Web Info & Tutorials

The Internet is buzzing these days about the emergence of what people call ‘Web 2.0′. It’s important for web designers to understand what this is, because it affects all web design.

IN A NUTSHELL: Web 2.0 is a combination of factors/elements that leads to a much more social, interactive Web. Here is a short list of some of the key elements that make Web 2.0 possible:

• AJAX allows for the rise of the truly ‘rich’ Web user experience: web pages that act like desktop programs … no need to refresh entire pages to see new content on the page.
• Auto-syndication (sharing of content) via RSS/XML feeds - and software that allows you to easily create and access these XML feeds.
• New ways to mass-communicate over the Web - podcast (mp3) and video.

BLOGS GOT THE WHOLE THING GOING

Blogging tools like WordPress and TextPattern got the whole thing going: most blogs automatically create RSS feeds.

Blogs also make it easier than ever before, for people to write content for the Web. No need for Web design software like FrontPage or Dreamweaver and no need to know HTML.

As such, there has been an explosion of content creation of the Web: people are writing like crazy! The three points to take away from this is:

1. Blogs make it simple to (essentially) create web pages.
2. Blogs automatically syndicate/share content via RSS.
3. Blogs make it easy for readers to interact with blogger’s (the authors,) via a built-in system that allows people to make comments … the social aspect enabled.

WEB 2.0 IS MORE THAN JUST BLOGGING

Another major characteristic of Web 2.0 is the remixing and combining of information from many different sources.

For example:

A Web 2.0 web site may grab many RSS feeds and massage them into a new filtered presentation. The advantage is that users can now access this information from one spot, instead of having to visit many different sites.

CONCLUSION

This (automated) sharing and mixing of content/information (between people and websites,) along with ‘rich’ Web user experience is Web 2.0.

… and you thought it was something more!

:)

The Internet is buzzing these days about the emergence of what people call ‘Web 2.0′. It’s important for web designers to understand what this is, because it affects all web design.

IN A NUTSHELL: Web 2.0 is a combination of factors/elements that leads to a much more social, interactive Web. Here is a short list of some of the key elements that make Web 2.0 possible:

• AJAX allows for the rise of the truly ‘rich’ Web user experience: web pages that act like desktop programs … no need to refresh entire pages to see new content on the page.
• Auto-syndication (sharing of content) via RSS/XML feeds - and software that allows you to easily create and access these XML feeds.
• New ways to mass-communicate over the Web - podcast (mp3) and video.

BLOGS GOT THE WHOLE THING GOING

Blogging tools like WordPress and TextPattern got the whole thing going: most blogs automatically create RSS feeds.

Blogs also make it easier than ever before, for people to write content for the Web. No need for Web design software like FrontPage or Dreamweaver and no need to know HTML.

As such, there has been an explosion of content creation of the Web: people are writing like crazy! The three points to take away from this is:

1. Blogs make it simple to (essentially) create web pages.
2. Blogs automatically syndicate/share content via RSS.
3. Blogs make it easy for readers to interact with blogger’s (the authors,) via a built-in system that allows people to make comments … the social aspect enabled.

WEB 2.0 IS MORE THAN JUST BLOGGING

Another major characteristic of Web 2.0 is the remixing and combining of information from many different sources.

For example:

A Web 2.0 web site may grab many RSS feeds and massage them into a new filtered presentation. The advantage is that users can now access this information from one spot, instead of having to visit many different sites.

CONCLUSION

This (automated) sharing and mixing of content/information (between people and websites,) along with ‘rich’ Web user experience is Web 2.0.

… and you thought it was something more!

:)

L'arriv�e d'�quipements haute d�finition dans les foyers va bient�t modifier la mani�re de consommer les programmes. Et maintenant que films, retransmissions sportives et autres �missions sont distribu�s dans une qualit� doubl�e par rapport au DVD, �mergent d'�pineux probl�mes de droits � la copie priv�e.

People talk of the Yahoo! Flickr acquisition, butYahoo! Photos has many, many more users. So, it is about time to see it get a face lift, which Yahoo! has done, and is rolling out a limited beta release.

