Microsoft has released the final IE9 Platform Preview and the Beta is scheduled to be released next month.  The interface of the Platform Preview is just a shell — in order to open a Web page select "Open…" from the "Page" menu – but the performance is impressive.  The latest release scored 95 on the Acid3 test and everything seems to work on the sites I've tested.  You can install the fourth and final IE9 preview here.  It installs as a separate application and won't overwrite your current installation of IE.

If you want to be sure that visitors to your sites see the font you intended them to see, use the Google Font API.

Here is an example

This is the "Reenie Beanie" font.

I rarely develop interesting sites.  Most of my clients are public agency membership organizations and none of their sites are destined to become the next Facebook or Twitter.  Recently, however, I had the opportunity to develop an interesting site and I think it has the potential to attract a lot of visitors.  The site is called Real America Speaks and it was developed for two retired couples who are traveling across the U. S. in their motor homes and conducting video interviews to find out what people on the main streets and back streets of America really think about our country.  The videos look professional and the interviews are interesting.  The site includes a WordPress 3.0 blog and a page of video interviews with new interviews added regularly.  The site's address is http://realamericaspeaks.com/. 

According to Anthony Franco, president and cofounder of the consulting company Effective UI, it depends on what you're building. For applications that won't be accessed by mobile users, he recommends Flash, but for those who will, he says to use HTML 5.  He says the ongoing battle “is not helpful for developers." And he adds that they have two choices: "They can either build [the application] twice, or build it less.” He believes that so far most developers are choosing to build apps twice, so that they provide desktop users the richer experience of Flash, while still making their apps accessible to mobile users."

From Franco’s seat, the war between the technology giants “is not helpful for developers. The conversation has not progressed beyond ‘Apple sucks’ or ‘Adobe sucks.’ From the user experience, it’s annoying that I can’t see all content on the Internet on my iPad. That makes it a poorer user experience.”  The irony, according to UI designer Jeff Gothelf, director of user experience at TheLadders.com, is that Jobs is becoming a proponent of a very open standard HTML, while everything else Apple does is closed and locked down.

Software Development Times, June 22, 2010

The June, 2010, issue of Adobe's EDGE newsletter includes an interview with Paul Gubbay, Adobe's Senior Director of Engineering, to get his perspective on HTML5.  You can view a video and read a transcript of the interview here.

For many developers, the development of online forms is one of the least favorite website development taks and, the more complex the form, the more tedious the job.  I recently discovered Web Forms 3.0 with Spam Blocker and it's made the task of online form development much easier and faster. 

Web Forms 3.0 includes 50 pre-made forms.  You can easily customize the appearance any of the forms using the program's Web Form Designer. You can choose the text font style, color, and size; create the form's background color; select any of the included form borders or choose not to have a border; select one of 10 validation images to indicate to a user that a required form field was not completed; select one of 20 security code styles (CAPTCHA images) and select one of 4 sizes for the security code image.

The forms use table layouts instead of CSS, but many developers are still more comfortable with table layouts.  Anyone familiar with HTML can modify the forms to add or delete fields, change table sizes, etc.  The server-side PHP scripting is taken care of automatically.,

According to the product website, Web Forms 3.0 normally sells for $29.95 but it's currently on sale for $19.95.

On June 9th Artisteer announced that the company plans to provide initial support for fluid layouts and content editing in the upcoming product version(s), still 2-3 months away.

For the next seven days, Sitepoint is allowing free downloads of its 7-part CSS Video Crash Course.  You can read about the videos here and download the free videos here.

Microsoft's cross-browser test results of IE9 are available here.

Hot Scripts has an article on the top 10 simplest and most lightweight scripts on the Web.  The scripts include:

1. simpleCart(js) – A Lightweight JavaScript Shopping Cart
2. GetSimple CMS -The Simplest Content Management System EVER
3. FluxBB – A fast, light, user-friendly forum application
4. Relay – AJAX Directory Manager
5. Task Jr – Web-based task manager
6. IMAGIN – Flash Photo Gallery 
7.  Shoutbox – A PHP + AJAX Shoutbox
8. lwrte -Lightweight Rich Text Editor
9. Adminer – Database Management in a single file
10. EZPX – Photoblog System

 Does anyone have experience with any of these scripts?  You can read the article here.