As always I forget to say until the last minute.
I and the rest of the Hashrocket team will be going to RailsConf next week, so if you see me there, do stop me and say Hi. 
Archive for the 'conferences' Category
SXSW has ended and my mind and body have not come back on the same flight.
It is always an awesome event but always tiring too. I usually try to write expansive reviews of the event but this year I am adopting a more bulleted system.
Mark Zuckerberg & Sarah Lacy Interview
Hot on everyone’s lips is the interview being dubbed as the worst interview of all time and such. When watching it, I thought the crowd was being over zealous. They had very high standards and did not feel that Ms Lacy met them. She felt that the interview was “An Interview with Mark Zuckerberg and Sarah Lacy” as opposed to being a tool to elicit questions. She was flirtatious beyond the point of good fun. Notably, many times Mark Zuckerberg hinted that she wasn’t interviewing him in a well manner but it didn’t quite decode in her mind. She failed the interview yet if you watch the after-video she seems to blame everyone else but herself. She started with a bigger introduction for herself than him (granted we know who he is, but she had already thrust herself in the lime-light) and then starts with telling the audience how she feels.
I was in the overflow-room and for it to happen in parallel suggests that it is more than just the crowd.
Also, Its funny she’s never heard of Will Wright, after she said “no one has ever had anyone as big as Mark before”
Egos
The one thing that I dread about SXSW is the egos. There are so many people in the web field with a huge ego. A lot of people got the panels they wanted to because they are known around the web and thought as of reputable sources (whether or not they are is different). Some chose to talk about things they knew about, others did not. It infuriates me no end.
Designers should talk about design, coders should talk about code, freelancers should talk about freelancers as should people who make web apps talk about web apps. And you watch as people with no clue about a subject branch over into another and then watch as people watch them for it.
Another example of egos is at the SXNW party (which ALWAYS rules, good work Blue Flavor) where a friend and I were waiting in a queue for 30 minutes (a mini queue upstairs) when a group of people, who I found out was the Flock crew barged past us and got priority service. This was a common theme so I understood, but the fact there was only 6 people in the line and when we mentioned we’d been waiting, they responded with “It’s fine, we work at Flock!”. Two members of the team got held as there was too many of them. And thus the wait carried on for another 30-60 minutes. I had left about 10 minutes after, angry and unamused.
Gaming
Gaming was a more prominent theme this year and I thought it overcrowded an already overcrowded conference. Game Developers Conference (GDC) was less than a month ago so I saw no reason that this conference should have been diluted even more. You can’t cater for everyone, instead do the best at a few things.
Wrapup
It was great to be there. I met some awesome new people and some good old friends too.
The fact that my hotel room flooded on the last day and got all my stuff wet, didn’t even put a dent in the trip.
The after-conference meetup (also known as the Airport) was awesome fun too.
I realise I don’t think I’ve mentioned, or mentioned recently, that I will be attending SXSW.
I will be arriving tomorrow, followed by my lovely fiancé, Esther on Saturday.
I cannot wait. If you see me, do come up and say Hi, and do not forget to hand me a business card!
See you there.
* For sending SMS messages
* Custom UI controls
The Macromedia Flash IDE
* How do we architect apps in it?
* Take a look at other peoples’ Flash… :S
Flex - Declaritive UI Design.
* Lots of people know of it, not many used.
* User Interface XML syntax
* Separate data from Flex mark-up
* Flex mark-up linked to a Class
ARP (Ariaware RIA Platform)
* Available from OSFlash
Case Study: Marvel Brand Assurance Tool
* Architecture:
- Flex
- Flash Remoting (maintain synchronised client and server class states) < why is this amazing?(other than binary-goodness of protocol) - because you can use the same tools and idioms on both sides - you don't need to know two different languages and rememember the differences between the data structures on both sides? I guess! OIC. So, Flash ont server, flash int client? well, same language on both, i think. don't really know!
