Ajax Blog

The FCC released the auction rules on the 700 MHz spectrum today. Google formally requested (and we supported) that the new bandwidth have four requirements: open applications, open devices, open services and open networks. Together these rules could quickly make the U.S. wireless space competitive with European and Asian markets that we have long trailed.

The auction rules include much of what Google requested, including open devices and open applications. But open services and open networks are out, meaning third parties may not get access to the networks at fair wholesale rates. Will we see a tidal wave of innovation in the space? It’s too early to tell. The FCC hedged its bets to keep AT&T, Verizon and other incumbents happy. New players like Google may or may not participate.

This is clearly a compromise decision. History will decide if the FCC commissioners made the right choices. Perhaps their feeble attempts to stand up to AT&T, Verizon and their army of lobbyists will have been enough to get the U.S. back in the race with the rest of the mobile world. Or perhaps not. Just for record keeping purposes, Kevin Martin (Chairman) and commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps are willing to fight for openness. Commissioners Deborah Taylor Tate and Robert McDowell, who are parroting much of the nonsense that AT&T spewed last week, are clearly lining up with the incumbents.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/139349252/

A strong second quarter by IAC saw a 78% increase in profits, mostly driven by assets sales and reduced costs.

The positive headline results did not flow through to the struggling 4th ranked search engine Ask.com, which saw a decline in revenues. The second quarter decline comes despite a $100 million Crispin, Porter + Bogusky advertising campaign that should be resulting in increased traffic and revenue to the site.

The exact amount of the decline was not disclosed.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/139298185/

Australian startup Tangler has created a next generation forum product that allows real-time discussions to occur without page refreshes. Their forum product is both synchronous and asynchronous - meaning it competes as much with Meebo (web based chat) as it does with existing forum applications. Users can also easily embed rich media into the discussion.

We first wrote about Tangler in February 2006, when it was deep in a development. They’ve been quietly working with beta partners for the last six months, and recently opened their doors to allow anyone to create a new forum. Last week, the 1,000th forum was created on Tangler.

Tangler forums are also decentralized. Any discussion/forum can easily be embedded in a third party website or websites. The discussion occurs simultaneously on all instances of the forum. See here for an example of an embedded forum.

See our recent coverage of Meebo Rooms as well. It is interesting to see web chat and forums colliding towards the same end product.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/139278822/

Facebook is down, and has been so since at least 10 am PST. Anyone notice it down earlier than that? We’ve emailed the company for their comment.

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/~3/139284146/

Jeep is iconic but “crap”?
From: Will Duderstadt

Thought you guys would enjoy a retort to the Jeep being called “crap” in an MIT publication: Branding Lessons from Jeep: Designed For A Purpose.

He recognizes that the look, feel, and design of a Jeep is iconic, but fails to see those traits are only responsible for a fraction of its status. The Jeep has become an icon because you aren’t just buying a steel tub with removable doors, you are buying into an experience, an adventure, a lifestyle.

Now, the average Joe never says to himself, “Gosh, I wish I could take the doors off my BMW 750i”. But ask the next fella you see in a Jeep what summer means, and “top down, doors off” is going to rate very high on that list.

Dyson Airblade
From: Paul Campbell

With your previous Dyson posts, I thought you might be interested in the Dyson Airblade [hand dryer for bathrooms] – apparently it’s a rip of an earlier model from mitsubishi, but I “experienced” it tonight and it was a trip!

Blogged about it here: The Dyson Airblade – out XLing the XLerator

The device works by shooting a thin stream of air ( apparently .3 mm ) at 400mph. It claimed my hands would be dry in 10 seconds, but it took far less than that. The other bonus was that because you put your hands in rather than under, there’s no pool of water underneath.

I just got back from my first trip to Greece, and I spent a lot of time scrambling among ancient ruins. I was surprised and delighted to find that the Acropolis held some very 37signals-y lessons in design, and I figured I’d share…

The Acropolis turns out to be an object lesson in design subtlety within the scope of a colossal project. It’s a 2500-year-old example of clever user-experience design, where quietly considered design flourishes abound.

As a guy whose working materials are modern bits and bytes, I found the marble-and-limestone structures of 25 centuries ago to be inspring. My visit to the Acropolis gave me a renewed sense in the importance of getting the quiet parts of design right, that there’s real value in taking time and care to create a sense of calm order and symmetry in your creations. The details matter.

For what it’s worth, I thought you might enjoy my blog write-up about it.

Penultimate?
From: Ben Sekulowicz

First Direct, (a UK based online bank owned by HSBC) use the following within their two-part log in process, (along with security question).

Please enter the 4th, penultimate and last characters from your electronic password…

How many users will know what penultimate is, really?

Have an interesting link, story, or screenshot for Signal vs. Noise? Contact svn [at] 37signals [dot] com.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/521-mailbag-jeep-dyson-the-acropolis-etc

“The hole and the patch should be commensurate.”
-Thomas Jefferson

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/546-spot-on

Some flint, a water bottle, and a knife. That’s all Bear Grylls has with him when he gets “lost” on Man vs. Wild.

