Terms selection - 10
Web Spider
A Web spider is a computer program that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. Many sites, in particular search engines, use spidering as a means of providing up-to-date data. Web crawlers are mainly used to create a copy of all the visited pages for later processing by a search engine that will index the downloaded pages to provide fast searches. Crawlers can also be used for automating maintenance tasks on a Web site, such as checking links or validating HTML code. Also, crawlers can be used to gather specific types of information from Web pages, such as harvesting e-mail addresses (usually for spam).
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_spider
VRML
VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional (3D) interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind. It has been superseded by X3D.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VRML
XQuery
XQuery is a query and functional programming language that is designed to query collections of XML data.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xquery
Internet Information Services (IIS)
Internet Information Services (IIS) - formerly called Internet Information Server - is a set of Internet-based services for servers created by Microsoft for use with Microsoft Windows. It is the world's second most popular web server in terms of overall websites behind the industry leader Apache HTTP Server. As of April 2009[update] it served 29.27% of all websites according to Netcraft. The servers currently include FTP, FTPS, SMTP, NNTP, and HTTP/HTTPS.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Information_Services
Aspect
In computer science, an aspect is a part of a program that cross-cuts its core concerns, therefore violating its separation of concerns.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_(computer_science)
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
terms and definition — Week 11
Terms selection - 9
Trojan Horse
The Trojan horse, in computing and software, describes a class of computer threats (malware) that performs undisclosed malicious functions that allow unauthorized access to the host machine, giving them the ability to save their files on the user's computer or even watch the user's screen and control the computer.Trojan Horses (not technically a virus) can be easily and unwittingly downloaded.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_(computer_security)
Worm
A computer worm is a self-replicating computer program. It uses a network to send copies of itself to other nodes (computers on the network) and it may do so without any user intervention. Unlike a virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Worms almost always cause at least some harm to the network, if only by consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or devour files on a targeted computer.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worm_(computer_virus)
PHP
PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. It generally runs on a web server, taking PHP code as its input and creating web pages as output. It can be deployed on most web servers and on almost every operating system and platform free of charge.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Php
Resource Description Framework (RDF)
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a family of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifications originally designed as a metadata data model. It has come to be used as a general method for conceptual description or modeling of information that is implemented in web resources; using a variety of syntax formats.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework
XML schema
An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself. An XML schema provides a view of the document type at a relatively high level of abstraction.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_schema
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Trojan Horse
The Trojan horse, in computing and software, describes a class of computer threats (malware) that performs undisclosed malicious functions that allow unauthorized access to the host machine, giving them the ability to save their files on the user's computer or even watch the user's screen and control the computer.Trojan Horses (not technically a virus) can be easily and unwittingly downloaded.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_(computer_security)
Worm
A computer worm is a self-replicating computer program. It uses a network to send copies of itself to other nodes (computers on the network) and it may do so without any user intervention. Unlike a virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Worms almost always cause at least some harm to the network, if only by consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or devour files on a targeted computer.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worm_(computer_virus)
PHP
PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. It generally runs on a web server, taking PHP code as its input and creating web pages as output. It can be deployed on most web servers and on almost every operating system and platform free of charge.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Php
Resource Description Framework (RDF)
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a family of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifications originally designed as a metadata data model. It has come to be used as a general method for conceptual description or modeling of information that is implemented in web resources; using a variety of syntax formats.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework
XML schema
An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself. An XML schema provides a view of the document type at a relatively high level of abstraction.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_schema
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
HW #13 – Article 10
Article title:
As the tilte said it all, the article is about the 10 most common mistakes that people make while developing information or contents of the websites. It is also the overview and outline of a 2-day IA course that the author hold. The author separate the mistakes into 2 main areas: structure and navigation. (The structure mistakes are: No Structure, Search and Structure Not Integrated, Missing Category Landing Pages, Extreme Polyhierarchy, Subsites/Microsites Poorly Integrated with Main Site. For the navigation ones, they are: Invisible Navigation Options, Uncontrollable Navigation Elements, Inconsistent Navigation, Too Many Navigation Techniques, Made-Up Menu. Options.)
