Ajax Blog

As you can see with the embedded Flash widget above, eBay is now letting users embed information about any listing or group of listings directly into a website. Their hope is to encourage bloggers and social network users who discuss famous listings to embed the information right into the page. The service will be available at togo.ebay.com this morning.

There are three types of widgets. Example of all three can be seen on this test blog set up by eBay. The first, embedded above, shows information on a single listing. users can mouse over the seller to get additional information, or do a search with the results returned within the widget itself. Users can also clone the widget for their own site. There is no requirement that the person creating the widget be the seller of the item.

The second type of widget shows up to ten separate items. The pictures rotate in a slide show, and when a viewer clicks on one, it replaces the slideshow with information about that item in the same format as the first widget. The third type of widget shows picture results based on a search query. Like the second widget, clicking on any picture shows information about that listing.

These widgets are just for fun and to generate discussion around interesting auctions, not for revenue generation by publishers. Ebay provides affiliate tools at affiliates.ebay.com and the company says that they will evolve those tools separately over time to meet the requests of affiliates. See our recent post on AuctionAds (one of our current sponsors) for eBay listing widgets that pay out affiliate fees.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/113116991/

SplashCast, an embeddable Flash media player, is improving its product today. They are now allowing publishers to turn any RSS feed with a media enclosure, such as a podcast or videocast, into a channel on their player. Previously SplashCast only allowed RSS feeds from YouTube and Flickr. Now, any feed can be added.

The best way to understand SplashCast is just to look at the player, which we’ve embedded below. Feeds are organized into channels, making it possible to show your favorite videos, podcasts, and photos from within one player updated through RSS. SplashCast will continuously update the shows on the channel as new content is added.

Text based RSS feeds have had several multi-channel embeddable widget based platforms, including Grazr and SpringWidgets. Multi-channel video and audio RSS feeds are a smaller category, mostly consisting of widgets that play only your own content. Along with SplashCast, Cozmo.tv has been helping develop multi-channel video players updated via RSS, but only for social video sites YouTube and Blip.tv.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/113108553/

A mini book deserves a mini review, and so it is with the “Digital Shortcut” from January 2007 entitled Google™ Web Toolkit Solutions (Digital Short Cut): Cool & Useful Stuff. The 112 page PDF goes further than any of the free tutorials out there in that it develops two non-trivial applications using GWT: a Yahoo! Trips app that uses proxied Yahoo web services, and an Address Book, that makes use of Hibernate persistence through RPC.

The applications are non-trivial in that they tackle complex use cases, backend processing, web service, backend persistence and the integration of third party Javascript frameworks — all aspects of GWT application development that are of great interest to serious developers. (Source code available for download.) In order, the chapters cover the following:

1. Chapter 1 covers what must already be fairly familiar to most GWT developers — making an RPC call to a backend servlet. This chapter, however, does an exceptionally good job of explaining the why and how of GWT RPC in exhaustive detail. The Yahoo Trips application is used to illustrate how to proxy an RSS feed.
2. Chapter 2 shows how to integrate third party Javascript libraries with GWT. In this case Scriptaculous is used to provide an effect in the Yahoo Trips application to the panel containing the search results. The chapter focuses on two ways to incorporate scripts in the app — simply including script tags in the application html file, and GWT script injection, i.e. through the GWT config file.
3. Chapter 3 shows one way of how to implement drag and drop with GWT, using a fairly OO approach. The code seems pretty reusable and useful. Again, the Yahoo! Trips app is used.
4. Chapter 4 shows how to bring GWT into the mix. Most of it is old hat for experienced Hibernate hands, but the example does work through implementing a sort of remote DAO using the GWT RPC. It’s always good to see how that is done, even if it looks simple on paper. The Address Book app is used for this example.
5. Chapter 5 shows how to use ant to deploy your apps to Tomcat. I assume most everyone is using Googlipse or some non-free alternative, but writing ant files for automated build environments is still a useful thing to know.
6. Chapter 6 illustrates the use of popups and “deferred commands.” Popups are obvious (modal and modeless dialogs); deferred commands are a way of giving focus to widgets that have not yet been displayed. I really haven’t seen good treatment of this aspect of GWT programming elsewhere. Uses the Address Book app for this example.

Over all, the book doesn’t skimp on explanations and code samples and is written in a clear style. It doesn’t address unit testing with JUnit, but I suppose you can get that information elsewhere. For those of you who like to learn by doing, this is a decent tutorial (and worth the $10 price tag) that can tide you over until the bigger GWT tomes come out.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/mini-review-google-web-toolkit-solutions-cool-useful-stuff

I recently decided to upgrade my cookware. I asked a friend of mine who’s a chef for recommendations. Here’s what she had to say:

I like All-Clad stainless, I’ve had good luck with it.

