Practical Javascript, DOM Scripting, and Ajax Projects

Practical Javascript, DOM Scripting, and Ajax Projects picks up where Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax left off.

Frank Zammetti’s practical guide to real-world JavaScript and Ajax will have you developing actual client-side apps in no time. As more of a hacker than a theoretician, this kind of guide appeals to me. Usually when I start developing my own apps, some of the code used previously (in building sample apps) will be adapted and tweaked for my own purposes.

Some of the projects you’ll learn how to build in Practical Javascript:
* JSDigester - a library that simplifies (takes away the pain) of parsing XML on the client side
* Mashing up a list of hotels + a Yahoo Map for a user-entered zipcode
* Client-side persistence techniques
* A JavaScript validation framework
* Building widgets and working with UI widget frameworks
* Building a JavaScript mini-game (cool!)
* An Ajax-based client-server chat pplication

You can pick up a copy of Practical Javascript, DOM Scripting, and Ajax Projects at Amazon.com (avg. review score is 4.5 stars).

Adobe’s Online image editor

Adobe announced that it will be creating an online version of Photohop within the next 6 months. Adobe laid the foundation for a hosted Photoshop product with Adobe Remix, a Web-based video-editing tool it offers through the PhotoBucket media-sharing site.

Like Adobe Remix, the hosted Photoshop service is set to be free and marketed as an entry-level version of Adobe’s more sophisticated image-editing tools, including Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Chizen envisions revenue from the Photoshop service coming from online advertising.

Hoping to get a jump on Google and other competitors, Adobe Systems plans to release a hosted version of its popular Photoshop image-editing application within six months, the company’s chief executive said Tuesday.Like Adobe Remix, the hosted Photoshop service is set to be free and marketed as an entry-level version of Adobe’s more sophisticated image-editing tools, including Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Chizen envisions revenue from the Photoshop service coming from online advertising.

[Source]

Ask X : New AJAX Search engine.

Ask X is the new Ajax based version of Ask.com’s search engine. Although the results still is the same, some results took some time showing up.

In today’s version of Ask X, you’re not just getting back a list of links, but a slick, new three-panel interface (much like the new AskCity), combining great time-saving features like:

• Left: A search control panel that stays with you, complete with Zoom Related Search and Search Suggestions that update as you type.
• Middle: Results front and center to provide clutter-free information without having to scroll down the page, and Binoculars to preview results.
• Right: A preview of other types of search results, including video, news, images, blogs, shopping, encyclopedia and more.

Can an AJAX-powered user interface help you ship your software on time?

“Shipping great software on time is a difficult but not impossible task.”
– Jim McCarthy, Microsoft Corporation
(From 21 Rules of Thumb for Shipping Great Software on Time)

This is a sponsored review.

If you are looking for a program that could possibly help you ship your software in a more timely manner, you might want to consider checking out OnTime by Axosoft. They offer a free 5-user 3-month trial of their software and have paid upgrade options for companies that prefer to work with a vendor instead of using other options like the open-source Bugzilla or Trac. Axosoft supplies a competition comparison chart that you can use to compare features of other commercial bug and incident tracking systems.

Their screencasts demonstrate a fairly well polished application that makes extensive use of Ajax techniques to provide a more desktop-like experience. The signup process for their free trial went super-fast. They provide a first-time wizard that is quick and easy and gives nice options (like pre-populating your dashboard with sample data so you can see how to use the application.)

There’s two reasons to check out OnTime:

1. You’re interested in improving your ability to ship software on time
2. You want to see how a commercially successful company is using Ajax to improve the web experience

Some issues that I noticed in my brief exploration of OnTime so far: All the Ajax-enabled windows take a little while to load whenever you click on a tab. This is pretty typical for Ajax-enabled apps, but you’re still left with a feeling of slightly more latency than would be totally optimal. There are a LOT of different tabs and features baked in to this product. If you’re a fan of Joel Spolsky you’ll notice that Axosoft has made some decisions regarding offering many super-customizable form options for bug tracking that run counter to what Joel would recommend (keeping in mind that Joel’s company Fog Creek Software is a competitor to Axosoft).

All in all, I’d say it’s worth a look (at the very least you can check out their screencasts to get an idea of how they solved building an Ajax-enabled user experience).

It looks like they’re using Atlas for their Ajax toolkit.

http://www.axosoft.com/products/HostedSignup.aspx

Leave a comment if you have used OnTime and have any feedback about if it really delivers on it’s promises or not.

FEATURED INFORMATION

Hoping to get a good audience from an old expired domain, businesses usually renew domains or buy such domains from auctions. They then completely change the old website design and offer various services e.g. offering some free backup software, free utilities or free web design templates to attract not only visitors but other websites which can link back to them. In this way, they can generate revenue. Also working as an affiliate with different businesses like internet service providers or providing information about various online certifications like Cisco 642-552 or ip phones can also bring an increase in traffic.

