Apple's Outstanding Growth

Apple is continuing to take over the iGadget world, this time by posting an 87% profit increase this quarter. They accomplished this feat by selling 11 million iPods, and doubling their sales of the iPhone smartphone, climbing to an Apple record of 8.8 million smart phones for this quarter.

These sales figures helped Apple post a 3.1 billion dollar profit on revenue of over 13.5 billion dollars. These figures are astronomical and are far higher than any other technology device manufacturer of these times. The article where I received these figures at can be found here. Surprisingly, analysts still see more record breaking quarters to come in the future. These estimations come with an increase in Mac demand, with a demand increase by over 33 percent from the previous quarter.

With all of these figures release for the quarter, one figure that was held back was that of initial iPad sales. I and many other are curious of this figure as they have presumably invested a large deal of money into the future of this technology. An unofficial figure was release by Steve Jobs at an Apple preview event, where he stated that over 450,000 units have already been sold. This number has yet to be backed up officially however.

100 Texts Per Day

A new survey states that one in three teens text over one hundred times per day. Personally I find this rather funny/sad. Do people actually talk face to face anymore? Do people even talk over the phone that they are texting on? I remember when the text-revolution started and everyone first got their unlimited texting plans. It was all the rad to text during class and pass secret e-notes back and forth without the possibility of getting them intercepted by the teacher.

But really, 100 texts per day? Even when I had annoying girl friends who would get worried when I didn't respond within the first five minutes of a text I don't remember sending that many texts. That could be why she complained but that's besides the point. I still didn't receive that many texts.

The CNN writeup on this epidemic can be found here. Apparently as I read deeper into the article teens also make 5 phone calls a day. I would say this is average. But still, 100 texts per day is outrageous and I only imagine doing so with three to four girlfriends, or possibly if I became a bookie. Either way it's rather a stretch.

What I have learned from this class!

Since January, I've been concerned about this class. I'm not really a programmer but I had to do some coding. It was very hard but I got through it. With the help of my classmates and Professor Drake this class has been a roller coaster I never really understood what API's were or how this class was supposed to connect everything that we have learned from the beginning of our curriculum but "HEY" it's ok. I kinda learned a little something about myself in this class and that is good enough for me.

Though I understand what exactly AJAX is and how it is used I found an article that I figured might be good to end off the semester with. Well it's not really an article, it's more like a person asking a question. People responded with answers like: it makes your page look pretty, it runs like a local application and it's good for an ample bandwidth.

I myself think AJAX is a good skill to have under your belt, it's everywhere we look. Sites actually refresh without refreshing. It's very interesting and I'm proud of the fact that I got two of my iterations to use this powerful tool.

Facebook competes with Google

Based on the article found on the CNN technology page it's easy to see that as the web further progresses, old and dominate web sites like Google can and will eventually receive great competition. Sometimes this competition, however, comes from an unlikely source. As social media like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter continues to take over the world wide web, newer ways to look at finding relevant web pages begins to take affect.

While there is a massive amount of data compiled by these social media sites, they are often not indexed and difficult to search for. Facebook is trying to create an efficient way to compile all of this data as well as tie it into everyday search querying like a typical search engine of today. This would ideally provide search relevant material that could also compare the query with your friends and what they are searching or friending at that moment.

Google is still being Google and looking for new ways to progress and stay ahead of the market. Currently they are talking of a deal with Twitter where Google would display Twitter results on their search engine like it already has Google Adwords. This article states that the place a user still spends most of his or her time is in their inbox, and Google already has this advantage over Facebook with its Gmail email system. However popular Facebook might seem, I still doubt they will be able to trump Google anytime soon.

Google Website Optimizer

Going along with creating successful landing pages that will increase your conversion rate is a tool by Google that will help collect data to measure this. The Google Website Optimizer is what they call an A/B/n tool. This stands for the comparison of web page version A to web page version B, and n stands for C, D, E, etc.. This tool is used to compare one web page to another and have real life users make decisions on the actual web page. They get a chance to make a conversion decision on different web page hypothesis and have their data represented accurately.

How it works is you provide two or more different web designs to Google and the tool unknowingly displays these different versions to the visitors, and like Google Analytics it tracks what they are doing on your page, and measures the conversion rate of all of the different pages. This way you will then have tangible data to compare and help make a better decision as to which version to use.

