Blogs

Michael Mahemoff is starting a series of podcasts to go along with the content’s of his new book Ajax Design Patterns. 

I was a guest on episode one where we talked about 9 patterns of Ajax widgets:

• Slider
• Progress Indicator
• Drilldown
• Data Grid
• Rich Text Editor
• Suggestion
• Live Search
• Live Command-Line
• Live Form

Dave joined Michael for episode 2 where they discussed ten patterns of Ajax Architecture:

• Drag-And-Drop
• Sprite
• Popup
• Malleable Content
• Microlink
• Portlet
• Status Area
• Update Control
• Virtual Workspace

Michael has a very deep knowledge of these patterns and keeps the listening interesting.  IMHO.  Can’t wait to podcast with Michael again. You can get  all of Michae’s podcasts here:

Technorati Tags: ajax, patterns, podcast, usability, widgets, components, ajaxdesignpatterns

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

After 6 years of enduring a less than marketable name which I shall not mention, we’re now the Nitobi.  I’m extremely excited and passionate about the name, the logo but most of all the slogan “built for people”.  We’re truly making progress in creating a more usable web.

Dave and Alexei have comments about where the name from. 

The response for the community has been great, everyone likes it.  Thanks for the public compliments Boris and Dave.

Technorati Tags: nitobi, eba, branding, communication, marketing, ajax

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

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

WebVisions Friendly Northern Neighbor Party

Presented by three great canadian companies:

• Nitobi
• Bryght
• Raincity Studios

When: 8:30 PM – Closing (Beers on us!)
Where: Rose and Raindrop
532 S.E. Grand (10 Blocks South of the Convention Center)
Cool old funeral parlor building!

Dave, Alexei and I will be there…so come on down!

Technorati Tags: webvisions, webvisions06, webvisions2006, nitobi, bryght, rcs, raincity

DaveO gets a lesson on using AJAX (not just for cleaning) for advanced web interface usability from the brilliant and humourous lads of E-Business Applications, Andre Charland and Alexei White.

Note: This is an ‘enhanced’ podcast filled with relevant photos and links (use your viewer window in the bottom left corner of iTunes).

While playing with Elastic Path “thinking putty,” they discuss ways to optimize the user experience, pros and cons of various technologies, the EBA Grid and Combo Box products and recap a few Gnomedex conference highlights – plus have some laughs about ski culture (gapers), community building, fantasy sports and the fleece-filled recreational equipment district of Vancouver.

More here

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

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