* Development Tools
- Eclipse
- FDT (Flash Develop??
- SVN (Subversion) & Trac based SourceSecure (Source Control)
- ServiceCapture
* Process Management Tool
* Built in 2 months
* ???100 screens
* Looks rather Appley/Microsoft Wordy
* Flash contains tech to manage multiple-file uploads
Summary:
- OS Flash is good
- Symbiosis with MM and OASFlash
- Swfmill, ASDT, MTASC,
ARP, Cairngorm
ActionStep (component framework), AsWing ()
Red5 (OS Media Server), Laszlo (Open Source alt. to Flex)
- Ruby + Flash = Flash On Rails??? (in actionstep?) < is that right??? Not an official name, just a concept, I think.
Check out Flex 2: http://labs.macromedia.com/
3:15 - 4 The Remix Economy by Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing)
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
Alchemists
- Trying to turn lead to gold
- Mercury = poison if you drink
- Dark ages
- Alchemy is not about turning copper into gold, but turning Superstition into science = ???
We are all completely influenced by scientific traditions
- Net is a scientific network
- Quoting habits in e-mail/usenet due to scientific arguments
- Lawyers get told how long to make replies, and then they go off and do it themelves
- Lawyers never ‘fisk’, scientists/engineers do.
- Fisking = comms method of the enlightenment
Explicit and implicit encouragement to build on one another’s work
- Mitch Kapor founder of EFF
‘Architecture is politics’: way the net is designed affects the way we think about one another, way we interact with our social systems.
- Tim Berners-Lee made a light-weight hypertext.
- Lawyer would have tried to get this contracted.
- 1995 someone tried to get every copy of a doc to require seperate licences
(Proxy licence, frame buffer licence, cache licence, et cetera)
- Scientists = permission free environment
Next iteration - Web 2.0
* Suite of tools for mashups/remixing/whatever of disparate sources
* Next stage of scientific revolution that began when scientists started publishign
* Politics more important than something
* All of us can stand on the shoulders of giants
* Some industries think creation should require explicit permissions and so forth.
- Explicit copyright
- Copyright inherent with a social value - creation of new works.
- Copyright shouldn’t restrict new works
Copyright bundles:
- Right to perform
- Copy
Rights not reserved to rights holder:
- Right to create devices that may be used to copy/duplicate/whatever
- can’t copy copyrighted video casettes, CAN build VCRs…
- Tale of Sheet Music Publishers lobbying to ban music players - could not appreciate different ‘types’ of music.
- Sheet music creation should be approved by a cartel
We have a regime were politicians propose to put technology of the entertainment industry.
- Todays entertainment industry are yesterday’s pirates.
Another word for pirate is innovator
Copyright law evolves. Fix it, don’t break technology.
Job of the internet is to move as many bits as possible between two points at smallest cost.
Job of the internet is to move as many bits as possible between two points at smallest cost.
Lawmakers today think this should be broken to stop copying.
DVB has been hijacked to restrict uses of digital TV signals to ensure restrictions, rather than fidelity and quality
Looks like a regulation.
Has features no-one would pay for.
Majority of requests come from american entertainment giants.
Law will say can only build a device that meets the spec.
Spec will say device must respond to signals embedded in the video.
- should be able to set a limit on how many screens content can be viewed on.
- How far from receiver can be watched
- How many repeat views
DTV allows us to take stuff that used to be for free, and now they can charge for.
- Features have value, should be able to offer as value added service.
- Rather than offering more freedoms/features, freezing uses, taking away, and trickling back one drip at a time, at a price.
DRM systems contain renewability
- === revocability - system capable of being updated to change the deal without user’s knowledge.
- contract changes without agreement
Copyright expanding to new realms
- Control social policy
- allow only to be viewed in one household, but household is defined behind closed doors at DVB
- what constitutes a valid family? (not social norms - what the DVD companies say is)
Alchemy starts again when we have closed systems et al.
DVB published blue book last week http://dvb.org/ ???
