The topic of last week’s Tech Tuesday was CSS, which determines the look and feel of the content of a web page (where the content itself is described in HTML). Today we will learn about Javascript, which is a programming language that lets us control the behavior of the web page (both by itself and in reaction to what the user does). Together HTML, CSS and Javascript determine what a web browser does in Steps 7 and 8 of the web cycle. What is a programming language? It is a language that lets...

The post on the USV blog about the challenge of creating native mobile apps (meaning ones that can on exist on the mobile platform) has created a lively discussion with by now over 60 comments. A good chunk of that discussion was about the relative merits of just sticking with the mobile browser versus developing apps. For instance, Fred observes:I’m a big fan of the mobile browser too but it does seem like the prevailing delivery package today is the mobile app, not the browser.That and a co...

I love how the iPhone has been driving innovation through competition. A while ago I also pointed out what I believe to be the biggest Achilles heel of the iPhone and how that might provide an opening to beat the iPhone. Well the first contender for the role of Paris has shown up and it is Palm. Palm? Yes, Palm unveiled the Palm Pre at CES. The Pre does exactly what I suggested, which is to use the standard Javascript, HTML, CSS model to program the entire device. Apparently the apps that com...

Over the weekend I decided to play around a bit with jQuery. I had done tiny bits of Javascript front end stuff previously and had heard a lot of good things about jQuery. As a disclaimer upfront, I have not looked at any of the other Javascript libraries, so this is not a comparative view (not even a comprehensive view for that matter). I had a concrete project in mind. DailyLit breaks books up into installments of roughly 1,000 words. As a brief historic aside, when Dickens went from monthl...