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)

TypoTrawler : Find Bargains on eBay

You’re probably already aware of services such as Fat Fingers which find misspelled items on eBay. Misspelled items tend to have fewer people viewing them because if the listing is ‘New Latop’ and someone searches for ‘laptop’, the item wont be shown, thus less bids are made. Hence, by finding these items, you can grab a bargain.

TypoTrawler is different to Fat Fingers because instead of users having to enter the search term by hand (e.g. ‘laptop’), we continually search eBay for hundreds of thousands of different misspelled items. We them group them into the categories on our website so that users can easily view them. TypoTrawler uses Web 2.0 ideas to improve the experience for the user. Items are displayed using AJAX and user feedback dictates which typos are searched for in the future and which to blacklist.

Why Typos?
Many listings on eBay are misspelled. For example, the title may contain ‘latop’ instead of the intended ‘laptop’. This dramatically reduces the number of people who visit the auction for the ‘latop’ as everyone is searching for the correctly spelled ‘laptop’. With less people viewing the item, less bids are made, so the price remains low. Therefore, by searching for these misspelled items, TypoTrawler allows you to find bargains on eBay.

But this has been done before…
Yes it has. But TypoTrawler does it better. Services like our sister site TypoTracker are great if you’re looking for a specific item, but if you’re just looking for a great deal on whatever you can find, it’s not very effective. After about 15 minutes you’re out of ideas for things to search for… this is where TypoTrawler steps in. Our robot minions relentlessly trawl through eBay day and night picking out misspelled items. We then display them in a handy list so you can watch the bargains literally flow down the screen!

The World of Internet : Is It Real or Virtual?

Once I asked a friend of mine whether he ever joins chat, blogs, discussion fora on the internet. Hearing me asking this, he shrugged off his broad shoulder and he affirmatively said, “No and never ever.” “But why? Why are you so up in arms against internet culture?” I tried to pinch him seductively.

He shot back point blank at me. He said that he loved to live in the real world and never thought of living in the killing fields of virtual world as there is no or there shoild not be any perceptible reality in that so-called virtual world. He opined that virtual world is a stale world, a dirty cheap world. And a virtual world is like a world of nothingness. Why should we ever keep shy of the world of verdant splendour? Being there is akin to a feeling of belongingness. How can we afford to fight back the grim reality of belongingness just by overhauling it? Yes, it is a dirty cheap world. And there is no denying of the fact.

“A dirty cheap world? What do you mean?” I fired back.

“Yes, I mean what I say. It is not only very cheap, but dirty to the core. Enough is enough. There is nothing serious, nobody serious. It has corrupted and polluted the entire world culture and psyche. It is just teasing, appeasing and molly-cooddling our libido and that libido as it were is the summum bonnum of our existence. Examles are aplenty. This perversion is going on and on. It is doing more harm than good.”

“But so many people are involed in this in so many ways. What is the bugbear as such?”

“The bugbear is cultural perversion. Nobody is serious about it and nothing is commited seriously. I’ve asked many people what they actually do on the internet. They could not answer convincingly. This so-called virtual world provides us with oodles of dry informations and datas. There is no objective reality. It is disatrous…”

I thought a while and kept on thinking. Is there no serious discussion? Everything is a storm over a breakfast tea? I do have my own options and reservations. Are those dry informations and datas not value-added? Can they not prompt us to churn objective reality out of this? Cheap they may be in some cases and dirty also in some other cases but the bottomline remains the same: it has come to stay, my friend agrees or not.

Ajax+REST=the next killer app?

On the frevvo blog, I posted several interesting articles about combining Ajax-based RIAs (Rich Internet Applications) with REST web services. It seems to me that Ajax+REST could be the next killer application.

Users interact with these RESTful applications using the familiar browser. In practice, most real applications boil down to manipulating documents (resources) which maps perfectly to REST. What’s missing is an easy way to interact with these documents using Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). That’s where Ajax comes in – it puts a “face” on REST and makes it possible to create complex, visual, browser-based applications without compromising any of the principles of REST.

Just imagine replicating the mashup phenomenon within your company – even just within the IT department. That’s where frevvo comes in. Suddenly, it’s really easy to create a Web 2.0, Ajax-based RIA that mashes up all these RESTful services and to do so at lightning speed and very low cost. REST web applications can finally be paired up with a rich, Ajax-based client to create Rich Internet Applications.

WordPress + AJAX = Command Line Blog

Rod McFarland has made some really cool AJAX-based themes for WordPress. With his CLI (Command Line Interface) 2.0 theme, you can browse blog entries by movinging through categories with the “cd” command, or you cantype “ls” to get a list of post titles and “cat [articlenumber]” to read one. Forgot a command? Type help or use tab-completion!

Link to Rod McFarland’s WordPress themes

MiniAjax - Free Downloadable Ajax Scripts

Have you ever wanted to do something with ajax but didnt want to code it yourself or pay to have it coded for you? Check out MiniAjax.com Here is a list of a few things they have for download:

- Prototype Windows
- Ajax Star Rating Bar
- Site Heatmapping Script
- GrayBox Popup Script
- Bubble Tool Tips
- Ajax Tabs Script
- Ajax Poller Script
- Ajax Pie and Donut Chart Script
- Ajax Form Validation Script

And much, much more. Check it out now.

Attributes > Classes: Custom DOM Attributes for Fun and Profit

XHTML gives us the ability to extend our markup with customized, semantically meaningful attributes. While the battle between class and attribute might be a holy war to some (and unknown to most others) the fact remains that attribute name value pairs are easier to read and understand, and only attributes allow you to associate a value with your meta-data. Extending XHTML elements in my projects has made me think of how to solve problems in new and better ways. It has made me a stronger JavaScript artisan. In this article, I explain several examples and provide functions for working with your own custom attributes.

http://digg.com/programming/Attributes_Classes_Custom_DOM_Attributes_for_Fun_and_Profit

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.

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