SWFObject is an easy-to-use and standards-friendly method to embed Flash content, which utilizes one small JavaScript file. I’ve previously mentioned SWFObject in one of my posts last year.

The latest release is now featured on Google code, and from my initial testing it appears to be flawless.

First let me emphasise that I’m not a big fan of making up different styling rules for the various browsers. But in some (most) cases it’s an absolute necessity.

Before I continue I’d like to mention Dean Edwards IE7 JavaScript library which makes Microsoft Internet Explorer behave like a standards-compliant browser. It fixes many HTML and CSS issues and makes transparent PNG work correctly under IE5 and IE6. That saves you the hassle of making tons of IE specific style sheets and embedding them using these conditional comments (bottom of page).

So with IE out of the way there’s still a few Opera and Safari “bugs” that may need attention. Instead of relying on JavaScript, which will be ignored by some browsers or users that have disabled Java, you may try this PHP approach that I successfully implemented on one of my sites today.

markItUp! is a JavaScript plugin built on the jQuery library. It allows you to turn any textarea into a markup editor. Html, Textile, Wiki Syntax, Markdown, BBcode or even your own Markup system can be easily implemented.

markItUp! is not meant to be a “Full-Features-Out-of-the-Box”-editor. Instead it is a very lightweight, customizable and flexible engine made to meet the developer’s needs in their CMSes, blogs, forums or websites.

Note! markItUp! is not a WYSIWYG editor, and it never will be.

Visit Jay Salvat for more information, examples and to download the source.

The Spry framework for Ajax is a JavaScript library that provides easy-to-use yet powerful Ajax functionality that allows designers to build pages that provide a richer experience for their users. It is designed to take the complexity out of Ajax and allow designers to easily create Web 2.0 pages.

The Spry framework is a way to incorporate XML, JSON or HTML data into pages using HTML, CSS, and a minimal amount of JavaScript, without the need for refreshing the entire page. Spry also provides easy to build and style widgets, providing advanced page elements for end users.

The Spry framework is HTML-centric, and easy to implement for users with basic knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The framework was designed such that the markup is simple and the JavaScript is minimal. It can be used by anyone who is authoring for the web in their tool of choice.

To see what is possible using Spry, check out the Spry home page, that show the Spry framework in action.

The Spry prerelease download was updated today to support the shipping version of Adobe AIR. Visit Adobe Labs to  download the new version.

Last year Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), announced that it was about time to revise the HTML (HyperText Markup Language). Version 4 came back in 1997, followed by a minor update in the end of 1999 (4.01).

Recently W3C announced that the initial draft of HTML 5 is ready. The working draft is made by W3Cs HTML Working Group, consisting of almost 400 members from companies like AOL, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nokia and Opera among others.

The web has changed dramatically since HTML 4 saw the day of light. Moving from static pages to advanced web applications and extensive use of multimedia.

W3C says Ajax and related innovations have pushed the need for a new standard that allows developers to create web applications that works on all platforms, both stationary and mobile.