Real-World Ajax

Interested in the upcoming book “Real-World AJAX” from SYS-CON Books? If so, there’s a nice fat excerpt available online — specifically, from Chapter 11 (”Enterprise AJAX”). Here’s an excerpt of the excerpt:

The benefits of AJAX to the enterprise are clear and include:

The ability to leverage the same interface technology whether you’re dealing with local or remote sites or applications. What’s key about AJAX is that many enterprises can agree that it’s the standard interface technology and, as such, standardize on it as a common platform-agnostic user interface. It doesn’t matters if the AJAX interface is delivered on Windows, Linux, or the Mac. This makes deploying service-oriented enterprise applications that much easier, avoiding platform localization and testing issues.

The ability to leverage Web Services using a more dynamic and rich interface than traditional browser technology. While a browser is functional for Web-based applications, the lack of interactive and dynamic behavior limits its use in the enterprise. AJAX doesn’t use the same “pump and pull” model that traditional HTTP-driven browser-based applications leverage. AJAX provides native-like application interfaces and performance, functioning as good as or better than native interface APIs, such as Win32.

The ability to create mashups to solve specific business problems quickly using standard dynamic interfaces that front services. Mashups are powerful ways of taking existing applications and services and creating something even more useful. AJAX provides better enabling technology to facilitate creating mashups and combining dynamic applications into a single interface with additional binding logic. Using this paradigm, enterprises can quickly create such useful mashups as integrating Google Maps with their delivery system.

And, for those who can’t wait, here’s the conclusion as well:

Summary
AJAX is a mere instance of a rich client interface for both SOA and the enterprise. It’s the momentum behind AJAX that will insure its place in most enterprises looking to employ rich clients, which are most enterprise-class businesses. However, this technology isn’t always a slam-dunk. You must first address your requirements before leveraging AJAX or, for that matter, any other technology.

At the end of the day, AJAX is just another part of the SOA solution and it needs to exist with other robust technologies that solve the problems at hand. Therefore, you must consider using AJAX holistically and in the context of other enabling technologies, standards, and the ultimate architecture.

Unlike traditional application development, where the database and application are designed, SOAs are as unique as snowflakes. When all is said and done, no two will be alike. However, as time goes on, common patterns emerge that let us share best practices when creating an SOA. We still need to travel further down the road before we can see the whole picture.

Kool IM : Web Messenger

Kool IM (http://www.koolim.com/). is an all new web based instant messaging service. Though in Alpha stage it supports 6 instant messaging services all together - AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, ICQ and apart from all that jabber. AJAX is used in the application very well and Kool IM hardly have any known problem. It has a registration option which enable to take advantage of saving and managing user’s network accounts and more. Meebo and e-messenger were the two most popular web based IM services which are ruling from last few months, Kool IM is a very hard contender for them as it also supports ICQ, which neither meebo nor e-messenger does.
Meebo and e-messenger in recent months have developed a new problem of banishment in some schools and colleges by authorities in order stop children from using Instant messaging. Well, Kool IM can be a great solution for them . A support forum and a blog is also available. As per what I checked, Kool IM is supported on Internet Explorer 6, Firefox 1.5.0.4 and Opera 9.0 .

Krunch : Online Winzip !

Krun.ch is a simple tool that simplifies the process of compressing and sending your files online. Krun.ch isn’t a replacement for the traditional desktop compression tools, but its just a tool that makes things easier by cutting down all the ‘krunching’ hassles! .
Its has nice user and easy interface for easy uploading of files . Multiple uploaded files can be compressed to .zip, .rar, .gzip formats. It also has a feature of sending the files through mails.

jgraph’s MxGraph

MxGraph is somewhat an all round editor. That is, it does many work that an text/graph editor does, creating a text page to a detailed graphical layout. in other words MxGraph is JGraph in a browser. It uses Javascript, SVG and VML, along with an XML communications protocol to provide an interactive graph visualization toolkit in a standard Internet browser. The demo of MxGraph is a pure client-side implementation, but there is also a version that links to a server and enables many people to view and interact with the same diagrams simultaneously. But if compared to text editor like writely and Gliffy it has to go a lot.

Wufoo

Wufoo is a web-based tool to help you build and host amazing online forms. In only a few short minutes, you can create a mailing list, a marketing survey or even a complete customer management system. In other words, Wufoo is an Internet application that helps anybody build amazing online forms. When you design a form with Wufoo, it automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast and fun. Because we host everything, all you need is a browser, an Internet connection and a few minutes to build a form and start using it right away. As it is beta stage right now, its tough to see how it would compete with JotForm.

Wikipedia Search websites

There are lots of sites coming up lately using popular company searches like google, wikipedia, technorati with some extra spice in it, be it integration of other service or just some fancy AJAX. I found these two websites which basically uses wikipedia. Well the service or say the search results are nothing but same as the usual wiki searches

BashR : Now as the website hompage states its “A web 2.0 project that bashes together Wikipedia, flickr and Delicious on millions of topics”. One positive feature maybe, it shows flickr photos and del.icio.us links tagged with the searched keyword.

WikiWax : WikiWax is something that searches wikipedia results in realtime with AJAX. Pretty sweet if you are newbie playing around with AJAX appz.

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