Covers commodity hardware, restricts by government.
DVB published blue book last week http://dvb.org/ ???
Covers commodity hardware, restricts by government.
DVB equivalent of FCC.
EFF sued FCC over broadcast flag.
- broadcast flag doesn’t die, keeps getting pushed back in in a new, sneaky way.
We are funding an organisation trying to put us out of work.
We can help by joing Open Rights Group and EFF
Questions
==========
Should the entertainment industry drink mercury and die!?
Yes and no — remember how long the dark ages last!
500 long years of mercury drinking.
History is a pendulum.
How many martyrs do we want?
How many arrests for making new tech?
How many sites shut down?
How many innovations do we want to see NEVER realized because of
Copyright laws and social contracts should support us, not stop our innovation.
- Build scripts unobtrusively!
- don’t mix script and HTML
- >script src=”something.js” type=”text/javascript”<>/script<
- only put in a script element to load a separate .js — DO NOT EMBED and (you’re doing the right thing)
- three separate layers
- JavaScript is a bit more effort than CSS due to hooks
Event driven
- user actions rock JavaScript’s world.
- Especially if your script is designed to make page elements wiggle and shake.
- Register with events
- Good scripting is unobtrusive - UNOBTRUSIVE!!!!!!
What can your code do?
- Anything!
- Anything you can think of that you can do with HTML, you can do with Javascript;
- can rewrite the HTML as you see fit (entirely)
- Instead of sending it back to the user via the server, you can do it directly in the client \/ on the fly 
- I want the page to look like this. Rewrite on the fly.
- DOM + Ajax = no more waiting
People think that the web is “Click on something and wait for 10 seconds”
- An application that’s rubbish!
- No more! It teaches the public (in general) what the Web *could* be.
- Teach the public what the web is to geeks 
Amazon reccomendations
- DHTML Utopia (im psychic)
- Make new features possible when they weren’t before.
DOM + Ajax
- use other people’s code
- mmmmm cherries. NO CHERRIES FOR YOU!!!! breakfast time in a bit! The expression is brunch and YAY!
- generic enhancements (think script.aculo.us (talk by the author in london sometime), dojo, atlas, Simon Willison’s (Harry Potter presenting later) entire site, Jeremy Keith’s entire site)
- Load pages without page load
- Standing on the shoulders of Harry Potter
- You don’t have to write gMail
- Compare Mac to Windows. (Oh no, I really wouldn’t. Or tell me so I can get cover)
- Make recommendations a viable marketing.
- We’ve learned our lessons from our mistakes.
- Evolution, rather than revolution - (r)evolution
- Take the existing web and make it better.
Just get out there and change the web\
- ???You can do it Ozzy, bite his fucking head off??? (Rob Sneider, ???Little Nicky???) snicker snicker snort
Questions:
What about events pre-DOM-load?
Moz: DOMContentLoaded
Saf: Dave Hyatt == t3h sex.
11:30 -12:15 Ajax and the Flickr API by Harry Potter aka Simon Willison
Simon’s only been working there for 3 weeks so he is a charlatan and didn’t build any of this
* API
* XML Web Services
* Flickr - everyone <3 flickr
* Web 2.0 buzzword compliant
- viral marketing. Everyone tells everyone else…
- tagging
- folksonomies
- Web services API
- Ajax
* Don’t want to trust data to a little startup
- Build an API and let users build tools around it
- Innovative new flickr-as-platform apps
- no-one ever built the originally intended use of the API.
Shiny, gratuitous demos:
* Flickr related tag browser - www.airtightinteractive.com
- by Felix Turner
- using Flash
- enter a tag, loads photos from flick with that tag, along with related tags
- Brighton -> Banksy -> Bridges/rats/police
- flickr not hosting - makes things confusing.
* 3rd Party/Community Produced Flickr upload tools
- iPhoto by Fraser Spiers
- Numerous linux uploaders
- FlickrFS virtual file system
* Geoblogger(http://www.geobloggers.com)
- ultimate geo-spatial mashup
- added ‘magic’ tags:
- geo:lon:??
