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Dec
3
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A couple of months ago I added a category chooser that uses Dojo (a powerful JavaScript library) to create a Fisheye effect. So, somewhat belatedly and as promised here's the code and a bit of explanation. Note, this was pre-Roller 3.0 so uses some of the old Roller macros.
First, you need to pull in the right JS libraries. On blogs.sun.com - the Dojo library is installed under roller-ui/dojo.
<script type="text/javascript">
var djConfig = {isDebug: true, debugAtAllCosts: false};
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="$url.absoluteSite/roller-ui/dojo/dojo.js"></script>
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
dojo.require("dojo.widget.FisheyeList");
dojo.hostenv.writeIncludes();
</script>
Next is a little JS function to display a category :
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
function selectCategory(catname){
var url;
if (catname == 'All' ) {
url="$url.home"
}
else {
url="${url.home}category/"+catname
}
window.location.replace ( url );
}
</SCRIPT>
Next you create the Dojo Fisheye component :
<div class="chooser">
<div class="dojo-FisheyeList"
dojo:itemWidth="110" dojo:itemHeight="40"
dojo:itemMaxWidth="250" dojo:itemMaxHeight="90"
dojo:orientation="horizontal"
dojo:effectUnits="1"
dojo:itemPadding="0"
dojo:attachEdge="top"
dojo:labelEdge="bottom"
dojo:enableCrappySvgSupport="false" >
<div class="dojo-FisheyeListItem" onClick="selectCategory('All');"
dojo:iconsrc="$IMAGES/cat-All.png"
</div>
<div class="dojo-FisheyeListItem" onClick="selectCategory('About Me');"
dojo:iconsrc="$IMAGES/cat-AboutMe.png">
</div>
<div class="dojo-FisheyeListItem" onClick="selectCategory('Books');"
dojo:iconsrc="$IMAGES/cat-Books.png">
</div>
<div class="dojo-FisheyeListItem" onClick="selectCategory('Roller');"
dojo:iconsrc="$IMAGES/cat-Hacking.png">
</div>
<div class="dojo-FisheyeListItem" onClick="selectCategory('General');"
dojo:iconsrc="$IMAGES/cat-General.png">
</div>
<div class="dojo-FisheyeListItem" onClick="selectCategory('Java');"
dojo:iconsrc="$IMAGES/cat-Java.png">
</div>
<div class="dojo-FisheyeListItem" onClick="selectCategory('Home Life');"
dojo:iconsrc="$IMAGES/cat-HomeLife.png">
</div>
<div class="dojo-FisheyeListItem" onClick="selectCategory('Gadgets');"
dojo:iconsrc="$IMAGES/cat-Gadgets.png">
</div>
<div class="dojo-FisheyeListItem" onClick="selectCategory('W3');"
dojo:iconsrc="$IMAGES/cat-W3.png">
</div>
</div>
</div>
You should make this code generic by iterating through the categories but you'd need to label your images consistently. The only reason I did this cut and paste iteration was to aid debugging. I'll tidy it up at some point.
All the code above is in the Weblog template - which I have uploaded here. You'll also need some CSS so I've uploaded my template here. Feel free to hack, use, abuse as you see fit but shoot me a mail or leave a comment if you make any useful improvements.
I'm well aware this doesn't work in MS IE - I have no idea why; and don't have the tools to debug it. As Dojo is browser independent (or claims to be) - the problem is likely mine. Leave a comment if you can see what is wrong.
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Nov
6
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I just had a quick IM chat with Joel Selvadurai. He's just launched Messagr.com which overlays Skype's user directory with some interesting social networking meta-data. Essentially you can tag your Skype account with your own interests so people can find you and contact you easily and in real-time.
I'm suprised LinkedIn haven't made the Skype connection - Oh wait - imagine all those recruiters IMing and calling you at the wrong time !
If there we're a coolness rating for web startups, Messagr.com would be right up there - it merges web and IMS, has a social networking aspect, search, tagging, etc.
One word of caution with sites that use identity federation (I realize that's not quite the right term). Think about it - you give your user-names for all the accounts the service needs to access (in messagr's case - only Skype) and you protect that with a password. What are the chances that the password is the same as your password for the external services - pretty good I would imagine. Be careful what information you give up !
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Nov
4
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I'm pretty dissapointed that I missed StartupCamp last week - by all the reports I've heard it was a big success.