Using the WiderFunnel LIFT model as I previously described can help create better web page version hypothesis that will ideally provide you with better conversion rates. This way you can use the Goggle Website Optimizer between the best overall pages to come up with the best web page with the most optimal conversion rate.

The WidedFunnel LIFT

Using a search engine like Google to yield results on how to increase your conversion rate leads you to two separate types of web page design education; one which talks about specific tips to help your web site’s conversion rate, and another is a different set of pages all together which talk about detailed models to implement in order to do the same. The primary distinction is that the models help to develop valid test hypothesis (new web site designs of current pages) by using a structured methodology.

The methodology I'll talk about specifically is called the WiderFunnel LIFT Model, which stands for the Landing Page Influence Function for Tests. WiderFunnel is a marketing optimization design team that uses this self-created LIFT model as well as the “proprietary closed-loop, scaleable, continuous-improvement process to execute Conversion Optimization” called the Kaizen Method as a strategy for their clients.

The WiderFunnel LIFT model was published in a blog article on the WiderFunnel web site on March 16th, 2009. At the beginning of the article WiderFunnel claims to have lifted each of their clients’ conversion rates by at least 10%, all the way up to 277%. This is a lofty claim, but if proved to be true shows the real possibility and power of using a specific model like the LIFT model to help aid in your web design process. WiderFunnel states that a true methodology is better than plain tips as most web sites provide for help with web design and conversion rates. The WiderFunnel LIFT model is made up of six conversion factors: Urgency, Clarity, Relevance, Distraction, Anxiety, and Value Proposition. The WiderFunnel website is found here.

Today's Web 2.0

In today’s Web 2.0 world things are a lot different than they were when the first website was considered to be published almost twenty years ago. In 1991 Tim Berners-Lee was the first to combine Internet communication of that time (both email and Usenet) with the early days of hypertext (which soon became HTML) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_design). As web design and the Web itself further progressed I remember the first web page I created in elementary school, and how I was jealous of pages online who were using table layouts for frames. By the time I picked up web design in high school (at the Livonia Career center) and actually learned how to use tables correctly, it was no longer the norm. The World Wide Web had moved on the bigger and better things such as Macromedia Flash, Cascading Style Sheets, and JavaScript.

With the advancement in web browsers over the last few years; including the redistribution of the web browser market share, and the increasing browser support of W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (which includes recommendations on everything from HTML, CSS, DOM, to XML), the World Wide Web has changed. Now in the Web 2.0 world web design has began to become a science based on statistics and real life testing, and has started to stray from fancy web design and all-flash websites. Web designers are now focused in making web sites with a clear purpose, and using this clarity to increase website conversion rates: the process of getting users to do what you want them to on your website.

This can be different for each site. Some sites may want users to simply join their product mailing list; others may want you to register for a specific web-based product or actually order their real life product and have it shipped to your house. Whatever the purpose may be, there is now specific data that has been collected which leads to a certain set of criteria each web designer should now try and implement into their web sites to increase their conversion rate.

The iPad helps you cook!

With all the hype about the new iPad, I figured I'd try to understand what makes it so great. According to this article it seems that people are using their ipad to help them create tasty creations. I bet this is so convenient for us that like to try new recipes. I can recall trying new recipes and constantly having to run to my computer or laptop.

The iPad can just sit on your counter and it'll serve just like a piece of paper. As long as the cook is careful around it I imagine this would be a great idea. My favorite site to get recipes from is Campbell's and foodnetwork.com. The author of the article is fond of a website named epicurious and bigoven. I've never been to these sites but I guess they're great too.

I guess that one day I will jump on the "Apple" band wagon but as for right now I'll just stick to liking a few features and jamming out to my iPod. This is an unusual function though. I never thought to use the iPad in this way. With it's marketable features of it being thin and very portable though, i can understand how one would be excited to use it in the kitchen.

The LAST BLOG>>> McAfee and Stuff

While I was at work today, my computer started acting crazy. It was restarting itself after every 40 seconds. Soon after I realized that almost all the computers were behaving that way.
Twitter has been buzzing with the news this afternoon that McAfee updates were shutting down XP PCs.
This is what Mcafee saida according to this article:

The faulty update has been removed from all McAfee download servers, preventing any further impact on customers. We are not aware of significant impact on consumers and believe we have effectively limited such occurrence.