- geo:lat??
- Geotagged XXX
- microformat
* Web Services
- SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and XMLRPC (XML Remote Procedure Calls)
* Magic function calls
- REST architectural style
* Academic, based on URLs and XML
- Flickr somewhere in the middle REST style (URLs + degugging), but uses functions with params
* Methods and params
- (REST) requesting urls.
- params required: method, api_key
- utf-8, doh!
Every flickr photo includes:
- id
- server_id
- secret (shhhh! its a secret)
Authentication required for deletions etc:
- Many public methods
- Some authenticated
- many return different results when authenticated
API explorer (flickr.com/services/api):
- Allows investigation of methods et al.
- Allows playing with arguments and so forth from web UI, rather than messing with having to call functions.
- Currently supported API tools:
- Actionscript
- Delphi
- Ruby
- .Net
- Python
- PHP
-Scr??mjax! SCRUMJAX! (Scrumpy Jack, anyone? ooo Cider…. yay)
- Inline editing
- Notes
- Misc. niceties (Scones?)
- Slideshows/Organizr currently use Flash
Under the hood
- REST and XMLHttpRequest
- uses public API for internal stuff.
- Eating our own dog food (I don’t know what he’s into) - If the api breaks then flickr breaks too
- Ensures that the API stays up to date - we can’t build usefull …?
Tech demo:
- Mountain in Peru
- Add To Faves/Remove From Faves - ‘Classic AJAX’ (Quick - write down his API key! *snicker snicker*)
- Firefox Extension (Live HTTP Headers tool) < - http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/
The benefits of adding web services to an application are huge
- User trust
- Encourages better app design from the start
- XMLHTTPRequest + REST = t3h sex
- Feeds!!!
- Squirrels = good
1:00 - 1:45pm Backstage BBC - Ben Metcalfe
Presentation avail. as CC by:
* What is backstage.bbc.co.uk
- BBC doing scraping.
- Wanted to assist the community.
- Nothing done above board or sanctioned = Cease & Desists 
- Opportunity for BBC + Community to connect.
- Want to allow legally licensed content reuse. (Robust licence, non-commercial)
Why are BBC doing this?
- ‘Open BBC’ push at the mo
- Support creativity and innovation
- identify and showcase talent
- public service for the 21st century
- Ben wants to steal licence fee payers’ money via the web
What’s on offer?
- RSS feeds, Web 2.0 formats (any idea what this might be if not RSS / XML ???)
- Travel XML
- TV Listings data
- Weather data via the Met (coming soon!)
- BBC message board threads
- MORE TO COME!
What’s the deal?
- Strictly non-commercial use
- ‘Remixing’ with other web services such as Yahoo, Google, Flickr encouraged
- Users retain their IP
- Showcase their work on backstage.
Fuzzy mic interference*
- sounds fuzzy
- high pitched
- noted and fixed
Going forward (never backward, upward, never forward, and spinning, spinning)
- BBC want to work with the producers of successful prototypes to help them
- Ultimately we want to implement compelling work back into the organisation - to benefit of our entire audience on bbc. co.uk
It’s possible because??
- All data is made available
- Data is rights-cleared
- Passionate user-base (how much “love” does your service have?)
- depends what sort of love
?? Cool(TM) points!
- support from the top
- Director of new media is keen on backstage
Prototype showcase
- Google Map + Travel XML feed = coolness
- Beeb doesn’t do this yet. Looking to steal the guy’s idea and pay him nothing. And kill his pets? They’ll send round the Mitchell brothers…
- Jamcams - good for watching as you spread strawberry jam on your toast.
- Alteratively, can be used to watch traffic.
- point of information: (Faruk: I gotta say that this is really bad-ass. I’m used to the Netherlands. The BBC-equiv. in the NL is much like “what’s an API?” or “Flickr? What do gay people have to do with it?”)