I'm really pleased to see that Sun has re-launched its Startup Essentials program (albeit in trial form). This is a program (originally launched in November 1999) aimed at making life (and cash-flow) a little bit easier for small newly formed companies building their business on the web. The program offers discounts on a range of products (systems, OS, software and tools) and services that all startups will need.
Interestingly, I found the old Startup Essentials web-site as well - compare and contrast some of the language - "Web 2.0 " vs "New Economy" 
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Oct
24
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Hot on the heels of BEA's recent "Web 2.0" announcement, Oracle announced their WebCenter Suite - a snip at $50k / CPU.
Earlier this year we announced a number of technology initiatives which resonate well with what Oracle are announcing this week - specifically Dynamic Faces, jMaki and Phobos - these technologies allow developers to accelerate the production of rich, interactive web applications - without compromising portability. We also appreciate that Java may not always be the answer - which is why we're really looking a lot at other dynamic languages environments.
And Oracle are right - the Portal is where these things converge in the enterprise.There are a whole bunch of other developer resources on the SDN AJAX web site.
In addition, Sun has long been a advocate of many of the technologies Oracle are highlighting; much of our corporate communication happens via wikis, blogs and is delivered as RSS or Atom feeds - employees aren't overly constrained by our IT department. Over time we'll package up some of that DNA and help other organizations open up to their customers, partners, shareholders and employees and join the participation age.
Technorati Tags: web2.0, oracle, sun, jmaki, phobos
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Dec
1
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I was discussing the meaning of Web 2.0 with a friend and he pointed me to Nicholas Carr's essay "The Amorality of Web 2.0" - it's a great read - if you haven't; you should. In the essay Carr does a great job of balancing the 'religious fervour' that has always been part of the Web with some common sense.
Carr particularly picks on wikipedia - the most successful example of a collaborative work on the Web - and he's right - much of what you see in WikiPedia is not great - it's not always well researched, often poorly and ambiguously written and sometimes entries are completely hijacked for nefarious purposes. That said it is still a great tool - it's free, easily accessible and broad - great for quick definitions but as Carr says a poor source for writing a thesis (for example).
Some of the other great works in the commons are software - TCP/IP, Linux, Apache, OpenSolaris, java.net, SourceForge - in general, these successful projects do not suffer from the same quality problem as much of the stuff we read on the web (and it's not like software doesn't have a quality problem in general). There is a simple reason for this - the people who contribute to OpenSource projects are Experts (note I didn't say Professional) - usually experts at the peak of their Professional life - ie. highly educated, trained, experienced and full of energy and drive. Very, very few people are capable of contributing to OpenSource (designing, writing code, isolating bugs) - they are all endeavours that require very specific skills that only a small percentage of the population poses - so participation is naturally limited. Compare that to participating on the web - tools, connectivity and time not withstanding - anyone can contribute to the Web - forums, bloggs, podcasts, videocasts, pictures, etc. Anyone can say or write anything they want (local laws aside).
So how can you trust what you read on the Web ? Well, you can't - no more than you can trust everything you see on TV or read in the News Paper - you have to decide for yourself and you have to be wary of opinion disguised as authority. A system of credentials would be useful - just as you know you can trust a Doctor's medical license, wouldn't a similar system be required for the participation in the Web. I'm obviously not advocating that people have to be certified to contribute to Open Source or the Web but a system similar to Slashdot's mod points or E-bay seller rankings might be useful .
Corporate blogging is interesting in this respect - it is reasonable to expect that bloggers are employed by Sun (a big, well known company) and that it is likely that Sun has a policy on Blogging (which we do) which you would expect prevents people from blogging misleading, innacurate, deflamatory information (which it does). Bias and opinion aside, to some degree, corporate bloggers already have something in the way of credentials - ie. their relationship to the company they work for (assuming you trust the company).
Does that mean corporate bloggers should be trusted above individuals ?
How do you trust what you read on the Web today ?
Technorati Tags : Web2, Nicholas Carr
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Nov
2
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I was just catching up on Microsoft's "live" announcements today - tipped off by the all-knowing John Rymer at Forrester - thanks John. Cutting straight through the press releases and opinions pieces I went straight to Microsoft's manifestation of "Live" - the Windows Live Beta - I hit reload a couple of times because I though my Google home page was somehow corrupted - it had a Windows logo and said something about not supporting Firefox just yet - weird - what's happening. After looking a bit more carefully I realized what I was actually looking at was Microsoft's AJAXy portal clone - it's stunningly similar to Google : very simple layout, draggable channels, AJAX, RSS, maps, mail, IM, search, etc. Incredible. Incredible lack of innovation and originality.