McAfee teams are working with the highest priority to support impacted customers and plan to provide an update virus definition file shortly. McAfee apologizes for any inconvenience to our customers.

Anyways, our group project came out pretty good. It matches the requirements for the Group Iteration 3 which is good. Although I am little jealous when I look at Adam Heeter's Group project which by the way looks amazing. But I really enjoyed learning about Ajax.

I am so happy that this semester is finally over. But I have four more months to graduate. So last weekend we finally completed our project. I really enjoyed blogging for this class. Although commenting could be hard sometimes. In the end, I would like to thank John Drake for all the encouragement. I would also like to thank Joe for being so supportive during the entire project.

And Good Luck to everyone else.

"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success."
– Thomas J. Watson

Last Blog

It has finally come, the last blog of the class. There are so many things that have been instructed and presented to us throughout this course that have left many different emotions about this whole class. Is working with ajax, JavaScript etc something that I want to do?No not at all, but it still has taught and shown me some interesting things that I am glad that I've gotten to know.

Next step I have no idea what it is about to be; whether it will be jump right into the job force, getting more education or certifying myself in some technology field. And one of those certifications I was looking into is from Microsoft certification called Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. This certification enables you to demonstrate the ability to design and implement an infrastructure solution with Windows server 2003 based business solutions.

This was a good experience in taking this class. And who knows what else that might be in the future right now, but I am looking forward to see what is all out there in Information Technology world.

Google New Site for Data Request

Do you wanna find out which governments are hassling Google for user information, well Google recently has established a new site;named Government requests, for this purpose. This new site displays a map of the entire world and it shows the different countries that have given Google and YouTube government requests to either provide user data and information or removal of content.

Google says thats all of the information is not perfect to give complete detail of all the requests. This is due to the fact that one government can ask for many different users or removal of one or more URL's, but this information still gives a pretty clear view of how many requests the company gets and from where the request comes from.

The country that asks for the most requests is Brazil with 3,683 data requests and 291 content removal requests. Coming up in second is the United States with 3,580 data requests and 123 removal requests. But then the requests from countries drops in data requests with the United Kingdom and India coming up with 1,166 and 1,061.

Government Request Site

Google does not ignore these requests and they stated that they have partially or fully complied with approximately 82.5% of these requests. And Google is quoted in their blog post as stating that"it hopes the new Government requests site "will shine some light on the scale and scope of government requests for censorship and data around the globe. We also hope that this is just the first step toward increased transparency about those actions across the technology and communications industries."

You Tube

One website that I think is wonderful is You Tube. You Tube offers the ability to upload videos to the Internet for anyone to see. You can share videos with friends or family at any time. Looking for an old commercial or TV show that you have not seen in years? Chances are it is on You Tube.

You Tube

You Tube first entered the scene in 2005. At that time there was no website that offered the ability for people to upload their videos directly to the Internet. Since its founding You Tube has hosted millions of videos to the site. Users can share video with their friends instantly. With your user account you can control who is able to view your videos.

You Tube offers a great service to Internet users that was previously unavailable. With the click of a mouse the user can instantly pull up videos that they are looking for. Who knows....you may even stumble across a TV show or commercial you have not seen in years.

Microsoft

Whether you love them or hate them one thing you cannot escape in the world of computers is Microsoft. They have been in the vocabulary of personal computers since 1975. Bill Gates started tinkering with the idea of a personal computer in his garage in Seattle, Washington. Since its inception Microsoft has grown to become a computer giant.

You can see more about the history of Microsoft here

Microsoft has quite a few computer projects under their belt...the big one being Microsoft Windows. Windows first entered the arena in 1985. Since then there have been many releases of Windows. Windows 95 was a huge breakthrough with the use of GUI's instead of flimsy graphics. Currently Windows 7 is the latest Windows operating system...which in my opinion offers much better performance the Windows Vista.

Microsoft has had a long history with the Windows operating system. Is there still room for improvement?? Yes. I think Microsoft has taken a big step in the right direction with Windows 7. It offers much better performance than the previous version of Windows.

Last Blog

So I wanted my last blog to be important and meaning but, it isn't. I am amazed to have finally finished this class and this semester. I graduate on sunday and am very exicted to take the next step into my masters. I am going to get a masters in MSIS and am exicted to see how difficult it is.