(point of information 2: “Flickr” in Dutch is pronounced the same way “fags” in Dutch is pronounced)
MighyV.com
- competition winner of Beeb competition
- Adding value and making value-added content available as web 2.0 funk.
- Good ajax example, too.
- Hover over program, TV listing shows more info in ‘tooltip’ type thing
- RSS feeds, JSON
- Prize was a rackmount server
- Suggest offering something good next time? :p (e.g. wimmens)
Web2.0 @ BBC
- Read/Write web in a read-only corporation
- Not many ‘proper’ APIs in the BBC ~yet~
- Rights - bbc doesn’t own all of it’s own data
- lots of data not in a CMS (does that mean it is likely to be more valid 
)
Most legacy content of any large organisation is still not in any sort of CMS, but exists on the web solely as plain old HTML files (and no, they’re generally not valid)(!)
- BBC does “get it” (Web 2.0)
- Rights holders are beginning to appreciate alternative business models.
- We are slowly eeking out cool data from the BBC’s repositories
BBC Programme Catalogue - IMDB for bbc’s content
- No downloads, but allows lots of funky searching of the BBC archive
- Still in dev - demo off of dev server
- not a complete record of BBC programs
- Hope to launch early ‘06 as experiment
- BBC librarians don’t get out much and so have time to document everything ever done in the history of time Sssssh! No talking.
- “There will be a Web 2.0 offering alongside it”
- http://203b.picdiary.com:3000/infax/search/ requires authentication, though
- Zach has been on TV. Thinks he’s cool.
- Interrogable in Web2.0 ways (REST)
- Supplies FOAF info
- Wifi is slow because we’re fucking it with this. Right everyone log out!
Nah, this is ultra low bandwith I’d have thought
‘Rubberband’ net connections.
I’m glad this doesn’t eat bandwidth like honeymonster eats sugar puffs.
I love “available as Web 2.0″ - it’s like a file format or something
Faruk: that’s what I inquired about, yes. “RSS, XML and Web2.0″ …
ben.metcalfe@bbc.co.uk
http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/misc/dconstruct.ppt
http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/
Tech stuff
Ruby on Rails (first BBC app)
Questions:
Making media files available with the IMDB-esque thing?
No, but product next year that has that in scope.
Will ‘listen again’ feeds be available? Likewise BBC radio?
Paul Hammond nodding wildly. ???There are plans???.
Stuart Langridge: Lots of historical info, this is great.
Is the beeb pushing other companies to make data available, or not to make beeb look better?
Pushing others to, but don’t have rights and generate feeds themselves (so don???t have other channels’ data).
Sees no reason why others wouldn’t, but not that they don’t want to.
Big Ryan Carson: If they weren’t limited by licensing and all capabilities were there now, what would Ben do?
Every single page would have RSS feed.
Every repository (postcodes to broadcast databases) would be available.
Not a technical mission, all about rights holders loosening a bit.
BBC has potential to be a significant provider of data in web 2.0 environment.
Offtopic: Radio content in RealPlayer only. Any chance of the Beeb putting it into non-proprietary format?
Historically always used Real because it was the only tech available when this was launched.
BBC news console uses WMP instead.
If PodCasting takes off for all shows, probably looking at mp3. (Rights a billig issue still due to musical content)
1:45 - 2:30 Web Everywhere by Tom Hume
Working in web <2000
Blank stares ‘just for geeks’
??20m VC for gravel selling.
entered mobile market (?when?) - 50% market penetration.
Different perspective on Web 2.0 - not our Ajaxian view.
‘[Lots of bloody mobile phones]‘
Analysts are lying bastards.
Sile pmuprlpeo,s e devices bad for general consumer? Rich experience - PC
Bill Gates = sexy beast.
What’s web 2.0?
- What is Web 2.0?
- How do web geeks stay connected?
- Where do web and mobile overlap?
- Where do they diverge?
