Modern, accessible, unobtrusive JavaScript explained by means of eight real-world example scripts.

That’s what the cover says about ppk on JavaScript. I have got this book on my bookshelf for a while, but a few days ago I had to do some JavaScript work so this book was a nice tool working on that project.

The cover is quite right about the content of this nice book. Peter-Paul organized the book in the same way as his web site, QuirksMode. Good explanation of the browser support (e.g. the warning ‘Browser incompatibilities ahead’), very useful but this information will be out-dated in a year.

What I like about this book is the structure: just scripts you could write yourself, but with all the explanation about how it works, what to do and better: what not to do. All essential JavaScript ‘basics’ are explained using these scripts as example.

But I also have some points of criticism… what I disliked about the book is mostly the usage of colors. The only color used is the blue on the cover, but that’s it. Source of the scripts is printed in an unreadable gray color and headers would be much better recognizable when a different color was used.
I think this book better for people who know some JavaScript already. In my opinion it’s pretty good, so read to check out yourself…

A few days ago I had some time and wanted to play with my PSP. But no game did interest me at that time, so I decided to check out the PSP Web site for some demo’s. The first thing I thought when I saw the new download center they introduced a while ago, was: wow!

The download center is very user centered and simple to use. It acts like a Web shop, and that was the main thing what was changed: paid downloads will be introduced soon. Nice games, music, videos and photos all available to download now for free, but soon also some where has tom be paid for.

I think thats a good way to go in the gaming industry. As far as I know this is the only download shop for a handheld game devices. I hope the downloads will not be very expensive, then I think I want to pay for those games via the Internet. Not a UMD anymore, only a file on my Flashcard. Luckily you can re-download games, in the case you delete it or something.

What I liked of the web shop, was the interface techniques. The AJAX interface was so developed that the back-button in my browser worked, very nice usability technique. The techniques not viewable for unregistered visitors -like the download applet- also work nicely.

So, what’s next?

The way Sony improved on this, I like. But other handheld devices can also have such thing in the near future. For a PDA you could think in terms like e-books, but also applications for download. In the near future I think -that can be 2007 but also ‘08 or ‘09- many more download stores like this will appear. Since web developers have more abilities (e.g. latest Adobe Flash), the technique for usable, accessible and not at least safety of download shops will grow tremendously the next years.

Do you also have some future predictions about download web shops?

This blog only set up about three months ago, but now it is really going to expand… visitors come, comments posted… that is the good way I think. Hope my upcoming plans will give me more of them (sorry, I stop making you more curious).

But like Veerle I also want to know who my visitors are, de-lurking what’s it called. So please comment on this and tell me who you are, where you’re from and what your interests are.

Thank you :)

In addition to the Visual HTML Jokes from Jesper and Neatorama I also have created one:

The first joke was the Tower of Pisa surrounded by I tags.

So, from now on I don’t have any rel="nofollow" attribute anymore on this web log. I am happy with that!

The main reason why I did that, is more because it isn’t good for the Internet. Some other reasons include that it doesn’t even work; semanticly incorrect is and because you all do take some time to respond. More general arguments can be found at NoNoFollow.net.

Thanks to Angsuman for his Follow Wordpress plugin.