So this weeks blog is about how apples iPhone broke their sales records this quarter. "iPhone sales were at an all-time high," said Peter Oppenheimer. They said its due to the abilities of the iPhone is why its having so much success. Competitors are having trouble competing with its possibilities.

The iPhone is a great success for Apple Inc. It really gave them the upperhand in the world of smart phone. I found this story on computerworld.com and this is the exact link to find the information you might be interested in.

Last Post - Thanks!

I thought the the final post of the semester should represent the closure of my experience at Eastern. It has been a great ride. I look forward to seeing where everyone ends up in the business world - I am sure that we have been given the skills necessary for success. Eastern has allowed us all to grow in ways that we may not even be made aware of right now.

I just wanted to send out a thank you to all of my Professors throughout these last four years... mostly for putting up for my terrible jokes and puns. I wish you all the best. I hope that Eastern continues to value your expertise as much as I know the students do. I would also like to thank my group this semester - you all did a great job and I am proud of our end result.

As we all search for jobs, try to open our businesses, or just go home to be with family, I am sure that the experiences for the last four years will never be forgotten. College is supposed to be the best time of your life - I think that it is just the beginning.

IT Jobs

There are many opportunities available for those of us who have fallen into the IT field. Many of them seem to be rather high paying, but there is one major drawback in today's economy - experience. There are people that are actively seeking for jobs that have fifteen years experience, that do not require any training other than corporate processes, and who are more willing to relocate in order to take/maintain a job.

There is hope, though. Careerbuilder.com states, “Business expansion and the increased reliance on technology within all sectors has resulted in a competitive environment for skilled IT professionals,” says Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director of Robert Half Technology. “Many companies are raising base compensation for new hires and offering additional perks, including signing bonuses and equity incentives, to recruit and retain top candidates.” This means that, assuming you find a proper job, you will be put into a better situation than there would have been some years ago.

I can only hope that there are positions that are actively seeking recent graduates, as many of the job requirements that I have seen seem to want experience, experience, and more experience. Cross your fingers, everyone - we might need a little luck.

API Documentation

One of the main issues this semester was the lack of available for each individual API that many of us attempted to use. Google has set up discussion groups and blogs that will assist you in the development of a workable API, but even then there are many situations that are not easily worked around or understood.

An example of this struggle would be with the attempted use of the C-Net API. There were so many variations of it [Java Script, PHP, etc] that I believe the developers lost the simplicity that API's are supposed to achieve. There really should not be a reason why implementation of this sort should be difficult, but it remains so.

Even if there is documentation for an API, many of them have usage limits that are simply unreasonable. I have seen examples where there was only an allowance of three requests per hour - just testing the API would have put you over the limit. Many of the methodologies are created by people who quickly put something together, rather than those who were actually trying to make life a little easier. Worst of all, it is extremely difficult to read and understand code that was not developed yourself.

All things being equal, finding documentation turned out to be a project in and of itself. I hope everyone had a good time creating their projects.

History of Computers

As the semester wraps up I was thinking about the impact that computers have on our daily lives. Computers have changed the way that people around the world communicate. They have changed the way many people shop, and they have changed the way information is exchanged. Someone can sit at their computer and shop across the country or send an Email around the world with just the click of a mouse.

For more information on the history of computers click here.

Remember when you would have to send a letter and wait a couple of days to get there? With Email it can be sent within seconds. Remember when you had to go across town to find that special item you were looking for? Well now you can shop from the comfort of your living room. Computers have made many things much easier. I can remember in the early days of the PC when an upgrade became available you would to have to take it to the store where it was purchased and they would send it out for an upgrade. Now you can upgrade your computer instantly with downloadable patches provided by the manufacturer. You can even download movies over the internet and watch them on your computer. Wow how the times have changed.

I believe that computers are a great asset to the world as they make many things easily available that were not so easily available before. As the Internet and computers continue to advance I believe more products and services will become available. One thing is for sure...the Internet and computers have really changed how the world does things.