Commentary
I think this article is a great piece, because it did discuss the mistakes that I can find in some websites once a while. For example, everybody think that animations in website are cool. Therefore, people even come up a moving navigation and do not realize that it will confuse the user. By reading this article, we can cut down mistakes that may cost us in the future.
In addition, the author also includes links to other top-ten (useful) lists that the author, Jakob Nielsen try to advise us in developing website.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Top 10 Information Architecture Mistakes
Link:http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ia-mistakes.htmlAs the tilte said it all, the article is about the 10 most common mistakes that people make while developing information or contents of the websites. It is also the overview and outline of a 2-day IA course that the author hold. The author separate the mistakes into 2 main areas: structure and navigation. (The structure mistakes are: No Structure, Search and Structure Not Integrated, Missing Category Landing Pages, Extreme Polyhierarchy, Subsites/Microsites Poorly Integrated with Main Site. For the navigation ones, they are: Invisible Navigation Options, Uncontrollable Navigation Elements, Inconsistent Navigation, Too Many Navigation Techniques, Made-Up Menu. Options.)
Commentary
I think this article is a great piece, because it did discuss the mistakes that I can find in some websites once a while. For example, everybody think that animations in website are cool. Therefore, people even come up a moving navigation and do not realize that it will confuse the user. By reading this article, we can cut down mistakes that may cost us in the future.
In addition, the author also includes links to other top-ten (useful) lists that the author, Jakob Nielsen try to advise us in developing website.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
HW #12 – Article 9
Article title:
The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity
Link:http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_future_of_firefox_no_tabs_built_in_ubiquity.php
This is a short article introducing the new features that Firefox, the browsers, may look like in the future. As I mentioned in my last article that every big web company in the industry was building their own "desktop interface". Mozilla has tried to turn Firefox into an operating system, or a multimedia file system like iTunes. Several interesting features and the way the browser implementing have been mentioned. They are Tree Tabs, Tiny Menu and 'awesome bar'. At the end of the article, a video clip that shows how these features work is included.
Commentary
The features that showed in the clips is awesome and inspiring. Think about it, a browser contain a translation feature that translate more than 60 languages and continue to search with that language, calculator, a pull down extension with interactive searching, and the extension can change to a separate window that plays video or music. I am exciting with the video clip itself and definitely want to find out more about these features.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity
Link:http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_future_of_firefox_no_tabs_built_in_ubiquity.php
This is a short article introducing the new features that Firefox, the browsers, may look like in the future. As I mentioned in my last article that every big web company in the industry was building their own "desktop interface". Mozilla has tried to turn Firefox into an operating system, or a multimedia file system like iTunes. Several interesting features and the way the browser implementing have been mentioned. They are Tree Tabs, Tiny Menu and 'awesome bar'. At the end of the article, a video clip that shows how these features work is included.
Commentary
The features that showed in the clips is awesome and inspiring. Think about it, a browser contain a translation feature that translate more than 60 languages and continue to search with that language, calculator, a pull down extension with interactive searching, and the extension can change to a separate window that plays video or music. I am exciting with the video clip itself and definitely want to find out more about these features.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
HW #11 – Article 8
Article title:
Firefox Could Be the Real Facebook Challenger
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/05/05/05readwriteweb-firefox-could-be-the-real-facebook-challeng-12208.html
The article is about the competition between a browser company and a social network company, (Firefox and Facebook). People might wonder why this is happening. Well, all the big internet companies are building their own Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), which would eventually become their own desktop interface. Google already launched their own browser. Both Facebook and Firefox need to figure out a new models to generate advertising revenues. Firefox comes up a command-line-type Ubiquity system into the address bar. (To get more information, click here) Facebook launched its own desktop interface using Adobe Air.
Commentary
There is only one reason for what all these company have been doing. And that reason is looking for a way to keep their users or even better getting more users. It is interesting to observe and follow their moves, because you can be inspired or learning stuff that might be useful in the future.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Firefox Could Be the Real Facebook Challenger
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/05/05/05readwriteweb-firefox-could-be-the-real-facebook-challeng-12208.html
The article is about the competition between a browser company and a social network company, (Firefox and Facebook). People might wonder why this is happening. Well, all the big internet companies are building their own Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), which would eventually become their own desktop interface. Google already launched their own browser. Both Facebook and Firefox need to figure out a new models to generate advertising revenues. Firefox comes up a command-line-type Ubiquity system into the address bar. (To get more information, click here) Facebook launched its own desktop interface using Adobe Air.
