Year: 2005

Categories
JavaScript

AJAX: The all-purpose cleaner

I’ve been hearing quite a bit about Ajax, the new wonder technology lately, and finally decided to take some time to check it out.

I followed the link to the Adaptive Path essay on Ajax, and started reading through the writing until I came to the diagram showing an “Ajax Engine”, as part of the new innovation. Being a geek like most other geeks, I then stopped reading and starting looking around for the download button for this new Ajax Engine. Not having found anything I could download, I returned to the essay and continued reading.

What I found is something that sounded strangely familiar. In fact, this ‘new’ technology sounded just like DHTML–Dynamic HTML–except that there was a reliance on a non-browser safe object called the XMLHttpRequest: an object to manage asynchronous XML access from the server from within web pages. An object invented by Microsoft for IE and implemented in Firefox and Safari, but not an objects that’s guaranteed to be cross-browser safe to use.

I admit, I was very confused by this time. I wrote on DHTML in 1998, in fact wrote the book whose cover you see in this post. I have hundreds of examples of DHTML, most several years old. I’ve even used the request object a time or two, but wasn’t necessarily overjoyed by it: I really didn’t like using proprietary objects when I couldn’t find the same functionality in other browsers.

In the FAQ attached to the essay, I did receive some clarification:

Q. Did Adaptive Path invent Ajax? Did Google? Did Adaptive Path help build Google’s Ajax applications?

A. Neither Adaptive Path nor Google invented Ajax. Google’s recent products are simply the highest-profile examples of Ajax applications. Adaptive Path was not involved in the development of Google’s Ajax applications, but we have been doing Ajax work for some of our other clients.

Q. Is Adaptive Path selling Ajax components or trademarking the name? Where can I download it?

A. Ajax isn’t something you can download. It’s an approach — a way of thinking about the architecture of web applications using certain technologies. Neither the Ajax name nor the approach are proprietary to Adaptive Path.

Q. Is Ajax just another name for XMLHttpRequest?

A. No. XMLHttpRequest is only part of the Ajax equation. XMLHttpRequest is the technical component that makes the asynchronous server communication possible; Ajax is our name for the overall approach described in the article, which relies not only on XMLHttpRequest, but on CSS, DOM, and other technologies.

I then read Dare Obasanjo’s excellent tap-tap that yes, the emperor is naked, and that Ajax really is Dynamic HTML with the use of the proprietary XMLHttpRequest object.

(Of course, I’ve used the term DHTML and Dynamic HTML, and in Dare’s write-up, even this is a renaming of an existing concept, so mea culpa in that regard.)

Wow, I didn’t know that I was ahead of the times when it comes to technology. I feel so super cool right now. To celebrate, I decided that I would go through all my burned CDs and recover my old DHTML applications in addition to old write-ups. As I find them, I’ll post them into posts labeled “Ajax” so that you know you’re supposed to jump up and down. (The old Well, if Google uses it then it must be OK thing.)

Starting with one of my favorites: The DHTML Menu Button from Hell, used to demonstrate the benefits of using DHTML to build menus. But if you don’t like that one, then how about Pick-A-Pair–a favorite script of porn sites the world over. Betcha can’t win the triple game.

Of course, this isn’t really Ajax, which requires the use of XMLHttpRequest. Let’s call it “Aja”, instead. Or perhaps “web safe Ajax”. But I’ll see if I can dig up something proprietary for you to see — back when these samples were built, years ago, I tended to focus on standards-based objects and cross-browser compatibility. I now kick myself for seeing that this wasn’t the way of the future.

You know, that’s why we women in technology never get ahead. We just don’t understand the right way of doing things.

update

Ooops, pointed to the wrong DHTML button example. I’ve updated the page to the right one.

Categories
Copyright RDF

Yahoo CC Search

Yahoo released the beta of the Yahoo Creative Commons Search allowing us to search among CC licensed material. Since CC licenses are recorded using a standardized meta language and syntax *cough* RDF/XML *cough* it’s more a matter of just checking for this information in the process of their normal operations.

There’s still a lot missing. First of all, the CC license tends to be added to a page, and this can get associated with the keyword. For instance, search on “Shelley Powers” and you won’t find CC material by me, but CC material that includes something about me. (Unless it’s a publication that is CC.). Also, there’s no way to differentiate images, video, and writing with this, though with Yahoo’s separation of media in the regular search engine, this is probably a temporary issue.

Tag this under “RDF rules”.

Categories
Culture

Behold the lowly toilet

Charles from Disinfotainment is posting videos of various aspects of Japanese culture, including this this one on a program to upgrade bathrooms within the educational system.

What’s interesting about the program is that the students have a say in how the bathrooms are designed. In addition, they also have to maintain the bathrooms. I imagine that the students do take greater care when they have to take a turn doing the cleaning.

Charles clarifies that contrary to western assumption, not all of Japan is living with the latest and newest of bathroom appliances; a significant percentage of the country is still using the old style of Japanese toilet, which is nothing more than a trench in the dirt.

Young students are also being taught how to use western toilets, the same as most of us would have to learn how to use the Japanese squat toilet. It makes me hurt, just to look at it. Great way, though, of making sure your populace stays flexible.

Categories
Burningbird

Creaky stuff

I’m working on some components of Wordform in the next few days that could impact on weblog viewing and/or your comments. One of the downsides for modifying a ‘live’ application–but a great way to test. However, if you write a long comment, you might want to copy it into the clipboard before posting.

Also, if you notice that the site is running slow, after checking the running processes I found there is a great deal of activity associated with mt-comments.cgi now, as well as MySQL so I imagine there’s another comment/trackback flood going on with the server.

Categories
Weblogging Writing

The syndication feed fair warning indicator

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

This week I’ll be posting writings that violate the concept of ‘proper weblog entry’ all to heck–either by the use of fiction or the length of the writing, or both.

As happens most times I do this, one or more people access the entry expecting to find a traditional weblog entry and, instead, find writing. Good writing, bad writing, doesn’t matter. It’s the form that disturbs them.

If the work is fictional, I almost invariably get someone who writes in comments, “This is b***s**t” or a variation on, “This is stupid.” If the work is longer, some of the commenters sound a bit tired when they leave notes, as if I’ve made them run through a marathon they weren’t expecting.

Now, the longer writings will give a me a chance to test out my new Wordform Fulltext feature, but that’s not the reason for the writing. The writing is the reason for the writing.

However, in fairness to those who are expecting traditional weblog entries, otherwise known as the Slam, Bam, thank you Ma’am posts, I’m working at adding a new meta item to my syndication feeds called “The Fair Warning Indicator”. This indicator will, hopefully, get picked up in the syndication feed aggregators, letting you know whether the post is a traditional weblog entry or not. I have the meta-data part, I just have to figure out which field in the existing feed infrastructures to subjugate to my evil ways.

With the Fair Warning Indicator, when I do publish these works online, if you want forgo a ‘non-weblogging reading experience’, you can. And, hopefully, the brave and intrepid (or bored or unknowing) souls who do venture in, will then feel free to comment purely on the writing, itself–not the fact that I’m not following the Blogging rules of etiquette.

Now, for any syndicators in the audience, suggestions on what would be the best modification to the feeds to incorporate the Indicator? By feed type?