Software behind Facebook – must read for web developers

Saw this link on reddit today, Exploring the software behind Facebook, the world’s largest site:

At the scale that Facebook operates, a lot of traditional approaches to serving web content break down or simply aren’t practical. The challenge for Facebook’s engineers has been to keep the site up and running smoothly in spite of handling close to half a billion active users. This article takes a look at some of the software and techniques they use to accomplish that.

Tags: Facebook, reddit, scaling, software, web developer

Apple’s Steve Jobs: Thoughts on Flash – and my response

Steve Jobs posted a response to the whole Flash on iPad / iPhone / iPod issue, an excerpt:

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I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.

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Tags: Apple, CNN, espn, Facebook, fart sounds, Flash, flash products, fox news, full web, h.264, iPad, iPhone, msnbc, optimal experience, rollovers, Steve Jobs, wall street journal, Youtube

Help: How do I announce a new website?

We launch websites every month or two for clients, and make many website updates.  What are the best ways to tell the “internet” that your site is up, and ready to be checked out?  I’m going to focus on the free options, as I find anything that costs money sketchy (especially with regard to listing a site).

We can divide this into a few categories:

• Search Engines
• Social Networking
• Peer Sites
• News Aggregators

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Tags: Bing, delicious, Facebook, Google, Google Webmaster, LinkedIn, News Aggregators, Open Directory Project, SEO, Social Networking, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Yahoo

The Death Blow to IE6?

Web developers are constantly fighting the IE6 battle.

We don’t want to support it, but all too often IE6 represents 10% of our client’s visitors — and you can’t tell a client they can’t talk to 10% of their visitors.  If it’s an ecommerce site that could be a 10% decrease in sales.

Recently many large sites have announced the looming demise of Internet Explorer 6.  Site’s such as Google Docs, Google Sites, YouTube (surprise, a Google company), and many others.  Rumors are spreading this will include Gmail, Google Calendar, and other Google products too (maybe the sacred Google Search).

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Tags: Facebook, Google, Google Docs, Google Sites, ie6, internet explorer 6, Youtube

IE6: Graphical Illustration of Problems with CSS

Posted on flickr, css mess, is one artist’s (atzu) homage to the problems all web developers face in IE6.  As the creator says:

By the way, I wanted to thank all these major sites as Youtube, Facebook, Google that are not supporting Internet Explorer 6 anymore.

– atzu

Click for Larger Version

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Tags: atzu, CSS, css mess, Facebook, flickr, Google, ie6, internet explorer 6, Youtube

Google Buzz: Turn off the Buzz

A few days ago Google buzz launched.  This included automatically starting up Google buzz in your Gmail account, and automatically setting your followers.

While nice of Google (and scary), automatically assuming Gmail users would want Google buzz to share who you are following with your followers — was a poor assumption. › Continue reading

Tags: Arstechnica, Facebook, Gmail, Google, Google Buzz