WWW

The world wide web has come a long way. Internet has come a long way. The parents of WWW have had another breakthrough this week. They created the big bang in the tunnel buried underground that snakes its loop between Switzerland and France. The CERN has been a pioneer of sorts. Necessity is the mother of invention. Cern proved it to be true. Based on the concept of HTTP they wanted to develop something that facilitated sharing of information between researchers. The baby eventually moved out of the crib. If not Cern someone else might have developed webpages sooner or later but I think it would have been later. Talking about its invention brings to my mind the concept of 2 results or in other words every action has two results in two different universes. An electron has 2 spins, so in a lighter note in some other universe(may be like those sci-fi series) CERN didnt invent world wide web.
We are learning AJAX. In those days making a webpage might have been the talk of the intellectual elite. I think with easy tools in the future someone very novice might be able to wield the baton in AJAX. In my opinion Mathematics and Programming are subjects that need constant practice and I definitely lack practice.
We now have Web 2.0, wonder what web3.0 will be. It is definitely something that will strive to make human interaction and day to day jobs more easier. Experts say that WEB 3.0 will bridge the gap between Human Gizmo interaction and make it easier and cost effective.

Cisco Valet wireless

Cisco has recently unveiled two new wireless routers for users. The new routers are suppose to be much more simpler for installation and setup process. Cisco target market seems to be for home and small office use. The routers are called Valet. this is the first time cisco uses its name for consumer wireless. Cisco does own linksys a dominate home router. this another step towards cisco goal to become a house hold brand.

According to a study one and four consumers return wireless routers due to the fact they are unable to setup it up properly. Cisco goal is to make the wireless setup and use as simple as possible. the cost of the routers will be $100 and 150 for the longer range model. Cisco router will come with a flash drive for installation part instead of CD's like other routers.

I think since more and more computer users are not tech savvy even a little bit Cisco had to come out the simple way. But also who likes lengthy setups anyway. I'm for the easy setup. Cisco wants to tap in the home market so they had to make it user friendly.

Office 2011 for Mac

Office 2011 is supposed to be a large upgrade for the industry. New ease-of-use improvements, the introduction of integration between all applications, and the introduction of Outlook for Mac are all supposed game-changers. The version for Windows is sure to include "cloud" capability, with the ability to save documents on a non-centralized server system that will let you share documents like on Google Docs.

The Mac version, however, may not be able to jump on this bandwagon - at least, not for a while. Microsoft has historically left Mac out in the dust in terms of software upgrades and capabilities. It could be the use of the Cocoa application language, presenting a large barrier of entry for the corporation, the inability to use their .Net platform, or even their business sense telling them not to do it.

I just hope that they remove the ribbon, the toolbar, and the formatting palette. Really now, mac users do not need a user-interface difference between the office applications on PC's. They are, at the very least, trying to make office for mac run as efficiently as possible, as well as integrating its interface to look more like native mac applications.

Japan's SIM Card Technology

Buy whatever phone you want and then use it with whichever service you want - a man can dream. This dream, however, may soon become a reality... in Japan. The government has launched a review of the SIM lock technology that prevents simply swapping SIM cards with a separate carrier. The proposed legislation will not be applicable to the use of international sim cards.

In the United States, you are able to swap SIM cards if the carrier runs on the same type of network, but ATT and Verizon run separate, incompatible networks. Simply put, it is impossible to run an iPhone on Verizon regardless of how much hacking you do on it.

A [fairly] simple work-around for the Japanese carriers would be to remove the inclusion of SIM cards altogether, tying the phone itself to the account much like Sprint in the United States. This allows the carriers to still lock people into a contract, based off of the phone alone. Tread softly, Japan, for you are treading on my dreams.

Flash

There are rumors of a deeper partnership between Google and Adobe - the Chrome browser may ship with Flash built right in. The implementation of the new HTML5 standard is a large threat to Flash, as many video playback features are standardized and integrated into the new code. One of the main complaints about flash is that it is a stand-alone installation that must occur on all browsers, rather than being a shipped component.

Flash is also working with Google, Mozilla, and the internet community in general to create a new API that can provide a better way for plug-ins to interact with each other. They state that the current system lacks the flexibility and power to support the expected pace of innovation.

The largest issue that Flash has historically had to battle were the security issues that it has had to battle, most notably the security risks that were introduced by the use of their features. The most popular (by a slim margin) non-computer devices that surf the internet are also not Flash compatible, producing yet another barrier for their continued existence. Only time will tell what will happen to the company - I really do not see room for them in the future.

