Andre’s Blog

August 11th, 2006

Dave’s talk on debugging Ajax has been accepted for AjaxWorld. Check it out.

AJAX Debugging and Quality Assurance
— Building high performance and robust AJAX applications is challenging at best, particularly without proper quality assurance and testing techniques. Dave will discuss how to set up a test framework, methodology, and build process that works reliably and automates much of the tedious manual effort associated with browser based development.

He will present this session at the AJAXWorld Conference & Expo, October 2-4, 2006, in Santa Clara, California.

Technorati Tags: ajax, testing, qa, programming, session, ajaxworld, performance, optimization, debugging

Posted in Technology, Software Development, AJAX | No Comments »

July 30th, 2006

Dave put together this cool little demo for the talk I gave at GeoWeb last Thursday.

We wanted to show closer integration of the desktop and the browser environments.  So we used a list of addresses (actually lat/long coordinates) in Excel, copied and pasted the list into the nitobi grid which was mashed-up with up with Google Maps.  It was pretty slick, I’m not sure if I emphasized in my talk how important this type of workflow is going to be in the future.  Users should have to make a cognitive switch between the desktop and web environment (IMO).  If you I can see the data let me get copy it, paste it, drag it, drop it or move through it with the keyboard.  Come on!  I want arrow keys, tabbing, I want to send email by hitting ctrl+enter like I can on the desktop, these are not hard to implement they just take some thought and care from the application designer.

Click here for the screencast.

Dave will have a more technical follow up post to this soon.  Likely he’ll include geo-coding for addresses and such too, since most people probably don’t think in lat/long coordinates or have lists of those kicking around;-)  This coming from the usability evangelist that I am…

Technorati Tags: ajax, gis, map, geoweb, mashup, nitobit, nitobigird, googlemap, ux, ui, usability

Posted in Technology, Software Development, AJAX, Web 2.0, Usability – HCI | 1 Comment »

July 28th, 2006

Megan Cole – my blog / Raincity Studios – [email protected] – How To Be A Sponge… or… How to embrace this new, very public life… Considering my fellow comrades, I am but a wee rookie. I’ll be the one soaking up all I can and blogging and vlogging it all. Oo – I’ll show y’all how to put back 12 Guinness in a single sitting.

Just one of the many wonderful Vancouver techies attending BarCamp vancouver. In other news we need sponsors. So step up to the plate;-) And let me know how we can work something out. There’s going to be one hundred of Vancouver’s best, brightest and most influential technologists and vocal bloggers there being exposed to your brand!

UPDATE: BarCamp Vancouver is Full! The 90th registrant was:

Kate Trgovac – Uniserve Communications Corp – Sr. Product Manager

Looks like Uniserve and ElasticPath are going to be sponsoring along side Nitobi, Bryght and Capulet. and WorkSpace .Woot!

Technorati Tags: barcamp, barcampvancouver, vancouver, sponsor

Posted in Technology, Software Development, Web 2.0, Business | 1 Comment »

July 25th, 2006

I’m speaking at GeoWeb on Thursday, July 26 at 10:35am.

GIS Applications on the Web: Possibilities and Limitations
  Speaker: Andre Charland, co-founder, eBusiness Applications Nitobi
Google Maps put Ajax on the map for consumers and developers alike. There is a growing trend towards porting GIS and mapping software to the web. In this presentation, Charland will speak to the possibilities and limitation of various Rich Internet Application (RIA) technologies, including Ajax, Flash and FLEX. He’ll approach it from both the professional Web developer’s perspective of moving into a Web environment – an environment that is as rich and visually engaging as traditional GIS applications; and the user’s perspective – moving toward a desktop experience and usability issues.

I’m really looking forward to this talk as I think mapping and GIS is really cool and we’re only at the tip of the iceberg, not just on the web but for other devices too. I’m going to be on the look out for some cool topo map applications.

UPDATE: Here’s my slide deck in PDF and PPT. Here’s the link to a whole bunch of map mashups. I’ll upload the movies shortly.
Technorati Tags: geoweb, ajax, gis, googlemaps, presentation, vancouver, bc

Posted in Technology, Software Development, AJAX, Web 2.0, Usability – HCI | 1 Comment »

July 5th, 2006

Andre Charland, Dave Johnson and Alexei White discuss Nitobi Grid 3.1, AJAX
Copy and Paste and Open AJAX.

