No API For IMDB

As my group and I have been working on our project we have learned that the IMDB does not have an API. This really has surprised me because they are not a service that charges a fee to use so why not provide an API for users? I read some articles that the IMDB is looking for someone to develop one. What irritates me is that the IMBD is part of Amazon and Amazon has an API. How hard could it be to add the IMBD?

My group and I have been looking for a replacement for the IMDB. We have found a few sites and Professor Drake emailed some information that may be helpful. The one thing I have really learned throughout this class is to not be scared to completely drop a website that will not work. There are plenty of sites out there that all do similar activities and will work for our project.

I am really looking forward to the final project being done. It is hard to believe that we are almost done. It feels like we just started. I know my group and I will get our project working. It may not be our originally list of API’s but the concept has stayed the same. This class has been an adventure. MashUps are cool ideas that can benefit not only the owner of the MashUp but also the owners of the API’s used. I think that more and more websites are going to provide API’s. Hopefully the IMDB will be one soon.

Group Project

My group had its second meeting this past Saturday to start working on our first iteration which is due February 10th. This week we had the addition of a new group member who brought some good ideas for the project. All group members this week brought a sketch of what they thought our application should look like. It was nice that all of us kind of had the same design and some ideas icons and images that we want in the application.

We then broke up the work duties for the first iteration and discussed what we wanted the static file to be. Since we are planning on doing a movie mashup site we thought that bringing up a movie poster would be a good way to start iteration one. We also found out that Netflix is also an available API that we can use. For the most part it seems things are going well for group.

The only real issue we seem to be having is the fact that the COB is now closed on the weekends and Saturday is the only day our group can meet. We met last week at the student center computer lab. Half the computers did not work, and none of them have the software that is available at the CIS lab at the COB. One work around is for us to bring our laptops with our own software on to work on the project. This is probably what we will have to do. The COB being closed is just a minor set back and I know my group and I will be able to overcome this and have a great project.

Progress

It's our third week in this class, and I have an idea of what's going on, but I'm still somewhat unsure of what I'm supposed to be doing for our Individual projects. I understand the concept of having individual projects in order to ensure that each member knows what they are doing in the larger scope of things when it comes to the group project, but if we're having individual projects to learn material, then what, besides working as a group, are we supposed to be learning on our group projects?

I'm going to use this blog post to educate myself, and the people who are going to read this because after talking to quite a few of my classmates, it seems that they are in the same position I'm in right now.

For Individual project 1 we have to "Use xmlhttprequest to fetch a static file from your web server and integrate it into your web page. This is a conceptual presentation of functionality you expect to incorporate into your project. Your code should work in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Xmlhttprequest is covered in the first three chapters of the Head First Ajax book. To get credit, you will have to access your own file and incorporate the results into the page display."

I found myself wondering what the hell xmlhttprequest was...don't look at me that way, I know you are wondering too. So I went to my favorite know-all tell-all website, wikipedia.org. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's basically just accessing a JavaScript file on a web page to fulfill some kind of function. Similar to what we did in class, which seems easy enough because we should be able to reuse at least some of the code without being punished. We'd just have to create our own page with our own images, etc. After looking at it and thinking about it for quite a while, it seems like it'll be easy and hard at the same time. I know what I need to do, it's just the technical part that is going to be difficult. I'm really hoping that since it's due next Wednesday, we'll have some time in class to do it so that we can ask questions if we get stuck.

Google Groups

Anywhere that you are working in a group, it is necessary to get together and share information. Our group has decided to use Google Groups as a way to start a discussion, create pages, and upload files to share with each other. This is the first time I have used Google Groups and I'm pleased with how easy it is to use.

With Google Groups you can create your own group that is private and have discussions online or by email, create custom pages, and customize your graphics. All you need to do is create your own group and send invitations to others that you want in it. Besides creating your own group, you can search to find a discussion or group that is about a particular topic. If you find a group you like you can join immediately or request and invitation if its private.

In another class I had, my group tried to use the Collaboration suite offered by EMU. Unfortunately, it was difficult to use and didn't work out. Google Groups is easy to use and understand. They even have a tour to give you an idea of how it works. I recommend that you check it out.

Group Project

In our class last week we were suppose to get with our groups and discuss what kind of project we wanted to do for our class project. And I think our came up with some good ideas such as Dan had the idea of a Mashup of having reservations for a sort of Lodge Resort. Using API's for location,direction,payment etc and it was a good idea but we came into a problem that we thought that we would be making up the website for the lodges we would use but soon found out that we would be using components from a already existing site or API. But we liked the idea of where we were headed.

So I wanted to research a little more about mashups and what they were, how they are made and ow they were used. So I did what most people do these days and I googled it, I found definitions of what a mashup was, types of mashups and also saw a comparison with mashups vs portals with differences between the two. I found one good site about how to start a mashup that came from Programmableweb.com. And it had a simple 5 step list of how you are suppose to:

1)Pick a subject

2)Decide where your data is coming from

3)Weigh your coding skills

4)Sign up for a API

5) Start coding

And it went into some detail of how each step would get you to start your own mashup. So this should be a interesting task and it seems like we will be using a little from each one of our past IS classes to complete this ultimate project.

Project

I am really excited about the idea my group has come up with for out project. We are going to try to integrate four API’s that will give different information on a movie title that is entered into our application. As a big movie buff I thought of this idea and my group and Professor Drake thought it would be a good project to do. I really hope we can get it to work because I really like the concept.

What we are going to do for our project is create an application where a movie title is entered then information about the movie is pulled for the Internet Movie Database, DVD and other merchandizing information is pulled from Amazon and EBay and finally Netflix is checked to see if the DVD is availably there.

We have already started to look at the API’s we will need and it looks like we are in good shape there. Now comes the hard part of using Ajax to create our application. I am a little bit nervous about this part. Programming can be really hard and getting it all to work may be another challenge but I think my group is up to it and we will do well.

Group Project

So I have chosen the people, or rather maybe they have chosen me, to work with on our group project. We're trying to decide what to do for our project. Two of us, Steven and I own a company that we would like to use for the project and our group is ok with that. The problem we are running into is we aren't really sure what to do for the external sources requirement.

Our company is a Pay Per Click advertising consultation company. We are both certified in Google AdWords. We started the company early last year, and we do need to drastically improve our website. I think it would be a great opportunity for us to learn something in this class that we could apply towards our business, and I'm excited that I won't feel like I'm just doing another pointless project that will be forgotten at the end of the semester. I realize that the other projects were for learning, but it'll be nice to actually be able to use the output from this project for something in the real world.

The biggest issue we're facing when using our company for the project, like I said before, is finding external sources for the project requirements. One thing I had thought of was to maybe use some sort of calculator from Google or another site, if it exists, that people could put in their information, such as budget, how much they would make for each conversion, things like that. Then the calculator would calculate their ROI. I'm trying to think of other things, but we will have to get together again and see if there's anything we can come up with.