The Macbook makes an appearance

I just want to start by saying CONGRATS to ALL the graduating seniors. It has been a long road and I'm sure we are all happy to have finally found our little pot of gold! As the semester winds down I can't help but feel overwhelmed yet excited. I feel like I've slacked all semester and now I'm scurrying to get everything done and raise my grades one last time. LOL But be that as it may our final iterations will be due very soon and I can't wait to have it done!

As we prepare to leave Eastern with a smile and thousands of dollars in student loans, incoming freshman at Seton Hill University are entering with a smile. They won't be smiling because of their new found freedom but they'll be smiling because they are getting new Macbooks and iPads. I know, I know, how crazy is that. These students as well as the staff will be receiving these devices to help them with their learning experience at Seton Hill. The faculty and staff at the university will receive training that will bridge the gap between them and the technology.

I'm sure that the tuition at Seton hill is kinda high but I guess if I were getting a free computer I wouldn't mind paying back those student loans. I feel like this will give these students an enhanced college experience. I like the idea and look forward to hearing about more universities doing this.

Hacker educating Microsoft and Apple

The three time repeat hacking contest winner;Charlie Miller, of the annual Pwn2own contest is tired of the way that computer industry companies tries to fix it flaws and bugs. That is why he won't tell Microsoft, Apple and Adobe about the 20 flaws and vulnerabilities it has in its software. Instead he will show and teach them how to find the bugs themselves. He recently just won $10,000 in the hacking challenge and has been the winner the past 3 years.

He states that he wants change and says that he is tired of the lack of progress in software security. He talks about companies making patches here and there,which makes the software perform better but its doesn't improve the security of the product. Miller finds the mistakes of the software by using what is called a "dumb fuzzer", a tool that automatically looks for flaws in software by inserting data to see where the program fails. Miller found vulnerabilities in Apples Mac OS 10.6 and safari browser, Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation maker and in Adobe's PDF viewer and Reader.

PC World Article

Miller demonstrated how he came to finding the bugs in front of Microsoft,Apple and other vendors in hopes that the companies would listen and improve of their security standards. He knows he might seem like a bad guy in some peoples eyes but he wants them to take initiative and do more fuzzing to improve on security. Maybe this the way to put the pressure on companies to do so.

Electric Hack

Just what we don't need is to have any idiot with a laptop being able to hack in to the power grid. That is exactly what the security consultants InGuardians found was possible with all five varieties of smart meters.

The Smart Meters are used to create a network connection between the customer and the utility company. They have a couple different security holes that could allow a hacker in to the system. The type of communtication used by the meters appears to be the weakness. There is a whole host of the scenarios that are possible by taking advantage of these vulnerabilities.

As quoted from the article "The communications standard used by smart meters, in particular, was an area that was a cause for concern, said Joshua Wright, a senior security analyst with InGuardians. If criminals are able to tap into the network, they could potentially doctor another person's bills or even stage bigger attacks on the grid, according to the report."


InGuardians has published a number of reports based on their findings. In one report it was stated that a single criminal could have control of multiple meters at the same time. The reports also point out that these types of vulnerabilities are more common due to our upgrading the grid's infrastructure.

I have worked for a retail Choice provider in the past. The cellphones that power the smart meters are very simple, and the meter boxes were not very secure. We had major problems with people using the phone line for long distance calls all the time or just stealing the phones. So the nightmare scenario of having a terrorist attack on the power grid is very real.

Individual Project 3

As the due date for our individual projects nears, I began to work on getting a second rss feed into my last project. The hardest part of the individual project so far has been finding rss feeds for my chosen topic of travel. The first one I find was Kayak and they actually have several different feeds that can be used. Finding the second one was a lot harder. I tried Yahoo travel, Travelocity, Orbitz and Expedia. I finally found an rss feed for Expedia and decided to add that one.

So the next part was to figure out how to add the second feed to my current project. I looked back over the class blog and saw the examples that were put up and this really helped. So I wrote the code based on this example, loaded it on people.emich and hit the button. I was happy that it worked until I saw that only the second feed was coming up. This surprised me a little; I would have expected the first one and not the second one to work.

I spent some time playing with the code and still could not get it to function right. I went through every line of code and could not see what the problem was. I finally asked one of my group mates for help. They were able to catch the mistake that I had kept missing and my feed now works with both Kayak and Expedia. The one thing I have learned about writing code whether it be C#, JavaScript or any other computer language is that there is very little room and any type error and the programmer must be a very diligent person and keep checking each line. If one variable is wrong, the whole application will not work.

iPad is reshaping the Internet

The iPad doesn't run flash. So, think of all the times you needed to update your flash or make sure you even have flash to run a program. Now think of all those programs that uses flash. If your site is shown on the iPad, according to the source I am using, your site won't look pretty.

It turns out people want their site to look "pretty" instead of the opposite. A lot of sites are being changed, this is changing the Internet. Now, all you flash users, don't worry it is still sticking around.