Product highlights include:

• Drag-and-drop functionality for easy organization and photo sharing
• Photo tagging—or labeling—for easy viewing and searching
• Enhanced interaction with friends and family with ability to share comments and provide instantaneous access to photos
• Point-and-click tag and caption editing
• Smart Albums that detect newly tagged photos and automatically add tagged photos to albums
• Open APIs to encourage third-party use and collaboration
• Integration with leading Yahoo! services, including Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Mobile and 360
• Downloadable high-resolution photos

Max Kiesler has just gotten back from the launch event and seems impressed:

Two features of note were the infinite scroll and the drag and drop functionality. I know what you're saying, "not another web app with slow unusable drag and drop". This drag and drop was very smooth and had some unique functionality. The ability to multiple select images by clicking your mouse and dragging your highlight (just like on your desktop) was one of my favorite features. You can also multiple select by control clicking as many photos as you like. From a design standpoint what happens to the photos during the drag process was rather cool. After you multiple select photos they shrink to tiny thumbnails and cluster around the mouse, then you can drag them into a well at the top of the page. As you start the drag process the well appears at the top of the page no matter how far down the page you are then it disappears. This is a very nice answer to the drag and drop well issue that many of us have had to design for recently.

The other item of note was the infinite scroll. While this is not an entirely new concept it is a great feature for a photo site. For those of you who have not seen this yet, it basically lets you add data, in this case photos to the page asynchronously as you scroll down the page. So even if you have 10,000 photos they can all be reached from one page very quickly.

The IBM developerWorks site has this new tutorial posted today, a look a the various "Ajax transport methods" - XMLHttpRequest, IFrames, and script tags - what they are, how to use them, and which is best for what situation.

Discover three Ajax data transport mechanisms (XMLHttp, script tags, and frames or iframes) and their relative strengths and weaknesses. This tutorial provides code for both the server side and the client side and explains it in detail to provide the techniques you need to put efficient Ajax controls anywhere you need them.

In addition to understanding how the client requests data from the server, you'll also learn how to transport different data types. In addition to Extensible Markup Language (XML), you can move plain text, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) pages, or JavaScript code.

You'll either need to register to get to the actual tutorial or you can check out the PDF version of it directly. They start with creating the database foundation for the backend, including the PHP code that you'll need to interface with it (the code is available for direct download as well). They also create the backend interface, various types of services - plain-text, XML, RSS, RDF, and JSON.

From then on, they construct the clients to interface with those backends, first with XMLHttpRequest, then an iframe, finally the Javascript "script" tag. For each, they make a an example call to the backend(s) retrieving information of various books in the created table (author, title, ID number).

Le groupe La Martini�re, par le biais de trois de ses filiales, Le Seuil en France, Delachaux et Niestl� en Suisse et Abrams aux Etats-Unis, a d�cid�, mardi 6 juin, d'assigner en justice Google France, mais aussi sa maison m�re am�ricaine Google Inc.

Posted by Andrew McLaughlin, Senior Policy Counsel

The debate over "net neutrality" is coming to a boil in the next week as the House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill that could determine the future of the Internet. The big phone and cable TV companies want Congress’s permission to create a new, unprecedented regulatory bureaucracy on the Internet – a private bureaucracy of broadband monopolists with the power to determine what content gets to you first and fastest. Google believes that forcing people and companies to get permission from, and pay special fees to, the phone and cable companies to connect with one another online is fundamentally counter to the freedom and innovation that have defined the Internet.

Our CEO Eric Schmidt believes this situation is so important that he has written an open letter to Google users asking them to speak out on this issue. We urge all of you to read his letter and call your representative in Congress at 202-224-3121. For more information on the issue, and more ways to make your voice be heard, visit It'sOurNet.org.

Update: For those following this debate closely, the key House vote is happening Thursday night or Friday morning on the Markey-Boucher-Eshoo-Inslee Amendment, which would add meaningful net neutrality provisions to H.R. 5252, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act. We believe anything less that this amendment would be a loss for freedom and innovation on the Internet.