The new version now has a preference screen where you can toggle the following:

• Search by, and display simplified or traditional characters

• The display of the HSK level

• Have the application check for updates every day or every 5 days

• Couple minor search bugs and a progress bar

Here is a shot of the new preference screen:

If you have patience, you should get the update automatically in about five days. Or if you’re excited about getting the new bits now you can upgrade manually by clicking the install badge on the xiaocidian.com web site.

Have fun

The Air version has the same features as the iPhone version had – the most useful being the “pinyin fuzzy search”.

Pinyin fuzzy search lets you search by pinyin when you are unsure of the tone, or can only hear or remember part of a word.

After you install the application, click the help button in the application for more information.

The Air version also has a few features the iPhone version didn’t. First, the HSK level of the word appears on both the result screen and also on the detail screen (a feature that was going to be added to the iPhone version). Second, since this runs on the desktop, copy and paste work from the word detail page. And lastly, the application works on Mac, Linux, and Windows.

You can download it from the xiaocidian.com web site by clicking on the install badge on the right side of the page, and you can read more about the application here. Have fun!

If you are in Sydney, don’t miss Code wars tonight – which should be really fun.

I never really mentioned it either, but I’ll be talking about iPhone Web Application development, and I’ll be hanging out talking about iPhone native app development at a birds of a feather chat if you are into iPhone stuff.

I am not sure if WebDU is sold out yet, but you might be able to score a last minute ticket…

Own it today!

Min’s descriptions on these videos are the bees knees.

Register now – I highly doubt you’ll be sad you did.

WebDU Registration twitter.com/webdu

You most likely don’t want to miss it.

WebDU Registration twitter.com/webdu

ECMAScript 4 was mostly run by Adobe, Mozilla, Opera, and Google, and ECMAScript 3.1 by Microsoft and Yahoo (via John Resig). ECMAScript 4 is also currently being used by Adobe as the scripting language for Flash / Flex / Air (ActionScript).

ECMAScript 4 and ECMAScript 3.1 were going in different directions. To remedy this, they had a big meeting and merged the two efforts. The new combined effort is called ECMAScript Harmony (how nice).

In the end, essentially, ECMAScript 3.1 “won”, and a large number of features from ECMAScript 4 were dropped from the spec. This has rocked the apple cart for quite a few Flash developers who thought that ECMAScript 4 would eventually become the new Javascript, and the skills they learned with Flash would work equally in the browser.

To those guys I apologize for this, but I am very glad a good deal of ECMAScript 4 features are “off the table”. Before I get into why, I want to say I think you might be blowing the change a bit out of proportion. There are many languages out there that are not based on any standard and they are helpful. The skills you learn will very likely be applicable in other areas – so chin up.

So first off, ECMAScript 4 is C#. It is. Look at it. The variables are backwards and there are a few other differences, but if you wanted C#, just make the language C#. C# is a standard I believe.

In my mind, Javascript is a functional language – by functional I mean the basic unit is a function. Much like lisp. Making the language more class oriented always seemed against the point of the language (to me). The thing that makes Javascript cool is that it’s so versatile – you can make it behave like classes, but I don’t think that was ever the point.

Another thing I am glad is gone is early binding. Early binding is so 1980s. Every interesting and forward thinking language I have used has been late binding (and often message based). Taking Javascript into the early binding direction is like taking the language back in time. Yes, I understand that most of the “enterprise languages” use early binding, and yes I get that it takes less effort to make a faster runtime with early binding, but again, I think that is the past. Computers are supposed to figure things out and make our lives easier and faster. Early binding is a lazy runtime (he says from his arm chair having never written a runtime engine).

Packages and namespaces are off the table as well. Again, I point back to C#. Just use C# for the flash scripting language. When I first saw the new flash language demo at MAX (several year ago now), I said, “That’s C#, why are they remaking C#?”

To me Javascript has dodged the bullet that hit ActionScript right in the face. Instead of making a more dynamic language with looser coupling, it became a less dynamic language, with more coupling, more overhead, and a steeper learning curve.

To round this out – and to clear up I am not being negative or mean, just direct – I do like ActionScript and Flash. I like Flex and Air. I like Javascript. I even like C#. I have just never agreed with the direction ActionScript took back in the day, and I am very, very glad Javascript did not follow suit.

(I can’t believe I agree with Microsoft – yikes).

nciku.com (n词酷.com) has a new tool that lets you highlight Chinese or English text on any web page and either define the text or have the text read to you.

It’s a neat tool. This is a movie of how it works:

(After re-watching the movie, my tones are kind of bad on n词酷. It should be cíkù. Also I say the c sounds more like “s” instead of “ts” a few times -sorry about that.)

Ustream.tv is an interesting service. Using Flash it lets you broadcast (stream) live from your DV camera or web cam. So, you can have your own live “TV show”.

One of the bonuses of setting up your own channel is you get your own IRC room with an embed-able Flash client. Very useful for people to ask quick questions about your applications or services without giving out your personal information.

Here is what the client side of the service looks like.

This service does have potentially many uses (aside from any narcissistic tendencies):

• Free meeting broadcasting
• Teaching / Online classes
• Interviews
• Get yourself used to being monitored all the time

It’s a free service, and I think it has the potential to be a a “youtube killer” (you can record the streams as well for later broadcast).