I also have some copper cookware that Williams Sonoma got from a French company, but I don’t believe they carry that exact brand anymore. Copper conducts heat really wonderfully; it gets a patina which some people don’t like, but I don’t mind. I never polish it and I don’t think that affects its performance.

I dream of also owning some Le Creuset cookware, at least a Dutch oven to make braised meats and stews.

Calphalon is a brand people like a lot, too, but I haven’t personally worked much with it.

Re: nonstick, it won’t hurt to have one nonstick pan for certain uses, but keep in mind the lifespan of nonstick is not very long because the nonstick surface gradually wears away.

There is also cast-iron, which can be a great option and not very expensive. It conducts heat well. But you have to take care of it; you shouldn’t really submerge it in water, and you need to rub it with vegetable oil to keep it conditioned/seasoned. Very respected among cooks.

I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve ever heard the phrase “dutch oven” used in a serious manner. Anyway, I wound up purchasing this All-Clad Stainless 6-Piece Set and so far it’s great. Made some hash browns this weekend and got some crispy onion action that I never achieved with my previous pans.

Related: Lodge cast iron [SvN]

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/376-cookware-advice

Sun’s Dan Ingalls has been talking about Project Flair, a new open source programing environment:

“It’s a self-supporting Web programming kernel that’s all written in JavaScript,” Ingalls said when interviewed during the Sun Labs Open House event in Menlo Park, Calif. Small and simple, Flair presents a “great vehicle for experimenting with [what] I guess what you would call, sort of, collaborative object development, that kind of thing,” said Ingalls.

“It’s sort of almost an opposite approach to AJAX,” leveraging a multi-user whiteboard concept for development, he said.

My favourite part:

“AJAX sort of deals with all of the old way of doing things. It makes it simpler, which is great, but underneath it’s still all this junky HTML, Document Object Model, CSS, all that stuff, where 30 years ago, we knew how to do that stuff cleanly with a dynamic programming language and a simple graphics model”

Whatever you feel about HTML, DOM, CSS, and “all that stuff”, a couple of developers know it and work with it. Competing with the open web again? At least the project uses JavaScript and not SomeNewBetterLanguageForYouToLearnFromScratch.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/suns-project-flair-ajax-without-the-dom-css-html-er-wait

VegUI is another Ajax framework that also masks as a JavaScript based window manager.

Unlike all frameworks, this one has been worked on for a long time before coming out to the public:

vegUI was originally developed to serve as a foundation for the online browser-based mmorpg Lands of Kazram. So
it was developed with 4 core features in mind:

1. Speed
2. Compact Design
3. Total control over appearance, flexibility
4. Modular Design

I like to think that i’ve managed to stay true to all four of those concepts, and now 2.5 years after the development on vegUI had started i feel quite comfortable in releasing it to the public.

There is a lot of documentation including tutorials.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/vegui-ajax-framework-and-widgets

Yahoo announced today that it will acquire the 80% of advertising network RightMedia that it doesn’t already own for $680 million in cash and Yahoo stock.

Yahoo previously bought 20% of the company in a $45 million Series B round of funding announced in October 2006. The company has raised over $50 million to date.

This move counters Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick earlier this month for $3.1 billion, and signals that Yahoo wants more weapons in its arsenal to fight the ongoing online advertising war beyond their new Panama release.

RightMedia runs an advertising marketplace that allows for much more efficient advertsing pricing than older negotiated models (something still in the planning stages at DoubleClick). See our coverage of their RMX Direct product from August 2005.

RightMedia also tends to work with large intermediate ad brokers and addresses the short tail of the ad market (as does DoubleClick), whereas Overture and Adsense are definitely long tail products with many smaller advertisers and publishers.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/113018087/

There has been a ton of work going on over in Dojo land, and Alex has given his hands a rest from coding, to give us an update on Dojo 0.9 over at SitePen HQ.

It is wrong to think of Dojo as an Ajax toolkit. It is more akin to a stdlib for JavaScript, as it is so many modules that are very broad indeed.

That being said, there has been a push to make Dojo even more pragmatic, lean, and fast. It is great to see the new course of action:

Early this year it became clear that for folks building Dojo apps, the question of “what is Dojo?” was becoming increasingly hard to answer. Each individual user might be working with a different subset and therefore they don’t share a common definition, which makes sharing what you know about the system harder than it needs to be.

