The WaSP group announced today their DOM Scripting Task Force. What does this mean and how will it affect you? First it means that we will finally have good, clean and unobstrusive javascript code to replace all the crappy javascript code thats littering the web right now. Secondly, it provides a good set of standards for everyone to follow, meaning more consistancy in the code and adherence to proper design patterns. This is a good thing, since Javascript is becoming increasingly more popular.
Web standards like CSS and XHTML are being widely adopted, thanks to the efforts of the WaSP and the legions of talented designers and developers who have embraced the technologies. Every day, standards are driving the structure and presentation of more and more websites... read more
Ever download a huge javascript library that did a million things, yet you only needed a very small portion of it? Sure, you may be able to extract what you need, but most of the JS code written out there isn't as modular as we would like. There are tons of global vars. Functions referencing one another, etc.
Well, the folks working on the DojoToolkit have come up with a nice way to "Lazy Load" and package Javasctript functions. A snippet from the site:
The packaging system allows you to list a single script include file, which will then find and fetch packages as they are needed for your application, from the Dojo source tree. This means in the simplest case, no build process is required, and yet there is no need to include a script tag for every script file that is to be loaded.
Additionally, the packaging system allows for the creation of a compressed package file that contains all of the script code needed for your app, no more, and no less, through an Ant build step.
Read more ...
Looks like Ruby on Rails 0.13 has been released and with this release comes 225+ features and bug fixes. One of the coolest features added to this version of Rails is he addition of the Script.aculo.us Javascript libray.
Script.aculo.us is based on the Prototype javascript library and extends the basic visual effects provided by that library to create some really cool visual effects. Effects like: Appear, Fade, Puff, SlideUp and Down, BlindUp and Down, DropOut, Shake, Pulsate, Squish, Fold, Grow, Shrink and Highlight.
Besides the cool visual effects, Script.aculo.us also provides Drag 'n Drop functionality, dynamic element sorting that saves using Ajax, Google suggest functionality which also uses Ajax and some more that I'm sure I've forgotten about. This thing is simply amazing.
One of the blogs that I regularly read is WebKEW (Web Knowledge Equals Wealth). Marshall Brain (cool last name!) outlines the steps required to make a successful website, be it a blog, ecommerce, content or services oriented website. Well, I've been trying to follow his advice and most of it seems like common sense, but with any sound common sense type advice, it's only useful if you actually believe it and follow it.
I chose to concentrate on a specific number of topics on my blog, mainly IT and Web Technology related ones. I may sprinkle in a few unrelated or funny posts here and there, but GetIntoThis is mainly a techy blog (for now.) Also as a personal experiment, I decided to add a few Google ads, just to see how they would perform on a blog that gets about 10,000-12,000 unique visitors a month. I put in the ads a few weeks ago and so far I've made almost $3.00! No, not 30 or 300, but "3". I never intended to make money from this blog anyway, but its just interesting to see how it performs.
I started this blog in April and so far here's a hint of how it's been doing:
Not bad for a small website I put together in one day using some great existing tools. The hardest part of it all is providing good and relevant content. And that is made a bit easier by reading other related blogs. So, go ahead and start your own blog and if it relates to the content on my site, then we can exchange links :-)
Looks like Google finally decided to release a legit API for their map service. A lot of sites have been hacking the current Google Maps to make some creative web applications and services, but now with an actual API, it should make it easier for anyone to put together their own Google Map powered site. Thanks Google! :-)
Google Maps API
Google Maps Chicago Transit Authority
ChicagoCrime.org
GoogleSightSeeing