Tech Blog

2011-01-03T19:40:00.000-08:00

WE HAVE MOVED

HOMEPAGE-THE FIRST IMPRESSION

2010-11-24T22:24:00.000-08:00

Ever heard the saying that "You never get a second chance to make a first impression"? Well, that is also true with websites. Despite the improvement and accuracy of search engines, the homepage is the 1st interaction the visitor has with the site, and is the only opportunity to create a good or bad first impression. From experience, the homepage accounts for the largest percentage of abandonment, between 40 and 60%. A poor home page can destroy any chance of achieving your website objectives within a few seconds. A good home page is the blueprint for every successful website. This makes the homepage the most important focus points since it performs numerous functions and caters to multiple stakeholders or audience.

First, the user makes a quick judgment about the site based on the overall appearance. Next, they decide whether they are in the right place by checking out what the site has to offer. Finally, they look around for what brought them to the site. Below are some important guidelines to consider when designing the homepage.

To create an effective homepage, emphasize what your site offers that's of value to users, this should Include a tag line that explicitly summarizes what the site or company has to offer. In addition, include a short site description in the window title. This will help direct search engine traffic and help keep the users onsite, assuming the title and tags have the necessary keywords.

Use color to distinguish visited and unvisited links, this should actually apply to the entire page, it reduces user frustration.

The page title should realistically target keywords; one key factor in search engine ranking is how closely the title of a page matches the user's search terms. This will ensure you get the right traffic, hence reduce the bounce rate.

Avoid clutter. Include only essentials that are critical or useful to your visitor's experience and your branding efforts. Having said that, void distraction and don't bog your homepage down with too much graphic. Designers have a tendency of focusing on their design prowess while ignoring usability.

Don’t violate design conventions, consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles. Don’t make the user think; when things are always the same the users don't think about where to find what they are looking for, instead, they know exactly where to go. Saves time and makes them happy.

The last and most important guideline, the users are highly goal-driven on the Web. They visit sites because there's something they want to accomplish, the ultimate failure of a website is to fail to provide the information users are looking for.

HTML5 FORM FEATURES

2010-11-10T20:59:00.000-08:00

I was inspired by last Week’s guest speaker, J Cornelius. The historical development of browsers, from Netscape, to Firefox up until IE7 got me interested. I was also very intrigued by HTML5/CSS3 features. The drag and drop feature is simply amazing. Before HTML5 this could only be done using third-party browser plug-ins such as Adobe Flash. In this Blog I will cover some of the cool HTML5 form features.

Placeholder
Like its immediate predecessors, HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.1, HTML5 is a standard for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. The first improvement HTML5 brings to web forms is the ability to set placeholder text in an input field. Placeholder text is displayed inside the input field as long as the field is empty and not focused. The HTML5 placeholder attribute works exactly as the value attribute, except that when the user click on the text field, the placeholder text automatically disappears and the user can easily enter the required information. Browsers that don’t support the placeholder attribute will simply ignore it, without causing any harm. Here is an example of how to include a placeholder in a form

input name="firstname" placeholder="Please enter your first name"

Autofocus
The next cool html5 feature is Autofocus, if applied; the element will automatically receive the focus once the page is rendered. As soon as the page loads, it moves the input focus to a particular input field. This can be seen on some sites and most search engines. Browsers that don’t support the autofocus attribute will simply ignore it, and the user will have to manually move the cursor to the field. Here is an example on how to use autofocus input name="search"
Web sites can also use JavaScript to focus the first input field of a web form automatically. For example, the Google homepage will autofocus the input box so you can type your search keywords.

Email Address
Before HTML5, Millions of websites used forms to ask for email addresses, and they all used text input to capture this information. But HTML5 came up with a new type for the input element, named email. input type="email" name="email"

URL Field
Just like the email element, web addresses are frequently asked for. HTML5 introduces a new type for the input element, url, designed specifically for entering web addresses. This line could looks like this input type="url" name="url"

Date Pickers
Many companies use websites to book appointments or dates, most of these websites used JavaScript for this function. Thankfully, we don’t have to do that anymore, HTML5 defines a way to include a native date picker control without having to use JavaScript. The date element could looks like this input type="date" name="day"

Search Boxes
To enhance ease of retrieving information, many websites have implemented their own search engine. HTML5 has created a new element type for search fields, and a sample of the code could look like this input type="”search”" input type="”submit”"

Pattern Atribute
HTML5 comes with the pattern atribute, which lets you define how a user should enter the required information. The form will only accept an entry that matches the specified pattern. A good example is the telephone number or a zipcode field that only takes 5 numbers.

input name="Phone" placeholder="Phone" pattern="^0[1-689] [0-9] {8} $"

The cool thing about HTML5 is that in situations where the user is using a browser that does not support the above form element, the fields will be rendered as text, and the user will still be able to type in the details without any problem. So there is no need to panic.

Podcast: Luke Wroblewski and Innovations in Web Input

2010-11-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

Jared had a chance to speak with Luke about some of the latest trends in web input. Jared led off the discussion, talking about Google’s latest public innovations, Google Instant. Google Instant is a new search enhancement tool that shows results as you type. It's a much faster service.

They also chat about innovations in web input, where your users can instantly have their content on your site without entering it again and again. You can make use of work done by others, by using or getting input from other sites, For the first time it is possible to get rid of entry forms. Input can come from anywhere, we can get user information from already existing resources, for example, to sign up, you don't have to enter all the information and upload a picture, you can link it to your email, facebook or web extensions to get the same information.

Lastly, Luke discussed Apple's Ping, it's social networking site for music, according to him, ping is the worst product they have come up with. They ignored market insight, to sign up, ping asks you to upload a picture, which has to be approved by google. To make matters worse, the name you use on ping has to match the names on the credit card you use on the itunes site. To share music on ping, you have to go to itunes, you cannot share music from your collection of music you purchased through itunes. He calls it a social networking site for itunes.

WEB USABILITY

2010-11-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

Most people will notice the similarity between this blog and the previous one, it almost sounds like Web Accessibility part 2. As most of you, i found it hard to differentiate the difference between web usability and accessibility, as most topics overlap. Unlike web accessibility which is mainly about making websites accessible with a focus on disabled users, web usability is about making your website usable to all, in such a way that your site users can find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently.

Usability on the Web is important in achieving the Website goal. For a business usability is crucial if you want to have customers continue to return and to get sales and make money. If your customers can't find what they want, they won't be buying, and chances are, they won't be coming back.

According to Jakob Nielsen, Usability can be improved

"Usability is like cooking: everybody needs the results, anybody can do it reasonably well with a bit of training, and yet it takes a master to produce a gourmet outcome" ¹

What can you do?
Focus on your content. Content will get people to your site and give them the information so they keep coming back. If you've created a usable website, The content should be relevant and easy to find, you should see what your customer is looking for.

Don't make the user think,the user should be able to see what they are looking for. Your site visitors will not study each menu item carefully before making a considered choice as to which link to select. They might glance down the site menu but, more likely, they’ll just hit the first link that looks about right. Why reinvent the wheel? Use the most common tittles, names and conventions that the users are familiar with.

Test your site's usability with your users.Who are your users? What are their tasks and online environment? Test early in design using prototypes. Don't wait until the end when it's too late to change the design. If you do nothing else to improve your site, this would be the best thing.

Architecture – it's 80% of usability, Build an efficient navigational structure. Put lots of links on your site so that your readers can navigate as easily as possible. This will give your readers a lot of different ways to get to the information on your site.

Users are impatient. Design for a 2-10 second maximum download. After 10 seconds, your customer has lost interest in your page, and might close the page, no matter how interested they were in the topic. You don't want to lose the user but you also can't control all aspects of the download. One way of avoiding this is controlling the weight of the page.