In each episode of Man vs. Wild, Bear strands himself in popular wilderness destinations where tourists often find themselves lost or in danger. As he finds his way back to civilization, he demonstrates local survival techniques, including escaping quicksand in the Moab Desert, navigating dangerous jungle rivers in Costa Rica, crossing ravines in the Alps and surviving sharks off Hawaii.

I admit the show is pretty ridiculous: He’s stuck in the frozen tundra but stops to demonstrate how to climb out of a frozen lake!? What’s the crew up to while he is starving/freezing? You have to take the whole thing with a big grain of salt.

But it’s also damn compelling. Even if you never venture into the wild, it’s fascinating to watch him catch and eat snakes, bugs, and fish, build shelters, snow caves, and rafts, find utility in urine and dung, etc. Discovery.com has some clips and a list of survival tips from the show.

Some of the lessons he offers sound ripe for being turned into a business “survival” guide too. For example:

The way out of jungle or mountains? Find a stream or river and follow it.

You never know how steep something is until you “rub noses with it.” From far away, you can’t really judge.

Survival is about playing the odds. Expect to fail before you succeed.

Building a fire is a great way to boost morale. And keeping morale up is the key to survival.

Never rely on one source for catching food. If you set up a fishing net, go out and start hunting for something else.

Do your homework before going on a trip — know the local geography and what’s edible there.

Expect luck in your life. “People come through hopeless situations because they push themselves to extraordinary places.”Grylls’ gives motivational speeches and his site lists some of the topics he talks about.

On giving extra…

The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word – extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me…and the more of these words I heard the smaller I always felt! But the truth is often very different…and for me to learn that ordinary me can achieve something extra-ordinary by giving that little bit extra, when everyone else gives up, meant the world to me and I really clung to it.

On leadership…

A realisation that the qualities needed for effective leadership can be learnt. That real leader’s inspire a feel-good factor around them; you want to be with them regardless. That we all perform better when we are appreciated and encouraged and valued. That leader’s think bigger, and differently. They inspire those around them to go that little bit further, to perform that little bit better, and feel that little bit stronger.

On communication…

Bear is only too aware that an effective team on a high mountain relies on honest communication. Having a shared purpose, a culture of can-do and want-to; rather than politics or one-up-man-ship. Encouraging faith in each other, encouraging trust, and an ability to share weaknesses as well as strengths. An awareness that vulnerability creates bonds, and where there are bonds there is strength.  A determination to make it together, where humility is a virtue and kindness really matters.

A bit cheesy? Sure. But when eating live snakes and maggots is just a normal day at the office, you’re allowed to sprinkle on some cheese.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/530-survival-lessons-from-man-vs-wilds-bear-grylls

On July 1st and July 7th, we posted about Timeline from the Simile project.

We're pleased to post about another related project: Timeplot, which is

a canvas-based ajaxy plotting companion to
our Timeline widget (that also supports the same timeline data formats).

Follow the link; the screen shot doesn't do it justice. While you're there, don't miss the comprehensive tutorial, which shows how easy it is to create these charts.

In a nutshell, you do this:

and the "data.txt" file is just a CSV file. And the tutorial even shows you how to make it look purty.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/139217466/timeplot-canvas-based-specialized-charting-tool

Jon Brisbin has created an XML-RPC JavaScript client called @tomic:

The @tomic XML-RPC client requires ExtJS 1.1, but has no other external requirements. It's designed to be easy-to-use, flexible, and robust enough for anything you might throw at it. Since this is an initial release, I'm putting it out as a beta (under the GPL).

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/139190048/tomic-xml-rpc-javascript-client

John Allsopp has developed XRAY, a bookmarklet that launches a tool to visualize the web page that you are on (a little like features in Firebug and Firefox). The look and feel is great, and the margin popups look like the new Safari/Webkit search functionality (mmm orange).

What is XRAY

XRAY is the first in hopefully a suite of free cross browser tools for helping web designers and developers better visualize what their code is doing in a browser. XRAY is designed to help you get beneath the skin of your web page.

XRAY let’s you see the box model for any element on a page in action - where is the top and left of an element, how big is each margin, how big is the padding, how wide and high is the content box?

What platforms and browsers is XRAY available on?

XRAY currently has been tested on Safari 2 and 3 on Mac OS X, Webkit nightly builds, and Mozilla based browsers (Firefox, Camino and so on) on Mac OS X and Windows. At present it won’t work on Internet Explorer (XRAY uses the canvas element, but plans are afoot to adapt it for Internet Explorer), and has not been adapted for Opera. We hope to have versions for Opera shortly, and Internet Explorer on Windows in the not too distant future. XRAY works in Safari 3 on Windows, but clicking a bookmark does not fire any Javascript it contains. To use XRAY on Safari 3 for windows at present, you’ll need to paste the XRAY link into the address field and hit return.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/139181374/xray-peer-into-your-web-pages