Learn About Ext From The Master - Hands On Ext, Oct 16 @ 12PST

The next Visual Ajax User Group Meeting is entitled "Hands-On Ext" featuring Aaron Conran, Senior Software Architect and Ext Services Team Leader. Hands-On Ext is a fast-paced session in which we will explore how to build an Ext application in less than an hour. This session demonstrates how to get started using Ext JS and how quickly you can put together a simple application from scratch. Learn how to utilize Ext's high-level UI widgets like GridPanel, TabPanel and FormPanel instead of re-inventing the wheel. REGISTER HERE

Kevin Hakman Presenting today, 9/18 at 12PST

Kevin Hakman, Director of Product Marketing, Aptana, will be presenting at the monthly Visual Ajax user group meeting on The End-to-End Open Web: Combining Cloud Computing and Open Source App Engines. Aptana has been a leader in making serious JavaScript development possible both on the client and on the server with their Jaxer product. This should be a great session!

If you want to join via webinar or in person, please send an email to: info@visualajax.org

As always, a write-up of the presentation will be available on visualajax.org afterwards.

Ajax Experience Conference in Boston 9/29 - 10/1

The Ajax Experience (TAE) will be in Boston, Massachusetts from September 29 - October 1. The conference agenda includes 40+ breakout sessions, keynotes, tutorials, tech demos, lightening rounds and excellent networking opportunities. TAE was created by Ajaxian.com in 2006 as the ultimate learning destination for Ajax/RIA developers.

• Evaluate open source and vendor solutions in an unbiased community environment
• Dive deep into frameworks and testing tools that make development easier
• Get developers and designers working together and producing useable ideas
• Balance Web 2.0 design and features with the need for speed and scalability
• See how to make JSON, Mashups and SOA work for you
• Make the case for Ajax and RIAs in your enterprise

View the conference agenda at-a-glance here. As a member of VisualAjax.org, use the code 'VisualAjax' to save an extra $100 off the registration fee. Reserve your spot by clicking here.

WaveMaker in Top 10 Apple Downloads

WaveMaker was selected as a Staff Pick for the Apple download site, and broke into the top 10 Apple downloads today, edging out Google Earth for the tenth slot!

WaveMaker 4 features a Mac installer and the WaveMaker Ajax Studio runs best in the Safari browser (of course, to be fair, almost everything that runs in a browser runs best in Safari). 

WaveMaker's visual studio lowers the learning curve for building Ajax apps and greatly increases productivity over traditional hand-coded Javascript web clients.

WaveMaker uses a Model-View-Controller approach to building Ajax web applications, making it an ideal tool for developers who are familiar with Apple's xCode development tools (or any other visual development tool for that matter).

WaveMaker was also written up on the MacNN web site as a one stop shop for developing web applications. MacNN also particularly taken by how WaveMaker democratizes the development of web applications:

The folks at WaveMaker think big, calling their Visual Ajax Studio 4.0 web app development tool "a fundamental breakthrough" -- and they may just be right. In a demonstration for MacNN it took about three minutes to build a simple database web app -- something that traditionally takes a team of developers to manage the complex weaving of web and server functions. This could be especially good news for the growing number of Mac Developers, since WaveMaker is browser-based.

RIA is MIA

I recently read a good article on how Apple is fighting the drumbeat of proprietary browser plugins like Flash and Silverlight. Daniel Eran Dilger wrote a good article on how Apple's Sproutcore toolkit for JavaScript provides an alternative to flash for building rich internet applications. You can find out more about Sproutcore here. Daniel says:

Over the last year, I’ve outlined Apple’s efforts to starve Adobe’s Flash and AIR (and by extension, Microsoft’s me-too Flash plugin called Silverlight), at a time when pundits have insisted that Flash was a vital missing element on the iPhone and that Apple could/should/would be scrambling to port Flash to it. It might be a surprise to find that Apple’s air supply attack on Flash and its interest in dusting Windows with Cocoa are actually related.

What Google Can Teach Ajax Developers

With Google Gadgets, Google has arguably pushed Ajax scalability and testing harder than any other single vendor. But that was only the beginning. Adam Sah, architect of Google Gadgets, has been experimenting with using Gadgets to display ads. In June, 2008, he gave a talk on this work for the Visual Ajax User Group.

Google Gadgets are XML files that run inside an iframe on your web page, complete with embedded Javascript. The XML file itself is divided into 3 parts: module preferences, user preferences and content (html with inline css and javascript). SEOish has a good Google Gadgets tutorial for Ajax Developers.

The next logical step for Google is inserting gadgets into Google's ad infrastructure - introducing rich content ads, such as ads that show pictures of things for sale. Rich media also allows advertisers to combine branding with lead generation, giving them the best of banner ads and click-through ads.

Google gadgets themselves represent an interesting proving ground for Ajax technology. Incorporating Google Gadgets into adsense takes Ajax to a whole new level. Adam described "unpausing" an Ajax ad without the proper infrastructure in place as "a very fast way to do a denial of service attack on yourself."

Here are some of the lessons learned from working in the high volume world of Google Gadget ads:

1. Relevancy trumps latency. Rich ad widgets can make multiple Ajax calls and take ten times longer to load (sometimes several seconds), but get a much higher click through rate. In a nutshell, this is why Web 2.0/Rich Internet Apps/Ajax are taking over from the old internet - people are willing to wait for content that is more relevant and interactive.
2. Context is difficult. Because syndicated ads live in their own isolated iframes, it is hard to create context-aware ads. Of course, having a good WYSIWYG Ajax tool to build iframe applications could help!
3. Scalability is a challenge. Every ad impression hits a database, so going live with an Ajax ad on a high volume site creates a huge amount of database traffic. This is even worse for ads which have a number of images. On the other hand, the size limit for a Google Gadget is 50K, which at least sets an upper limit on the damage you can do.
4. Testing is difficult. When ads are created on the fly, it is literally impossible to test all combinations of content, browsers and interaction.

With Google Gadgets, a developer can create a Google ad that includes images and interactivity. The ad publisher gets to define what a "click" means within their gadget. Their incentive to cheat is low because if they don't have a way to measure clicks, they will never win a bid!

Adam also gave a good perspective on how Google fights the proprietary web (what Alex Russell calls the unweb) - with Gadgets and standards! People choose proprietary solutions when good open alternatives are not available. Google is trying to make it so easy and cheap to work with open standards that proprietary standards lose their appeal.

Visualizing Web Services: WaveMaker and Xignite

Seth Godin, the marketing guru, defines a mashup as a distinct way of spreading ideas. In particular, Web 2.0 mashups allow developers to combine interesting data and then visualize that data through a web application. In practice, a mashup requires a data source and a web visualization platform.

WaveMaker and Xignite announced their own bit of mashup magic today.

Xignite provides financial data as a web service. Real-time financial data that would otherwise cost a minimum of $50K to access through Reuters or Bloomberg is available at a fraction of that cost through Xignite. These services can include foreign exchange pricing, commodities pricing and real time stock quotes.

The problem is that it takes a web application platform to call the Xignite web service, marshall the resulting data and display it in a web page. That's where WaveMaker comes in. With Wavemaker, a web developer can create a ticker widget that calls Xignite services in less than 5 minutes.

Click here to see the Exignite/WaveMaker ticker example. Click here for more Web 2.0 definitions.