We’re not able to define Web 2.0, but we’re the geeks that should know.
- Differentiate the new funk from the old
(like ariel washing powder)
Lots of walled gardens in mobile networks.
- NTT DoCoMo/3 work well in walled gardens
User created data
- calls, SMS, MMS
Users own contacts, SMS, et cetera.
Using cross-device data is what mobile phones are about.
So mobiles therefore ARE Web 2.0 (Apparently)
Magic pixie dust + crap idea = 4t3hwin!
70% world population don’t have mobiles
Audience participation bit
~10% online now
~50% have laptop with them
1 hasn’t got phone
0 haven’t ever had a text message
What’s it all about?
- Communication
- Glancing, gifting = picture messaging (What the fuck do these mean?)
* desktop app which lets folks know you’re thinking of them
- Personal entertainment
- Conversations/user generated content being reclassified so that ‘content is king’ types look cool
- He believes the future of the net is mobile (Surprise, surprise)
On the mobile web: just look at Japan and see where it may possibly go.
- My bum still hurts - ditto Must buy battery and cushion. And, as we’re in Brighton, women too,
- TV on mobile phones is shit, but consumers drool over stupid things.
- Nokia are the largest camera manufacturer in the world (doesn’t make them the best, though)
* apparently, Apple are looking over their shoulder at Nokia, but they’re not gonna get beat. Apple = cool, Nokia = sux Nokia < banana < Apple
^^ that was news to me, too
Medium is the message.
- Implicit versus explicit communication.
Web on Mobile
- WML (Very, very, very shit)
- XHTML-MP (XHTML Mobile Profile, visually richer compared to WML, out there and growing)
- cHTML (NTT DoCoMo standard)
- HTML (Opera, MiniMo, also IE on SPVs…)
- Ajax
- Bear in mind quite alot of mobile web agents don’t have javascript support of any kind whatsoever, and there doesn’t seem to be much development towards it outside of Japan, either (so far)
- Typical Ajax = point/click/drag (not sure I agree) (Faruk: that’s how AJAX for desktop computers has developed, but there are many non point-and-click AJAX approached that will be useful and worthwhile to implement)
Google killed the pub quiz! (but they left the kitten alive)
Also see: http://iyhy.com/
Lots of similarities and some overlaps
- Java has been in Faruk’s bed. LOL
- HTML
- Flash
- Tiny slice of the pie (mmmmmmmmPie)
- Time spent writing markup is minimal compared to design
Trad web agencies treating the mobile web as the old web… similar to print design companies slicing up photoshop comps 10 years ago. It’s not that. It’s new and different, and comes with it’s own challenges
Differences
- Network operators (Orange, Voda, t-Mo)
- Diversity of devices
- Tight software/hardware integration
- True mass market
- Implicit commerciality
- Context of use
Does anyone else note a distinct ‘we’re better than you’ tone to this bit? 
Network operators
- Wankers
- Vital wankers
- Wrap complex tech + support into ‘magic box in the palm of the hand’
- Take ownership of end-to-end experience
- Poor customer service (never gonna get it just right)
^ ^ does everyone agreee with that? ^ ^?
I certainly do, and can probably speak for about 10-15 others that
sorry, i mean the “never getting it right” - don’t see why not?
Ah, right… Could be hard. People are hard to please…
- Vodafone = pr0n
- Customer support - difficult job. Test on the network, give it to public, then support it.
- Subsidise the industry. Typical RRP of phone ~??500, typical street price ~??50.
- Billing management. Aggregating micropayments (buzzword), billing coherently, etc.
- Advertising content providers (iMode posters: lastminute.com) Proxying et al.
- loyalty to manufacturers, not networks
Diversity of devices
- 3-4000 types of browser, network, content, whatever
- Loads of vendors
- Customers are clueless
- No standard form factor
- WURFL open database of handset features
- blogs and vendors are your friends.