¹Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/anybody-usability.html

Accessibility and Web Standards

2010-10-21T15:35:00.000-07:00

Web accessibility is access to the Web by everyone, regardless of disability; it refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. To make this happen, it is important for websites to be based on standards and guidelines. As a result, this makes it necessary for the people involved in building and maintaining these sites to be able to build accessible websites. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, barriers to information are eliminated and all users can have equal access to information and functionality.

Apart from designing websites accessible to people with various disability, one other way of increasing accessibility is designing websites that work with all browsers and devices. Since we cannot dictate the browser or device the user will be using, designers need to create websites that render well across all browsers, this can be achieved by adhering to the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) set of international standards for the web. Using valid, semantic, and well-structured markup combined with accessibility best practices makes for a better experience for many more users.

This will make the site accessible to
• other browsers or operating system
• users that have CSS disabled or do not support it
• user agents that do not support JavaScript
• mobile and handheld devices
• accessibly marked up forms enhance usability for everybody
• users will be able to increase font size without making text unreadable

Accessibility is building one site that works for everybody, disabled or not, and whatever user agent or operating system they prefer. Designing with web standards ensures equality and access to information and resources, users will not be frustrated or abandon a website because some links or tabs to not work.

WEB TYPOGRAPHY

2010-09-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

Typography is the art of designing letters, words, paragraphs, and how they interact with each other, and Web typography refers to the use of fonts, letters and paragraph on the Web. Typography is the main attribute of web design, with some designers believing Typography is 90% of web design. When most people visit websites, the odds are that they immediately look at the text. Visitors typically rely on text to accomplish whatever they’re visiting the site for. That alone should make typography, the art of arranging text, a major priority for any web designer. Bellow are same basic web typography rules

Legibility
One of the principles of durable typography is legibility, to achieve this web designers need to use the right font size. Don’t set body text below 10 or 12PX, and if possible make it bigger. Setting type to big makes it easier for visitors to read the content.

Make good use of Space
Don’t be afraid to leave blank spaces in your pages. Negative or white space will help focus attention on the text. A reader should never have to plow through a forest of buttons and fancy graphics to get simple information

Make Use of Sans-Serif
Always use sans-serif fonts for type on-screen. And remember Arial, Verdana, and Georgia are the only safe fonts for the web. Serifed fonts have a higher chance of displaying poorly, becoming blurry or even pixelated. Avoid fancy type and never use italic type on the web.

Create Contrast
Always use dark text on a light background or vice versa. For example, pale pink text on a pale blue background doesn’t read well. Text exists to be read, make sure that it contrasts enough with the background to achieve that

Always use web safe colors.
Don’t relying on color to achieve legibility, and remember that websites can appear very different on different monitors and browsers, hence the need to make use of safe colors.

Make use of CSS
CSS provide easy consistency between your typography across the entirety of a website. With solid CSS, formatting becomes easy and you can move between pages of your website seamlessly

Web Typography is easily overlooked or not being taken into consideration when designing the site. Spending time on the text can transform the design elements that support the rest of the design and help create a site that is appealing and functional.

Designing with Web Standards

2010-09-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

The use of the Internet and its impact and effects are continuing to expand throughout the world. The Internet and the web have tremendous impact on business, industry, and the way people interact. Hence, there is a need for websites today to be accessible across multiple platforms, devices and browsers. We cannot underestimate the importance for the websites to be accessible to all; in fact the FCC regulations in the United States require that web sites are accessible to all people, especially people with disabilities. If a website cannot be viewed by someone with impairment, it is not only illegal, but is also discriminating to the visitor.

The solution to most of these problems is to ensure that we are adhering to web standards as best you can within any given project. Web standards are the instructions developed by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The Web Development Standards and Web Design Standards are well-defined methodologies to guide people creating, designing and developing websites.

What are these Standards?
HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the first and most used standard from the W3C. It is also considered to be the backbone of the WWW. The HTML structuring elements (tags) makes the text documents to be interpreted by browsers and displayed according to the specified formats.

XML (extensible Markup Language) XML allows the coder to customize new tag elements according either to a DTD (Document Type Definition) or to one that is personally defined.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) This Standard was brought forward by the W3C to create a simpler and more structured World Wide Web. It is a mechanism through which changes in appearance and position can be assigned to HTML or XML elements, simply by declaring specific styles to them.

Advantages of Web Standards
A proper understanding and adherence to certain laid-down norms and practice can make the website more user-friendly, attract larger traffic and achieve better page rank in search engines. Web Development Standards will result in increased traffic, make acceptable all types of browsers, lower production and maintenance costs, and facilitate inter-conversion of web documents. Compliance with web development standards and web design standards will actually simplify the task of most business site builders, contrary to what some people think.

Drawbacks of Designing with Web Standards
Some website builders are apprehensive that web development standards may impose certain restrictions and curb the creative talents. They lament that web standardss impose strict guidelines and require high level coding skills, and that the developer needs to have knowledge of multiple browsers. For any sensible website, in my opinion, the benefit of designing with web standards far outweighs these challenges.

References
http://www.w3.org/
http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/importance-web-standards
http://dustinbrewer.com/why-web-standards-are-important-in-web-design/

Information Architecture(IA) Mistakes

2010-09-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

I chose to write a summary on the Top 10 Information Architecture Mistakes by Jakob Nielsen,¹ which I found interesting and informative. But before I go into the main topic I would like to make a brief definition of Information Architecture (IA).

Definition of IA
Even though it’s quite tempting to skip ahead and talk about the look and feel of a design, the importance of first defining Information Architecture (IA) can’t be overstated. As a discipline, it’s not really clear on what information or architecture really means.

In his book, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Peter Morville defines information architecture this way:
in•for•ma•tion ar•chi•tec•ture.
1. The structural design of shared information environments.
2. The combination of organization, labeling, search, and navigation systems within web sites and intranets.
3. The art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support usability and Findability.
4. An emerging discipline and community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.²

Information Architecture (IA) is everything about its context, how information is used, how it flows, and how it fits within the user’s needs. This type of understanding is the first step taken in order to shape a design that is more functional, transparent, and user-friendly.

Jakob Nielsen divided IA mistakes into two parts, Structural mistakes and Navigational mistakes, the two must support each other and integrate with the search function.

Structural mistakes
The First mistake common with new sites, mostly e-commerce sites is No Structure, where a site is treated like one big swamp, with no organizational structure. This hampers the site potential since the users with not be able to make good use or leave even leave the site frustrated.

The second most common structural mistake is Not Integrating Search and Structure. When users land on a site, they will more likely want to go straight to the item or page they are looking for. They will also want to know where they are after clicking on a link generated from the search results. This can only happen when the search system and structure support each other. Usability is exacerbated when search and navigation fail to support each other.

The Next structural mistakes is Missing Category Landing Pages, Nielsen recommends that sites have a series of categories that each link to their own landing page that gives users a section overview, without this users can misunderstand the site's scope and miss important details, products, or services.

Avoid Subsites/Microsites Poorly Integrated with Main Site, too often abandoned microsites link to old marketing campaign, which might not link to the website goals and undermine the online strategy.

Navigation Mistakes

Invisible navigation is as nearly as bad as no navigation. Uncovering navigation shouldn't be a major task and should be made permanently visible on the all page. Users should not have to use the back button on the browser every time they want to go back to the main page. On the same note, avoid banner blindness bleed, where the navigation itself looks like a banner, or you place it next to elements that look like advertisement. The Macy's website suffers from this problem.

Avoid using Uncontrollable Navigation Elements, moving navigation elements tends to distract the user while they are trying to find their way and may lead to user frustration.

Lots of sites have Inconsistent Navigation, where they change their navigation features as users move around, making them feel lost. Users should be able to understand it immediately, and apply that understanding throughout the site, for example, a user should be able to locate the menu items all the time.

