Blogs

It seems like just yesterday we released our ColdFusion support, and now Joel and Alexei have just got out the Beta 2 for the .Net Grid!

The new Grid beta supports ASP.NET 1.1, 2.0 and Visual Studio 2003 and 2005 design times. You can bind to datatables or datasets easily, and even handle editing and saving.

Design time support includes easy drag and drop from the toolbox to your webpage, and you can configure databinding, and many other attributes from the properties editor.

To get your hands on it:

To grab the download, log into your customer center account or get it off our trial download page here: http://www.nitobi.com/download/

For a demo go here: http://www.nitobi.com/products/grid/demos

Nice work Joel!  We’re going to have an exciting fall as we complete our product suite.

Technorati Tags: ajax, grid, datagrid, .net, visualstudio, .net1.1, .net2, nitobi, component

So we’ve been working with the crew at Elastic Path since late summer on a very cool application of Ajax to improve the conversion rates of their eCommerce platform for online shoppers. The goal was to reduce shopping cart abandonment by streamlining the check out process.

“As the moniker implies, Elastic Path announces a single-screen type
check out tool to combat the scourge of modern retailing – shopping
cart abandonment. Indeed, MarketingSherpa indicates nearly three out of
every five online shoppers abandon their shopping cart before finishing
the order.” More in Dave O’s post about it here.

So we worked with them to build a single page shopping cart and check out process, the feature is now appropriately named One Page. Now an online shopper can get through the entire check out process from one screen, as opposed to the usual 3-4 painful page reloads and tedious forms to fill out. We’ve provided all the basic ecommerce check out features in an easier to use format, such as contact and address info, shipping options and payment details. We’ve used a lot of nice real-time form validation such as email address and phone number checking. Then we’ve added some really slick functionality like in-line card editing, this allows a shopper to change their order details like quantity, size, color or other optins right from the check out screen and see the total update automagically.

There’s lots of Ajax goodies that we’ve put together to make this UI really shine. Some of the patterns include: accordion widgets, real-time form field validation, data upates, real-time calculations, subtle transition and fade effects. The whole is UI was built leveraging components from our Ajax framework and I’m excited to get it out in the wild. Performance and page weight (load time) was a huge factor for project success as this is a forward facing public web app as oppose to behind the firewall. eCommerce shoppers aren’t nearly as tolerant as corporate intranet users;-)

Jason and the Elastic Path crew are down in SF at the Mid-Market eTail conference this week, and Jason has the latest iteration of OnePage on his laptop, so if you’re in the area stop by their booth for a demo! Also they’ve put together a really slick One Page PDF Data Sheet here.

Screencast coming soon:)

Technorati Tags: ajax, ecommerce, elasticpath, ux, conversion, shoppingcart, abandonment, nitobi, service

• Valhalla Powdercats – catskiing, snowcat skiing, cat skiing, heli skiing
  looks like good terrain. tree skking and standby rates from $259/day in low season!
  (tags: catskiing valhalla ski powder kootenays)
• Cat Skiing Powder Adventures – BC Cat Skiing & Snowboarding – Snowcat Powder Skiing – Retallack Resort & Alpine Adventures
  looks like great terrain. decent rates.
  (tags: catskiing kootenays retallack)
• Baldface Lodge Snowcat Skiing – British Columbia, Canada
  looks like a great lodge. heard the terrain is great. seems a bit pricier than some of the others.
  (tags: backcountry bc powder ski catskiing baldface)
• The best powder skiing, snow cat skiing and snowboarding is at Monashee Powder Snowcats in BC , Canada
  terrain looks mellow. not sure if they have standby. decent rates starting at 350/day with accom and food.
  (tags: catskiing powder ski monasshepowder)
• Wildhorse Snowcat Skiing & Powder Mining Co.
  hard to tell what the terrain is like, but could be really cheap if you have 12 people;-) ~$210/day
  (tags: catskiing wildhorse ski powder kootenays)
• Highland Powder Skiing, Snowcat Skiing and Snowboarding
  pricier, doesn’t seem to have standby rates. terrain looks pretty good though.
  (tags: catskiing highlandpowder ski powder selkirk)

• GigaVox Media, Inc. » The Levelatorâ„¢
  some tool for podcasts from jake the snake. alright bud.
  (tags: podcast technology todo software howto free)
• Sportsyndicator.com – Home
  ad network targeted to the sporting industry. interesting model, similar to john battelle’s federated media i suppose. but this is like google ads for sports geeks as opposed to blog geeks. have to try it on doglotion.com, reports to have higher cpm th
  (tags: ad adwords syndication internet cpm)

• Amazon.com: Enterprise AJAX: Strategies for Building High Performance Web Applications: Books: David Johnson,Alexei White,Andre Charland
  Enterprise Ajax, the book. By the same people (Dave, Alexei, Andre) who do the podcast;-)
  (tags: enterpriseajax ajax book prenticehall performance programming andrecharland davejohnson alexeiwhite)

• MIT World » : Innovation Through Design Thinking
  design thinking and product development
  (tags: design designthinking ideation ideo prototype)
• clickdensity – website heat maps for usability and information architecture
  click tracking and usability tool for websites.
  (tags: clickdensity usability heatmap ia design)

• Kit Deslauriers Skied Everest?
  Kit Deslaurier first women to ski off the summit of mt everest! Wow. Crazy.
  (tags: mteverest everest ski mountaineer kitdeslauriers deslauriers)
• FastMail: fast, professional email services with web, SMTP, POP & IMAP access
  Recommended by Matt Mackenzie.
  (tags: free domain hosting office tools)
• Article about exec dashboards
  An area ripe for Ajax innovation:)
  (tags: ajax dashboard bi analytics data usecases)
• Business Intelligence Software Solution – NetSuite Interactive Dashboard View
  not bad…but could be a lot better.
  (tags: dashboard ajax management software usability ui netsuite)

• Java Entrepreneur: Ajax and Flex2 Together With Nitobi
  (tags: ajax java blog media flex)

• Enterprise Ajax Podcast 15 – OpenAjax, AjaxWorld, Testing
  (tags: ajaxworld ajaxworld2006 openajax openajaxalliance testing ajax nitobi debugging)
• webdu: Call For Papers webDU 2007 (formerly MXDU)
  Mesh says this is a must see conference. I’m going to try to get an abstract in.
  (tags: web webdev webdesign australia flash ajax design ria conference todo)
• Looks Good Works Well: Designing a Component
  Great article on how to design and develop components by Bill Scott! Thanks Bill, great post!
  (tags: component design programming ria widgets ajax yui billscott)
• IBM Blogging Policy and Guidelines
  IBM’s blogging policy. I’ll use this in my blogging for business talk at massive.
  (tags: blog blogging marketing communication personal ibm corporate massive)

OpenAjax Alliance, AjaxWorld, Testing, Debugging, Performance.

Sorry I ran out of disk space a few minutes before the end, but Dave and Alexei keep on trucking!