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May 09, 2005

Bitty browser

Scott Matthews' Bitty has a very cool bit of code that lets you embed one page in another, sort of like an iframe (in fact, it uses iframes) , but with better formatting and browser controls. For example, here's what Joho's RSS feed looks like as a Bitty window:

And here is IT Conversations:

And here's a chiclet that launches a separate Bitty window. In this case, it launches the entire page, not the RSS feed:

It's free.

Posted by D. Weinberger at May 9, 2005 02:46 PM


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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Bitty browser:

» Bitty Browser from Get Real
David Weinberger mentioned the Bitty browser, so I thought I would fiddle with it. If you click on the following you will pop open a broiwser window that is populated by RSS from a Travel blog I set up. Pretty... [Read More]

Tracked on May 10, 2005 03:55 PM

» Bitty Browser from Get Real
David Weinberger mentioned the Bitty browser, so I thought I would fiddle with it. If you click on the following you will pop open a browser window that is populated by RSS from a Travel blog I set up. Pretty... [Read More]

Tracked on May 10, 2005 04:20 PM

» Bittiness from Licence to Roam
Via Joho found this neat trick of an embedded or popup mini browser - Scott Mathew's Bitty Browser. Using iframes, it allows a window into another site, either embedded like the one below or via popup buttons. Nice to try... [Read More]

Tracked on May 22, 2005 09:52 AM

» Bittiness from Licence to Roam
Via Joho found this neat trick of an embedded or popup mini browser - Scott Mathew's Bitty Browser. Using iframes, it allows a window into another site, either embedded like the one below or via popup buttons. Not a new... [Read More]

Tracked on May 22, 2005 09:54 AM

» Bittiness from Licence to Roam
Via David Weinberger found this neat trick of an embedded or popup mini browser - Scott Mathew's Bitty Browser. Using iframes, it allows a window into another site, either embedded like the one below or via popup buttons. Not a... [Read More]

Tracked on May 22, 2005 09:55 AM

Comments

bitty.com not .org - .org is NSFW

Posted by: Jonathan Peterson | May 9, 2005 03:36 PM


It may be cool, but see here for why it may not be a great choice of product name in the UK at the moment.

Posted by: Lloyd Davis | May 9, 2005 03:45 PM


The name for Bitty was inspired by my new daughter -- so perhaps the UK's "I want bitty" isn't so far from the mark... ;)

-Scott

Posted by: Scott Matthews | May 9, 2005 04:33 PM


David, I think your link to the .org version of the name is, well, incorrect as it takes one to a, well, porn site. The .com version is a browser site.

Posted by: Rex Hammock | May 9, 2005 04:57 PM


It's free. But it's not open. The License agreement is a piece of intrusive marketing: 'by registering for the Service and implementing the Resident Software, you authorize Turnstyle to collect, store and process Customer Data subject to the terms of this Agreement, and represent that the collection, storage and processing of such Customer Data...' Well, I think it's not free at all. The data has a big value. I think we must review the word free in a connected society.
best, hdhd

Posted by: hernani dimantas | May 10, 2005 07:52 PM


Hi Hernani,

When I put the agreement together, I had been thinking that it might be helpful to provide Bitty users with statistical usage information -- stuff like the number of times their Bitty has been loaded, etc. (ie, typical webcounter type stuff).

I have absolutely no intention of providing that data to anybody, except to the person whose site it belongs to.

If it would help to know a little more about me, please visit:
http://www.turnstyle.com/bio.asp

yours, -Scott

Posted by: Scott Matthews | May 10, 2005 09:43 PM


I see that the iframe tag they provide you with has a url pointing to their site. Seems that "embeded browser" might just be a fancy name for an iframe?

Yikes! Best of luck to them. Hope they have a good server cluster.

Posted by: johno | May 14, 2005 03:42 PM


In fact, this is the essence of their "embedded browser":

iframe width="400" height="500" src="http://b1.bitty.com/browser/"

At first I though maybe bitty serves up an html page that loads into the ifmame with javascript that controls either another iframe or a frame? Looks like they have the right-click menu disabled so it is hard to tell. Thinking more... I am not even sure this requires and DHTML? You would only need javascript that sets the href for the frame/iframe, no DHTML. Hmmm, wait the "Menu" and "Open URL" pages in are just served up from bitty and loaded into the iframe.

http://b1.bitty.com/browser/openurl/

http://b1.bitty.com/browser/menu/

Wait, these pages server side ASP server! Try http://b1.bitty.com/browser/openurl/?a=0 These pages are passed the id you included on the iframe url "a=0824903D...". Hmm, and "openurl" has a cleverly hidden form that posts your url request back to bitty with the id.
I smell smoke... and mirrors.

Posted by: johno | May 14, 2005 03:44 PM


Wait a minute, let me get this straight, here it is 2005, and we are getting all excited about an iframe and request snooping 'service'? Show me the VC money and we've got 1998 all over again!

Posted by: tony | May 14, 2005 03:59 PM


The fact is that anyone skilled in javascript and html can implement the functionality of the bitty browser with an iframe, some basic javascript, and a couple of html pages hosted on their own server. I know scott claims good intentions, but I can't see any reason for the use of server side processing. Why not just serve the frame wrapper, menu, toolbar and openurl pages as static html pages? Anyone could then install the code on their server, without the need for the bitty server at all?

Posted by: johno | May 14, 2005 06:27 PM


But... what's the point of it?

Posted by: Michael | July 24, 2006 03:11 PM


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