Laszlo has been working on this thing for a while now, and I’ve seen demos of it a number of times. But for it to be actually in production is a big deal. Earthlink and Laszlo should both be proud. Initial reviews seem positive.
The interesting thing, notwithstanding this excellent work by Lazslo, is that Flash RIA development has lagged JavaScript RIA development in this important segment. both oddpost and gmail beat flash technology to the punch, with remarkable JavaScript RIA email clients.
What are the other “obvious” niches that RIA technology will prove itself in? I’ve heard rumors that the oddpost boys are working on a spreadsheet app (their initial idea before they did the email client). None of the javascript text editors are any good at all, so that’s an obvious candidate for some enterprising RIA developer to tackle. Photo-editing is also a pretty obvious one (given that people already are storing their images on sites like Flickr). The interesting thing is that all of these things are re-implementations of software that was first implemented on the client. Look in your “Programs” directory on your PC and you’ll probably get a good idea for an RIA.
Author: jonathanboutelle
Flash RIAs vs. Javascript RIAs
Javascript RIAs (aka AJAX) don’t come close to the interactivity that developers can implement using technologies like Flash or Java. For example, there is no easy way of integrating with audio and video content, there is no ready-made toolkit of application widgets (tree-views, data-grids, etc). There are undeniable advanatages to the JavaScript RIA approach, however. So how do you decide whether a Javascript RIA (or “AJAX”, if you must) or a Flash RIA is right for the project you’re working on?
Jef Raskin RIP
Jef Raskin, co-creator of the Macintosh computer, has died.
In his writings and in person, Jef always impressed me by the depth and clarity of his thinking, and the passion that he brought to the business of making information systems less painful to use.
JavaScript RIA ecommerce shopping cart
Check out this JavaScript RIA! (Via metafilter)
This is exactly the kind of thing the Macromedia is always showing off in their demos. Drag. Drop. Animations happen which guide the user. It’s the kind of stuff that Lazslo talks about with their concept of a “cinematic user experience”.
JavaScript RIAs are coming of age, and as I wrote yesterday, animations and self-modifying html that doesn’t need to go back to the server are playing as important a roll as the XMLHttpRequest API. A nice library for doing drag-and-drop in JavaScript has recently become available that makes this kind of code much easier to write.
Javascript RIAs come of age
A recent article by Jesse James Garrett crystallizes what many in the Rich Internet Application developer community have been saying ever since the gmail beta: Javascript RIAs (which Garrett awkwardly attempts to brand as “AJAX”, for “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML”) seem to be finally coming of age. These techniques have been possible since at least 2002, but have been recently popularized by the never-ending stream of cool javascript RIAs from google (gmail, google suggest, google maps…).
Building fudgable IT systems
Companies building IT systems to replace a previously offline (paper-phone-fax) based business process often spend millions of dollars on the project. These systems surprisingly similar to one another (given that they represent different business processes in different industries) Actors have particular Roles. The Actors operate on Documents, which are exchanged between actors in a pre-choreographed order that is the Business Process. The system is typically designed to replace a mature paper-fax-phone based process already in existence, be it processing a purchase order or approving an application for insurance.
Companies are often surprised when they face resistance or low adoption to the new systems (something I wrote about a little while ago in hooking small businesses up). A number of the projects that my company Uzanto has tackled in the past year have involved – in some way or the other – fixing broken systems of this type, particularly at the intersection between a large enterprise and it’s much smaller partners (think insurance brokers, or real estate agents, or retail stores). One specific reason for failure that we have encountered again and again is due to the fudgability of paper / voice, and the inflexibility of any software process that tries to replace it.
skype honeymoon over?
Om Malik has a nice piece on the growning backlash against Skypes apparently lousy billing / customer service. Skype (the organization) is obviously experiencing some growing pains.
I use Skype 2-3 hours a day to talk to people halfway around the world, and I’ve never paid them a dime, so I can’t complain myself. However, I have noticed a distinct drop in audio quality since the latest release of the Skype client. In particular, the volume of the call will sometimes sporadically drop almost to 0. Is Skype (the technology) also experiencing growing pains?
Quicken plays dirty pool
Quicken announced a few days ago that they would turn off the web service connections that millions of Quicken 2002 users use to to automatically download banking records. Not sunsetting phone support or discontinuing new bug fixes: they literally are going to turn the service off, as of April 15th. Your only option as a customer is to buy Quicken 2005.
A craigslist story
In the summer of 2003, I stupidly destroyed a laptop (by accidently spilling water on it). A water bottle emptied directly into the keyboard of the laptop (a dell Inspiron 600 M), utterly wrecking it.
Fortunately the laptop was under warrantee. Unfortunately, it had a months worth of work on it, some really first-rate code that I had written and neglected to back up.
I really really wanted that data back. And so I turned to craigslist.
Hooking small businesses up
My company has been doing b2b stuff in a variety of industries (health care, real estate, insurance) for the last several months. Not the old “lets build an emarketplace and hope for the best” kind of b2b stuff that was popular during the bubble, but the real, hard work of helping companies build electronic bridges with their close business partners.
As an engineer with a web services background, I’m surprised at how much of this work is UI related. Wasn’t XML and SOAP supposed to be a magic elixir that let companies integrate seamlessly with their partners?
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