The best bit is the banner at the top - "Firefox support is coming soon. Please be patient :-)" - very PC.
One part of me wants to think that this site was quickly knocked-up by a couple of interns to upset Sergey and Larry. Then again I think there is some real meat behind other parts of the Live announcement - more on that when I get time.
It'll be interesting to see how the Google / Microsoft battle plays out - I hope Yahoo doesn't get caught in the cross-fire.
Technorati Tags : Microsoft+Live, Google, Web2.0
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Oct
21
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I just stumbled across this neat little app. - your value is derived on the price AOL paid for WebLogs Inc. ($25m) divided by their % share of Technorati sources - to give a $ price per Technorati link. Shame they used Technorati links (which is a limited view of the Blogosphere).
My blog is worth $5,645.40.
How much is your blog worth?
I should add that the short URL (http://blogs.sun.com/sharps) is worth another grand.
I just checked the top 2 Sun bloggers (as of today) - Jonathan's blog is worth $219k and Rich's is worth $15k - OK, time to grow a ponytail ! It's interesting that there is such a price difference - ie. you can be widely read without being widely linked to
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Oct
20
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I just had a (really) quick play with the Flock developer preview - it looks promising. It extends the browser to handle some of the more recent web technologies / phenomenon - feeds, social bookmarks, blogs, etc.
One really neato feature is the blog editor - you can drag pictures from your Flickr "TopBar" into the blog editor, it's fully WYSIWYG, you can launch the blog editor by right licking on any page or link and selecting "Blog This" - very neat. Unfortunately it doesn't (yet) support Roller so I couldn't get to have a decent play - if anyone else has managed to make it work with Roller - please let me know.
More when I get time to play - this could be interesting - though I actually think this is just some feature on top of Firefox - I don't think it is a new browser; and I think I actually would've preferred some Firefox plugins instead. That said - this is still an early preview - I guess it would be wise to reserve judgement.
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Oct
12
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[from blog4mantero's FlickrStream]
OK, maybe that's a bit harsh - it can't be that bad, after all, people (including myself) use it all the time. But it is fair to say that search on the web is a problem yet to be solved.
Google, Ask, Y!, MSN, AltaVista - they all do a fairly basic job of locating simple strings on web pages (and in the case of Google embedded in other rich document formats) but the way search works is pretty basic today and it's common for the user to have to repeat the search process multiple times to get what you want - ie. the user has to adapt to the machine's results and try again (and again). So basically - search is a largely human endeavour but we get some help from machines (Google, etc.) to help with the volume problem.
There are other problems :
- The Problem is growing very fast The More people are adding more stuff to the Web and much of it is not good quality (in terms of correctness of content / authority) - eg. this post - I know very little about 'search' - I'm far from being an expert on the subject - but even the most powerful search algorithms can't really tell you whether I'm an authority on the subject or just someone with spare time and an opinion. Max has commented on the more general issue in his post on Existential Phenomenology.
- Much of the decent content on the Web is Opaque to Search. Historically, much of the content on the web has been text (HTML, XML, XHTML, etc.) which is handy as it's trivial for a search engine to access; but now we're seeing more rich document formats - PDF, MS Word, OpenDocument in the future - these present a problem but that's being overcome. The real challenge comes when more of the content is in the form of audio (pod casts, etc.) and video. This is important because (traditionally at least) the quality of this content has been greater because the production costs were higher. So, for example, if you wanted to learn about "The feeding Habits of Mountain Lions" - I would suggest getting hold of a video documentary by the BBC Natural History Unit (world renowned for being good at this kind of thing) as opposed to spending an hour or so searching the web for something appropriate and authoratative. The problem is, that video is completely opaque to search engines - there is a little bit of meta-data describing the video but that isn't enough.
- Old habits die hard / searchers are lazy The people doing the searching have adopted a bad habit - type a word (or two) into the box and click (repeat as necessary) - there are more effective ways to find what you want - ie. go to the place likely to have a good answer or somewhere you trust and start your search there.
- Yahoo! Research - I saw a demo of the mindset feature - pretty cool - as long as I get to choose the sliders.
- Google Labs. - the personalized search feature of Google already works pretty well but I haven't tried the Video Search.
