first one to the top edge of the second one. The hinge would allow the two devices to be ‘closed’ by folding them back to back. Ideally, the hinge would also allow the devices to be folded screen to screen. The hinge would also be set up to allow for a flat position with the two being two screens tall. Finally, a slightly angled position would also be supported with the top device lightly tilted ‘in’.

How would this be useful?

  • Use the bottom device as a keyboard for the top device.
  • Use the top device for watching movies and the bottom device for reading the imdb entry about the movie.
  • Use the top device for ReaderMini.com and the bottom device email.
  • Applications could be written to take advantage of the screens as though they were one. The application could communicate with the ‘secondary display’ via bluetooth, usb or wifi.
  • Use the top device for GPS / directions and the bottom for a browser.
  • Use the top for video chat and the bottom for a movie/browser, etc.

Windows Vista is not ready for UMPCs? “The OW starts NOW!”

ThoughtFix has an excellent recap of the situation that current UMPC customers are facing in terms of upgrading to Vista. I have to agree with him on most points, especially the ‘You don’t need it’ statement. I’ve just come back to Vista after a multi-month XP vacation and I really enjoy it – on my laptop. But there’s no compelling reason (yet) to upgrade an XP UMPC to Vista.

That being said, I’ll be interested to see some solid tests (on UMPCs) of ReadyBoost, Indexed Search and the new Vista battery life improvements. Also, on my laptop, I find hibernate in Vista to be much, much faster than XP, so I assume the same would be true for UMPCs.