Jack Recommends ...
5/2/2008 Side Search
Lycos Sidesearch is done. What a pity! I think it is a great idea in terms of usability - arranging search results on the side for easy navigation and results comparison, without opening many windows or browser tabs. None of the major search providers have seen its merit. What a disappointment! Fortunately, recently I do find similar idea in Microsoft's Live Search for images. All image thumbnails are kept on the left, and the source web page is displayed on the right. However, that's just for images. Why not extended that to web page searches? I am sure many people would find that convenient. To further enhance it, search results can even be arranged in hierarchical categories and apply filters, just like the product navigation bar at newegg.com.
1/15/2008 .netCharting
Charting tools in Microsoft Office are really helpful for common users. For casual or common business developers, they need some kind of charting APIs to easily present data so they don't have to immerse themselves in graphics processing. .netCharting is a powerful and easy-to-use tool for this purpose, for both Windows and web environment. It is free for personal development use (with a small banner on). This is not commercial! :-) I am using it for my dissertation project and it works great.
8/20/2007 Witkey and Crowd-sourcing
If you need to find someone to translate a short article, or design a logo, or plan a party, or collect some data, etc., where can you find one, reasonably priced, quickly and confidently? Or if you have some free time and want to do some paid knowledge work, where do you advertise yourself and where do you find such work? Google? Craigslist? Hotjobs? Linkedin? Whitepages? Here is a better answer - you may go to a Witkey website. Witkey is a new online business model originated from China where members of the Witkey community exchange knowledge and services in a more structured and planned scheme. Unlike Craigslist and other yellowpages, it is more structured (e.g., members' expertise are recorded and searchable and their services and reputation are rated and maintained). It is much like the eBay platform; but instead of actual products are exchanged, knowledge work and services are the main focus. It is also like Yahoo! Answers but go beyond simply asking and answering questions. Services requested in a Witkey site are typically short term, knowledge intensive, low cost and provided by individuals (although companies can also participate). Is it a good business model? Check out Elance or witkey.com (Chinese) and you may like it.
6/15/2007 Mashup housingmaps.com
This is a great example of mash-up web application. The application makes use of Google Map API and Craigslist housing data, and nicely integrates them into a new service. A typical web 2.0 service!
5/30/2007 Google Code
You want to add some searching function to your website. What are the choices? You can write the program on your own; or, you can buy (or download) and install a program to do it; or, how about just issue a request and get the result? Nothing developed, nothing downloaded and nothing installed! Check out these web services offered by Google. Google has really done an amazing job to expand its web services for developers. See the search function on this website which is powered by the Google Search API.
3/20/2007 Web Navigation Design
Often people think web design is to make web pages beautiful, using colors, graphics, icons and animations to astonish users. But web design is much more than just beauty. Of many things we need to design besides beauty, navigation is the one that we cannot ignore. Navigation system design is a site level design with combinations of presentation, information structure and functionality. A good navigation model is the key element to a successful website. Here is a good article on common navigation designs from webdesignfromscratch.com.
2
/8/2007
Microsoft
Virtual Earth
Microsoft demonstrated its online map service during the Launch 2007 event. It has a unique feature of 3D presentation (see a screenshot of downtown Atlanta on the right, or visit downtown Atlanta here directly from live.com. You may need to download a plug-in first and the loading is pretty slow). It looks like SimCity -- pretty amazing, isn't it? It also offers satellite view and a bird's eye view, pretty interesting. Try it at http://map.live.com and if you are developer you can check out more live services (including a search web service) at http://dev.live.com.
12/18/2006
GUI Championship 2006
Want to give your Windows more styles? Try some winner works from this
website, including desktop wallpaper, icon sets, and complete theme
package (WindowsBlinds).
11/30/2006 Favorite Windows Web Hosting "webhost4life.com"
I have tried several web hosting companies (Windows platform): GoDaddy, 1and1 and webhost4life. They all have their own advantages, as well as disadvantages. Below is a brief comparison of their shared hosting (as of November 2006 and to the best of my knowledge and experience).
| Pros | Cons | |
| GoDaddy |
- Cheap ($6.99/M to get ASP.net) - Big storage (100G for $6.99/M) - Easy switch between Linux and Windows |
- No SQL Server 2005 - Limited database storage for SQL Server (only one database with 200MB) - No easy data transfer - Only one FTP account - Weird sub-domain setup |
| 1and1 |
- Big storage - 3 free domains |
- Limited database storage for SQL Server (only one database
with 200MB) - No easy data transfer - No static IP offered - Switching platform is a pain |
| Webhost4life |
- Big SQL Server database storage (up to max storage) - Remote SQL Server access - Latest Windows platform - Complete control on IIS and user permission - Static IP included (needs to request setup though) - Support ticket system is good |
- More expensive ($20 setup fee) - Domain on sub-directory is not free - Less storage (2G for $9.99/M) |
In summary, GoDaddy and 1and1 are cheap with big storage, but offer weak database support (good for beginners); Webhost4Life is more expensive, but is more flexible and more configurable (good for advanced users). You get what you pay for.
10/14/2006
"The beginning of all understanding is classification." -- Hayden White.
I first read this in the book Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville (1998); of course this is another good book on website development (see edition 2).
Hayden White is a historian and professor at UC Santa Cruz and Stanford. This simple statement reflects classification's role in information management and processing (especially analytical processing). Classification is the basic, and the most important, technique to organize and understand information, thus gain knowledge from it. It is a critical success factor for website development; also an important skill for a knowledge worker in this information age. Read more about Craig Stroupe's ideas on White and his process of understanding.
08/21/2006
Open Source Web Design (oswd.org)
Having a hard time designing good look and feel for your websites? Not anymore. OSWD.org is a great website for a web developer, like me, who is not much into graphics. There are over 1000 website templates and all are free to use. There must be something you like; or at least they will give a pretty decent starting point. They are also great real examples of using CSS (Cascading Style Sheet).
07/24/2006
Web Engineering: The Discipline of Systematic Development of Web Applications
Editors: Gerti Kappel, Birgit
Pröll, Siegried Reich, Werner Retschitzegger
ISBN: 0-470-01554-3, published in July 2006
This is a great book on web engineering. It is not a pure web programming book, nor is it an interface design book; rather it is a book covering the complete life cycle of website development from an engineering perspective, including planning, analysis, design, programming, testing, maintenance, usability and other topics. I think it is a great textbook for an advanced web development class.
05/02/2006
