With a project called Closure Tools, Google plans on Thursday to start helping developers who aspire to match the company's proficiency in creating Web sites and Web applications.
Google is a strong proponent of using JavaScript to write Web-based programs, part of its Web-centric ethos. Indeed, the company has pushed the language to its limits with services such as Gmail and Google Docs, and it developed its Chrome browser in part to enable JavaScript programs to run faster.
But writing, debugging, and optimizing heavy-duty JavaScript can be difficult--in part because a given JavaScript program sometimes works differently on different browsers. Google's open-source Closure Tools project is an attempt to help with some of these challenges.
The first in the suite of tools is the Closure Compiler, a software package designed to boil down a JavaScript program so it's smaller and runs faster. For example, a function named DisplayAddress() could be replaced with just a().
Along with the compiler come some extra tools that run in the Firefox browser. One, Closure Inspector, is an extension for Firefox's Firebug add-on designed to help programmers understand and debug the rewritten JavaScript--linking a() back to DisplayAddress(), for example. Another add-on for the Google Page Speed extension lets programmers see how much the compiler helped.
Google also plans to make the compiler available as a Web application hosted on its Google App Engine service.
The second element is called the Closure Library, a collection of prebuilt JavaScript code that lets programmers handle relatively sophisticated technology--arrays and string manipulation, for example.
Last are Closure Templates, more prewritten code to ease creation of JavaScript and HTML user interfaces.
In an earlier era, programming tools were expensive packages bought by a select few, but open-source software, new marketing strategies, and new business methods have made that approach the exception rather than the rule these days. Now programming tools are often a means to another end--encouraging programmers to produce the software that will make Windows or the Palm Pre useful and therefore popular, for example.
In Google's case, the objective is often to make the Web more popular because it sees more activity on the Web as corresponding directly with more activity on its revenue-generating search site. Among the high-profile projects to this end are Chrome, Chrome OS, and Android, all subsidized by Google's powerful search-advertising business.
One interesting contrast to Closure is another Google project called Google Web Toolkit. It's designed to accomplish some of the same goals as Closure, including paving over browser incompatibilities and producing high-performance JavaScript. But with GWT, coders write programs in Java that gets translated into JavaScript.
So one last question: why the name?
Google's reply: "Being a functional language, the concept of a function closure is fundamental to the JavaScript language."
Yahoo released a "final notice" on Wednesday reminding GeoCities users that the free site creation service will be closing up shop later this month.
"On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and file," Yahoo wrote in a statement to GeoCities users.
The company said any GeoCities user that wants to maintain the site will be able to port it to Yahoo's Web Hosting service, which would cost $4.99 per month for a year and $9.95 per month afterward. GeoCities Plus customers can port their sites to Yahoo Web Hosting at no additional charge.
Yahoo first announced that it would be closing GeoCities in April. At the time, the company didn't divulge when the service would finally close.
Yahoo wrote on its GeoCities Help page that its decision to close the site was rooted in its desire to help its "customers explore and build relationships online in other ways."
GeoCities' closure marks an end of an era for the Web. The free site-building service, which Yahoo bought in 1999 for $2.9 billion, was a precursor to many of the self-publishing and social-media tools Web users employ today.
As someone who used GeoCities to create his first personal site, I find it a bit sad to say good-bye. That said, it's about time.
Via (The Business Insider)
Yahoo on Friday noted to users of Xoopit that the Gmail integration of its service would soon be disintegrated.
Xoopit, which aggregates media files from users' Gmail accounts, was acquired by Google rival Yahoo in late July and has since been integrated into the company's own Web mail service.
Users of Xoopit will have until November 13 to grab any media from Yahoo's servers, after which it will no longer be available. Doing this is necessary only for users who have deleted the source file from their Gmail account, as Xoopit simply copies over the media, leaving the version on Google's servers intact. Yahoo will continue to hold on to all users' data until next February to comply with its 90-day data retention policy, it said.
In Yahoo's note, the company says one of the main reasons for the shutdown of Gmail compatibility is to enable the team to focus on making a better version of its product for Yahoo Mail, which only began working with the Xoopit service in December. It also said that discontinuing resources into tools designed to improve competing Web mail providers would leave Gmail users with a "lousy experience."
Along with access to Xoopit, Yahoo is also discontinuing its Firefox add-on and Facebook integration for Gmail.
The browser add-on has let users view attachments and other media in their Gmail accounts as a file explorer--functionality that has since been replaced by some of Google's Gmail Labs add-ons. Users with the browser add-on installed could also connect with Facebook to see and view status updates from within Gmail, a feature that will also become unavailable.
Previously: Xoopit turns Gmail into a gorgeous media browser
Xoopit has organized users Gmail attachments and let them access it outside of their Web mail. The service next month will be inaccessible to Gmail users. It will be exclusively available to Yahoo Mail users, Yahoo says.
(Credit: CNET)Corrected at 3:15 p.m.: This post misstated the month during which Yahoo Mail began working with Xoopit. It was December.
Although it has disclosed that 600 of its coffee shops will be closing up shop in the coming months, Starbucks will be unveiling only a small selection of closures per month.
That doesn't mean that you can't check if your favorite coffee watering hole (or office) is going the way of $2 gas. According to The Seattle Times, employees at stores that are facing closure have been given some extra heads-up to either find new jobs or transfer elsewhere.
That extra foresight has led to a special Google Map chronicling which stores will soon be going under, even if their closures have not yet been announced.
Keep in mind that not all of the Starbucks locations listed are definitely being shuttered. Most listings are based either on rumors or speculation, since the first smattering of downed stores has not yet been announced.
One thing is clear though: people in Northeastern Texas do not like a cup of joe.
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