I wrote a couple of posts recently that might be of interest to Web developers. The first was on canonical URLs and the second was on the Fileinfo extension for PHP.
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft now support a new value for the rel attribute of the link tag that allows one to publicly specify their preferred version of a URL. The value is "canonical" and it's simple to use: <link rel="canonical" href="http://your-site.com/preferred/url/" />. Read my post
The PHP Fileinfo extension is useful for determining the MIME types of files. The returned type is not based on a file's extension, but rather on certain byte sequences at specific positions within the file.
I know Apple is quite restrictive about information, but I was a bit surprised to see how far the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for the iPhone SDK goes: iPhone developers are legally banned from sharing programming tips, discussing code or asking questions of one another in forums or over e-mail!
"F**KING NDA" has become a mantra on Twitter. Every time a developer posts about his or her latest run-in with the metaphorical brick wall that is Apple's NDA, the capitalized expletive is sounded off. "F**KING NDA" has become such a phenomenon, a website has sprung up at F**kingNDA.com to track the twisted tweets.
Apple's software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone is the primary set of tools for building apps for the iPhone, especially if the creations are to be included for sale in the device's App Store. The NDA, which must be agreed to before the SDK can be downloaded, prevents programmers from discussing the finer points of their code.
"There is no legal way for developers to talk about they are developing," Williams laments. "No way to post tutorials. No way to give code away. It's hard to interact with other developers and to write code without reinventing the wheel. Normally, you could post [a coding question] on Twitter and get an answer within minutes."
Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.
We'll discuss best practices, our favorite mashups, and what makes the good ones so good. We’d also like to see if anyone in the group has any experience with the Mapstraction library.
Google Maps Wrap-up
Last month we talked a little bit about web mapping in general and ran through a Google Maps tutorial. All of the materials from last month's meetup are available on our website, including a podcast of the presentation.
I remember that Marco was very concerned about the fact that Google is a corporation last month, but OpenLayers is an open source solution.
I briefly worked with MapQuest in 2006, prior to driving directions in Google Maps, but I found it kind of a pain and would stick with Google—their API is faster, cuter, and easier
When initially working with the the MapQuest OpenAPI, I had a lot of difficulty getting the map to render correctly. The culprit turned out to be the DOCTYPE directive! Remove it if you want your map to display at all in Firefox and correctly in IE. Not sure if this is still true.
Open Discussion
What are the best practices when doing a mashup? Is it using abstraction layers? What makes a good UI? What are people’s favorite mashups and why? What makes a good one so good?
Notes and links from 
Notes and links from 