Commentary
There is only one reason for what all these company have been doing. And that reason is looking for a way to keep their users or even better getting more users. It is interesting to observe and follow their moves, because you can be inspired or learning stuff that might be useful in the future.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
HW #10 – Article 7
Article title:
Why I Am Obsessed With Twitter
Link: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/why-i-am-obsessed-with-twitter/
By explaining the reason for his obsession in Twitter, the author introduced the interest things that you can find in the site. For examples: The Microblogging service, that Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities called attention; Tweetmeme, which includes a list of links that lead to most popular social topics; TweetDeck and Nambu, which can filter the favorite leads to the one's interested news. The author, Jenna Wortham believed that Twitter delivered on the promises of the internet.
Commentary
Since the talk about the usage of Twitter in most-hit Flu area or something like that in the class, this article got my attention. I do believe that Twitter will be or already is a success on its own as a social web network site. And definitely check out the website myself and all these new terms.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Why I Am Obsessed With Twitter
Link: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/why-i-am-obsessed-with-twitter/
By explaining the reason for his obsession in Twitter, the author introduced the interest things that you can find in the site. For examples: The Microblogging service, that Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities called attention; Tweetmeme, which includes a list of links that lead to most popular social topics; TweetDeck and Nambu, which can filter the favorite leads to the one's interested news. The author, Jenna Wortham believed that Twitter delivered on the promises of the internet.
Commentary
Since the talk about the usage of Twitter in most-hit Flu area or something like that in the class, this article got my attention. I do believe that Twitter will be or already is a success on its own as a social web network site. And definitely check out the website myself and all these new terms.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Sunday, May 3, 2009
HW #9 – Article 6
Article title:
Is Apple getting ready for an 'iPad'
Link: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-293658.html
According to the article, Apple has been developing a new mobile Internet device or MID called "iPad", which is something between iPhone and MacBook. The article talked about other similar devices: Amarzon's Kindle is not a major competitor, and PC netbook, which is hurting the gross market of PC industry.
For the software's side, Apple had an advantage for a mini-size computer mainly used for basic Web surfing and email. For example, iPhone OS 3.0, also applications from App Store, which provide a familiar interface looks like Dashboard in Mac OS X. However, the software developers need to put more efforts for iPad if they want their applications run on the new device as well.
Commentary
With all the different interfaces of all the devices that availabe in the market, web developers need to come up with flexible designs that fits on all these devices. I remembered that we (me and my colleagues) needed to provide almost ten different sizes of the same html email for one campaign last year. That is, the graphic and design of the campaign need to be looked good in all these different sizes. Therefore, you need to be very cautious when you start developing ideas for any marketing campaign.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Is Apple getting ready for an 'iPad'
Link: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-293658.html
According to the article, Apple has been developing a new mobile Internet device or MID called "iPad", which is something between iPhone and MacBook. The article talked about other similar devices: Amarzon's Kindle is not a major competitor, and PC netbook, which is hurting the gross market of PC industry.
For the software's side, Apple had an advantage for a mini-size computer mainly used for basic Web surfing and email. For example, iPhone OS 3.0, also applications from App Store, which provide a familiar interface looks like Dashboard in Mac OS X. However, the software developers need to put more efforts for iPad if they want their applications run on the new device as well.
Commentary
With all the different interfaces of all the devices that availabe in the market, web developers need to come up with flexible designs that fits on all these devices. I remembered that we (me and my colleagues) needed to provide almost ten different sizes of the same html email for one campaign last year. That is, the graphic and design of the campaign need to be looked good in all these different sizes. Therefore, you need to be very cautious when you start developing ideas for any marketing campaign.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
HW #8 – Article 5
Article title:
In Defense of Eye Candy
Link: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/indefenseofeyecandy
To defense the important of the role of aesthetic design of websites, Stephen P. Anderson, the author, argued with the following factors: every stimulus that might influence interactions; and attractive things work better; how people "think" cannot be separated from how people "feel". One of the examples was, when the graphic looks like a button, the chance of being clicked by people is much higher than a graphic that does not like a button. It was human nature that people do things that make them feel right. Also, the author pointed out, attention to design details could build users' trust, which finally will drive the website's success.
