Category Archives: Applications

AJAX

Posted on by David
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Wondering how Google creates such great interfaces for web applications such as Gmail and Google Maps?

AJAX:

Google Suggest and Google Maps are two examples of a new approach to web applications that we at Adaptive Path have been calling Ajax. The name is shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, and it represents a fundamental shift in what’s possible on the Web.

Defining Ajax

Ajax isn’t a technology. It’s really several technologies, each flourishing in its own right, coming together in powerful new ways. Ajax incorporates:

* standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS;
* dynamic display and interaction using the Document Object Model;
* data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT;
* asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest;
* and JavaScript binding everything together.

It’s basically the creative use of several mature web technologies in combination. Follow the link above to read more in the very informative article by Jesse James Garrett.

Google Goes Mini

Posted on by David

Google just launched another search appliance: the Google Mini. It costs $5,000 which seems to be a good price point for a lot of non-profit organizations to make an investment for their site or intranet. It will index up to 50,000 documents, which should be plenty for most needs in this market as well.

Six Apart Guide to Combatting Comment Spam

Posted on by David

Here is a nice guide to comment spam and how to fight it, provided by Six Apart, the makers of Movable Type.

Six Apart Guide to Combatting Comment Spam:

This document describes how malicious or unwanted comments (‘comment spam’) affect weblogs, the techniques spammers use to abuse weblogs, and the tactics that can be used to prevent and defend against these attacks. Also included is a review of the strengths and weaknesses of each tactic, instructions for implementing them on your weblog and ones which we recommend for the best protection.

RSS Web Traffic Reports

Posted on by David

Here is my good idea for the week: web traffic analysis reports in RSS. I’d love to have a package that can report daily and weekly stats for a site in RSS so I can add it to my subscription list. That sounds like a much easier way to keep tabs on a site than remembering to go view an HTML report daily.

Some cursory searching in google didn’t turn up anything yet. Hopefully some enterprising scripter will get on this and extend one of the existing packages out there.

del.icio.us

Posted on by David

I’ve been using del.icio.us to store my bookmarks lately. If you haven’t seen it yet, del.icio.us is a social bookmark application. You can add your bookmarks to the site and store them under specific keywords. You can then easily browse your stored links by the topics you have added.

Where it gets extra-nifty is that you can also see what other users have been posting under the same keywords. Each keyword provides an RSS feed of new entries, so you end up with nice feed on a particular topic. For example, here is the feed for KM. You can even subscribe to an RSS feed for all the links posted by a particular person. Here is my del.icio.us feed.

Del.icio.us also provides web service access to its data, so you end up with tools like Foxylicious, which is a wonderful extension for the Firefox browser that imports all of your del.icio.us entries into your Firefox bookmarks. Excellent.

Ecto

Posted on by David

I’m writing this entry using Ecto, a little OS X program for managing and posting to a weblog via a rich text interface that runs on your desktop (or laptop, in my case). Pretty slick so far. I’ve tried a few of these over the years but have never stuck with one very long. We’ll see how I do with this one.

One thing it has that I can definitely use is the ability to write an entry when I have no connectivity and then post it later when I can get online. That will be useful. And I just used the auto create a link using the url in the clip board buffer. Excellent.

Spotted via Deane’s review on Gadgetopia.

Hosted Drupal Service

Posted on by David

Gunnar Langemark has pointed out a new company that provides a hosted Drupal service: Bryght From the site:

Bryght is our Drupal hosted service that enables anyone – from individuals to businesses and organizations – to easily build and maintain a dynamic website with an online community.

I’ve used Drupal for a couple small project groups. It is a great collaborative tool if you can keep everything html based (document management tends to be a bit weak). This service should make it feasible for a much wider array of people to easily take advantage of Drupal.

Source Control HOWTO

Posted on by David

Eric Sink is writing a series of articles on how to use source control. Definitely check this out if you manage development teams in-house or out.

Source Control HOWTO

I have started writing a series of articles explaining how to do source control and the best practices thereof. See below for links to the individual chapters in this series. The Introduction explains my motivations and goals for writing this series.

Keynote's APXL

Posted on by David

Just came across an Apple developer connection article on how Apple’s Keynote presentation software stores all presentation data in an xml document:

At the heart of the Keynote presentation file is the presentation.apxl file, which specifies every detail of the presentation’s appearance and behavior—from the appearance of the master slide and each individual slide to the transitions used between slides and the state of the presentation when the customer first opens it.

The article goes on to talk about some of the nifty possibilities of integrating your databases and applications with Keynote. My own idea is that with a little (ok, maybe a lot) of hacking, you could provide a Keynote presentation feed for your weblog.

I love XML.