January 28, 2006
Ruby on Rails with AJAX support
One of my friends and collegues has started using Ruby on Rails and has now become a complete convert, so much so that everything can be done with Rails (short name). Rails is a complete web development stack for creating dynamic web applications with very little fuss and painful configuration that is synonymous with other web development stacks, such as J2EE. I was also pointed in the direction of script.aculo.us that provides AJAX support to Rails by using the Prototype JavaScript Library. Some of the examples at script.aculo.us are drag and drop shopping carts, auto-completing text boxes and pretty JavaScript animations.
Rails is built around using the Ruby programming language, which is easy to learn and quick to develop with. Doing things quickly is the moral of the story when developing with RAILS. By adding Prototype enabled scripts on the client end greater interactivity is created and by using AJAX pages no longer need to be fully reloaded speeding up the response times as only the data is sent through the AJAX bindings. One issue with adding all this JavaScript to the client web pages is that the HTML code can become littered with <script> tags; however, this can be solved by attaching the JavaScript events by using CSS selectors. For a description and example of this approach have a look at the Behaviour web page.
Rails and supporting scripts can all be downloaded from the links below. If you are developing on a mac you can download pre-compiled binaries from here. For Windows users a quick install can be downloaded from here.
Links
Ruby on Rails Homepage
script.aculo.us Homepage
Prototype JavaScript Library Home Page
Behaviour Page
Agile Web Development with Rails Book
Programming with Ruby Book
Rico Homepage (Addition JavaScript Libraries using Prototype)
January 23, 2006
FacesClient
One of the big problems with developing web application is creating good interactivity for the user without having to refresh the page. Using multiple technologies like AJAX it is possible to enhance this interaction but the work required for developers to achieve this is great. Therefore using the Model View Controller (MVC) concepts from Java Server Faces the FacesClient has been developed. IBM has an implementation of this JavaScript library and components and is available from their AlphaWorks site in the Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK). If you would like to just have a read then below is a link to the FacesClient developer guide.
Links
Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK)
Faces for Laszlo
FacesClient Components, Part 1 : Portlet Programming with FacesClient Components
FacesClient Components Developer's Guide (second edition)
Handbook of Software Architecture
Here is a very good software architecture site maintained by Grady Booch, who is the author of many good software design and architecture books. This site is developed in support of a new book "Handbook of Software Architecture".
Links
Handbook of Software Architecture Site
January 21, 2006
Overland Trail: Photo Gallery
As I have mentioned earlier Beck and I have recently come back from a holiday where we walked the Tasmanian Overland Trail (4-6 day hike) in the middle of the wilderness. While on the hike we met up with lots of wonderful people. One of these people gave me a link to their photo site where they will place the photos they took from the trip. Currently the site only has some photos that he took earlier of cradle mountain but if you wait a while there should be some of his photos from his recent hike on the trail. I will be placing my photos online along with other information on the Overland tail in the next few days.
Links
Morsla Photo Site
New iSight
I was given a nice new Apple iSight for christmas and was wondering how I could use this to chat with people who are not on macs. Well it seems like this is possible and for an in-depth discussion on this have a read of this article. While browsing on the net I also found an interesting piece of software called iGlasses that manipulates the image the iSight camera grabs and enhances it so that less light is required to get a good picture. From the same company that creates iGlasses are the following programs to do with your isight:
PowerBoost: Allows any mac to host multi-party conferences (even if not powerful enough according to Apple specs)
Conference Recorder: Records your iChat video conferences into a quicktime file.
iChatUSBCam: Allows any USB camera to work with iChat so you do not need to have an iSight.
Links
Video Conferencing with Windows users from Apple iChat
iGlasses
ecamm Programs
MMMMmmmm Coffee
If you have wondering where I have been, well I have been traveling around Australia (Melbourne and Tasmania). There were two purposes of this trip, first to go to my friends wedding, and second to walk to overland trail in Tasmania. I will post lots more information about the overland trail in the next few days. However, while I was in Hobart we visited a great little coffee place that roasts their own beans. The coffee is absolutely brilliant, they even have their own website. But when I was in Melbourne visiting family friends one of them is absolutely crazy about coffee machines and showed me the website for the E-61 Rocket. This has got to be one of the nicest looking home coffee (semi-pro) machines that I have seen around. A few months ago I went to a Coffee Barista course to learn how to make the best coffee, since then I have become a complete coffee snob and only want coffee from the best places. The worst part is that I now know it is just not possible to make a really good coffee using one of the cheap coffee machines, not even the $600AUD machines (which is what I have). Do not get me wrong you can make a pretty good coffee on one of these cheaper machines but if you really want to make seriously good coffee then you are going to need a machine like the E-61.
Links
Oomph Coffee
E-61 Rocket Website
January 05, 2006
My Birthday Today
It is my Birthday today. Happy birthday to me. Yeah I know pretty sad. Oh and here is a geek cake I found on the web. I have also recently purchased one of these, they are absolutely great.
Semantic Services
A friend from IBM just sent two links through to me for some Ontology and semantic based work IBM has on their Alphaworks site.
Ontology-based Web Services for Business Integration
A semantic Web services proof-of-concept demonstration for the industrial sector that shows service discovery, composition, and business process transformation.
Semantic Tools for Web Services
A set of Eclipse plug-ins for semantic matching and composition of Web services. (This is an ETTK technology.)
Links:
Ontology-based Web Services
Semantic Tools for Web Services
IBM Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK)
FacesClient
One of the big problems with developing web application is creating good interactivity for the user without having to refresh the page. Using multiple technologies like AJAX it is possible to enhance this interaction but the work required for developers to achieve this is great. Therefore using the Model View Controller (MVC) concepts from Java Server Faces the FacesClient has been developed. IBM has an implementation of this JavaScript library and components and is available from their AlphaWorks site in the Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK). If you would like to just have a read then below is a link to the FacesClient developer guide.
Links
Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK)
Faces for Laszlo
FacesClient Components, Part 1 : Portlet Programming with FacesClient Components
FacesClient Components Developer's Guide (second edition)
