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Brand Thunder Acquires BrowserNation Clients, Expands Global Reach of Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer Themes

Brand Thunder, the browser theme specialists, announced today it is the provider of record for BrowserNation clients. The agreement merges the client list of the two leading companies for interactive browser themes and takes BrowserNation clients from Firefox only and extends themes to their fans on Chrome, the fastest growing browser, and Internet Explorer, the world’s most used browser.

Brand Thunder LLC (http://www.brandthunder.com), the browser theme specialists, announced today it is the provider of record for BrowserNation clients. The agreement merges the client list of the two leading companies for interactive browser themes and takes BrowserNation clients from Firefox only and extends themes to their fans on Chrome, the fastest growing browser, and Internet Explorer, the world’s most used browser.

With more than 200 world-class brands already listed as Brand Thunder clients, the BrowserNation agreement delivers an immediate 25% boost to its size with further growth possible from multi-theme agreements. The growth complements Brand Thunder’s core business by building upon its European and Asian presence and creates a foothold in the burgeoning Latino markets of Central and South America.

Brand Thunder sports foundation continues to grow with BrowserNations’s worldwide-appeal with football clubs like Barclays Premier League Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea F.C. and Liverpool F.C., rugby teams like Saracens and Munster, ICC Cricket World Cup, the NBA and Indy Car racing.

The agreement builds on the surge in music industry browser themes. Brand Thunder’s own relationships with RCA Records, Sony Music and Universal Music Group will be enhanced with the addition of artists representing EMI, UMG Latin, Epic Records and more. Artists like Marc Anthony, Enrique Iglesias and Shakira plus a host of others from Kenny Chesney’s No Shoes Radio, to India’s legendary singers Mohd Rafi and Asha Bhosle, and numerous Indie artists have discovered browser themes as an exceptional channel to engage with their fan base.

“Adding a list of premier brands with a global footprint is an incredible boost to our company,” said Patrick Murphy, founder and CEO of Brand Thunder. “We know the demand is there based on the tremendous international use of BT:Engage, Brand Thunder’s do-it-yourself browser theme creator. This will help us make a bigger splash in the market.”

“Both companies have demonstrated the power of online engagement through the browser in a visual and interactive way,” said Romain Rousseau, COO of BrowserNation. “Yet given the changes in the once stable browser market, it makes sense to combine efforts and deliver this powerful communication tool across all leading browser platforms.”

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Codecademy teaches JavaScript to the masses

Before I decided I wanted to be a journalist, I took computer science classes. I even declared it as my major. As we all know so well, what you want to do freshman year usually differs from what you’ll actually do after you graduate, so here I am, taking half of my classes every semester in Carroll.

That’s not to say that I quit computer science because I hated it. I still think it’s important to know how to do a little bit of coding, even if you aren’t going into a technologically-advanced field. Java is a language, just like Spanish or French, and learning it will give you a leg up in the hunt for internships and jobs.

Enter Codecademy. The site teaches users how to write in JavaScript (and is promising more languages in the coming year), which is a great language for web development. Codecademy has one million users and counting after a successful campaign to teach people how to code in 2012 brought 300,000 people to the site. Yes, everyone is doing it, so why aren’t you?

That’s what I thought during winter break. Eager to learn (and to see how much I retained from my computer science days), I pledged to learn how to code. After using it on and off for a month, I really think Codecademy is a better teacher than the ones I’ve had.

Every week, I get an email from the site telling me new lessons are ready. Once you’re at the site you can see the new lessons, along with the progress you’ve already made. Inside each individual lesson are groups of practice programs, which teach you the basics for each term. I had forgotten what functions were, but an example in week two refreshed my memory. Once you complete a set of examples, you can go on to the next lesson or take a break. Better yet, Codecademy doesn’t judge you, so you could finish a lesson, take a day off, and then go back to coding without the site saying anything nasty to you. Even better, you can earn achievements based on your performance. Be warned, these can get downright addicting.