The reason the iPad could have a more pronounced effect on the internet than the iPhone actually really is simply because it’s bigger. The challenge of best displaying your content on the iPhone wasn’t simply making sure you had a Flash-less site — it was fitting it all into a 3.5-inch screen, reducing it to the utter essentials to fit the way people use their phones, a task that might’ve gone beyond a mobile-optimized site in many cases. With the iPad, two of the biggest restrictions — the tighter screen, those smaller windows of time — aren’t there, so content producers very well might not need an app to fit their content onto the iPad. In other words, they really can just build a site instead of an app, which is why the iPad might have a more profound effect on the internet than the iPhone.
Source: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/03/how-the-ipad-is-already-reshaping-the-internet-without-flash/

First reaction to the iPad are mixed opinions. I did read something about a 10 hour battery life and wow that caught my eye when I have to always keep charging my laptop. It will be interesting to see what happens in the near future and see how this will reshape things we are used to seeing.

Apple and Google Together Again??

First let me start off with talking about the great time I had at Menlo on Friday. Surprisingly not that many people showed up from our class (opportunity to get inside a great company and extra credit). But I felt like Menlo was just an overall "cool" place to work, they had the type of creativity that you would think only Google had in its work place. Basically the programmers were writing coding that you would find in IS315 (a bit more advance) but in pairs of twos. And every week you would be paired up with another partner.

On to my article of the week. Well after all my numerous articles about Google vs Apple. And the fact that the two CEOs, Steve Jobs of Apple and Eric Schmidt of Google, have had a public fallout, GIZMODO has posted pictures showing the two enjoying a cup of coffee last FRIDAY the 26th in Palo Alto, CA. A reader of the web blog saw the two and snapped these pics. The reader aslo overheard a little bit of their conversation. "Enthusiastically, "They're going to see it all eventually so who cares how they get it." Which seemed to be about web content, said the tipster. And, "Let's go discuss this somewhere more private," after they noticed the crowd gathering around."

I think this would of been a really cool site to see. I would of probably went right up to them and pitched my 30sec speech of why I am the perfect hire for either company lol But all joking aside, I think this might be the first step to maybe the two companies making amends. They probably realize that business might be better for the both of them if the two giants get a long.

Full Story can be found on Gizmodo

My code... looking for some help

I have posted my code and hoping to see if anyone notices where my error or errors are. The first bit of code is my php file.

$url = "http://api.fanfeedr.com/basic/all_scores?appid=735sdkx8cqvh8jbwyfzmr3x7"
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$response_body = curl_exec($ch);
$status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
if (intval($status) != 200) die("Error: $response_body");
var_dump(json_decode($response));
?>

This piece of code is my javascript. I am sorry I don't know how to post code like Adam did, where it was more organized. I used the blockquote which seemed to help the spacing.

function checkRival() {
fanfeedr();

}

function createRequest() {
try {
request = new XMLHttpRequest();
} catch (tryMS) {
try {
request = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
} catch (otherMS) {
try {
request = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
} catch (failed) {
request = null;
}
}
}
return request;
}



function fanfeedr() {
createRequest();

if (request == null) {
alert("Unable to create request");
return;
}
var url= "getFeedr.php";
request.open("GET", url, true);
request.onreadystatechange = displayFeedr;
request.send(null);
}
function displayFeedr() {
if (request.readyState == 4) {

if (request.status == 200) {
alert("here");
//var myObject = eval('(' + myJSONtext + ')');
detailDiv = document.getElementById("fanfeedr");
detailDiv.innerHTML = request.responseXML;

}
}
}

I think I need to fix how this is being displayed. I wrote in a previous blog comment that I was going to look at what Adam wrote and try and incorporate some of that. I am not sure that will work or not but is always worth a try. Does anyone else have any more suggestions for me?

The Safe Reader

As the semester goes on, deadlines are quickly approaching. Iteration 3 for both group and individual projects is right around the corner and the material is not getting any easier. I understand what the point of the projects are and I wish that my programming skills were us to par so that I could make some real money by doing what I am learning. I'm sure I could get a nice chunk of change for making a mashup for a small company trying to reduce Internet surf time. But that's not really me so on to reality. I can 't wait to finish my last iteration and my last projects of my undergrad career.

I was searching for an interesting article to blog about and I came across an article about an application available to Blackberry users. The application is called the SafeReader. The SafeReader allows users to listen to text messages and emails while driving. This is a safe alternative to reading text messages and driving.

I think this is a good idea. I've come across a lot of emails with gruesome photos of people who were texting and driving or talking on the phone and driving. Technology has solved the problem of talking but not texting completely. I recently heard or an application for cell phone that will block the user from receiving and sending text messages while driving. I think the SafeReader is a better solution. I can't wait for this cell phone application to be available to all cell phone users.

