So - how do you find out more about Ajax and how it interacts with the system?

Before I found this weblog I though Ajax was something we used to clean the bathroom. (haha) Now I understand some of the potential weakness and strength that has to do with the scripting. I would like to know how others managed to find tutorials that were appropriate and learner friendly for the run of the mill computer junkie?

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).

Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax

Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax will take you from knowing absolutely nothing about JavaScript to being able to manipulate the DOM, build basic Ajax applications and more.

Most of us who have been building websites since the pre-Ajax days learned JavaScript through a mish-mash of one-off scripts, validations, etc. If a book like this had been around, it surely would’ve offered a nice clean overview of the techniques available to the JavaScript programmer.

Luckily for the novice JavaScript programmer (or intermediate developer wishing to hone his craft), Beginning Javascript with DOM Scripting and Ajax does exist now and is the perfect way to learn the fundamentals from the ground up. The 2nd part of the book also focuses on Ajax and some of the interesting hacks one can use in that realm.

The author, Christian Heilmann, has a geeky sense of humor that keeps the reading light — for eaxmple Et Tu, Cache? (pg. 309):

Safari is the main offender as it caches the response status and does not trigger the changes (remember that the status returns the HTTP code 200, 304 or 404) any longer.

Adding this snippet tells the browser to test whether the data has changed since a certain date, i.e.:

request.setRequestHeader( ‘If-Modified-Since’, ‘Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT’);
request.send( null );

A bit out of context here, but just one example of the kind of thing you’ll find in Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax.

Review: Beginning Ajax with PHP

Beginning Ajax with PHP (by Lee Babin) is a good introduction to learning JavaScript client-server techniques on the PHP platform.

Some of the scenarios Lee walks you through:
* Sexy client-side Calendars (that can be built / communicate with the server)
* Auto-completion (a la GMail’s compose recipient, etc)
* Form validation (that leverages Ajax)
* Dynamic thumbnail generation
* etc

The book then walks one through creating a real-world Ajax-powered photo gallery app. Lee also touches on interacting with SOAP web services and the Google Maps API.

All in all, definitely worth a read if you are a PHP developer and are looking for a good primer on Ajax-based technologies.

Beginning Ajax with PHP (Amazon)

Huge list of Ajax tutorials

Just found this list of 126 Ajax Tutorials over the weekend — here’s a sampling:

• Ajax Workshop 3: Shopping Cart using Script.aculo.us at AjaxLessons
• Building an AJAX-Based Chat: The Barebones Structure at DevArticles
• Dynamically loaded articles at DHTMLGoodies
• Slide Show with Controls at Zapatec
• Ajax for Java developers: Build dynamic Java applications at IBM
• Create Your Own Ajax Effects animated text; at ThinkVitamin
• Make all your tables sortable at Kryogenix
• Ajax Design Patterns at Snyke
• Ajax Poller at DHTMLGoodies

Really huge, excellent list. Check it out…

Google AJAX development toolkit

Google donates OpenSource software development tool with all the AJAX fun in it, makes creating AJAX applications much easier. With Google Web Toolkit (Beta) , you can develop and debug your own AJAX applications in Java code using the Java development tools of your choice. When you deploy your application to production, the GWT compiler simply translates your Java application to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML.

Pixsy - Image Search

Pixsy is indeed a upgraded image search. Apart from the fact that it does not use any third party service of Google or Yahoo! search like backbase , it is a powerful system of its own.

Image search is the fastest growing vertical search category on the Internet today. To address the problem of finding the growing amount of visual material available online, Pixsy has developed a proprietary visual search engine that delivers images based on the context surrounding those images. To find that context, our spider aggregates RSS feeds and extracts photos and video thumbnail images from those feeds and – in most cases – from the stories, articles, blogs, reviews and stores linked from those feeds. Our spider then indexes and organizes those images into categories, and makes them searchable for users.

Rail Adds Ajax

Version 1.1 of application development framework Rails went live earlier this week, with more than 500 fixes and additions, including simplified Ajax programming. (See Information Week for more.)

“It makes Web application programming a lot more like desktop GUI [graphical user interface] programming,” said Jeremy Voorhis, lead architect at Planet Argon, a Portland, Ore., services firm that specializes in Ruby on Rails development. Planet Argon has already used RJS on several client projects. Because Rails is an open source project, developers can start working with new features before they make their way into a formal release.

Rails is a two-year-old open source development application used by sites such as Calendar Hub. For more information, visit the Rails Website.

filechucker - AJAXed Uploading Script

Ok I’ll send you the file .

What is first thing you do after saying that ? open rapidshare or megaupload ? Its funny how people’s mentality has grown to SHARE, even if it is illegal. face it ! first we used to send attachments through emails, but now most of us prefer free file hosting.
Besides, After Imageshack and Rapidshare got popular, many of the web developers started their own free file hosting or image hosting service. Indeed a lot of money is in it. Internet is growing and so is need of file sharing. Filechuker is a script that allows to Share files that are too large for e-mail by simply uploading them and then sending the link to your friend. There are a lot of features apart from the uploading .

• Share files that are too large for e-mail by simply uploading
  them and then sending the link to your friend
• Real-time progress bar and time elapsed/remaining during uploads

• E-mail notification of new uploads
• Create, move, rename, and delete files/folders on your server through the browser
• Multiple folders/subfolders for uploads, optionally user-creatable
• Can automatically rename all uploaded files to remove any “unfriendly” characters,
  append a time/datestamp, or rename to a completely custom format that you
  specify
• Users can optionally enter comments/information about the file(s) that they’re uploading
• Restrict what kinds of files can be uploaded and/or displayed
  based on file extension
• Easy installation: single script requiring only Perl and CGI.pm, both
  of which are installed by default on most servers
• Adjustable max upload size (in bytes)
• Can upload one or multiple files, up to whatever limit you specify
• And much more…

Page Loading Indicators - Ripped ?

Are you a AJAX developer ? or a web developer ? well, you might need the small loading images while users browse through your pages. Here is a list of AJAX Activity Indicators images .

Well I was digging last night and found this AJAX activity indicator list, though some of the comments there states something different than the description.

These are ripped from other sites. One of the icons even says “remembermilk” in the filename !!! The orange circular one.

What does this have to do with AJAX? And how are these useful indicators? Either use a real progress indicator, or save the user the extra bytes…

not AJAX but nice.

but still, those images makes the “pages” quite .. Web 2.0 . People do anything to get traffic

Next Page »