Tight software/hardware integration
- Closed devices
- 12-18 months upgrade cycle
- Have to adapt to users ‘cos people don’t upgrade software…
- Operators control/certify (applications)
Truly mass market
- 100%? penetration in the UK?
- HSBC think lots of people have two SIM cards
- >100% in other markets (finland, singapore…)
- Broad demographic reach (mums sending texts)
- Mother beating because she wouldn’t use the internet but would use
- Kids getting mobiles at stupid ages. Parents should be taken out of the gene pool.
- Language: doesn’t require techy introduction (think http:// et al)
* not the user’s problem if they don’t understand. Don’t even expect you to use it.
- Proper usability and interaction design becomes more important with mass market, write-once hardware.
Implicit commerciality
- no freedom of information thoughts unlike the net
-
“mobile has this reach that the internet *?desktop?* lacks?????
14:50 Flash: State of the Art (Aral Balkan)
What is Flash?
* Misunderstood?
* A platform (as defined by MM)
- Virtual Machine (runs Action Script Byte Code)
- Flash (the IDE) is just a small part of it… It has a thriving open source community.
- Viking Kittens! and interstatial ads. Magical Trevor
- Skip Intro
* Try to ignore ???Bad Flash??? in favour of RIAs (Rich tInternet Apps)
The State of the Art
* Has contained similar technologies to Ajax since 1990’s
* the ‘K12′ online school - a “Real School” = no bricks and mortar
* Requires Plug-in
I will update this with all thats going on and the best of Faruk’s quotes. There’s a bit of gaps in this post but i’ve kept the keypoints.
I was gonna link to a flickr post but unfortunatly I can???t as my camera has drained the battery without being on *shakes hand at Acer*
AppleSpotting
Powerbooks: 14
iBooks: 9
Met up with
Transcript SubEthaEdit
Authors
- Damien Tanner : http://blog.mongoo.se/ - Your host
- Zach Inglis : http://zachinglis.com/
- Faruk Ates : http://kurafire.net/
- Steve Marshall : http://nascentguruism.com/
- Ben Ward : http://ben-ward.co.uk/
- Chris Stainthorpe: http://randomcat.co.uk/
- Stuart Colville: http://www.muffinresearch.co.uk (minor additions!)
- Barry Frost: http://www.barryfrost.com/ (lurking and not much else)
Transcript - Sorry for the awfull non-semanticness
10am ??? 10:45am - What is Web 2.0 by Andy Budd
* “Open Data” / user created&ownership
* “Open devices” - available cross-device, location/device independant.
* Community. (ownership ^ ^)
* Groupthink/collective intelligence
* Web2.0 apps are a pleasure to use
* Rich, thin client applications
* OnOneMap = Google Maps + external data (houses)
* Netvibes.com = custom start page
* Backpack/Basecamp (37signals/whatever) - wiki on speed
* Meebo.com - online IM client (covers 4 biggest: AOL, MSN, Y!, Jabber/Google Talk)
* Writely - word on the web (see also: JotLive.com, Dojo rich text, WriteBoard) + collaboration + versioning
* http://www.ning.com/ provides an API for their data sources, bookmarks etc…
* Where’s the revolution? What’s the big deal? Maybe it’s because we’re all cool?
* more mature < < think this is v.important. learn to crawl before walk. Exactly.
* healthier culture/economy
* using existing tech in new, innovative ways
* uk needs more statups!
* exciting time to be a web dev - we’re HAWT! (for jobs, at least)
* people throwing out hard work of the last few years for the sake of interactivity
* Fix first, not last.
* Not everything has technical solution
* Don’t create solutions for non-existant problems
* _Is there a market??_
* Is it just another bubble?
* See revolution
* Subscription/advertising business models more viable.
* People have learnt from the excesses of 2k
* Squiggly line.__^__
http://hmestrum.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/gartner_hype_cycle_curve.jpg
* Web changing from document delivery to app delivery
^ ^ Agree, but can/should this be happening? Do the 2 coexist easily?
