May 21, 2006
Google Maps Pedometer
Google exposes the Maps as a web API so that anyone can use their web mapping functionality and add extensions. There are a number of sites doing just this, one such site is Gmap Pedometer. This site allows you to browse the familiar Google Maps interface but in addition it allows you to record a path over the map. This path represents where you travel and the site can figure out how far you have traveled, the elevation along the route and if you enter your weight it can even figure out the amount of calories you will burn if you walk the route. It is quite easy to us. Routes are started by clicking the record button and then it is just a matter of double clicking on the map to mark a route point and magically a line is drawn on the map. Just continue to double click to extend the route and soon you have a complete walking route along with elevation and distance.
Links
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/
May 18, 2006
The Future of Web Applications?
Google creates some really nice cross browser AJAX based Javascript applications. Now they have released their internal development environment in a package called the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). This toolkit is Java 2 Enterprise Edition based and resolves around developing your application completely as Java code that then is compiled and turned into Javascript when the client requests a page. This is the same approach as used in Ruby on Rails and has the benefit of cleaning up the code and making it easier to create the server and client side code and they are one and the same with the framework handling the details.
So what is happening here? Well we are starting to see more and more of these frameworks becoming available for web developers to use. These are reducing the complexity to create advanced web applications therefore we are getting more interaction and more true web applications, rather than just web pages that provide a function. I believe that this will continue to grow and the line between web application and standard desktop application will start to blur. What we will see as the next generation are applications that are developed once and run as either server side applications or client hosted applications that then connect back to a data source for their data. This results in write once, run anyway (connected, disconnected, standalone, client/server or even peer to peer).
Links
Google Web Toolkit
May 15, 2006
Apache Mirae: Web Services for J2ME
The Apache Mirae project is attempting to extend the support of Web Services out to the Java application that run on mobile devices using the J2ME platform based on the JSR-172 specification request.
Links
Apache Mirae Project
May 14, 2006
XFire: Java Web Services Framework
While browsing through my numerous RSS feeds I stumbled on a release note for the XFire Java Web Service library. There are lots of Java Web Service frameworks available on the Internet and most are available for free use (eg Apache AXIS, Sun's JWSDP, IBM WebSphere, etc). The problem with many of them are that they do not support some of the newest Web Service standards. As I work in a research area where we are always pushing the envelopes and therefore using bleeding edge standards libraries that support the new standards are always useful. XFile supports a number of different bindings including XMLBeans, JAXB and AEGIS (XML to POJO binding) to easily create your back end service code. There is also early support to both WS-Addressing and WS-Security standards, which most Web Service frameworks do not support and to put the icing on the cake it supports multiple transports (including HTTP, JMS, Local and XMPP). More work is still required to make it a complete Web Services framework that supports all the new standards but it is well on its way.
Links
XFire Home Page
May 04, 2006
Pandora: Customised Music Playlists
Pandora is a great website that utilises the Music Genome Project (MGP) to create customised music playlists based on the music that you like. It starts by first asking you the name of your favourite music artist. I entered “Moby” and it then went away and created a playlist of music that has similar characteristics to the music created by Moby. Some of the artists it came up with was Kosheen, Juno Reactor, Prodigy and Kascade. The best thing is that it streams the music from the web page. This is a great web application to expand your music knowledge and discover other bands that you will like but would never have found without someone else recommending it.
Links
Pandora Home