Final Blog!!! / New iPhone

First, I would like to take this opportunity to scream: FINALLY, THIS IS MY LAST POST...EVER!!!!! Okay but seriously I thought this day would never come. When Professor Drake gave us this task back in January, I told myself there is no way I will be able to write something consistently every week. But I am glad that I did instead of just slacking off and then having to scramble to get in 5 posts in one week. Overall, I thought the whole blog idea was really fun. I usually spend my time anyway finding cool information on the internet and this allowed me to share my findings with others. As well as seeing other interesting information found by my classmates.

My last post is about a very, very unlucky young Apple Software Engineer. Gray Powell was given a 4th generation iPhone prototype to test in the real world. Well he had it in a special case that disguised it as a iPhone 3GS. Unfortunately, he went out with some of his friends, drank many beers and ended up leaving the prototype iPhone on his bar stool.

Well the story goes, a near by fellow bar patron found the phone, not knowing that it was a prototype, and waited for Gray to come back (he never did). Next day he discovers that it is something special and tries to call Apple to let them know that he has something that they might want back, but no one took him seriously. Before you know it, he ends up selling the phone to online tech blog giant, GIZMODO, for $5,000. Gizmodo then ends up leaking many, many pics and videos showing off the prototype of the iPhone that will be unveiled in June. There were many doubters that this could be the real deal, but then Gizmodo received a letter (shown above) from Apple's legal team asking for the phone back. This all but confirms it real.

This is really crazy to me. Imagine how you would feel knowing that you single handedly led to Apple's next great product being leaked out to the world? Hopefully Gray gets to keep his job because anyone could of made that same mistake.

Original story found on GIZMODO

RIA - HCL and Silverlight

I was reading this report by HCL guys about how online shopping could be more like real life shopping experience. As we all know how HTML limits our capability to make such applications which are not so user friendly. According to them and as we all know that Adobe Flex and AIR, Microsoft Silverlight, JavaFX, OpenLaszlo, and AJAX are those RIA (Rich Internet Application) enablers which makes apps so much better.

I think if really want to develop such applications, we have to think just like end users. We have to go beyond the restrictions caused by coding limitations.
I think Silverlight is something which is an upcoming thing.



As Microsoft says :

Silverlight is a powerful development platform for creating rich media applications and business applications for the Web, desktop, and mobile devices.

Silverlight is a free plug-in powered by the .NET framework that is compatible across multiple browsers, devices and operating systems to bring a new level of interactivity wherever the Web works. With support for advanced data integration, multithreading, HD video using IIS Smooth Streaming, and built in content protection, Silverlight enables online and offline applications for a broad range of business and consumer scenarios.

The cool thing about silverlight is we don't have to write code separatly for browser or device compatibility purposes. I think it is another technology we need to learn to get better at creating rich internet applications. You can join silverlight developer community. I think it is worth giving a try. for the site click here : CLICK

After learning AJAX, i just can't searching more and more about it and to see how develpoers use it their projects.

Final blog

It was easier at the beginning of the semester to find things to blog about, but lately I've been really struggling to think of topics that I wanted to blog about. Similarly, sifting through the existing blogs today, I found quite a few of them were about their last blog. I figured I'd follow suit.

This semester is my last semester at EMU as an undergrad, and I can honestly say, it couldn't end sooner. I learned a lot this semester, especially in this class. While blogging wasn't new to me, I learned that it could be more than just a few sentences, no matter how unlikely that is, at least from me.

My group will be wrapping up our group project in the next few days, and I'm kind of excited to finish it up. It seems like I have to wrap up a big project in every one of my classes this week, on top of that I'm starting a new full time job, so this week will definitely be a crazy one. I'm looking up though, things will definitely be interesting in the few months to follow.

AJAX Programming Language

When I first started this class I was frightened by the Ajax programming language. Asynchronous Javascript and XML is what AJAX stands for and that alone would scare any newcomer to this programming language. All AJAX really does is refresh the part of your webpage that needs refreshing without refreshing the whole page.

The main part of AJAX is the XMLHttpRequest, which fetches information from an outside server and brings it back to the user requesting the information. XMLHttpRequest was first implemented into Internet Explorer 4, then shortly after was added on to all existing browsers. AJAX is really a fancy form of Javascript.

For more information click here.

This class has taught me quite a bit about AJAX. To become familiar with AJAX you really need to have a strong background in Javascript. Also you need to have some experience with if/then statements and the basic structure of programming languages. The most important thing that I can take away from this class is that when it comes to programming languages patience is a must.