What is Google Labs?

I wanted to know what exactly Google Labs does for users like me. I decided this is a great opportunity to explore something I don’t know and share it with others.

According to a google site they tried to answer the basic question what is Google Labs?

Google Labs is a playground where our more adventurous users can play around with prototypes of some of our wild and crazy ideas and offer feedback directly to the engineers who developed them. Please note that Labs is the first phase in a lengthy product development process and none of this stuff is guaranteed to make it onto Google.com. While some of our crazy ideas might grow into the next Gmail or iGoogle, others might turn out to be, well, just plain crazy.

This is fun for the lab can actually grow into something we use daily. Based on everyone’s comments and concern with a project it grows to be something successful or another failed experiment.

Engineers and researchers build Google Labs. This is a way for Google’s Engineers and researchers to be able to show off what they have been working on. I just really like how they use our suggestions as guides to how to improve what they already have accomplished.

Google "leveraging" with it's Services?

First a little update on the Global IT Club. We missed many of you guys at are last meeting on Wednesday. It's very rare for Professor Drake to give out extra credit and many of you guys missed out on the opportunity as well as an awesome speaker, EMU's new CIO Carl Powell. Dr. Powell was very entertaining and had a lot of advice from his years holding high level IT jobs. Well I know its a little late, but there is another opportunity for extra credit today, Friday March 26th at 2:30pm as we go to Menlo Innovations. Meet us on the 2nd floor of the COB.

Now for the main story. First off, I love the Android platform. Just the ability to be able to download almost any kind of app you can think of and its ease of use. I figured that has to be one of the reasons why every other day I hear of a new Android phone made by this or that phone maker and on this or that carrier. But now multiple sources are coming out with a new reason to why there seems to be an explosive rise of Android handsets.

Google has been enticing manufacturers with a cut of revenue from their other services such as Maps or Search. This is almost the complete opposite of how Apple is bringing the iPhone to AT&T. AT&T pays Apple $400 for every iPhone it sells. So in a way Apple is making money while Google is giving money away. But if you look at it another way, Google has the money to give and this could be a very good investment because people have many, many options of Android handsets to choose from.

Via ENGADGET

Netflix! ahoy!

I was working on Netflix the last week and it didn't seem to budge from its place. The Netflix api doesn't let you fetch details about its catalogs unless you have an account with it. The Autocomplete feature lets one draw just a gist from its database. In the Autocomplete feature one just needs to write a word, e g I wrote Step, the api shall fetch all the movies that have the word Step in it.
I could not tide over the problem with Netflix, hence my search for an alternative was on last week. We finally found an alternative which is the RSS feeds from Netflix. We had considered Yahoo movies api as well but it doesn't exist anymore. We also came across other interesting websites like TRYNT and Movie Web but the former didn't actually match our criterion. We were disheartened when the address to Trynt.com was an invalid one and it no longer existed in that server. All we got to see was a blank 502 bad gateway page.
Things are not progressing bad. Other than tiny silly mistakes that camouflage themselves in the coded background my programs eventually starts working. I am upbeat about netflix RSS feeds. I think it will be an interesting bit of information bar in our mashup webpage.

Sprint unveils its first 4G phone

Sprint announced the HTC Evo 4G today. I gotta say, I'm impressed. I'm particularly excited because, as everyone knows, I'm a fanboy of Android. And this lovely piece of equipment features Android OS 2.1. I'm stuck with the MyTouch 3g and the lowly 1.6 version of Android. I really wish that they would upgrade the operating system on units that are already owned by consumers.

So, back to the Evo, I'm drooling over this thing. It has a 4.3 inch display. One other thing that it has that my phone lacks is a a 3.5mm headset jack. I'm not sure why the hell they left that out when designing the MyTouch. Other features include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 1GB of internal memory, Assisted-GPS with Sprint Navigation, seven home screens, a personal organizer, a microSD card slot that accommodates cards up to 32GB, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, an HDMI out port. A 1GB processor on a cell phone is freaking insanely fast too, and the HDMI port? Watch videos from your cellphone on your big screen tv lately? Sounds awesome.

I believe that Sprint is going to be the first carrier to offer 4G, which will be this summer. I'm looking forward to it's release, because I think it'll be the most successful Android phone released, so it'll be interesting to see how it fares.

What you need to know about Google vs. China

I know that this has been talked about quite a bit. But I found this article that gives a much better explanation of what is going on between Google and China. I was under the impression that the Chinese government wanted Google to collect more information from users for some reason. But this is apparently not the case.