In response, we’re in the middle of a huge undertaking: rethink the entire API surface area of Dojo from the ground up and split it up into 3 different top-level projects. With R&D dollars and time coming from all corners of the Dojo universe, 0.9 is shaping up to be smaller, faster, more coherent, and easier to understand.

What this means is:

• Dojo Base: This new core is aiming at 50k (< 20k gz), and will contain “things like dojo.query(), dojo.connect(), the package system, style and DOM manipulation functions, ajax, and a small-but-flexible animation system.” An important change is that there will be only one dojo.js per version, unlike now, where you can build your own dojo.js files, or choose a set packaged version.
• Dijit: The new widget system will be its own package. “The Dijit team is working on a set of consistent, themed, localized, and accessible widgets that not only improve on the usability of the existing widget set, but will also provide huge performance improvements in declaring and constructing widgets in a page.”

The Dojo team is already seeing fruits of their labors with performance improvements, even before they have done the final tweaks.

In the future, I hope for a world where a lot of these libraries will Just Be There, so you won’t have to have the same size worries, and instead we will be able to focus on speed, and other issues. When you look at most popular libraries, the reason they are popular is often to do with the libraries that you have access too (e.g. CPAN).

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/dojo-09-a-new-leaner-meaner-dojo

The timing couldn’t be much better for InterActiveCorp to launch Zwinktopia, a new virtual world for young teens. Other virtual worlds, such as Gaia, Habbo Hotel, Cyworld, Neopets, Club Penguin, Webkinz and others, are exploding in terms of unique monthly visitors and total time spent at the sites.

Until today, IAC’s Zwinky was a site to make customized avatars, choosing from 10,000 different outfits, accesories and other items, and embed them onto other websites such as MySpace. Users could also become friends with other users and enage in basic social networking activities. See Stardoll as well in this space.

Most of the functionality at Zwinky is accessed via a non-mandatory browser toolbar that users install. Zwinky says that they have 20 million active toolbars that were used in March 2007. Part of Zwinky’s business model is to collect search advertising revenues from toolbar usage.

Today Zwinky will add a virtual world to the site called Zwinktopia - users can use their avatars to roam around the world, chat with other users and engage in activities to earn Zbucks, the virtual currency of Zwinktopia. Zbucks can be used to buy virtual clothing and other goods.

Zwinky is part of the Fun Webs group at IAC, which includes Smiley Central, Cursor Mania and other sites and generates over $100 million in annual revenues. The Fun Webs group is part of the Consumer Applications and Portals group (iWon and Excite are within this group) and is led by Scott Garell.

Zwinky alone has 4.7 million worldwide unique visitors in March (Comscore), far more than Second Life and the other competitors listed in the first paragraph above. If a reasonable number of them can be converted into exploring Zwinktopia, it will become the largest immersive world outside of the gaming sites like World of Warcraft. See Comscore comparision data below (U.S. only).

See GigaOm’s recent article on Gaia, which is probably closest to Zwinktopia in functionality.

Update: The company will be running the television ad promoting Zwinktopia embedded below on NBC on Monday.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/112994566/

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales spoke at a education.au conference in Sydney, Australia last week. After his talk he took questions.

As reported by the Brisbane Times, Andrew Hansen raised his hand as a member of the press and was selected to ask a question. What Wales didn’t know is that Hansen is part of the cast of a wildly popular public television show in Australia called The Chaser’s War on Everything, a weekly half hour satire/prank show.

Hansen said “Ah, Jimmy, um, look I just have 10 questions,” and then fired off ten questions in a row, not waiting for answers (It’s normal at events like this for reporters to ask a follow up question at the same time as the initial question to save time). This is a regular prank by the cast of the show, called “Mr. Ten Questions.”

His questions:

• First, how are you enjoying Australia?

• Second, how do our computers compare to the ones in America?

• Third, why does everyone in IT look so nerdy, yet you look like a daytime soap star?

• Fourth, Mac or PC - do you really give a shit?

• Fifth, there are 1.7 million articles on Wikipedia; how long did it take you to write them all?
• Sixth, Craig Reucassel’s a bit unhappy with the photo on his page. Could you upload a better one maybe for him?
• Seventh, my dog is getting some scabs under his chin. I don’t know if you can bring him in the number of a local vet?

• Eighth, Jessica Rowe and Peter Overton - will it last?

• Ninth, cracked pepper?
• Tenth, how do you feel about the fact that when I looked you up on Wikipedia this morning I changed your page to say that you were a teenage drug lord from Malaysia?

To his credit Wales attempted to respond to four of the questions.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/112984446/