Scribblings

Thursday, December 28, 2006

AJAX Magazine: Ask X, The New Search Engine AJAX Experience

Ask.com have launched a new AJAX-based edition of its search engine Ask X. The speed is pretty good, except for results that return more advanced details for example is you search for a country for example Tunisia, a preview of the country is displayed in the top page followed by other results, while the right panel will show you images from that country, the forecast, dictionary, current time, and an excerpt from Wikipedia. There is also an advanced search for images videos, news, blogs, shopping, ... etc. The page is overall divided into three sections :

ask-ajaxed.png
  • Left Panel : A search control panel that stays with you, complete with Zoom Related Search and Search Suggestions that update as you type.
  • Middle Panel : Results front and center to provide clutter-free information without having to scroll down the page, and Binoculars to preview results.
  • Right Panel: A preview of other types of search results, including video, news, images, blogs, shopping, encyclopedia and more.
Original Post

Google Kills SOAP Search API Support For The Profit Of AJAX

Original Post

As displayed in the Google SOAP Search API homepage, Google is no longer supporting the SOAP Search API since December 5, 2006. They encourage you to use the AJAX search API instead. The service is not going to be shutdown as the documentation will remain available on the website for current users, but there will not be any development in the future of the SOAP service. Google finds the AJAX Search API better suited for search-based web applications and supports additional features like Video, News, Maps, and Blog search results. Someone said that AJAX will be the webservices killer ?

Google SOAP Search API

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

INNOVATION CAN BRING MORE GLOBAL OUTSOURCING TO INDIA

INNOVATION CAN BRING MORE GLOBAL OUTSOURCING TO INDIA
Hyderabad
The Hindu Business Line Nasscom Chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju, has said that innovation in the IT sector has the potential to help garner a larger chunk of the overall global IT outsourcing pie.

The Nasscom Innovation Forum, Raju said that increasingly even IT services providers like Infosys, Wipro and Satyam are providing innovative services and the accent now is on transforming business processes with tangible business deliverables.

The forum has short-listed companies for their innovative processes. These include Bharti Airtel, IBM India, Maruti Udyog and Capgemini Consulting among 160 companies that filed entries across broad categories of business model, process and product innovation.

Providing an insight into the $1-billion Bharti - IBM multi-year deal, Ashish Kumar, Director of IBM Global Services India, said that the project seeks to outsource the entire technology and business transformation process of Bharti.

While the Bharti IBM deal has been a case study in business model innovation and on-demand services, others in the group include Cranes Software for its acquire, enhance and expand business model, Evalueserve.com for its business intelligence services, HCL Comnet for its business-ready infrastructure model that combines hosted services, and Kale Consultants for its platform-based BPO.

Google Jokes, Sometimes...


Dec 19, 2006 8:49 PM - Show original item

  1. When you click a Google ad twice, Google may urge you to “give your mouse a break

  2. They display cheese if you’re at the highest zoom level at Google Moon

  3. During April Fool’s, they say that pigeons determine the ranking of our web sites

  4. Google pretends they’re an airline at parties

  5. You can enter niniane kicks ass into Google Maps to locate the Googleplex headquarter and Google employee Niniane Wang

  6. They display spam cooking recipes in your Gmail spam folder

  7. Their calculator read Douglas Adams’ science fiction book and says 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything

  8. Their employees look like smurfs every now and then

  9. Google offers you Klingon as search interface language

  10. When Larry Page talked about other Google rules than just “Don’t be evil” he said “We allow dogs, for example.

Online Etiquette and the Culture of a Blog


Darren Rowse Dec 19, 2006 8:31 PM - Show original item

Michael Moncur has written a thoughtful post asking Whatever happened to online etiquette? which bounces off (and largely rejects) the NYT piece by David Pogue of the same name.

I think Michael makes some worthwhile points - particularly in his third point about Anonymity and fifth point about content inspiring community.

Anonymity - while some do like to hide behind anonymity I find that the majority of attack within blogging circles happens not because people can remain hidden but because it actually gets them attention and they think it will raise their profile. Thankfully the ’snark strategy’ to build a blog’s profile has died away a little over the last 6 months. While it can raise your profile it can also destroy your reputation.