What happened is Google was available in China when they first started up, but it was censored and sometimes shut down by the Chinese government. China's communist leadership restricts Internet content and political speech, so Google had to agree to censor some of its Internet search results in order to do business in China. Because of this Google launched Google.cn. Google says Chinese hackers tapped into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists and conducted a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure." China denies these claims, but the situation caused Google to promise to stop censoring its results in China unless some kind of new agreement could be arranged between Google and China.

So I'm a little confused about something. Did the Chinese government hack the gmail accounts? Either way I agree with Google's decision to stop censoring search results. Communism just completely blows my mind away. I know Americans think they are entitled to their rights, but I sometimes wonder if we realize how lucky we are to not have to deal with the shit that some people have to deal with in other countries.

AJAX is a PAIN

I just posted on about the great stuff I was finding on XML.com. I found something else that will be of interest to all of us here.

Bruce Perry posted a blog about using a open source Javascript library called Prototype. Why did he do this? Here are his own words on the subject.

"Why didn't I just create a plain old JavaScript object (POJO) for my application, instead of introducing an open source library? For one, Prototype includes a nifty collection of JavaScript shortcuts that reduce typing and help avoid the reinvention of the wheel. The commonly touted shortcut is $("mydiv"), which is a Prototype function that returns a Document Object Model (DOM) Element associated with the HTML tag with id "mydiv". That sort of concision alone is probably worth the cost of setting up Prototype. It's the equivalent of:

document.getElementById("mydiv");

Another useful Prototype shortcut is $F("mySelect"), for returning the value of an HTML form element on a web page, such as a selection list. Once you get used to Prototype's austere, Perlish syntax, you will use these shortcuts all the time. Prototype also contains numerous custom objects, methods, and extensions to built-in JavaScript objects, such as the Enumeration and Hash objects (which I discuss below).

Finally, Prototype also wraps the functionality of XMLHttpRequest with its own Ajax.Request and related objects, so that you don't have to bother with writing code for instantiating this object for various browsers."

He goes on to SHOW YOU how to set up your files for using prototype by adding certain lines of code and files. And finally he finishes up the blog with examples on how to use the library.

Dynamic Web Interfaces

As I am still working with my individual projects http requests, I have been looking for some more information out on the web.

Well I found this site that talks about http requests, XML, DOM and parsing all in one!
XML.com has several sub-chapters on topics near and dear to our hearts. But the one I found most interesting was the one on Ajax.

The article starts with the history of XML and its interplay with JavaScript. The codes examples start with the basics, then it turns to "The Form," "Handling the Input," "HTTP Heavy Lifting," and the "The Server Script." There are examples on the parsing, xmlDocloading, and server requests.

And as with all good teaching blogs, there is a link to a book for more reading. In this case the book is "No Nonsense XML Web Development With PHP" by Thomas Myer.

Go Daddy may follow Google from China

A recent report from Cnet news says after today's congressional hearing with China, GoDaddy.com plans to stop registering domain names in China. The reason being is new regulations requires a great deal of information from China users. Users are now required to submit a picture and business licenses number. GoDaddy plans to continue to manage existing .cn users but not allow any new registrants.

GoDaddy has had an increase of Distributed Denial of Service or DDOS in the past few months from China. Censorship has been a problem in China. This is the first time a governemt has ask the company to seek additional information from its customers.

I think China is a very strict company so some companies should leave China. Hackers in China are not only threatening to the companies but to the users of the company. Hackers could get control of private information. GoDaddy might follow google and who is moving their severs to Hong Kong where the laws are less strict.

How Google used AJAX

While the term AJAX was first coined in 2005, Google waited until after April of 2009 to implement it into their god-like search-for-anything-engine. Today you can see the results of their update visibly in the new and improved drop-down text lists which are queried off of what you are currently typing. For example: if you were to type 'dogs' into the Google search bar, a drop-down list containing the possible phrases 'dogs 101', 'dogs for sale', 'dogs that don't shed', and even two having to do with 'dogs and chocolate'. Apparently dogs LOVE chocolate or something, but anyway.

This wasn't Google's main adaptation of AJAX on their search engine however, but is a mere bonus to what they were truly trying to accomplish after April of 2009. In an article listed on CNET at http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10220532-93.html?tag=mncol, Stephen Shankland talks about what's going on in the background that is actually making Google more money.

In a very simple adaptation, Google used AJAX to start loading the specific search results under the default 'boilerplate' that always remains in the same position after each subsequent search is performed. While this may be the definition practically of simple easy-to-use AJAX, the mere milliseconds that Google saves after each search really makes a difference. Apparently all of these quicker times ad up to a large amount of new searches, which in turn transfers into more ads being shown and therefor more money in Google's pocket. I figured they were merely updating their search engine to help benefit you and I by letting us know that 'dogs in funny costumes' was a possible search term, but I cash is the driving factor and I'm wrong as usual. Thanks Google.