Lastly, avoid using too many navigation techniques, each technique has its place and use. And don’t forget to make use of recognizable menu terms. This increases usability and carries SEO weight. Avoid using made up menu labels.

¹ http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ia-mistakes.html

²http://www.audettemedia.com/blog/seo-guide-information-architecture/

Chapter Summary, Writing For the Web

2010-08-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

It is hard to underestimate the importance of good and effective web writing. Good web writing is easy to spot and has a great consequence to any website and the success of the organization as a whole. On the other hand, bad web writing can have negative implications and could cause the users to leave the site. All websites have visitors, and they all have a purpose or task they want to accomplish when visiting the site. The success of the website depends on how well, easy and pleasant the session is to the visitor, all which can be achieved through good web writing.

Web Writing is very different from print and presents unique challenges. Readers read differently on the web. As opposed to the print media, web readers are task oriented and impatient. They scan through the content and do not read all the words. Because of these factors, a good web writer needs to understand the users and go straight to the point when presenting the content. These can be achieved by writing good usable content. Good usable content means knowing what the user is looking for and presenting it in a consistent and effectively format. This also covers Navigation cues like labels, menu items, page titles and site goal.

Good web writing is also engaging. This is an important feature since it provides feedback to the organization, feedback that will help in keeping in touch with the users and making sure the website is relevant and successful.

A good website needs to be findable. Findability refers to how easily users can locate the information they are looking for. Writing a findable copy means using the relevant keywords first, this is achieved by first identifying the key words most relevant to the article or website, depending on the goals or service being offered by the website. The Keywords are then included in the titles, links, subheads and opening sentences as much as possible without compromising readability. These keywords are used by search engines to locate the most relevant content.

Avoid common web writing mistakes. Bad websites tend to be overwritten with nonessential information. Remember less is always more when it comes to web writing since users tend to scan. Bad websites also tend to have scattered content and lack of focus. Avoid marketing jargon and complicated terminologies.

Lastly, don’t forget to use the following web wiring tips,
• Use the Inverted Pyramid- start with the conclusion then supporting information.
• Make your copy easy to scan, divide information into easy and nice chunks
• Write killer headings
• Lead with Active words and use simple sentences
• Keep your promise- make sure the links and labels match
• Set up a review process and steal from other good websites.

ITIL

2010-04-26T20:46:00.000-07:00

What is ITIL?
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of concepts and practices for managing Information Technology (IT) services (ITSM), IT development and IT operations
ITIL consists of a series of books that give guidance on the provision of quality IT services. ITIL provides a consistent and comprehensive documentation of best practice for IT Service Management. ITIL helps the organizations with effective management of IT operation and associated infrastructure.

A Brief overview of ITIL
The IT Infrastructure Library is a collection of books, with each book covering a specific practice within IT Service Management.
There are eight ITIL books and their disciplines are:
1. Service Support
2. Service Delivery
3. ICT Infrastructure Management
4. Security Management
5. The Business Perspective
6. Application Management
7. Software Asset Management
8. Planning to Implement Service Management

ITIL Benefits
ITIL provides a systematic and professional approach to the management of IT service provision, some of benefits that include:
• reduced costs
• improved IT services through the use of proven best practice processes
• improved customer satisfaction through a more professional approach to service delivery
• standards and guidance
• improved productivity

Service Desk (ITSM)
A Service Desk is a primary IT capability called for in IT Service Management (ITSM) and is the single central point of contact between service providers and users/customers on a day-to-day basis. The service desk is the public face of IT and the heart of IT support. The Service Desk function is known under several titles including: Call center, Contact center or Help desk. These points of contact are often used to report incidents or for making service requests as well as providing an interface to users for other ITSM activities such as:
1. Problem Management
2. Configuration Management
3. Change Management
4. Release Management
5. Service Level Management
6. Availability Management
7. Capacity Management
8. Financial Management
9. IT Service Continuity Management
10. Security Management
Generally, the Service Desk comes in three types of structure;
The Local Service Desk: to meet local business needs, the entral Service Desk: for organizations having multiple locations and the Virtual Service Desk: for organizations having multi-country locations and can be situated and accessed from anywhere in the world

AXIOS SYSTEMS
ITIL has spured a new industry with many service providers and software, in this article I will feature Axios Systems, an IT Service Management (ITSM) company, and Assist, their ITIL Service Desk Software. Axios has been in the IT Service Management (ITSM) industry for over 20 years delivering enterprise ITSM solutions to customers by building relationships and developing an understanding the business drivers, problems and needs. Axios has served customers in over 100 countries worldwide, in organizations of all sizes and across every industry. As the largest independent vendor focused on IT Service Management they have developed solutions and services that have ensure they remain leaders in the market. Axios provides, ITSM consulting, ITSM training, Assyst Software and ITSM Project Services. Axios markets itself primarily through its Assyst Software and by promising that it will cut cost, increase agility and increase customer satisfaction.

Case Study: Swisscom
From trouble-ticketing to modern Service Management
Cutting-edge technology is the life support of the Swiss telecommunications group, Swisscom. When its landline division decided to upgrade its IT Service Platforms Operations department accordingly, a choice was made in favor of the de facto industry standard, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), and the entirely ITIL-based IT Service Management (ITSM) solution, Assyst from Axios Systems.

Swisscom is the leading telecommunications company in Switzerland with some 17,000 full-time employees. It provides all of Switzerland with comprehensive services and products for mobile, landline and IP (Internet Protocol) based speech and data communication. Five million mobile customers, 3.7 million landline customers and more than 1.4 million broadband customers receive services from Swisscom every day. Swisscom decided to introduce systematic Service Management, which was accompanied by the step-by-step introduction of the ITIL process framework. Assyst by Axios Systems impressed Swisscom not only with its functional fit with the stipulated requirements, but also with its potential to ultimately deliver the entire spectrum of ITIL disciplines in one integrated solution.

“We evaluated all the ITSM providers and Axios was the best fit for us. Axios is a
dynamic and flexible company that responds to our specific needs.” “As a partner,
Axios Systems has shown competence and flexibility in this project. Axios Systems
is 100% focused on IT Service Management and has understood and delivered our
special requirements and wishes,” Martin Blocher, System Owner at Swisscom.

The Assyst ITIL Service Desk Software
The Assyst solution is a market-leading enterprise solution for service desk and IT Service Management. It empowers customers to tackle the challenges of ITSM by integrating all service delivery and service support processes within a single integrated toolset to drive rapid improvements in IT maturity, agility and efficiency. The Assyst suite was developed as a consolidated service desk and ITSM solution. It supports ITIL best practices and benefits from over 20 years of research and development.

Unlike other toolsets, the Assyst solution was developed from the beginning as a single integrated solution for ITSM, as opposed to a set of modular toolsets acquired from different vendors.
This gives the solution a number of advantages:
• Easily deploy as many or as few ITIL processes as your organization requires - from simply service desk and incident management, all the way to ITIL V3 service lifecycle management.
• Ability to activate additional processes at any time, without the overhead of a toolset integration project.
• Manage the full lifecycle of an incident seamlessly across problem, change, release, and configuration processes within a single solution.
• One vendor, one product roadmap, one simple upgrade path.
• System stability is superior to other ITSM solutions where disparate products have been merged to form a consolidated ITSM toolset.
Key Features of the Assist include: Incident Logging, Prioritization, Routing and Alerting, Trend Analysis, Investigation and Diagnosis, Tracking and Compliance, Event Lifecycle Management and Dashboards and Reporting

http://www.axiossystems.com/en/solutions/why-axios.php and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology_Infrastructure_Library

History of software design patterns

2010-04-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

History of Software Design Pattern

What many don’t know is that design patterns have their roots in architectural pattern of buildings and towns. The term Pattern was coined by Christopher Alexander in the late 1970s

“A "pattern" is...A recurring solution to a common problem in a given context and system of forces.” [Alexander] ¹

Alexander initiated a new approach to architectural thinking, in which the same set of laws determines the structure of a city; a building; or a single room. In his approach to solving universal problem, he takes advantage of scientific reasoning, he argues that contemporary methods fail to generate products that satisfy the true requirements placed upon them by individuals and society, and fail to meet the real demands of real users, and ultimately fail in the basic requirement that design and engineering improve the human condition. This is so different from the way architecture had been taught that it caused conflicts with established architectural schools.

