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HTML5 developers appMobi want to bring the definitive jQuery framework to mobile developers. Dubbed jQ.Mobi, appMobi is releasing the new HTML5 framework to the open source community today, promising that it is faster and more lightweight than existing options and will give mobile Web developers the user interface and programming functions they have been looking for.

Lots of fun stuff coming down the pike from the jQuery Mobile folks. According to a post today by Todd Parker, the 1.0.1 maintenance release for jQuery Mobile will be coming out in "the next two weeks." After that, Parker provides a look at some of the new features that we'll see in 1.1 and 1.2.

Parker says that the jQuery Mobile project is moving to regular releases every three months (or so). The first of the timed releases is 1.1, which is expected in February.

Hinds Hall, Syracuse University campus, 2:48 am ET November 11 - Three in the morning is a magical time. There's a certain weightlessness about 3 am, when you're up all night working on a huge project, after midnight has hurdled you into the great unknown, when you realize you're reaching maximum altitude and every action seems effortless. Inertia seems to carry you forward, and for a few moments, it's as though your body were floating in front of you.

From the point of view of 3 am, everything seems equalized. The pressure subsides, a new rhythm enters your head, and only tomorrow exists. For the students cranking away at the MLB.com University Challenge, there's no question any more about which way to go. That decision was already made, the booster stage has already blasted off, and from here until the rest of the project, they'll be feeling more and more like passengers.

There's something very appealing about the design of the London Underground (PDF) Tube maps. The design has spawned plenty of spinoffs, and is in demand for all types of projects. If you're looking to include something similar in your own project, Nik Kalyani has produced a jQuery plugin that you can use to create your own.

If you've wanted a slimmer jQuery, and many do, you might want to look at jQuip.

Demis Bellot launched the project on GitHub earlier this month. The goal for jQuip? According to the GitHub page, "to kickstart jquery.com into re-organizing its code-base so it's more modular since we believe we've proved the most useful parts of jQuery is a fraction of its code-base."

Hinds Hall, Syracuse University campus, 2:48 am ET November 11 - Three in the morning is a magical time. There's a certain weightlessness about 3 am, when you're up all night working on a huge project, after midnight has hurdled you into the great unknown, when you realize you're reaching maximum altitude and every action seems effortless. Inertia seems to carry you forward, and for a few moments, it's as though your body were floating in front of you.

From the point of view of 3 am, everything seems equalized. The pressure subsides, a new rhythm enters your head, and only tomorrow exists. For the students cranking away at the MLB.com University Challenge, there's no question any more about which way to go. That decision was already made, the booster stage has already blasted off, and from here until the rest of the project, they'll be feeling more and more like passengers.

Modern browsers are, generally speaking, so much better about stability than they used to be. Still, who hasn't had a browser crash in the middle of filling out a form at some point? Maybe the odds are 1 in 100, maybe they're 1 in 1,000, but it will happen. Now, consider the odds for all the people visiting your sites. If your site has forms of any kind, you should consider using Sisyphus to add Gmail-like saving to your site.

The jQuery project announced today a new effort to work in support of web developers everywhere who are interested in impacting conversations about web standards but are unable to participate through existing channels, which are often maddening.

The new jQuery Standards Team says that the broad adoption of jQuery, they say it's used on 50% of the top 10,000 sites on the web, means they have a strong perspective on the needs of developers everywhere. They don't mention it, but they are also people that are widely liked who are responsible for very cool technology. At least that's the way supporters see it; the group isn't without its critics. Perhaps as all things standards related are.

In a Best Practices online advisory to browser-based Web site developers published last week, Microsoft paints a compelling picture for favoring JavaScript libraries - especially jQuery - for rendering client-side UI, over the use of plug-ins. If Microsoft is to score a blow against Adobe Flash, it has to strike at plug-ins' very reason for existence, arguing that jQuery is faster, easier, cheaper, and prettier.

Microsoft's patterns and practices team had been advocating the use of its Silverlight plug-in for composite applications since 2008, with a project it calls Prism. That project remains ongoing, though the emphasis in recent months has shifted to Project Silk, which focuses on what the company describes as "building cross-browser Web applications with a focus on client-side interactivity. These applications take advantage of the latest Web standards, including HTML5, CSS3 and ECMAScript 5, along with modern Web technologies such as jQuery, Windows Internet Explorer 9, and ASP.NET MVC3."

You know there's a slight problem somewhere when a developer uses words like "hell fire" to refer to a project. When it comes to Etherpad, the popular collaborative editor, it's not the concept that's problematic, it's the delivery.

Thankfully, the Etherpad Foundation has put two years into delivering a kinder and gentler version. Called Etherpad Lite, it streamlines the original into something more manageable to install and run."