Windows 7

After waiting three months I finally took the plunge and installed Windows 7 on my computer. Windows 7 has the same layout as Vista but is much improved. Gone are the slow start times and numerous Windows services that run in the background and bog your computer down. In my opinion, Windows Vista was basically another version of Windows Me (Millennium). Windows 7 gets great reviews by many user and many of them also state how Windows 7 is much improved over Vista.
Reviews




I took advantage of my student discount and purchased Windows 7 Premium. Installation was a breeze for me...Windows 7 took a lot less time to install than Windows XP. The reason for this is probably when you install Windows XP you must also install all the service packs and updates which can take a few hours. Since Windows 7 is new it does not have that many updates with it. As I installed Windows 7 I did have some skepticism about installing a new operating system.....will my hardware and their drivers work?? All that was quickly laid to rest as all my hardware played nice with Windows 7.




After some skepticism I am glad I installed Windows 7 onto my computer. Is it perfect?? No. But it sure is a nice new look and a welcome replacement after Vista was such a flop. Us XP users have been using the same operating system since 2001 and a change is always nice.

NetBeans : JavaScript Editor

Here's this not so new IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for developing with various languages which includes Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, C, C++ etc. It is called the NET BEANS. Since this IDE is written in Java which makes it platform independent.So it runs everywhere where a JVM is installed.

It is commercially owned by Sun Microsystems. The reason I am writing about NetBeans because this IDE helps you edit JavaScript. As we all having hard time writing codes in JavaScript. This IDE is module based and each module gives a well defined function such as support for JavaScript. The JavaScript editor is an integrated module of NetBeans IDE and it provides extended support for JavaScript, Ajax and CSS.

The editing features includes syntax highlighting, re factoring, code completion for objects and functions.The really cool thing is that it has this feature automatic browser compatibility checks.It also generates Ajax callbacks from a template and JavaScript class structure. I have just started to use this IDE and I would suggest you all to give it a try.

Quarter of U.K. Kids Have Hacked

A recent U.K survey found that twenty six percent of school age children had tried to hack into someone else’s social or email account. Despite the fact that the majority of children say hacking is wrong. This article raised two important issues for me. The first one being that the younger generation has no respect for others and how safe are our accounts really if children can hack into them? In world where everyone is connected by technology, we really have become disconnected as people.

Young people now days see their computer or their cell phone or other data device not as a tool but as a part of themselves that they can not put down. If you have gone to a movie recently you will know what I am talking. All the young talk extremely loud with their friends, oblivious to anyone else. Then they start to text. Why did you even come to the movie if you want to talk to someone else? These kids are really disconnected from society and what is correct behavior. So hacking into someone’s account is no big deal to them. I see this becoming a really serious problem with all the young people of the world.

Another issue is how safe are our private accounts if young kids can hack into them. I think that the kids in this survey hacked into their friends accounts but they could lead up to non friends accounts and then into other than email or social. It just seems terrible that you have to think so far ahead about the next generation of hackers. Most hackers start out hacking because it seems like fun and then turns into something more. There is no way to stop technology but maybe we can show kids how to be better users and have respect for others.

DOM (Document Object Model)

As I continue in my IS 449 journey there is a new concept that looks very intimidating....it is called DOM which stands for document object model. Looking through the textbook DOM looks like very challenging and difficult. As I studied the book I realized that if you break down the web pages into subdivisions DOM becomes a bit easier. The first tag on a webpage (usually HTML) would be the head tag or parent. BODY then would be the child of that parent.


In my search for DOM tutorials on the web I came across this tutorial from Mozilla. This tutorial explains the structures for the DOM and how to call the object you want to use when running your API. This site also explains how the XML tree is structure. This was a very useful site and when I looked through the examples I began to understand how the DOM comes together.


Another useful site I came across was our all time favorite, www.w3schools.com. Although this site is not as in-depth as Mozilla's site it still gives the beginner the basic foundation for the DOM tree. Once mastered it looks like DOM can give the API programmer a great deal of control over their API. Hopefully these sites help in our journey of the DOM.

Co-Inventor of XML goes in on Apple

First I want to give you guys an update on what's happening with the Global IT Club. Well as everyone knows this is Ethos Week and today former Vice President of Intel Corporation, Ken Fine, will be speaking at 5:30pm. Next week, we will be making a field trip to Menlo Innovations. This is a great opportunity for anyone that is interested in the company to get an up close look at what happens on the inside. The field trip will be next week Friday, March 26th. If you are interested in attending or have any questions, let Jenelle, Chris, me or Professor Drake know.