Christopher Alexander is having a greater impact on computer science than on architecture. So what are software design patterns? They are solutions to common problems that developers face. Software design patterns address common problems that developers need to solve in every application they build. The idea is to reuse common successfully proven solutions and to avoid common mistakes and capture the experience of experts in a form that others can reuse.

In Object Oriented Programming, Alexander's technique is now being recognized as general frameworks in which to link objects in programs together in a co-operative and sequential manner. Alexander's patterns bear a straightforward relation to OO constructs. Patterns may be viewed as extending the definitional features of classes. These patterns identify, document, and catalog successful solutions to common software problems. The patterns captured by this literature have already had a significant impact the construction of software.

An Example of a Design Pattern: The Adapter Pattern
The Adapter is intended to provide a way for a client to use an object whose interface is different from the one expected by the client, without having to modify either. This pattern is suitable for solving issues that arise, for example, when: 1) you want to replace one class with another and the interfaces do not match, and 2) you want to create a class that can interact with other classes without knowing their interfaces at design time.

In the class diagram shown for Adapter in the following figure, the client wants to make a specific request of an object (Adaptee). Ordinarily, this would be accomplished by creating an instance of Adaptee and invoking SpecificRequest (...). In this case, however, the client cannot do so because the interfaces do not match (the parameter types are different). Adapter helps you address this incompatibility by providing classes that are responsible for redefining the data types on the client's behalf. First, you create a custom Target class that defines methods using an interface expected by the client. And second, you create a custom Adapter that implements the interface expected by the Adaptee. The Adapter class subclasses the Target, and provides an alternate implementation of the client requests in terms that the Adaptee expects. Adapter overrides the Target method and provides the correct interface for Adaptee. This approach has the advantage that it does not lead to modifications in the client. Adapter is a structural pattern and you can use it to react to changes in class interfaces as your system evolves, or you can proactively use the Adapter pattern to build systems that anticipate changing structural details.²

Adapter class diagram

Some benefits of Design Patterns
It makes it easier to reuse successful designs and avoid alternatives that diminish reusability
It facilitate design modifications and improvement,
It improves design documentation and understandability,
It captures expertise and makes it accessible to non-experts in a standard form,
It facilitates communication among developers by providing a common language.

Some of the Challenges are:
Different platforms- for it to be widely reused, patterns need to be platform independent.
Political factors -- not wanting to share components with rival groups and copyright law
Organizational factors -- effort required to catalog, archive, and retrieve reusable components,
Economic factors -- such as the lack of adequate monetary incentives in many development organizations.

¹http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/docs/patterns-nutshell.html#Pattern_History
²http://www.developer.com/design/article.php/1502691/A-Survey-of-Common-Design-Patterns.htm

MODEL-VIEW-CONTROLLER (MVC)

2010-03-08T22:25:00.001-08:00

Most computer systems have two main functions: retrieving data from a database and display it for the user. After the user changes the data, the system stores the updates in the database. Because the key flow of information is between the database and the user interface, one might be inclined to tie these two functions together to reduce the amount of coding. However, this approach has some significant problems, business applications tend to incorporate business logic that goes far beyond data transmission. To solve this problem, we adapt the MVC model.

Model–View–Controller (MVC) is a software architecture that isolates domain logic (or business logic) from input and presentation,

MVC divides an application into three concerns:
• Model - Encapsulates core application data and functionality Domain Logic/business logic.
• View - obtains data from the model and presents it to the user.
• Controller - receives and translates input to requests on the model or the view.

MVC Architecture¹

The MVC control flow is as follows:
1. The user interacts with the user interface in some way (for example, enters using keyboard or presses a mouse button).
2. The controller handles the input event from the user interface, and converts the event into appropriate user action, understandable for the model.
3. The controller notifies the model of the user action, possibly resulting in a change in the model's state. (For example, the controller updates the user's shopping cart)
4. A view queries the model in order to generate an appropriate user interface (for example, the view lists the shopping cart's contents).
5. The user interface waits for further user interactions, which restarts the cycle.

Benefits
• Supports multiple views. Because the view is separated from the model and there is no direct dependency from the model to the view, the user interface can display multiple views of the same data at the same time. For example, multiple pages in a Web application may use the same model objects. Another example is a Web application that allows the user to change the appearance of the pages. These pages display the same data from the shared model, but show it in a different way.
• Accommodates change. User interface requirements tend to change more rapidly than business rules. Users may prefer different colors, fonts, screen layouts, and levels of support for new devices such as cell phones or PDAs. Because the model does not depend on the views, adding new types of views to the system generally does not affect the model. As a result, the scope of change is confined to the view.

¹http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/~kaushal/downloads/oos_project_report.pdf

Microsoft Oslo

2010-02-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

Oslo is Microsoft’s next generation, model-driven application development platform, also known as SQL Server Modeling CTP. Microsoft created Oslo as a general-purpose software modeling platform, in an attempt to make software development more accessible to more people by enabling them to create applications from models or diagrams.

Oslo was designed to unify Microsoft's modeling technologies with the aim of providing significant productivity gains across the lifecycle of .NET Framework applications by enabling developers, architects, and IT professionals to work together more effectively. Many different tools, with different audiences, will be able to connect. The goal of "Oslo" is to provide productivity gain across the application lifecycle (design, development, and management). Oslo is using domain-specific models, languages and tools to achieve this goal.

Oslo consist of three tools: a visual designer (codenamed "Quadrant"), the modeling language (codenamed "M") for writing text-based DSLs and data models, and a "relational repository" or Database that makes the models available to other .NET tools and components. DSL is Domain Specific Language.

The Microsoft's intention is to make the visual designer Quadrant usable by business analysts and have them involved in the application design process. Oslo is built with easy to use tools that will make it easy for use by analysts and IT departments

Oslo "M" Language
M is a language which helps developers to create their own compilers to support DSL. This language also helps to create Models. It is a declarative language to create Models and DSLs. The M language family includes a capability called 'MSchema.' A primary goal of MSchema is to make it easy for developers and architects - not just database administrators - to define new schemas for the Oslo repository.

Oslo "Quadrant" Tool
Quadrant is a visual tool for Business Users to understand Models and DSLs in a visual way. It is like a Designer for Models and DSLs and can be used to view/edit Models / DSLs, or visually as a Work Flow Designer.

Oslo "Repository"
Oslo "Repository" is an SQL Server database which stores all the Models and DSLs. Your application can connect to this using ADO.NET and can use these models dynamically. Any change to the model just pushes it to the database and requires no compilation at application level. Any information stored in the Oslo repository must conform to a schema, and the M language is dedicated to creating schemas in the Oslo repository, and can ease the task for developers.

At this point of time it’s early to offer any concrete criticism of Oslo, mainly because the product has not been released or tested my the general public. Until then, all information we have is either provided my Microsoft or mere speculation. Through Oslo, Microsoft is trying to create a system that will be easy to use and address key development concerns. Ultimately, the success of Oslo will depend on its acceptance by developers, analyst and IT people. Success will be pegged on how well they handle the three main issues they are trying to sell: making the product usable by all players, unify modeling technologies and enabling the creation of applications from models or diagrams.