Content Inspiring Community - Michael quotes a comment from Gina Trapani of Lifehacker which is insightful and worth highlighting again:

“Also, netiquette in public forums has a lot to do with the content around which the community is centered. Lifehacker’s posts set out to help folks, so in kind, our readers want to help us and each other back. Digg is a popularity contest of oneupmanship. Gawker is all about making fun of things, so its readers mock each other and it right back in the comments. Karma’s a boomerang.”

My feeling is that sites develop a culture around them. This is often set by the tone and voice of those who set them up and provide the lead (in the case of a blog - the blogger/s).

If your blog is written in a positive, optimistic, helpful and inclusive voice then I find that those commenting generally respond with a similar tone. Write in a snarky, negative, rant dominated tone that makes fun of others and you can expect a very similar vibe in your comments.

In fact I think that this principle extends out of your comments section into the way that other bloggers interact with you from their blogs also.

Of course there are exceptions to this - even the most positive and helpful bloggers get attacked from time to time - but I find that this is more the exception than the rule.

What do you think?

Monday, December 18, 2006

Ajax Cookbook: Helpful JavaScript tips

Ajax Cookbook: Helpful JavaScript tips: "Bret Taylor is the guy who is responsible for the first Google Maps.

He obvi0usly has a lot of experience, and has recently been on fire with a new blog called the Ajax Cookbook.

The blog focuses on small useful JavaScript snippets that do not assume a particular JavaScript/Ajax library, so they can be generally useful.

Recent examples are:


Cross-Browser Event Handling and Memory Leaks
Canceling and Stopping Browser Events
JavaScript Debug Log
Disabling the Browser Context Menu

A great addition to the space. I am looking forward to see more and more recipes, and real world experience from Bret.
"

Tomcat Vs GlassFish Comparison

Tomcat Vs GlassFish Comparison: "

Roger (at Ninth Avenue Software) recently compared Tomcat and GlassFish in his blog - I think in part because FigBird runs on GlassFish. Since this is a popular topic, Jason Lee then proposed to push it to a more stable location at the GlassFish Wiki, now open for your contributions.

I suspect that per-area product comparisons may be more manageable, so I created an umbrella page for it and the the WS Stack Comparison; feel free to add other comparisons.

Yet something else to work on in preparation for GlassFish v2 beta. "

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Understanding Mobile 2.0

Understanding Mobile 2.0: "Written by Rudy De Waele of m-trends.org and edited by Richard MacManus. This kicks off a mini-series of posts on the topic of Mobile 2.0, which we will explore on R/WW this week.

On the eve of Le Web 3 in Paris - and one month after the Web 2.0 Summit concluded - it seems like an appropriate time to explore the world of the mobile Web, a.k.a. mobile 2.0. There has been a lot of discussion lately on this topic, a good deal of it inspired by the mobile 2.0 event - a one-day event held on 6 November 2006, organized by Daniel Appelquist and Mike Rowehl.

Carriers and Mobile Operators are taking notice...

In the closing session about carriers and operators at the Under The Radar: Mobility Conference on 16 November 2006, I heard an Executive Director from Verizon Wireless using the term 'Mobile 2.0'. Also Orange (France Telecom) is sponsoring one of the biggest web 2.0 related conferences in Europe, Le Web 3 in Paris. The fact that carriers/operators are now linking their brand name to web 2.0/mobile 2.0 rel"

Search 2.0 - What's Next?

Search 2.0 - What's Next?: "Written by Emre Sokullu and edited by Richard MacManus

You may feel relatively satisfied with the current search offerings of Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN. Search today is undoubtedly much better than what it was in the second half of the 1990's. But Internet search is still in its infancy and there's much room for improvement. Moreover, the super high valuation of Google on NASDAQ pushes investors and researchers to find better search solutions - to be The Next Big Thing. And these wannabes are not only working on discovering better indexing techniques, they're exploring new horizons like vertical engines, meaning-based search, intent-driven search, new clustering methods, and much more. In this post, we look into latest trends in the search industry.

We have positioned the latest search trends into 3 main categories:


UI Enhancements
Technology Enhancements
Approach Enhancements (Vertical Engines)

UI Enhancements

Snap

Snap promises a better interface for search, using the latest advancements in browsers and AJAX technology. Although"