Facebooks new safety center

Facebook recently redesigned their safety center which is aimed at parents, educators, law enforcement officials and teens. It was launched on Tuesday, and was created to make sure that the site's 400 million users are networking safely.

Joe Sullivan, Facebooks Chief Security Officer, says that the site is more efficient now, although he doesn't include a reason as to why it is more efficient. I think that he just thinks that saying it is will make people think that they are safer when using Facebook?

Privacy settings are also explained in detail on the new page, as well as how to block users, remove unwanted content from a profile page and anonymously report abusive behavior. The online center is a result of Facebook’s collaboration with its Safety Advisory Board.

Finally finished group project

So we finally finished our group project today, still needs a little changing but at least the 4 API's are there. It took us some time today at the library but it feels good. Just have to type one more blog and I'll be all set.

So while working on our project we found a great API to help with the weather. It shows the current weather of any area you chose. It was pretty simple to implement pulls from the site and shows it on our site. We used www.weatherreports.com to pull the information.

I like the simplicity of the way they show the weather, also I like how it was simple to implement into our site. I'm relieved to have finished our project and after my last blog I will be graduating in 1 week.

Javascript

One language that was prominent in our class was Javascript. Javascript came about from Brendan Eich who was hired by Netscape in early 1995. It was Netscape's desire to make Javascript support more accessible to non-Javascript programmers. This language was originally called LiveScript but on December 4th, 1995 Netscape and Sun Microsystems officially named this web programming language Javascript. Javascript should not be confused with Java, which is a totally different language.

What made Javascript so great is no special compilers were needed to make this programming language work. All that was needed was a word processing program and an FTP program. Javascript offered great possibilities to web pages. Instead of boring, static web pages Javascript offered new life to web pages in the form of animations and interactions with the user.

Read more about the history of Javascript here.

I learned quite a bit about the Javascript language in IS 449. In the beginning Javascript gave me many gray hairs but once I became acquainted with the basic syntax of the language it was not so bad after all. The Javascript syntax is very similar to C++. Javascript does offer a great set of tools to a web designer who wants to add excitement to their web pages.

Time To Step-Up : Ajax with ASP.Net

So whats next after Ajax ... since we all now realize the presence of Ajax almost everywhere in the web world. We should explore all kinds of ways to do asynchronous programming. Everytime I try to find something interesting it is somehow connected to Microsoft. As professor Drake was talking about Jquery and that is one of the JavaScript libraries which can be used for our web applications and we don't really have to do a lot of javascripting.

I am with you on how programming can be so painful especially JavaScript. And how Professor Drake waited till last class to tell us about jQuery as he wanted us to go through the not so good learning process for Ajaxing.

I want to elaborate more on javascript libraries.The Microsoft Ajax Content Delivery Network (CDN) enables us to easily add popular JavaScript libraries to our Web applications. For example, we can start using jQuery simply by adding a script tag to your page that points to Ajax.microsoft.com. The Microsoft Ajax CDN enables browsers to reuse cached JavaScript files for Web sites that are located in different domains.
The Microsoft Ajax CDN includes the following libraries:
• jQuery
• jQuery Validation
• Ajax Control Toolkit
• ASP.NET Ajax
• ASP.NET MVC JavaScript Files
The another cool thing is The Ajax Control Toolkit, which contains a set of controls that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled ASP.NET Web Forms applications. And one more thing which I want to mention is the Ajax Minifier which is a command-line tool and a Visual Studio Build Task that enables us to minify JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheet files. This enables our websites to run faster by making scripts and CSS files as small as possible. You must download the Microsoft Ajax Minifier before you build the Ajax Control Toolkit.
To get started I am uploading a link where you can find Video tutorials which will help you to learn how to use Ajax in ASP.Net and even if you are just beginning to learn ASP.NEt, even then it would be useful for all of us: Click Here

Indrani Medhi - Human Computer Interaction

This is the age of making impossible possible. I am amazed at how world is evolving as one single entity. I truly believe that Technology is the most important or may be the only factor making it possible. Technology is bringing the whole world all together. Its funny that I am coming up with different ideas to blog up at almost end of the semester. I was stressed out before about being admitted to the Master's program and all the paper work I have to do to get in. Finally I am admitted to the MSIS program at EMU and I feel so much better now.
Anyways back to the topic, Indrani is a student of design and she has been working on text-free user interfaces for illiterate and semi-literate users.