Google AdWords

2010-01-18T19:34:00.000-08:00

Google AdWords
Google AdWords is a Google advertising program that offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. This program uses keyword-based advertising by creating simple, effective ads and displays them to people already searching online for information related to your business on Google.com. It all starts with the advertiser picking out the keywords relevant to their business; these keywords are then linked to their advertisement link or banner. When a searcher visits Google and enters a query on the search Engine, in this case the keywords, for example, “cheap air tickets”, Google then displays a list or variety of results relevant to the search, such as links to your website, or other websites providing similar information.

Pay-Per-Click advertisements (PPC)
With the PPC model, the advertiser specifies the words that should trigger their ads and the maximum amount they will pay per click. When a user searches for the keywords on Google' search engine on www.google.com, the relevant words are shown with "sponsored links" on the right side of the screen, and sometimes above the main search results. The hierarchy or ordering of the sponsored links depends on the bids (PPC) and Quality Score, with higher bids having a higher hierarchy and appearing on top.

The quality score is calculated by historical click-through rates, relevance of an advertiser's ad, text and keywords, an advertiser's account history, and other relevance factors as determined by Google. The precise formula and meaning of relevance and its definition is in part secret to Google. No payment is made if the ad does not generate any click.

Google also places ads using Placement targeted advertisements using the AdWords, advertisers can enter keywords, domain names, topics, and demographic targeting preferences, and Google places the ads on what they see as relevant sites within their content network. With this model, the ads will appear on pages that come up whenever a search is done using the predetermined keywords.

AdWords Pricing
Google and other search engines have several pricing methods, among them;

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
Cost-Per-Click bid refers to the amount you're willing to pay for a click on your ad when the ad appears on Google or one of their partner sites. CPC is the amount of money an advertiser pays search engines and other Internet publishers for a single click on its advertisement that brings a visitor to its website.

Cost-Per-Thousand-Impressions (CPM)
With CPM pricing, you set the maximum price you're willing to pay for every 1000 impressions, or views, your ad receives on a given site. This means that you're charged whenever your ad appears, whether a user clicks on it or not. An impression is defined as every time the ad is loaded on a customer’s browser.

Advantages of using AdWords
AdWords advertising lets you:
• Target your ads specifically to people who are looking for your products or services.
• Avoid showing your ads to users who aren't likely to purchase from you.
• Obtain the maximum return on your advertising investment.
• Engage potential customers at precisely the right moment — when users are actively searching for information (keywords or content) related to your business.

ENTERPRISE 2.0

2009-12-15T14:09:00.000-08:00

What is Enterprise 2.0?
Enterprise 2.0(E2.0) is technology that brings WEB 2.0 to the Office and enables people to collaborate and form online communities, where they can share and exchange information. Enterprise 2.0 is a push toward integrating the social and collaborative tools of Web 2.0 into the office environment. Enterprise 2.0 in essence is the use of social software platform within companies, or between companies, their partners or customers. Enterprise 2.0 is the next Generation content management.

Enterprise 2.0 Technologies
The Wikis
The business wiki is the simplest forms of E2.0, and is a collaborative system of keeping up with business jargon, business plans and charting the development process. The wiki is very similar to holding an online collaborative meeting.

Micro-Blogging
While it is easy to think of sites like Twitter as a fun way to waste a little time, they actually provide a great blueprint for greater communication and collaboration. Micro-blogging can be used to let teammates know what you are working on and to quickly communicate and organize a group. MicroBlogging helps team members to collaborate and avoid wasting time by re-inventing the wheel, e.g. a programmer can use code already written by his workmate and stored in one of the shared files.

RSS
RSS ("Really Simple Syndication") is a form of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. It could includes full or summarized text, and different forms of metadata.

Mashups
A mashup is a web page or application that combines data or functionality from two or more external sources to create a new service. Mashups are content aggregation technologies. The most common forms of mashups are consumer mashups, data mashups or enterprise mashups. Mashups are useful for integrating business and data services and provide the ability to develop new integrated services quickly. Examples of Mashups software are Microsoft popfly, Google Mashup Editor, and Yahoo Pipes.

Podcasting
“A podcast is a digital audio or video file that is episodic; downloadable; programme-driven”¹ A podcast is a series of digital media files (audio or video) that are released episodically and downloaded through web syndication.

Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking allows a person to store important documents, pages, and to use flexible organizational system to quickly allow them to put a document into multiple categories if needed. It provides an avenue for users to quickly find the information they need. Like an intelligent search engine, social bookmarking lets users search for particular tabs to find documents other people have bookmarked.

Social Networking
A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike, or relationships of common beliefs. Facebook, LinkedIn and myspace are common social networking sites.

Implications on how businesses are using the web
Enterprise 2.0 represents a fundamental change in how businesses operate, communicate or pass information. Traditionally, information was based on a pyramid structure, where information is passed from the top to the bottom and ideas and suggestions were passed from the bottom to the top. With Enterprise 2.0, there is no identifiable pattern; the structure is somewhat chaotic but controlled. Information flows laterally as well as up and down. E2.0 has broken down barriers and increased collaboration and teamwork through use of wiki and blogs, RSS feeds to keep employees informed of events. The contribution of the RSS is more customizable, which allows information to focus on individual interests and activities.

E2.0 has also Increased interaction with customers. All this allow employees to work more flexibly and more efficiently. Enterprise 2.0 has oppened new posibilities, think of the realtor website that provides geospatial information. Lastly, Enterprise 2.0 has enabled businesses to access both structured and unstructured data, making them more responsive to their lifeline, the customers.

Through this class I was exposed to Enterprise 2.0 technologies without knowing it, as a result, I am now an active blogger and a wiki editor. I have made use of RSS feeds and yahoo pipes. I have also become more informed and aware of social networks and their use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
¹Center for Journalism and Communication Research at the University of Texas at Austin

Problem with tweets

2009-12-15T13:49:00.000-08:00

I just noticed a problem on my twitter account this month, it has been posting someone else's tweets. please ignore the tweets. I have suspended the tweets from my blog.

Net Neutrality

2009-11-20T17:20:00.000-08:00

Net Neutrality

Network neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally, it advocates no restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, and on any kinds of equipment that may be attached, or the modes of communication allowed. Neutrality proponents claim that the big telecoms companies are imposing a tiered service model in order to control the pipeline and thereby remove competition, create artificial scarcity, and oblige subscribers to buy their otherwise uncompetitive services.

Most of the proponents believe net neutrality to be primarily important as a preservation of current freedoms, and That Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online.

Proponents of net neutrality include consumer advocates, online companies and some technology companies. Many major Internet application companies are advocates of neutrality, including Google, Yahoo!, Vonage, Ebay, Skype, Amazon and Software giant Microsoft. Tim Berners-Lee supports net neutrality.

The opponents of net neutrality include large hardware companies and members of the cable and telecommunications industries. They argue that telecoms providers should have the ability to provide preferential treatment in the form of a tiered services, for example by giving online companies willing to pay the ability to transfer their data packages faster than other Internet traffic.

The opponents of net neutrality have also argued that net regulation would have adverse consequences for innovation and competition. That the regulations will make it more difficult for Internet service providers and other network operators to recoup their investments in broadband networks. That they will have no incentive to make large investments that will spur Innovation. The opponent also suggest that this principle may violate the First Amendment and lead to more government control, their argument is based on the fact that the word lawful is not defined and could be miss used.

Before the class i was undecided and after listening to the two sides (both groups had strong argument) i changed to a proponent, mainly because more innovation seems to come from the proponents, google and the like, and a recent personal bad experience i had with one of the big cable companies.