Now for my main feature story, the punches between Apple and Google just keep rolling. Yesterday, newly hired Android developer, Tim Bray, went off on Apple on his blog. Bray who recently left Window Mobile to join Google, expressed his dislike for the way Apple handles its app store and developers. He explained that Apple's "vision" of its internet future "omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It's a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger."

Those are some really harsh words. But Bray did say that as much as he hated that aspect of Apple, he still thought that the iPhone's hardware and software were both great. I really have to agree with everything he said. Recently Apple removed thousands of apps from the App Store that they felt were inappropriate. Some just showed women in bikinis or had names such as iBoobs but didn't actually show any nudity. They removed such apps but kept the ones made by "Big" companies such as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit App and the PlayBoy App. Why keep some and get rid of ALL others? I just don't get it and thats why I feel Android has a leg up on the Iphone.

This Article can be found on MACWORLD via Macwold UK

Parsing JSON response with PHP

We are currently trying to tie in the Yelp API into our group project so I thought I would post what we have learned in trying to parse the JSON response. Since JSON is the only response method that Yelp offers, it was imperative that we figure it out. First, the proxy part is the same, meaning that I obtained the response the same way that I did with all of my XML responses. To do this I use this but of code:




After that I use the json_decode() function to convert the data into a searchable format:


NOTE: One nice trick that I learned is to do a var_dump() of the data variable to your output destination. What this does is essentially show you the structure of the JSON response so that you can see the hierarchy of tags. This is similar to just putting your XML URL into firefox in order to see the layout. To do this I use the following snippet of code:



The output will look like this:



After that it is just a matter of figuring out which items you want to retrieve and then grabbing that information. Yelp puts everything under the heading of businesses, which means that I use the following code to access the elements:



So here is the output on the site:

CSS styling

OK I'm working on my individual iteration style of my web page. I did a little styling in Is247 but its been awhile so i don't really remember. I searched the web for some styling tips and i found that w3schools.com has a good tutorial to get you started. I worked through some of the examples which is good practice and it gave me some ideas on how i want to setup my website. the website has its own editor where you can fidget around with it.

I noticed that i have to play around with Css code so i can get it to do exactly what I want. For my final project I'm thinking about adding a several images to the style also maybe a specific background color and specific positioning of my APIs.

I still trying to get the styling of my web page down. I am going to continue to surf the web for some other examples hopefully i will have it down pack for the final individual project.

Funny Websites Hit it Big!

Let me just start by going over Iteration 2 for our group project. It seems that we came across a few issues. Two of the sites that we wanted to use are such small sites that they didn't have APIs. We basically have to start from square one. We wanted to keep the same objective so we choose to display yelp and google maps for today. But after showing the class what we did have, it gave us some ideas. We basically want to build a site for vacationers going to Traverse City. The site will display where the rental places are, what there is to do, maybe weather, and pictures of the area. We would like to use Flikr but John asked us to try a google photo display also. We'll investigate these and I feel like we are on the right track now.

Back to the topic at hand, have you ever heard of Texts from last night, or FML.com. These are both websites that display mini blogs. Texts from last night just show either drunken texts or funny texts that people text to their friends. FML.com gives a look into embarrassing moments that happen to people throughout the day. Texts from last night was developed by a former Wayne State University law student who decided to take the technical road in life and has hit the jackpot. The site is said to get 4.5 million hits a day.

These sites started as small sites and spiraled into conversation starters. These sites now have iPhone apps and have even been offered a book deal. This is an example of people following their dreams, you have a law school student who risked it all to develop a website. I think she's done pretty well for herself.

XOS Football coaching software

XOS is a software we use everyday at football. It is run by databases, and I would like to pursue a job when I graduate. It is a program that once inputed helps you watch practice or games as if they were happening in front of you. Also there is a way to fastforward, rewind, slowdown, and stop a specific play to help the coach coach.

XOS is constantly looking to expand their programs by asking coaches about what needs to be removed, improved and added. Programs all around the country use XOS, from big to small programs.

I was thinking XOS could convert to an online orientated company. I know alot of teams trade film of other teams. If they could convert the passing of film through their company they would force schools to use their service instead of competitors. If universities could log onto the server, and find then information they are looking for it would save their time and money. Check out their website and see what its all about xostech.com.

Android Hits 30,000 Apps

The Android app store has finally hit 30,000 applications, which is more than double what was available in December - but they still lag behind Apple rate of application development. The most important factor, however, is still up in the air - with thousands of applications similar to the iFart application within the Apple app store, the difference in the quality of the apps may differ greatly.