She has developed text-free user interfaces (UIs). These are design guidelines that would enable any first-time illiterate person, on first contact with a computer, to immediately realize useful interaction with minimal or no assistance. Isn't this great!

There is a huge population in India and many other developing countries who are way too away from technology. I was surprise when I came to America that there are people here who can barely read or write. I think this kind of technology will be useful to so many different countries and not just India.
"Medhi's applications are based on a few key principles: extensive use of hand-drawn, semi-abstracted cartoons with voice annotation in the local language, aggressive mouse-over functionality, a consistent help feature, and looping full-context video dramatizing the purpose and mechanism of the application. She has applied these principles to design four applications: job-search for the informal labor market, health-information dissemination, a mobile money-transfer system, and an electronic map. "Medhi has painstakingly and methodically conducted research to understand how to design user interfaces for computing devices such that illiterate and semi-literate users can use them. She has spent a lot of time in the slum communities understanding the needs and aspirations of the people of those communities and their daily lives," says Kentaro Toyama, former assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India."

Check Technology Review India for further Info : Click Here

F# - Hmmmm.....

I was reading recent blog by Don Syme who is a principal researcher at Microsoft research. He is also the inventor of the new programming language called the F#. Initially I was like "oh my god, another language by Microsoft. They just can't have enough of them." I was curious to look into this language and see how different it is from others.

This langauge is already quite used by the .Net community but still new and different. The reason I am writing about this langauge because this claims to make asynchronous programming easier.

Now the reason it is called F # ( F sharp ) is Microsoft claims it to be FUN language or a very Functional language to work with. In lay man terms it is language which helps you execute complex programs using very simple code. This langauge is meant for the .Net framework.

“Functional programming offers important new ways to think about problem solving. The F# Interactive lets developers work interactively with data and application-programming interfaces [APIs] in a lightweight, explorative environment. F# also provides a set of core features for making parallel and asynchronous programming easier.”

It took them almost five years to develop this language. It can work on varied platforms like Linux, MAC including Windows. It has a great tool bag which provides you with various functions making it user friendly.

The Visual Studio release includes important new features of F#:

• A simple, succinct functional syntax.


• A rich .NET object-oriented programming model.


• Integrated parallel and asynchronous programming features.


• Units of measure.


• F# Interactive.

Microsoft do not claim it to be replacing C# at all. The interesting fact about F# is that you can use its functions in already existing C# and visual basic projects. Well I am definitely excited to try this new language and see how can I do asynchronous programming with it although it could be used for various purposes from scientific analysis to Game develpoment and much more.

If you want more info check out this article - Click

14. Library of congress to archive tweets

Yes, I made It to blog 14. Is everyone on twitter? It seems only yesterday people were asking what is a tweet. Even the government believe that tweets should be saved for historical reasons. The library of congress plans to archive tweets. In total twitter users send more than 50 million tweets a day. There is approximately 104 million twitter users. Library congress states that they will not archive personal tweets but only the ones they consider scholarly and for research.

The library uses this opportunity to embrace the digital media. Library is trying to used updated forms of communication for research and historical purposes. Twitter CEO agreed to allow the archived files to be saved by congress. Twitter CEO is excited about the news.

So if you are on twitter just think your tweets could be saved forever in library of congress catalogs. A hundred years later people can for whatever reason view what you were talking about on twitter. Its going to be an expensive process but i don't see myself looking up old tweets at the library.

Google Cloud Printing

Yes the end is almost here. But any ways my blog for the week is about google cloud printing. Well google keep concocting ideas and there new one is prints. Google labs is planning to create an application that allows users to print from any internet based computer. according to techworldnews.com the google cloud print is said to revolve around google operating system, Chrome. All the applications are said to be webbased.

It seems that printers must be cloud aware. Google would have to work with the manufactuers of printers to get there idea up and running., since none are cloud print ready. The printers would have to connect through google through a proxy.

Several issues with cloud printing are privacy and securtiy. Google plans to combat any issue with with the two by allowing only authorized users to print from printers and keeping private information only availble to the person who requested the print. I think that cloud print will work for google but how well i don't know.