- Sun Labs - Search Inside the Music
There are plenty of other promising technologies and services out there (too many to list) - this is clearly an area where a winner is yet to emerge.
Technorati Tags : search, web2
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Oct
11
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If you'd been at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco last week you would have had to be an industrial-grade-cynic to not feel that something is going on; that we're on the verge of something new and interesting. There was a buzz and energy that couldn't be explained merely by the abundant coffee and Red Bull.
The conference was a different kind of conference than I'm used to. Despite being heavy on PR and Marketing - the whole show seemed 'authentic'. The fairly intimate (aka crowded) workshops; discussion led by Tim O'Reilly and John Batelle seemed to cut through all the Web 2.0 hype and get to the core of what is happening on the Web today. My pre-conference expectations were of a hyped-up-internet-love-fest but what I saw was lot's of hard data and analysis and a pragmatic look at the Web today and in the future. OK, there was a bit of un-restrained hype (especially around the Launch Pad Workshop) - but that was totally acceptable and expected.
The presentation formats worked extremely well - 15 minute "Show Me", "High Order Bits", "From the Labs", UI Minutes and 6 minute product launches - I never got bored at any of the presentations and my poor tired brain is still trying to absorb everything that was thrown at me. The discussions seemed very authentic - John and Tim seemed to be OK letting them go wherever they went (this was especially true of Jonathan's conversation) which was way more valuable than a canned, scripted interview.
For me, the highlights of the show were the following :
- Marketing to a New Generation - Lisa Arthur, CMO of Akami, eta al. This was a profile of the Echo Boomers (the children of the Baby Boomers - 0-27 year olds). I'm just outside this ;). The echo-boomers are an interesting demographic as they have lots of disposable income - they're also the first generation to claim broadband as a birthright. It was very interesting to know how these people think, how they use technology and what there expectations are.
- Mary Meeker - a very quick profile of the Internet today - I blogged about this before with a link to the slides.
- Lunch - good networking - everyone I sat next to was pretty interesting (I hope I was too).
- What the Teens Want - they dragged 4 Teens up on stage to descibe how they use the Internet - this was incredibly interesting (I haven't been a teen for a while and my kids have a long way to go) - "pay for music ? - dude !!"
- Tom Barton - from Rackable Systems - who've done some pretty good business over the years building the internet infrastructure - he presented some amazing stats. re. the size of the internet - I can't find his slides but one stat. stood out - The Google uses the about the same power as a town of 35,000 people - the best estimate is that they have between 100,000 and 200,000 servers.
This was my first Web 2.0 - overall it was a good show - well planed, great content and great speakers; my only grumbles are 1) that the Workshops were too compressed - physically - they should've have run them twice; and 2) I need the slide decks - my poor tired brain didn't absorb everything.
My other grumble - and this is probably aimed at Sun (not O'Reilly Media) is that Sun (the company that built out Web 1.0) were largely absent. Jonathan did attend and lead a great interview but other than that - nothing. Which is a real shame - Sun is well positioned to be a real leader in the next build-out of the web - our products are clearly meeting the market need (ie. blazingly fast, low power consumption hardware, open-source, innovative pricing). One quote I heard really bought home Sun's leadership position - I think it was Tim or John who said (paraphrasing) - "Sun has been saying the Network is the Computer for years - well it turns out they were right" - yup Sun gets it - I just hope we can convince more people that we do; and that we have the products to back it up.
Update - you should also check out Claire's notes - somehow we completely managed not to meet (despite the huge array of personal communication technology at our disposal) - which means I still don't have an Open Solaris T-shirt (hint, hint, referer tax).
Update 2 - Gary Zellerbach (fellow Sun Blogger) has also posted a great summary of the conference - "Musings on the Web 2.0 conference"
Technorati Tags : Web2Con, GlassFish
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Oct
6
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Live from the Web 2.0 conference.
Just heard some impressive stats. from Mary Meeker of MS-DW around Skype's adoption - it's achieved the quickest adoption of any application ever. In Denmark - there are now more Skype users than tradional land-line customers. If the growth continues then they should hit 100 million users in the first half of 2006. That said only a small percentage (I think about 14%) of Skype's customers are in the US (compared to 48% in Europe). NOW I understand why ebay paid $US 2 billion - the non-Euro potential is enormous to someone with the global reach of ebay.
