Ajax, AjaxPatterns, Gadgets, OpenSocial, Shindig, Web, Web 2.0, Widgets Background Widgets are small “mini websites”, typically self-contained blocks of content, on a larger web page (with Ajax Design Patterns, I referred to them by the nom du jour Portlets). They are used in a couple of ways: Embedded in a normal web page. For example, my […]
Widget/Gadget Containers: What are they good for?
February 4th, 2008 · 3 Comments
Tags: SoftwareDev
Where Do Widgets Come From? A Look at Widget/Gadget Content Types
February 1st, 2008 · 1 Comment
Ajax, AjaxPatterns, Gadgets, Google, Web, Web 2.0, Widgets Background A while back, I walked through a Google Gadget I made called Digg Roundup, which simply shows Digg headlines and can be customised on topic and popularity. In my quest for an uber-simple tutorial, one thing I skipped on was content type, the subject of the present muttering. […]
Tags: Links · SoftwareDev
Dynamic Favicon Library Updated
January 31st, 2008 · No Comments
Ajax, AjaxPatterns, Favicon, HTML, Javascript, Web, Web 2.0 I updated the favicon library a while ago, for a couple of projects I haven't released for various reasons. Anyway, Phil asked me about it, so I thought it's a good time to package it up and release it properly. And in the process wrote up Taking Browser [...]
Tags: SoftwareDev
Taking Browser Tabs Seriously
January 31st, 2008 · 7 Comments
I've just updated my favicon library, which I first wrote about here. I'll explain more about the update in a separate post. For now, I want to talk about browser tabs. Browser tabs were introduced by Opera. Then Firefox adopted them a few years later, as did Safari. Then Microsoft stepped into the '90s with their [...]
Tags: HumansAndTech · Links · SoftwareDev
Choose Web
December 10th, 2007 · 6 Comments
I recently learned about a team which had adopted a proprietary Windows application to do agile (Agile [TM]) project management. Eeek! Wrong at so many levels, but I'm going to focus on the web vs desktop angle. In an ideal world, there would be multiple UI platforms available for any application. e.g. do your project management [...]
Tags: SoftwareDev
OAuth-OpenID: You’re Barking Up the Wrong Tree if you Think They’re the Same Thing
November 10th, 2007 · No Comments
OAuth is not Open ID. They have a different purpose. I've been playing around with OAuth a bit in the past couple weeks and have a grip on what it's aiming to do and what it's not aiming to do. To start with, here's what OAuth does have in common with Open ID: They [...]
Tags: HumansAndTech · SoftwareDev
Ruby is Rails is … REST
May 31st, 2007 · No Comments
Will the peripheral IT community come to view REST and Rails as equivalent? It might sound ridiculous, but consider: Unix==Linux, Wiki==Wikipedia, Ajax=Web 2.0, blogging==RSS, podcast==spoken MP3. Last but not least, every knows that Ruby==Rails So it only stands to reason that the REST equivalence shall come to pass, as REST hops on for a free ride on [...]
Tags: SoftwareDev
WIKI sells, Wiki doesn’t
May 23rd, 2007 · 2 Comments
'Wiki' derived its name from the Hawaiian for "quick". But acronyms sell better in the corporate world, as anyone who's ever won a business case for working with POJOs will be acutely aware, or anyone who's found AJAX 0wns Ajax. JAVA beats Java when you're selling a $2K seminar and you wouldn't be the first [...]
Tags: SoftwareDev
Documentation As Conversation
April 20th, 2007 · 1 Comment
I'm busy preparing a list of desirables for Web 2.0 APIs. One of them is good documentation, and I came up with this term - "Documentation As Conversation" - to articulate much of what is needed in modern software docs - documentation which belongs to the community of users/end-developers as it does to the people [...]
Tags: SoftwareDev
Current concerns with Ajax
March 10th, 2007 · 13 Comments
A reader just mailed me about what I see as concerns with Ajax right now...what's still worryng? Well, here are a few things off the top of my head... Accessibility is still a key issue, but more to do with if people bother to Ajaxify at all than if people break accessibility. If developers are required by [...]
Tags: SoftwareDev
