(Note: Lightning rounds are limited to 5 minutes.)

Image Optimization
- on average, images are around 50% of page weight
- no GIFs, save 20.4%
- crush PNGs save 16%
- strip JPG meta, save 12%
- tool called smush.it, http://smushit.com
- firefox extension, goes through the page and “smushes” the images, allows you to download the smushed images

Intro to Dreamweaver CS4
- better code completion, including autosuggest from both imported libraries and user-defined objects
- worked with the OpenAjax Alliance
- inserts of widgets from libraries work (move) in live view
- uses WebKit for rendering

Comet Overview
- pushing information from the server to the client
- reverses the traditional pull architecture
- helps deal with server load, server doesn’t have to respond immediately, can delay answering until it is able to answer
- “remembers” the client requests it receives
- 5 minute window for the server to answer
- e.g. with stock prices, only answer when the price changes

Firebug is Awesome
- upcoming: performance, make the debugger localized to a particular page rather than all tabs
- upcoming: better stability
- upcoming: unit testing ability built into firebug, “test” panel with full test suite and test runner built-in

Episodes (A Shared Approach for Timing Web Pages)
- measuring performance of websites
- current measuring stops at the onload event
- ajax introduces a lot of other “done” states and important points in the process
- performance monitoring by embedding measuring scripts into your web app (Jiffy is one product)
- Episodes is a shared, open-source approach to timing javascript
- built using custom javascript events

Hacking Netflix
- launching a public API this week
- embeddable widgets that act on your netflix queue
- search, access info, reviews, etc.
- catalog API and users API
- XML and JSON
- http://blog.netflix.com for the announcement

Interviewing Javascript Gurus
- what to look for when hiring top javascript talent
- (or, what to learn if you want to be top javascript talent)
- software engineering: OOP theory, patterns, etc.
- web development: HTTP details, DNS, caching, CGI, all of the details
- browsers: knowledge of browsers, works in different browsers, security
- CSS: how you use it
- javascript the language: namespaces, inheritance, constructors, “this”, closures
- attitude: loves javascript, isn’t trying to make it into another language

Cappucino/Objective-J
- designed for “desktop-class” applications
- recently open-sourced
- objective-j: new programming language built on javascript
- introduces classical inheritance, code importing, ruby-esque features, optional static typing
- is a strict superset of javascript
- no plugin required, no compiling
- cappucino: application framework
- handles document management, content editing, graphics and views
- http://cappucino.org

ShiftSpace.org
- browser plugin
- provides a contextual menu to do operations on web content, e.g. image swap
- other people can see the operations that you do, can view shifts that other people make
- community commenting
- built using greasemonkey and mootools, avoided XUL for portability reasons
- can extend to create your own tools to add operations

Milescript
- OO language that compiles to javascript
- goal to make it easier to do large-scale javascript apps
- try to bring advantages of static compiled languages to javascript