I3- IPhone Development

2009-11-05T10:16:00.000-08:00

iPhone Development
The first site I went to that I found interesting and resourceful was Apples developer site http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library, they have steps on how to create an iPhone application. The initial process involves: Creating your project, Designing the user interface, Writing the code, Building and running your application on a computer and Measuring and tuning the application performance. The last can be done with the help of an iPhone simulator application, available on the Apple developer site.

Working With Viewport
Safari, by default will render your page as if it was a desktop browser on a big screen, with 980 pixels width available for the web content and fitting it on the small IPhone screen, making the text and images appear small. This problem can be corrected by using the ViewPort meta element. the following links are useful with relevant examples: http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/iphone-development-12-tips.
http://www.evotech.net/blog/2007/07/web-development-for-the-iphone/

iPhone CSS
CSS for iPhone helps in making websites that are IPhone Friendly; the Following website has steps on creating a good CSS for iPhone: http://eisabainyo.net/weblog/2009/06/12/making-a-website-iphone-friendly-using-css/.

WebKit on The iPhone
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. It comes with classes to display content on windows, and can be used as the rendering engine within Safari on iPhone OS. Some useful sites: http://lipidity.com/apple/iphone-webkit-css-3, http://webkit.org/,
http://www.launchpadhq.com/blog/2007/07/07/replicating-iphone-buttons-the-webkit-way/

The iUI
iUI is a framework consisting of a JavaScript library, CSS, and images for developing iPhone webapps. The iUI is used for producing iPhone-targeted web content that looks and feels like native iPhone apps Its goal is simply to turn ordinary standards-based HTML into a polished, usable interface that meets the high standards set by Apple's own native iPhone apps. Please click on the following sites for more information: http://www.webmonkey.com/tutorial/Build_an_iPhone-Optimized_Website_with_iUI, http://www.lassosoft.com/Documentation/TotW/index.lasso?9304.

I2 - Findability

2009-11-05T08:28:00.000-08:00

Findability and SEO 2.0

Findability refers to the quality of being locatable, or as defined by Peter Morville (2005), is the ability of users to identify an appropriate website and navigate the pages of the site to discover and retrieve relevant information resources. Findability encompasses not only SEO but a holistic approach on how to engage the audience through content delivered with standards-compliant markup websites. It encompasses the design, information engineering, organization and all the other factors that affect Findability, like branding and Web standards. Unlike Search Engine optimization, Findability isn’t limited to key words and content,. Nor is it limited to the Web. Findability is about designing systems that help people find what they need. With SEO a user will be able to find the website but not necessarily the information he was looking for, hence leading to high bounce rate. The information relevance, credibility, architecture, design and presentation is very inportant, and is the main thing that will keep users coming back. It can be very frustrating and time consuming trying to find what you need inside tons of pages with massive information.

For example, a recent study by Vividence Research found poorly organized search results and poor information architecture design to be the two most common and serious usability problems

THE WORLD WIDE WEB OF DATA

2009-10-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

Before this class i had never heard of the Semantic Web. The Semantic web is a development of the world wide web that will make information and services available to both human beings and machine. With the world wide web a computer cannot accomplish the same tasks without human direction because web pages are designed to be read by people, not machines. The semantic web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, sharing, and combining information on the web. To achieve this all kind of information should be treated as data, and will need to be stored in Databases. The biggest limitation is that the web is currently based on html, which is good for reading by humans and does not have the capability to store some types of data and be machine readable. To solve this problem The Semantic Web is trying to involve publishing of information in languages specifically designed for data like: Resource Description Framework (RDF), Web Ontology Language (OWL), and Extensible Markup Language (XML). If achieved the benefits of the Semantic web will revolutionize the information landscape. All the data currently being held by corporations, Governments and institutions will become accessible. Information will be available in raw data form in various databases around the world and the machines will be able to gather and compute the data into something usefull. For example, a company wanting to enter a new market might not need to spend money to do a new market research and have people on the ground, most of the information will be available online. Think of it as the world wide web of Data.

Video on the Web: Written by Tony B. and Ali W.

2009-10-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

Producing and distributing video on the Web
With the spread of fast Internet broadband connection, video clips have become very popular online. And it’s getting to the point where those businesses that don’t have it on their web site are lacking a critical element to attract and retain visitors. According to comScore -- Americans watched 14.5 billion videos online in March. The First thing you need to consider is the goal or purpose of creating the Video; secondly, you need have a target audience. The next stage is the production and distribution. You basically need a video camera, microphone and a computer.
The Distribution stage is the most interesting; you need to decide how you will distribute the video. There are two options; one is to host it yourself through a server, where the file will be pulled whenever a user clicks on the video. The other option is to use the services of a hosting company like Youtube, Metacafe or Dailymotion.

Advantages of Using Web portals like YouTube.
It does not require skills to use the service; anyone can upload and distribute video.
You save on bandwidth cost; the hosting company will pay for it.
The biggest advantage to distributing video to Web portals like YouTube is their popularity with video viewers. YouTube delivered nearly 5.6 billion streams to nearly 85 million unique visitors in November and Hulu, served up about 221 million streams to about 7.5 million unique visitors last month

Best Formats for Uploading
YouTube accepts almost any video format for upload like .AVI, .WMV, .MOV, .MKV, MPEG, .MP4, or DivX, but recommends the following settings to give the best results.
1. Video Format: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 preferred
2. Aspect Ratio: Native aspect ratio without letterboxing (examples: 4:3, 16:9)
3. Resolution: 640x360 (16:9) or 480x360 (4:3) recommended
4. Audio Format: MP3 or AAC preferred

Content ratings and time constraints

Web sites that display explicit content must seek the approval of their users. This has negative impacts on usability. One, users will have to enter their date of birth and usually check a checkbox-acknowledging a waiver. Two, content allegedly explicit will be under scrutiny. For example, YouTube doesn't allow users to post and keep content on their web application if users, then Youtube, find the content offensive. With Youtube, users have the ability to flag "offensive" content. Then, YouTube reviews these submissions and makes judgements on whether the claims constitute an offense and if the content reflects the users claims. Just as YouTube has the ability to remove content and block users, effectively terminating usability for removed or blacklisted users, other web applications may do the same.

Web videos have a variety of lengths. Webisodes such as "Quarterlife" are about 15 minutes each while news videoes are about 5 minutes each. How long should your content be? Here, I'll apply the principle that "less is more." If you have a video that is an hour long, edit it into four 15 minutes webisodes. Piecemealing your videos indexes your content for users who may want to get away from the computer and eat dinner or go bike riding. Hulu.com takes a different approach focusing on episodes and movie clips streamed through the web with the highest video quality. However, videos from Hulu.com have commercials and Hulu.com will soon require a subscription fee. Youtube, Google video, CNN.com and other video aggragates don't require a subscription fee but their is either of poor quality or not labeled as entertainment.

Search Engine Optimization for video on the Web

The same SEO principles for web pages apply here: meta tags, linking, and optimized HTML. RDF, as discussed by So, the SEO ranking of a video is on a web page is approximately the the web page ranking. Why isn't the search ranking of the video equal to the search ranking of the web page? Well, Video File Nomenclature adds search engine visibility to rich media. The name of the rich media file makes a difference. Proper nouns like "Britney Spears" and "Anthony Brothers" will optimize search engine rankings. Make the file name as long as possible and include any information that one may Search for - "BritneySpearsToxicAlbumCoverBaldCrazyMickeyMouseClubOopsWomanizer.gif".

