Guillaume Belfiore

~ Handcrafted thinking ~

Hello, I'm Guillaume, a French IT Journalist and this is my lifestream where I capture about anything I find interesting on the web

∞ Don't just optimize your site for WebKit

…and I guess I’ll have to check my code as well

Call from Daniel Glazman :

Not so long ago, IE6 was the over-dominant browser on the Web. Technically, the Web was full of works-only-in-IE6 web sites and the other browsers, the users were crying. IE6 is dead, this time is gone, and all browsers vendors including Microsoft itself rejoice. Gone? Not entirely… IE6 is gone, the problem is back.

WebKit, the rendering engine at the heart of Safari and Chrome, living in iPhones, iPads and Android devices, is now the over-dominant browser on the mobile Web and technically, the mobile Web is full of works-only-in-WebKit web sites while other browsers and their users are crying. Many sites are sniffing the browser’s User-Agent string and filtering out non-WebKit browsers. As in the past with IE6, it’s not a question of innovation but a question of hardware market dominance and software bundled with hardware. But there is an aspect of the problem we did not have during the IE6 era: these web sites are also WebKit-specific because they use only “experimental” CSS properties prefixed with -webkit-* and not their Mozilla, Microsoft or Opera counterparts. So even if the browser sniffing goes away, web sites will remain broken for non-WebKit browsers…

∞ Canonical to stop Kubuntu support

GNOME or KDE ? Canonical has decided to end the debate. After giving up on GNOME for Unity, Canonical is giving up on KDE as well… but then it’s not a bad thing. I never liked KDE anyways

Today I bring the disappointing news that Canonical will no longer be funding my work on Kubuntu after 12.04. Canonical wants to treat Kubuntu in the same way as the other community flavors such as Edubuntu, Lubuntu, and Xubuntu, and support the projects with infrastructure. This is a big challenge to Kubuntu of course and KDE as well.

∞ Going to BlackBerry DevCon Europe

This afternoon I shall be flying to Amsterdam for 2-3 days in order to attend the BlackBerry DevCon summit. Lots of great stuff should be presented to developers and journalists especially concerning Playbook OS 2.0.

Sounds pretty fun to me :)

∞ Man Arrested For Stealing a Glacier

Something is rotten in Patagonia!

From Gizmodo:

Stop! Thief! That man has my glacier! Well, five tons of it, anyway. Police have arrested a man in Patagonia who was stealing a massive chunk of ice to sell as designer cubes for cocktails. How the hell do you steal a glacier, anyway?

∞ Google : let's be more evasive !!!

Answering US senators about the new privacy policy. Concerning data retention

Retention periods for archived data vary depending on data source, technology type, and business requirements. Retention can be for a set period (such as 60 days) or for the life of the storage medium.

I hope they got cheap, breakable hard drive or SSD then.

∞ Google : several accounts makes it simpler

Google trying to back up they new confidential privacy policy. This is simply hilarious : 

We’re making things simpler and we’re trying to be upfront about it. Period.

You can use as much or as little of Google as you want. For example, you can have a Google Account and choose to use Gmail, but not use Google . Or you could keep your data separate with different accounts — for example, one for YouTube and another for Gmail.

Now managing several accounts, that’s an idea to make everything simpler !!!!! Yay!

∞ Apple : iTunes can't be use for nuclear weapons

From iTunes terms and conditions

You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture, or production of nuclear, missile, or chemical or biological weapons.

But then don’t worry, they don’t mention anything about C4….