I am cranking through some code examples and plenty of research for this thing. It should kick incredible amounts of JavaScript ass. Come to think of it, it's a ninety minute presentation, so it better kick ass I'm going to look at load times, execution times, ySlow scores, codebase and add pure editorial commentary for several popular libraries (at minimum, jQuery, YUI, Prototype, and Dojo), as well as pure JavaScript and my own bare-bones library.

If you're a Boston JavaScript nerd, I hope to see you there.

Here's the description:

Our next JavaScript Meetup will be held on Thursday, April 30th at Microsoft Research Center located at One Memorial Drive in Cambridge. You should come to the 11th floor to be let in. There is also parking available at a cheap evening rate in the building.

Rob Larsen , Principal Presentation Engineer at Cramer, will demonstrate comparisons between raw JavaScript and utilizing the more popular JavaScript libraries currently available.

After the presentation | demonstration, we will go around the room introducing ourselves and asking the group for advice | opinions on any JavaScript-related issues members are facing.

Microsoft will provide pizza again. What a nice company!

Please RSVP and bring guests. We always have lots of pizza left over.

And the meetup.com link:

April Boston JavaScript Meetup Meeting – JavaScript Library Comparisons – The Boston JavaScript Meetup Group Cambridge, MA – Meetup.com

In addition to revamping their interface, LinkedIn is also now being graced by the presence of Bill Gates:

LinkedIn: Bill Gates

Speaking of the interface redesign, I actually like it. It's clean, orderly and has much improved organization. It's certainly an improvement over the old interface. I hated the old interface.

"It is a shotgun marriage, but the person holding the shotgun is Google"

That descries the situation pretty well.

Honestly? I'd like to see YHOO stay independent. Being an internet person, it would be sad for me to see one of the original internet
giants swallowed up by the house that Gates built. It's also a horrifying merger from pretty much every conceivable standpoint. Mismatched systems, divergent ideologies, competing services, scale… I wouldn't want to unravel any of it.

For my part, I just hope they leave del.icio.us and flickr alone.

If you're using Flash and you want the best possible coverage (meaning it works with users who don't have JS turned on) while still using something like SWFObject where possible to get around the "click here to activate and use this control" ActiveX message in Internet Explorer, then take a look at the ridiculous pattern below.

Warning- not for the squeamish…
(more…)

Hallelujah. Bravo Microsoft! I really don't like using JS to embed Flash into a page, so this is good news for me. No more SWFObject for me

Don't get me wrong, SWFObject is a great piece of code. I just hate having to think about Flash at all. Unless there's actual communication between the SWF and the page, I just want to dump it into the doc like any other element and be done with it. I can't tell you how many problems I've had over the past year with Flash and JS embed techniques and bizarre bugs… Pain. Great pain.

IE Automatic Component Activation (Changes to IE ActiveX Update)

Back in April 2006, we made a change to how Internet Explorer handled embedded controls used on some webpages. Some sites required users to “click to activate” before they could interact with the control. Microsoft has now licensed the technologies from Eolas, removing the “click to activate” requirement in Internet Explorer. Because of this, we're removing the “click to activate” behavior from Internet Explorer!

It’s important (and cool) to note that this change will require no modifications to existing webpages, and no new actions for developers creating new pages. We are simply reverting to the old behavior. Once Internet Explorer is updated, all pages that currently require “click to activate” will no longer require the control to be activated. They’ll just work.

IEBlog : IE Automatic Component Activation (Changes to IE ActiveX Update)