Technorati Tags: ajax, enterpriseajax, grid, datagrid, podcast

Posted in Software Development, AJAX, Usability – HCI, Podcast | 2 Comments »

June 28th, 2006

Ajax and Accessibility Podcast:

• AT&T natural voices Demo
• Jaws
• section 508
• WAI
• Microsoft Accessibility resources
• Ajax and Screen Readers
• Webvisions 2006
• Dave’s Ajax Talk
• barcamp sf

while we’re on the topic the there’s 40 links to Ajax accessibility resources on Ajaxian today.

Technorati Tags: accessibility, ajax, jaws, screenreaders, podcast, eba, enterpriseajax, andrecharland, davejohnson, alexeiwhite, section508, webvisions, webvisioins06, barcampsf

Posted in Technology, Software Development, AJAX, Usability – HCI, Podcast | No Comments »

June 23rd, 2006

Wow! The guys at Sys-Con are on a rampage, how a company can announce and put on an event in less than 2 months is mind boggling. It should be a good event though as I’ve heard good things about their AJAX seminars.

SYS-CON Events to produce a day-long event about Adobe Flex Web Application Development at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York on Monday, August 14, 2006. Adobe Systems is the primary sponsor of this unique opportunity to learn from the greatest Flex developers in the world.

FlexSeminar.com

It’s probably a sign that the internet space is hotter than Hansel right now, especially when you consider this event takes place in the middle of August! I think they just decided to do this in an interview with David Mendels not too long ago, wild. I’m going to track someone down there to try to get Dave on the speaker list to talk about how to use the FA Bridge to integrate Flex and AJAX. Reading blog posts about the when not to use Flex make me realize that the real adoption of Flex is likely going to be incrementaly. And I would think Adobe should be getting developers to adopt the platform anyway they can…1×1 pixel swf go for it! Whatever you want, just get people using it! Anyway I love the energy and buzz in the industry, I just hope we can all sustain it.

Posted in Technology, Software Development, AJAX, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

June 22nd, 2006

If you’re looking at the the AJAX / Flex demo I just posted about in Flock, you’ll need to do the following:

Install Flash Player 9 Beta in FlockFor those of you interested in viewing Flash 9 content in Flock, you’ll need to copy over a single file from a Mozilla installation… Currently the Flash 9 beta installer doesn’t install the plugin into the Flock browser. To get it working, simply copy C:Program FilesMozilla FirefoxpluginsNPSWF32.dll to C:Program FilesFlockflockpluginsNPSWF32.dll.

Mike Potter: Install Flash Player 9 Beta in Flock

Thanks Mike!

Blogged with Flock

Posted in Technology, Software Development, AJAX | No Comments »

June 15th, 2006

Some Apollo screenshots Ryan posted from the Digital Backcountry.

I got an in person tour from Mike Chambers last month when I was hanging at the Adobe headquarters in SF and I was very impressed. Chromeless windows, full screen video, transparency and more all developed in Flex and running on the desktop with access to local resources. I mean really these simple Apollo demos are basically as slick and nice looking as the Vista demos, I really hope Adobe can get this out before January when Vista ships. I’m very passionate about how the AJAX/HTML stuff was going to happen so more on that as I learn…let’s work with the open standards!
So maybe I little over excited…but it’s pretty cool the possibilities this opens up. All those web developers now able to build connected desktop apps…

Disclaimer: I’m on the Apollo Advisory Board and doing some work with Adobe.

Technorati Tags: ajax, apollo, flex, flash, connected, syncrhonizedweb, adobe, ria

Posted in Technology, Software Development, AJAX | No Comments »

June 15th, 2006

Just watched Duane and Dion disect Web 2.0. A great chat about the evolution of Web 2.0, patterns the synchronized web, AJAX and some other interesting points. I’m always impressed with the way Duane can cover a technical topic in detail, then fly to high level overview and then provide an easy to understand story or anecdote. I think it’s important for an evangelist to be able to do this, so evangelists and analysts take note! Funny after rockin’ out with Duane on the weekend, ah the tangled lives we all lead… Duane and Dion are both very knowledgeable in the space and it shows. Come on guys and gals let’s get started discussing those patterns! Or anti-patterns…

And thanks for the Captain AJAX plug;-) Yes INTEROPERABILITY is key, the Ajax industry needs to grow up and stop this not invented here crap! Duane knows from experience in the SOA world that it’s very hard to get a technical industry or community of practice to come together and agree on standards that matter. Someone with his experience could be very valuable in the Open AJAX Alliance. He help us short through the crud and stop BS like SOA 2.0 cold!

Watch the interview here.

Technorati Tags: ajax, interoperability, standards, web2.0, captainajax

Posted in Technology, Software Development, AJAX | No Comments »