F3 - Software as a Service

2009-10-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

Software as a Service (SaaS)
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over a network, most of the time through the Internet and disabling it after use or after the contract expires. The service is offered mostly through a subscription model. Software as a service is more common than realized. For years I have been using the free online McAfee Antivirus software provided my Internet service provider Comcast, in this case they provide the software to all Comcast customers at no extra cost, the license expires every year and you have to renew.
Example of some Key Players

Google Docs
Google Docs offers free, Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and forms application being offered by Google. It allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users. Google has been aggressively marketing Google Apps to schools, they recently launched a centralized site designed to recruit universities and colleges. Google is recruit educational institutions because that’s where many people get trained, start relying on, and form brand allegiances.

Google Docs has added an equation editor. They has also added the ability to insert superscripts and subscripts, which can be useful for writing out chemical compounds or algebraic expressions. Other interesting features include letting users to select from various bulleting styles, creating outlines and giving students ability to print footnotes and endnotes for term papers.

Microsoft Office 2010
Microsoft Office 2010 is the successor of Microsoft Office 2007. Microsoft plans to offer a free web-based version of its Office productivity suite, known as Office Web Apps that will debut with the release of Office 2010. Office Web Apps will include online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The web apps will allow sharing and collaboration of documents and files and also feature user interfaces similar to their desktop counterparts.

In my opinion I would prefer Microsoft Office 2010 mainly because I have been using Microsoft applications all along and I’m familiar with Microsoft office suite. Though being a student I’m tempted by Google Docs, not to mention the application is available free.

Benefits of the SaaS model include:
Easier administration
Automatic updates
Faster releases of new features
Compatibility: All users will have the same version of software.
Easier collaboration between users
Global accessibility
Cost less, you stop paying when you stop using
Saves on hardware and network cost.

References
en.wikipedia.org, docs.google.com, www.microsoft.com/office/2010, techtarget.com, techcrunch.com,

F2 - Rich Media

2009-10-04T22:29:00.000-07:00

Trend in the Broadcast and Television Industry
All indications show the market trend is shifting toward Online Video and that television, challenged now by cable, satellite and mobile devices, is taking the Internet more seriously. Trendstream, a specialist in social media research consultancy, launched a preview of "The Global Web Index," a twice-yearly survey into Web usage intended to quantify global Web trends and the impact of social media. Focusing on online video, the research indicates that video is transforming the Web and the way in which consumers interact with video content. Online Video is having such a major impact that it will ultimately affect the way the entire broadcasting industry evolves. According to the comScore Video Metrix report for July, nearly 75 percent of Internet users in the United States watched more than three hours of online video in that month. In total, nearly 134 million Americans viewed a staggering 9 billion streams of video online in July. On average, online viewers consumed 68 video streams, or more than two per day

"The online survey, conducted among 1,000 active Web users aged 16-65 in the United States earlier this year, indicates that online video now rivals traditional broadcasting. Having gone from zero to mass market globally in just three years, online video is the fastest growing media platform in history. In one week in January 2009, 97 million Americans viewed a clip online, as many as are tuning into any major network. With 72 percent of U.S. Web users watching clips on the Internet, online video outstrips both blogging and social networking and is now the leading social media platform"(cable360.net, May 28, 2009)

Some of the most recent examples of Webcasting
Italian Internet television network produces monthly travel guide videos to visitors available at http://www.webvisionitaly.com/ . Audience is growing 50%+ per month for over one year during which time over 2,000,000 Italy travel guide videos were on demand via streaming and download Internet video about Italy.

During primary season in New Hampshire, video blogger Steve Garfield heard of the whereabouts of Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter and scooped CNN to an important announcement by broadcasting a live interview with his cell phone. Likewise, at one of the presidential campaign rally for Barack Obama in Boston, he used his cell phone to give viewers a crowd-eye view of the gathering.

According to market research firm In-Stat.

1. Over 40% of young adult US households view Internet video on the TV at least once per month.
2. Revenue from Web-to-TV streaming services will grow to $2.9 billion in 2013.
3. Within five years, the number of US broadband households viewing Web-to-TV content will grow to 24 million.
4. Already, 29% of US 25 to 34 year olds with game consoles use the devices to watch streaming video off the Internet.
5. In five years, there will be 7.4 million US broadband households that use media center PCs for streaming Web-to-TV content.
6. TV networks and pay TV operators currently view online TV as additive to pay TV services, but Web-to-TV will ultimately force a complete restructuring of today’s video services.
7. Video content will be optimized for broadcast or Web-to-TV based on content type

Benefits of Video Webcasting
1. Reporters can gather video reports whenever and wherever they are, unhindered by the constraints of bulky or expensive equipment.
2. Viewers can watch real-time news unfold while journalists gather material for a Web or print story.
3. Smaller media companies can compete with their larger print and broadcast rivals at minimal expense. Cost of entering the market or webcasting is very low making it accessible to almost anyone with two simple components: a cell phone capable of steaming video and a hosting service that will handle the stream.
4. Online Video is a two way traffic or video on demand. Traditional Television is a one way traffic channel.
5. Advertisement on online Video can be more effective by being tailored toward specific customers, depending on the content type preferred by the customer, this can be determined from login history.

Online Video will continue to change the entire Television Industry and disrupt old media models, while at the same time presenting broadcasters with exciting new profit-making opportunities, Some of the possibilities include:
1. Interactive broadcasts in which viewers can buy products seen onscreen with the click of a button
2. Ads that can be refreshed months or even years after a consumer downloaded the video
3. Personalized video on demand

A list of companies and services that provide live, streaming, web video:
StickAm, Ustream, kyte: TV, Mogulus, Veodia ,Operator 11, YouCams, MyStreams ,HomeCamera, Infinite Conferencing, BlogTV, ComVu, Justin TV, Yahoo Live

I watched the following Videos
· http://www.hulu.com/watch/94071/life this movie was nice, it cracked me up.
· Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog

Other Interesting Video Websites I Visited
· http://www.urlesque.com/ for most funny, outrageous and popular videos
· http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/ Free Streaming of Live Music

References
en.wikipedia.org, www.podcastingnews.com, www.cable360.com, www.researchandmarkets.com.

2009-10-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

F1:This week in class we covered Rich Media or Rich Internet applications (RIAs), these are web applications that have most of the characteristics of desktop applications. The line between browser and non browser application is beginning to blur and the market trend is beginning to shift toward Rich Media applications. In class we formed groups and brainstormed on the following Rich Media applications; Adope Air, JavaFX, Open Laszlo, Google Gears, AJAX, Curl and Cappuccino. Our group tackled Google Gears. Google Gears or Gears is an open source software that enables offline access to services that are normally only available online. It is a browser plug-in which enables people to use web apps while offline. The technology behind the plug-in gives developers the ability to implement offline functionality into their browser-based web apps. For example, Gmail users can now access their mail while offline, this is how it works, when Gmail detects when you are offline. It caches your e-mail so that you can read it, respond to it, search it, star it, or label it. When you are connected to the Internet again, it sends all the messages. You can even open attachments. It also offers seamless collaboration to people or teams working on the same document, Data tables can be loaded locally when offline and the main document is updated then connection is restored. Google Gears provides an extension of power browsing and is good when used in places with poor internet connection.

My First Tweet

2009-09-24T11:22:00.001-07:00

Twitter is a new kind of technology that uses multiple methods of communication to help keep you in touch with people you care about. Generally Twitter is used to ask the question “What are you doing?” or as a way to broadcast your thoughts to an audience in 140 characters or less.

This week I set up Twitter account @ali_warsame) and linked it to my blogs, I also posted my First tweet. I learnt a few things/tools from the twitter help website.

Editing a tweet
You can't edit tweet. Though you can delete an update by clicking the trash icon on the right end of the update, but you can't make changes

Direct Messages
Direct messages are private messages sent from one Twitter person to another. These messages are not visible to others and can only be sent to a person who follows you.

