Highslide JS is a piece of JavaScript that streamlines the use of thumbnail images on web pages. The library offers these features and advantages:

• No plugins like Flash or Java required.
• Popup blockers are no problem. The images expand within the active browser window.
• Single click. After expanding the image, the user can scroll further down or leave the page without restoring the image.
• The approach uses two separate images. No heavy full-size image packed into thumbnail display size! The full-size image is loaded in the background either on page load or when the user clicks the thumb. You specify this option in the script’s settings.
• Compatibility and safe fallback. If the user has disabled JavaScript or the JavaScript fails in any way, the browser redirects directly to the image itself. This fallback is able to cope with most exceptions and incompatibilities.

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Brent Ashley has written a Developerworks article about making Ajax mashup secure. It looks at where it’s at today and where it’s all headed.

Current Web browsers weren’t designed to easily and securely get content from multiple sources into one page. Discover how developers have stretched the available tools to fit the task and how doing so has put strain on the resulting applications with respect to security and scalability. Also, learn about several browser improvements being proposed to remedy the situation and how to become part of the conversation that will bring Web development beyond this hurdle to a new level of interoperability.

Read full artilce of Making Ajax mashup secure

If you haven’t heard of or visited Peter-Paul Koch’s site QuirksMode, you probably haven’t been doing a whole lot of JavaScripting. On the other hand, if you are a seasoned scripter you probably remember when QuirksMode’s predecessor “The JavaScript Section” was the number one source of JavaScript-related information on the Web.

That intro is meant to emphasise that Peter-Paul Koch, perhaps better known as ppk, knows an awful lot about JavaScript and has helped many scripters find solutions for weird browser incompatibilities through the years. I remember how excited I was when I learned that ppk worked for the same company I did back in 2000 - imagine having all that scripting knowledge within the same company walls (well, it was a multinational Web consultancy, so within the same intranet is more accurate). Now ppk has taken that knowledge and experience and condensed it into a book that explains modern, accessible, and unobtrusive JavaScript.

[read full review at 456 Berea Street ]