The Android platform's app store has a large focus on open source, free applications in comparison to the iPhone's for-profit business model. Many developers attempt to release free applications with reduced functionality within the Apple store, which could effectively double the amount of applications within the store. With that said, there are multiple applications that do the same functions within the store - i.e. there are many text editors or instant messaging programs.

Many developers are releasing Android marketplace versions of their games for free while simultaneously releasing paid versions within the iTunes app store. It is possible that the Android marketplace's limited number of users (in comparison to the iPhone's market share) may be one of the compelling reasons why applications are not being created at a rapid rate, as the potential profit may not be compelling enough to bring developers over to the platform.

Google's New China - Update

Twenty seven Chinese companies that have purchased ads on Google's search engine have banded together to demand answers from Google, stating that they placed pre-payments on keywords and that if Google were to shut down its Chinese business that it could have drastic effects. Google's business dealings in China account for roughly 1% of their revenue, but the company currently employs 700 people. The Chinese government also delayed the launch of the Android-operated phones from Samsung and Motorola solely due to their association with Google.

The large issue with Google pulling out of China is that people were depending on their services to be the helpful hand that would pull the nation out of a censorship-state. True, Google is not the largest search engine within the nation [holding a 35% market share], but the removal of the beacon of free speech in the east would represent the ability of the Chinese government to dictate, once and for all, what its citizens can and can not look at.

Some claim that Google sacrificed its moral standing when they entered China's market five years ago, initially complying with the nation's censorship demands. Google needs to tread softly in this time of trial, as their final decision is not simply a business one - it is morally and politically involved as well.

Chronicling America API

For my individual iteration 2 I am am using the Chronicling America API. This API gives information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages. It is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC).

The site allows you to search and view newspaper pages from 1880-1922 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. To encourage a wide range of potential uses, they designed several different views of the data which are publicly visible and do not require an API key to use them.

This API allows you to:

• Search - the newspaper directory and digitized page contents using OpenSearch.
  
• Link - using stable URL pattern for titles, issues, editions, and pages.
• Linked Data - views of information about titles, batches, issues, and pages in RDF/XML.
• Aggregations - of items, like all the pages that make one issue, are related using OAI-ORE

Compared to the old methods of looking up newspaper pages, this is a convinient way to view historic data. Here is an example of a newspaper page:

Google St. Patrick's Day

Since today is St, Patrick's Day I thought it would be fun to see what new doodle was going to be used by Google on there home page. They decided to go with a Celtic theme and used Celtic symbols to represent there logo. There was a little article that talked about this and how they usually celebrate different occasions by changing the appearance of their logo.


I also thought it would be interesting to see how many sites came up when you google St. Patick's Day. It turns out there was 19,100,000 results. Everything form news, history, images, and so much more.

This got me thinking. Many people celebrate St. Patrick's Day even if they are not Irish. This is a very old holiday with a lot of tradition and many people like to participate by drinking green beer and wearing green. This would be a great opportunity to create an AJAX application to find local Irish pubs, St. Patrick's Day events, news, and history.

Indivudual Iteration 2

For iteration 2 I changed my plans for the API's I was planning to use. Originally, I wanted to create a site using the Blogger API in combination with the Google Talk API to allow users to have live chat with others that were in the blog site. However, this seems to be more complicated than I expected. Google Talk API uses XMPP or Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol. In order to connect to Google Talk or any other service that supports the Jabber/XMPP protocol, you'll need to purchase Trillian Pro. So I decided to go a different direction with my project.

The new plans for my site is to use the Chronicling America API along with the Google Maps API. The Chronicling America API gives information about historic American newspapers. So far I have completed the iteration 2 requirements and have set up the Google Map API and am able to return the XML for the Chronicling America API using an onClick button.



The next step is to complete iteration 3. I plan to take the XML that is returned and parse the information to display the newspapers by location on the Google Map for Michigan. This iteration seems like it will be more difficult than the others, and I hope that I will be able to complete this task.

Social Media Hate

Social Networking Sites are usually thought of as just a fun way to connect with people. However, recently these sites have been being used to spread racism, and terror. The number of hate sites on Social sites such as MySpace and FaceBook increased twenty percent since last year. Does this mean that the number of people who hate has gone up? I do not think so. Social media sites just make it easier to hate because your true identity can be hidden.

When people feel they can say or do whatever they want and their true identity will be kept secret, they are more apt to do horrible things. People who hate have always hid behind some type of cover. Throughout the years these types of people have used whatever technology was available to them to spread their words of hate. Social media sites are just their newest choice.

So should these sites be censored because of a few who use them for hate? I do not think that any media should be censored. The best way to handle people who hate and hide themselves is just monitor their activities to make sure that they do not harm anyone. By making a big deal about what they are doing, their message is spread to more people and that is their goal. By just not accepting their message of hate, they lose.