RT or RE-Tweet
Re-tweeting is a popular way for sharing a useful or interesting tweet. This is helpful when you find something useful that you would like it to share with your contacts. You do that by copying someone’s tweet and append RT along with their name and post it back into your stream. Some of the benefits are

1. Increases visibility of you to other people.
2. Credit passed along by tagging the original poster name.
4. Slowly build contacts related to your interests and topics

Using Twitter with your phone
Not only can you receive text messages when people you've specified update, you can also send updates to Twitter while you're on the go. Twitter uses your number to send web updates to your phone in text message format. Your number is private; Twitter never reveals phone number information. After you add your telephone number to the twitter mobile website, m.twitter.com, you will be issued with a twitter number to send tweets to, in the US the number is 40404.

Search
With twitter you are able to search for friends or people using their names or email addresses as long as they are one twitter.

Terms of Service
Twitter comes with rules or terms of service, Twitter users have to abide by the Terms of Service, to govern access to and use of the services and on the Twitter websites. The use of the Services is conditioned on acceptance of and compliance by these Terms. Some of the terms are Privacy, Content on the Services, Rights, Copyright Policy and Restrictions on Content and Use of the Services. Accounts are suspended for Terms of Service violations or spam investigation.

Twitter API (Application Programming Interface)

2009-09-24T11:21:00.001-07:00

Twitter provides an API for just about every feature you can see on the twitter website. Programmers use the Twitter API to make applications, websites, widgets, and other projects that interact with Twitter. Programs talk to the Twitter API over HTTP, the same protocol that browsers use to visit and interact with web pages. Some of the most common twitter APIs are Widgets by twitter, Twhirl by Seesmic, Twitterrific by IconFactory, Twitter Gadget by Google and Opera Widget by Opera.

Twitter For Business

2009-09-24T11:05:00.000-07:00

Twitter For Business
Twitter is an effective way for businesses to reach out to customers and for the customers to reach out to businesses. Companies use it as a marketing media to launch new products and upgrades, or as a public relation channel to get feedback or customer opinion, imagine how much a business would pay a research firm to conduct a survey, with twitter they have direct access to customers and can be used to pass information to customers in case of a recall. Potential customers can also use it to get reviews from other users before making a purchase. Here are some companies that successfully use twitter for Business. To view the twitter page just click on the company name.

New Offers/products

Starbucks posts new offers and also participates in threaded discussions of these offers with their Twitter-follower.

Customer Support

JetBlue Offers Twitter-based customer service (notice, they even provide the customer support employee’s name currently on duty).

ComCast offers a friendly Twitter customer support.

Getting Closer to Customers
HRBlock runs ask-and-answer sessions with their customers.

Popeyes answers their clients’ feedback.

Posting News
BreakingPoint posts updates of the company and industry news and also discusses it with their Twitter-listeners.

Samsung has created a Twitter account dedicated to mobile phones and posts both the company (US department) and product news.

References

http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/, http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/03/4-ways-companies-use-twitter-for-business.php,

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/16-examples-of-huge-brands-using-twitter-for-business/7792/

My Wiki Update

2009-09-17T07:03:00.000-07:00

Before

After

The Wikipedia assignment was the easiest so far, the hardest part was choosing a subject, I noticed some pages cannot be edited, especially the historical sites, however, i was able to Update the page about mobile banking, from my travel experience i have seen the benefits and challenges of mobile banking in remote areas. i created an account and was able to add few sentences. go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_banking#Mobile_Banking_in_the_world

Opera Browser

2009-09-17T06:48:00.000-07:00

Opera is a web browser and internet suite developed by the Opera Software Company. Opera began in 1994 as a research project by a Norwegian telecommunications company, Telenor. In 1995, it branched out into a separate company named Opera Software ASA and first released publicly with version 2.0 in 1996. The browser handles common Internet related tasks such as displaying websites, sending and receiving email messages. Opera is offered free of charge for personal computers and mobile phones.

Internet Explorer (65.29%) Mozilla Firefox(25.69%) Safari (3.74%)
Google Chrome (2.84%) Opera(1.62%) Other (0.82%)

Opera 10 was well received; achieving nearly 2 million downloads on the first day, compared to Opera 9, which achieved around 600 thousand downloads on the first day. On day of release, Opera 10 received such attention that Opera Software's servers struggled with the high demand, and as a result were unavailable for parts of the day. After one week since Opera 10's launch there have been 10 million downloads.

Opera has captured only a small fraction of the worldwide personal computer browser market. With Opera Mini It does have a stronger market share on mobile devices such as mobile phones, smartphones, and personal digital assistants. Editions of Opera are available for devices using the Symbian and Windows Mobile operating systems, as well as Java ME-enabled devices. Approximately 40 million mobile phones have shipped with Opera pre-installed.
Opera has innovated or pioneered many key features of modern browsers; interesting features such as tabbed browsing, page zooming, mouse gestures, and an integrated download manager.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_(web_browser)
http://operawiki.info/Opera
http://operawatch.com/news/2007/07/blog-tag-5-things-id-like-to-see-in-opera.html

2009-09-17T06:24:00.000-07:00

I found the Video from Apple new MAC BOOK WHEEL very interesting, i would be interested in the product since i am not good in typing. We also had our First Guest speaker for the Class; C Hudson of Aduci. He gave us an insight into the business of creating IPhone Application.

2009-09-09T08:52:00.000-07:00

A graphical representation of Porter's Five Forces

In this week’s class we covered the 5 force strategy, this model covers all aspects and issues that need to be addressed before launching a startup business, and the model summarizes factors that determine if the business will succeed.
The five forces are; Competitor rivalry, threat of substitutes, barriers of entry, supplier power and buyers market.

This model has its critics, Stewart Neill, Kevin P. Coyne and Somu Subramaniam have stated that three dubious assumptions underlie the five forces:
That buyers, competitors, and suppliers are unrelated and do not interact and collude
That the source of value is structural advantage (creating barriers to entry)
That uncertainty is low, allowing participants in a market to plan for and respond to competitive behavior. Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/

We also discussed the Blue Ocean model from Blue Ocean business strategy book written by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne , in this model the business strategy is to focus on developing new ideas and products which will differentiate it from competitors.

2009-09-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

This week assignments and class has been a challenge to say the least. I’m still working on the html class. I finally got an Iphone and I find it very exciting, I have not yet done any download of cool application, I’m still exploring the features on the phone. I find the GPS system useful, I don’t have to print directions anymore, I also like the clock, it has a function that lets you save and view international time. This comes in handy since I frequently make calls overseas and now I don’t have to think about what time I should call. This week’s I was downloaded and enabled firebug and web developer toolbar on my computer.

2009-09-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

Last Week’s Class was about Internet Infrastructure – Hardware, Standards, Protocols and concepts, how stuff works and what happens behind the scenes in the Internet, the video presentation in class was very helpful. From the video I was able to understand the use of port numbers, before then is only a number. We also discussed.
The internet scavenger hunt opened so much information, especially the Wikipedia site; there is so much to learn for all regardless of level of expertise. The w3c (World Wide Web consortium) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web(WWW); It was founded by Tim Berners-Lee.
In last week’s class we were able to look at some examples of HTML codes, Dr. Piercy introduced tools we can use to debug codes, we tried one on neotys.com, and the site was able to pinpoint errors. We also discussed best practices, layouts and use of css, use of mark up validation using w3c was also mentioned.
Last week’s class also had Dr Piercy introduce the 1st iphone application, the ocarina, which is also supported by on the web by http://www.ocarina.smule.com/.

2009-08-28T16:15:00.000-07:00

This is my First Blog and I find it Exciting. Coming from a non technical background the two classes have been very informative and intellectually challenging. The Internet Infrastructure and Protocols class was able to answer some curiosity questions I have always had, I have always asked myself how things work. I was a little familiar with the html class. Nevertheless it was interesting and I’m looking forward to next week.