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Google helps translate JavaScript to its Dart alternative

The company’s JavaScript to Dart Synonym application maps common idioms

Promoting its own alternative language to JavaScript, Google is working to bridge JavaScript to Google Dart, with the release Monday of a mapping application that the company is calling its JavaScript to Dart Synonym app.

The application is intended to map common JavaScript idioms to Dart. “It took approximately 2,000 years for the original Rosetta Stone to be discovered, which helped translate the Egyptian hieroglyphs. We couldn’t wait that long to bridge the Dart and JavaScript worlds, so today we are releasing the JavaScript to Dart Synonym app,” said Aaron Wheeler, Google senior user experience prototype, and Marcin Wichary, Google senior user experience designer, in the official Google Code Blog.

[ JavaScript founder Brendan Eich last week expressed his doubts that Dart would be natively supported in browsers. | For more on software, development, subscribe to InfoWorld's Developer World newsletter. ]

Google Dart was unveiled last year as a language for “structured Web programming.” The company has argued that Dart would address so-called scalablity limitations of JavaScript.

With the synonym application, the Google developers translated variables, arrays, functions, classes, DOM manipulation, and other elements and recorded corresponding Dart versions of each idiom. “We hope our app that maps between JavaScript and Dart eases your introduction to Dart and gives you a sense of where the project is going. We know the team is eager to hear your feedback. Don’t hesitate to join the conversation or file a new issue for either Dart or the Synonym app. And remember, Dart isn’t set in stone, so your feedback counts,” Wheeler and Wichary said.

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New Google reference doc shows comparison of Dart and JavaScript

Dart and JavaScript compared

Google has published documentation that illustrates how traditional JavaScript syntax compares to that of its new Dart programming language. The page, which they call the Dart Synonym app, shows JavaScript syntax examples side-by-side with the equivalent Dart code.

Google developed Dart with the hope that it will eventually serve as a replacement for JavaScript. The new language, which was announced last year, is designed to work better with static analysis tools and be more conducive to optimization than traditional JavaScript. Critics contend that Dart isn’t necessary because JavaScript is evolving quickly through an open vendor-neutral process.

The Dart Synonym reference focuses solely on basic syntax, so it doesn’t really highlight the unique technical characteristics of the programming language. As such, a lot of the differences that it illustrates tend to be trivial. Because the distinguishing characteristics of Dart relate to programming in the large, you can get a better idea of how it works in practice by looking at some of Google’s sample applications.

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Search For Highlighted Text With Context Search X For Firefox

I sometimes see phrases or words on a page that I need to look up. Sometimes, those phrases can also lead to additional resources about a certain subject that I’m researching. While I could highlight and right-click the phrase to search for it on the default search engine, I do not have options to search other search engines directly. For that, I would have to highlight and copy the phrase, open a new tab, and use keyword searches to run a search on the topic. Firefox users with the search form displayed in the browser interface can alternatively paste the phrase in the form and select a different search engine from the list.

The Firefox add-on Context Search X adds additional search engines to Firefox’s right-click context menu to run searches right from there.

Once you have the extension installed in the browser, you can start firing away searches with a right-click on the highlighted phrase and the selection of the search engine that you want to search on.

A list of all available search engines currently configured in the browser are displayed for selection. A click opens the search results page of the selected search engine in a new tab in Firefox.

You can click on Manage Search engines to change the order of search engines in the context menu, remove engines from the listing or modify the extension’s behavior further.

One interesting option is the ability to configure search engines to appear in the root context menu instead of the extension’s submenu.

This is done with a click on the Context Menu button in the interface.

Select the Outside Submenu option to have the selected search engine appear in the root context menu.

If your favorite search engine is not installed in the browser, you can do so by visiting Mozilla’s Search Tools page which lists hundreds of different search engines that can be added with a click. You can alternatively check out Add any Search Box to Firefox Search if your favorite search engine is not listed on the page.

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