I think it depends on how usability is acknowledged… If affordance is made to illustrate differences obviously to users, then no issue.
* faster speed to market
* Ajax apps
* Desktop, web enabled widges (web apps sans browser)
* Flex
* OpenLazlo
* XUL
* Avalon/XAML (Windows Presentation Foundation)
* Atlas < microsoft ajax. 20 page .doc for a todo list. Bloated, slow, featureless (read: alpha)
Questions:
Where do microformats fit (open, decentralised data)? (http://microformats.org)
Hack/extend XHTML in lieu of new standards dev of extensions to try to stop MS lock-in
How do we get around corporate resistence to W2.0?
* Don’t tell them it’s 2.0.
* Web 2.0 is our state of mind.
* See also: ???Advocating the Quiet Revolution??? on Stuff and Nonsense (http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/advocating_the_quiet_revolution.html)
trust third parties with our data?
Don’t invest critical data into startups.
Trust bigger players more than smaller.
Should Ajax-y apps still gracefully degrade?
YES!!!!!
Works without Javascript.
To use Jeremy Keith’s term - hijax the browser. (Is bad use ‘hijinx’?)
with rails you can write ajax applications that little bit faster.
Selling points of Ajax:
People react better to
good user interaction.
Avoid Ajax for the sake of Ajax
MS ditching IE?!?
10:45 - 11:30 DOM Scripting and Ajax by Stuart Langridge
* Better user experience!!!
* Interaction can be designed
- Design user interaction
- Force users to work the way we want ^_^
* Javascript
- JavaScript = unicorns following your cursor, scrolly status bar messages, image rollovers
Web used to be under construction. It’s now finished. We’re all out of work.
* CSS and valid HTML
- enormous improvement
- not just hacks.
- I’m the only person taking notes.
* Clean, powerful, expressive TOOL
* not for EVIL
* not old-school DHTML
* not ‘works best in [not your browser]
* exercise more control
- make the web work better
* sep. of structure/content
- W3C said it in ‘96, we were all clueless.
- Didn’t articulate it very well.
* We all love the CSS Zen Garden <3
- 807 designs altogether to date.
- Demonstrates the power of seperation
- different designs, one unchanging base
- loads of power
- time travellers like CSS
S5
- Browser based presentation tool (based on Opera’s ???OpenShow???(?) concept).
- Vanilla HTML + funkalicious CSS/DOM Scripting
- makes it work like a presentation
- Loads of power, seamless degredation
Behaviour layer
- control behaviour of users.
- break their fingers if they don’t like the way you want them to work.
- frees you from browser limitations
- no page refreshes. Is this necessarily a good thing all the time.
*managing expectations… (but these might change?)
Definitely.
- no waiting.
- alert new changes by fading information on the screen (Yellow fade technique)
- For detail buy a book (especially when the text is half-off the screen)
- DOM Scripting initially - very good, also: http://domscripting.com
- DHTML Utopia
- O’reilly book: Javascript The Definitive Guide. (really good REFERENCE)
- awesome author photo
- Unobtrusive scripting!!!
- Sites need not to depend on it.
- don’t use javascript in href; (no scripting in markup)
- don’t rush to get to market and drop things like accessibility, usability
Data in open formats, remix, mashup
- do mashups, remix sites
- how do *I* want to interact with this, not how do they want me to
- hook things in to other APIs
Amazon.co.uk example of Javascript on/off:
- direct interfacing with aspects like “I own it” and “Not interested” and instant Rating saving
- creating controls we didn’t have before.
- sucks my credit card dry
- Design how you want the web to work - the credo of Web 2.0? Is that the English word, btw? credo? Web 2.0 “Do it yourself, your own way” ?
- Little touches make good into great
- Je ne sais quoi makes things how you want ‘em
- Browsers no longer limit what your designs can do
How to do DOM scripting
- Gratuitous advertising ?? la Geocities/Angelfire
