Netcraft has been publishing since February of 2003 and has given us a good indication of who is hosting the most sites and which is the preferred hosting software. Can you guess how many sites are out there?
Netcraft’s latest survey revealed 525,998,433 sites in total. However, not all of them are activy; only 172 million are in active use. These numbers compare to 463,000,317 sites and 170 million active sites just two months ago.
If we travel back in time, we find that there were just 35,863,952 in February of 2003 and just 105.2 million in December of 2006. As far as the plain number of sites is concerned, the web has about quintupled in less than five years. For 2011 alone, the Internet has almost doubled the number of its sites as Netcraft reported only 273,301,445 sites in January of this year.
Apache is, by a wide margin, the most popular web hosting software with a share of 65.0 percent. Microsoft IIS follows with 15.5 percent. Nginx has 8.5 percent and Google 3.37 percent.
Develop reports that website Codecademy has been injected with $2.5 million USD in Series A round funding provided by Union Square Ventures and other investors to expand its operations to more countries and with more manpower. What’s so special about this site? It teaches JavaScript programming from the very basics, and does it for free.
Codecademy launched back in August and drew more than 250,000 visitors in its first four days. It ditches the books and sterile method of teaching my making the lessons actually fun using conversational language and simple tasks. Users aren’t even required to set up an account in the first few lessons, but they’ll lose their progress after the first few lessons if an account isn’t established by then.
The first lesson introduces promising programmers to the command line, asking them to enter their name in quotes, use the .length command and perform simple calculations. The next lesson covers the confirm or deny popup window messages and alerts. Nope, nothing boring so far!
“Codecademy was created out of the frustrations Zach [Sims] and Ryan [Bubinski] felt with learning how to program,” reads the site’s About Us page. “Tired with less effective text and video resources, Ryan and Zach teamed up to create Codecademy, a better, more interactive way to learn programming by actually coding. This is just the beginning.”
Now sitting on a huge mound of cash, Codecademy is currently hiring additional developers and designers.
“You can find more about the openings on our jobs page, but we think there are few opportunities that offer you the chance to make a difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people,” reads the Codecademy blog. “We’re creating an educational revolution and improving equality of access to education and we want you to be a part of it. If that sounds awesome, send us an email and check out our jobs page.”
To star learning how to code in JavaScript for free, head here.
Here’s a situation: you create a Facebook account. You fall in love with said account. You’re on it all day, every single day. And then, your computer explodes. You go to login on a new machine, and you realize that your minty fresh browser has no recollection of your Facebook password. At this point, you’re probably pondering the point of taking another breath. Evidently, Facebook understands your dilemma, and in the coming weeks, it’ll be testing out a new password recovery system for those who can’t / won’t take advantage of the existing methods. Christened “Trusted Friends,” the feature will allow a user to select between three and five pals that they’re confident will help out in dire times. Then, should you lose your password, Facebook can send recovery codes to that gang, and they can hand ‘em over to you in order to unlock things. According to Facebook, it’s akin to “giving a house key to your friends when you go on vacation.” The only concern? Friends aren’t friends forever, and even BFFs can morph into WEEs given the right circumstances. Choose wisely, Facebookers.
Monday Apple unleashed Facebook v4.0 on the App Store which supports the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad (finally) using iOS 4.0 and later. But the real big news here is that the social website has also launched its HTML5-based Facebook Platform, aka Project Spartan. As of this writing, the actual mobile sites and Android’s Facebook app remain unchanged, but the iOS version has received a dramatic overhaul that allows users to launch HTML5-based apps or those already installed locally on the device.
“We are at the beginning of bringing Facebook Platform apps to mobile,” said Facebook’s Luke Shepard. “The features we are launching today are still under development. They will evolve as we learn more about building richer social experiences on mobile devices. In addition, we will extend our native support for more mobile platforms such as Android in the near future. We are excited to see what you will build with these features today and look forward to working with you as we improve these features.”
To test out the new HTML5 platform, the updated Facebook app was pulled up on an iPod Touch. Monday Storm8 announced that three of its games — World War, iMobsters and Vampires Live — are now available for the Facebook Platform. As these games aren’t currently installed locally on the device, we decided to test Vampires Live via the Facebook app.
Anonymous has teamed up with hactivist group TeaMp0isoN to create an anthem they hope will be a huge hit on the music charts.
According to the song’s credits, the words were written by independent artist Lyricist Jinn while the song itself was composed by MessyBeatz. There’s also a video which features Lyricist Jinn himself and images from the London riots that took place over the summer, images of youth protest, satirical depictions of authority figures and corporations, and more.
“I dedicate my pen to tell the stories of oppression, Fighting off the sources that find glory in their weapons,” Lyricist Jinn says. “They call it war on terror when they’re nothing but the biggest form of terror, Haunting thoughts of all the children as they force a stormy weather.”
The single is already out and available on iTunes, and the music video now resides over on YouTube (seen below). Anonymous and TeaMp0isoN claim that all proceeds from the project (aka #OpCensorThis) will go to a charity to aid the East Africa Crisis Appeal.
“Long have activists and revolutionaries turned to a song to get their message out,” both groups state. “Anonymous and TeaMp0isoN have collaborated together to continue this tradition. We are going to take YouTube and iTunes by storm and flood the song into the world around us, with proceeds going to charities that are actively striving to change it. Once this hits the charts, radio stations will by law, have to play it. Will they thwart the law to continue making sheep out of the people?”
“If they censor the song we will attack the music industry and censor them instead,” the warning adds.
TechCrunch has received both screenshots and confirmation that Facebook plans to reveal its secretive Project Spartan — or rather, Facebook Platform — next week. As previously reported, this will supposedly be an HTML5-based platform so that developers can bypass Apple’s heavy taxation and push apps to iOS customers via the Safari browser. It also seems to be a direct competitor to Google’s Chrome Web Store which offers HTML5-based apps and games exclusively within the Chrome browser and OS.