Blog 14

When I started blogging it was easy to come up with topics to discuss. Then towards the end of the semester it got harder to come up with ideas to blog about. Now, I'm finally finished.

Using the class blog has been a very useful way to communicate my progress on projects and discuss different topics. It has also been a useful way to get information from others. There were times that I didn't want to blog but it was a necessary and helpful part of IS449.

So this is it. Blog 14. I just want to say thank you to everyone in class for sharing their information. There was a lot of new things I learned from all of your post.

Success!!

I have been working hard trying to get my site to work. I have only been able to retrieve data using the proxy pass-through and return the XML in raw format. I wasn't able to get anything to display properly.

Initially I used the Chronicling America API which gives newspaper information. Since I couldn't make it work and display, I tried the Wine Blog API. Then I had success! I was able to retrieve the XML with the proxy pass-through and parse it in my JavaScript to display the title and description.


It may not seem much to some, but I'm very excited that I finally got something, anything, to display properly. I plan to continue to see what other things I can do with this. The endless hours of working on this has paid off.

Group Iteration 3

Although things didn't go so well for my individual iteration3, the group site turned out great. Adam really went above and beyond with this project. Of course he has a lot of prior knowledge and experience. Here is what our site looks like:


Our site uses several API's to create a place for users to find jobs by location, get detailed information for a career, see housing and weather information for that location, and view the location and career on the map. Our group has completed all of the requirements for iteration 3 and maybe a little more. The site is better than our original ideas.

I am very happy that we completed our iteration and how everyone worked well together. As we have seen in this class, all of the groups came up with great ideas for their projects. I look forward to finding other ways to use API's and create different sites.

Individual Iteration 3

Well I was not as successful as I wanted to be for this iteration. My plan for my project was to use the Chronicling America API with the Google Maps API to display newspapers by location. This is how my site looked for iteration 2.



I started to parse the XML but I had a lot of difficulty getting it to work. The information would not display properly. I tried to parse the XML in JavaScript without success so I am now trying to parse in the PHP instead.

Besides completing the requirements for this course, I would still like to complete this iteration for myself. Creating Mashups and integrating web services is a great skill to have. I plan to continue working on my project and hope that I can get it to display successfully.

CNET is not one of them

Okay so here we are at the end of the semester and still struggling with the API's and thier annoying documentation. You are lucky if you get the right information at the right time to do the coding for your project. The most difficult part is to understand the API documentation because either they have loads of information to bombard at you or they have nothing to offer accept API service.

So the new problem is that apparently CNET api's cool cool dashboard is not working. What I was thinking of doing was to show reviews of play stations and etc from CNET's Games And Gear category. Now the next step is that you need a category ID to call their web service for this particular category.

Now I looked into the documentation and they have ID's specified only for some of the most popular categories used by the developers but not all of them. It is quite surprising that nobody used their category of games and gear but mp3 players and televisions etc. So next thing I did was to go to forum to check if somebody else was facing the same problem. And there was solution to my problem ...there was the URL i could use which gives xml response with all the category ID's in it which you can see if you know how to read XML.
That URL worked and did gave a xml response but it didn't had games and gear as a category in it and I don't know why? And it is also not a child category. So now I gave up on CNET and started doing ebay which now seems better option to me. :-(
Here's the link to the page which shows the request URL which gives the category ID's for CNET...Click

Blog #14

I started my friendly blog counter a couple of weeks ago. I am proud to say that this is blog number 14 for me. It feels good and encouraging that I was able to accomplish the blog task. The more I thought about the easier blogging became for me.

The best thing about blogging for this class is at gave everyone the opportunity to share what they have learned and struggled with in this class. I also like the idea of keeping last semester blog posts on our blog so we can go back and look at some of the issues in the class before us.
I am very excited with the progress I have learned in this class. With my individual project I worked with Google Maps, fanfeedr and weather api. My group project I worked with the youtube api and really enjoyed the documentation on it. The biggest thing left with our group project is getting one more api and I think we will all be very happy with the progress.

I looked around and tried to get some information on how to make blogging more enjoyable when doing it. At times it can be enjoyable when you have something on your mind and want to share it with others. When you are stuck and don't have anything to write, then it can become a challenge. Here is a link to an article on five essential tools to make blogging fun and easy.