Update : Thanks to Claire for the pointer to Mary's slides - just so you know I'm not making this stuff up :)
Technorati Tags : web2con, Web 2.0, VOIP
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Oct
4
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First, let me get this off my chest - I don't like the "Web 2.0" moniker - or rather I don't like the way it has been and will increasingly be used as a marketing tag-line for countless dead-at-birth start-ups, products and services. That said - I do use the phrase (because it's convenient) but I really use it to mean "the post-bubble evolution of the Internet as a platform and associated technologies" - I'm really not trying to hype it up any more than it will be. There, I feel better.
Some time ago, I read a Wired article on the history of the Web (well at least the mainstream era - from the Netscape IPO 10 years ago) which got me thinking about what comes next. This is a subject I've been wanting to write about for a while and in fact this post has been sitting in the queue for a couple of months.
So, what is the " Web 2.0" ? The answer really depends on who you ask, it also depends on who you are - Web 2.0 (just as with Web 1.0) is different things to different people; to some it's a set of intertwined standards and APIs; to others it is a platform for expression or commerce or learning and to others it's a virtual world of Dungeons and Dragons. But basically the 2.0 bit is meant to infer "the next version" - so it's really about the evolution of the web we know today to the web of tomorrow. And I think the world evolution is an important part of the definition - fundamental to the future of the web is the part natural selection plays.
I've read and listened to a number of opinions and I am gradually forming my own thoughts of what the web will (or could be) be like going forward; and I'll be refining that in the future; but here's a start. By far the best Web 2.0 summary I've read is by Tim O'Reilly himself - in that article he manages to get his arms around the fundamental 'memes' of Web 2.0 and how it relates to the web as we know it.
One of the important differences between the Web of the 90's and the Today's web is it's reach. I don't mean just the number of nodes on the Internet or the number of web-surfer-hours but the degree to which the power of the web has become more inclusive. This is due to realization that the value is in volume (the many, not the few) - the best example is the difference between online retailers vs. brick and mortar - E-Bay and Amazon can sell you pretty much anything whereas Sears and Borders have a fairly limited stock - so the reach of online retailers is greater and this also translates to a better buying experience - with online retailers (as a collective) you are more likely to buy exactly what you want (at the price you want) than when you shop at the local mall. This Long Tail phenomenon applies equally to many other aspects of the Web - from journalism and opinion, software, news and entertainment.
A second important difference is the degree of participation we have on the web - the 90's was really about passive user participation (ie. information was pushed to consumers). Today, many of the more successful services that have sruvived and thrived have realized the potential of the "collective intelligence". A great example is consumer rankings and reviews - I rarely care what journals or magazines have to say about consumer products these days - I'm much more likely to be swayed by Amazon, Epinions or Audible reviews. There are also some interesting things happening in social networks (Flickr, LinkedIn, del-icoi-us) - who's only real value is in the participation of its users. The other obvious example is Google - though there is clearly some value in Google's Page Ranking algorithm - it wouldn't be very useful without the huge database of user-behaviour (ie. real-time who's reading and linking what).
Anyway - that's enough rambling for one day, I'll be spending the rest of the week at the O'Reilly Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco - where I'll be particularly interested in learning about a number of things including - the role of Web Services; how tagging and meta-data can make the Web a more useful place; as well as some of the emerging technology for doing such stuff.
One thing is for sure - we've yet to realize the potential of the Internet; and the Network really is the Computer.
Technorati Tags : web2con, Web 2.0
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Sep
14
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Max had his own reasons to drop Technorati, here are mine :
- I think tagging (ie. users deciding what their posts are about) is unfortunately being abused - you can see a despicable example on Flickr where people have tagged the pictures with "Katrina" and "Hurricane" just so they get picked up by more people. I'm also really questioning the tagging concept as a whole (especially when applied to textual content) - I need to think about this more
- Getting Technorati to work correctly requires my time - adding the tags, manually pinging, contacting support when I fall off the map - I simply don't see the justifaction for spending this time.
- Google now have a blog searching feature - blogsearch which seems to do a good enough job of finding my blog entires and I don't have to do anything (but sure Google can be exploited too)
- My experiment with StatCounter has shown that I get very few referers from Technorati - most come from Google / Y! - it will be interesting to see how BlogSearch changes that.
Note the lack of Technorati tags !
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May
15
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I saw this on Scobleizer and thought it was pretty cool; it started a year ago but this is the first time I've seen it. It would be interesting to see a comprehensive BlogMap of the USA but I couldn't find a way of doing that.