The screenshots appearing on Thursday supposedly derived from a Facebook mobile developers page that is now offline (but backed up on Scribd). They reveal a revamped mobile Facebook website loaded within the Safari browser on iOS. Along the top is an updated menu bar containg the standard Friends, Messages and Notifications icons, and another icon that will pull up HTML5 apps on a separate menu such as Flixter Mobile, Game Day the App and more.
“Over 350 million users access Facebook from a mobile device every month,” Facebook stated on the now-removed developers page. “Facebook Platform lets you bring these users and their friends to your mobile apps, creating a more engaging and personalized experience for your users.”
According to the site, the apps will use “authenticated referrals,” a new authentication mode for Facebook applications that ensures all referral traffic from Facebook to the application is already connected with Facebook. This means visitors can load up the apps already “logged in” and with whatever data permissions the developer requested in the Required Permissions section. As an example, a user receives a notification to check out a specific app, the user clicks on the link, hits the Log In button, and then the app loads.
The page goes on to say that Facebook Platform enables developers of native iOS and Android apps to integrate with Facebook login and APIs “to create personalized experiences.” Android even suppoets Single Sign-on which lets users sign into an app using their Facebook identity. “If they already signed into the Facebook Android app on thier device, they do not have to even type a username and password,” Facebook said.
So far it seems that Facebook is working on an HTML5-based version of the social website for mobile devices that will also include a section for installing HTML5 apps. That said, developers will be able to create applications that should work on both iOS and Android — possibly with very little issues stemming from fragmentation. That said, will Facebook be the next App Store for mobile devices?
Mark Zuckerberg revealed during last week’s Facebook’s f8 developer conference, another part of his master plan for the social network. Open Graph will now integrate many of your favorite news and music services, including Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio and MOG onto your Facebook page with custom apps, and will also bring video from Vevo, Netflix, Hulu and many more. The media platform’s already up and running, so you can see (and hear) the results of Mark’s labor right now.
Of course, there’s a downside to this news. Netflix has confirmed that its Facebook integration will only be available in Canada and Latin America initially, due to a US law that “creates some confusion over our ability to allow U.S. members to share what they watch.” That doesn’t apply to the music services, however, and you can get an idea how Spotify will work in the video after the break. Even TiVo’s gotten in on the action, announcing new sharing buttons for its iPhone and iPad mobile apps, although there’s no direct DVR integration mentioned yet.
Looks like ol’ Zuck is up to his old tricks again unveiling yet another twist in the Facebook layout shenanigans. At the f8 keynote last Friday, Zuckerberg unveiled a revamped new Facebook profile page which he’s calling Timeline.
What it allows you to do is go back way into the past to see what you were up to as your foolish, younger self. Timeline is navigated by a bar on your right arranged chronologically by year. The Timeline View also allows you to filter content by photos, where you’ve been and much more. The layout is almost like a portfolio of you, in blogging style, which is pretty neat actually. I’m all for all things visual, but dredging up the past, this can only end in tears. Can you imagine the level of stalking that could potentially happen to partners/co-workers/random public figures?
On last Thursday the Justice Department confirmed that the FBI arrested two alleged members of LulzSec and Anonymous in San Francisco and Phoenix while also securing charges against a third suspect from Ohio. The FBI was also said to be executing search warrants in New Jersey, Minnesota and Montana.
According to reports, 23-year-old Cody “recursion” Kretsinger from Phoenix, Arizona is believed to be a current or former member of LulzSec and has been charged with conspiracy and the unauthorized impairment of a protected computer.
Additionally, 47-year-old Christopher Doyon of Mountain View, California, believed to be part of Anonymous, has been charged with conspiracy to cause intentional damage to a protected computer, causing intentional damage to a protected computer and aiding and abetting. 26-year-old Joshua Covelli of Fairborn, Ohio also faces the same charges.
Funny news we have here. PETA, the same organization that asked if it could have sex.com for free (when it was expected to raise millions in auction) so it could publicize the advantages of vegan Viagra, is launching a pornography site to help get its message across.
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals group has announced that it is launching an x-rated pornography site with the URL peta.xxx in an effort to reach a broader audience. Yeah, a crowd of very perverted audience indeed. PETA spokeswoman Lindsay Rajt told MSNBC that the site will feature graphic images and video. Rajt is also cited as saying this isn’t the first time PETA has used porn stars or nudity to broadcast its message.
Indeed, the company regularly photographs nude celebrities with slogans such as, “I’d rather go naked than wear fur!” Remember that, yeah? Those are real! Celebrities that have pulled off the stunt include Alicia Silverstone, Christy Turlington, Dennis Rodman, Sadie Frost, Sophie Monk, Steve-O, and David Cross.
Rajt told MSNBC that the earliest the company would get approval for the site would be November.
Here’s a situation: you create a Facebook account. You fall in love with said account. You’re on it all day, every single day. And then, your computer explodes. You go to login on a new machine, and you realize that your minty fresh browser has no recollection of your Facebook password. At this point, you’re probably pondering the point of taking another breath. Evidently, Facebook understands your dilemma, and in the coming weeks, it’ll be testing out a new password recovery system for those who can’t / won’t take advantage of the existing methods. Christened “Trusted Friends,” the feature will allow a user to select between three and five pals that they’re confident will help out in dire times. Then, should you lose your password, Facebook can send recovery codes to that gang, and they can hand ‘em over to you in order to unlock things. According to Facebook, it’s akin to “giving a house key to your friends when you go on vacation.” The only concern? Friends aren’t friends forever, and even BFFs can morph into WEEs given the right circumstances. Choose wisely, Facebookers.
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