Commentary
I think this is a great article as the author used human logic and science to argue the importance of aesthetic design on websites, instead of saying "just for the sake of beauty, make the website look pretty". In my career experience, I see graphic designers that would argue with their clients, just because they can not swallow their "artistic ego".
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
In Defense of Eye Candy
Link: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/indefenseofeyecandy
To defense the important of the role of aesthetic design of websites, Stephen P. Anderson, the author, argued with the following factors: every stimulus that might influence interactions; and attractive things work better; how people "think" cannot be separated from how people "feel". One of the examples was, when the graphic looks like a button, the chance of being clicked by people is much higher than a graphic that does not like a button. It was human nature that people do things that make them feel right. Also, the author pointed out, attention to design details could build users' trust, which finally will drive the website's success.
Commentary
I think this is a great article as the author used human logic and science to argue the importance of aesthetic design on websites, instead of saying "just for the sake of beauty, make the website look pretty". In my career experience, I see graphic designers that would argue with their clients, just because they can not swallow their "artistic ego".
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Monday, April 27, 2009
terms and definition — Week 10
Terms selection - 8
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
Originally a standard for defining the types of files attached to standard Internet mail messages. The MIME standard has come to be used in many situations where one cmputer programs needs to communicate with another program about what kind of file is being sent.
For example, HTML files have a MIME-type of text/html, JPEG files are image/jpeg, etc.
Ref: http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html
POP (Post Office Protocol)
In computing, the Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by local e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a remote server over a TCP/IP connection. POP3 and IMAP4 (Internet Message Access Protocol) are the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval. Virtually all modern e-mail clients and servers support both.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Office_Protocol
Proxy server
In computer networks, a proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application program) that acts as a go-between for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. (for security or to speed up access to a resource)
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server
ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)
ISDN is a telephone system network. The key feature of the ISDN is that it integrates speech and data on the same lines, adding features that were not available in the classic telephone system.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISDN
MUD (Multi-User Dungeon)
In online gaming, a MUD, is a multi-user real-time virtual world described entirely in text. It combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, interactive fiction, and online chat. Players can read descriptions of rooms, objects, other players, non-player characters, and actions performed in the virtual world. Players interact with each other and the world by typing commands that resemble a natural language.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
Originally a standard for defining the types of files attached to standard Internet mail messages. The MIME standard has come to be used in many situations where one cmputer programs needs to communicate with another program about what kind of file is being sent.
For example, HTML files have a MIME-type of text/html, JPEG files are image/jpeg, etc.
Ref: http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html
POP (Post Office Protocol)
In computing, the Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by local e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a remote server over a TCP/IP connection. POP3 and IMAP4 (Internet Message Access Protocol) are the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval. Virtually all modern e-mail clients and servers support both.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Office_Protocol
Proxy server
In computer networks, a proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application program) that acts as a go-between for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. (for security or to speed up access to a resource)
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server
ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)
ISDN is a telephone system network. The key feature of the ISDN is that it integrates speech and data on the same lines, adding features that were not available in the classic telephone system.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISDN
MUD (Multi-User Dungeon)
In online gaming, a MUD, is a multi-user real-time virtual world described entirely in text. It combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, interactive fiction, and online chat. Players can read descriptions of rooms, objects, other players, non-player characters, and actions performed in the virtual world. Players interact with each other and the world by typing commands that resemble a natural language.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
terms and definition — Week 9
Terms selection - 7
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
DHCP is a network application protocol used by devices (DHCP clients) to obtain configuration information for operation in an Internet Protocol network. This protocol reduces system administration workload, allowing devices to be added to the network with little or no manual intervention.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DHCP
FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface)
A standard for transmitting data on optical fiber cables at a rate of around 100,000,000 bits-per-second (10 times as fast as 10-BaseTEthernet, about twice as fast as T-3).
Ref: http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html
Firewall
A firewall is a part of a computer system or network that is designed to block unauthorized access while permitting outward communication. It is also a device or set of devices configured to permit, deny, encrypt, decrypt, or proxy all computer traffic between different security domains based upon a set of rules and other criteria.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_wall
GIF (Graphic Interchange Format)
A common format for image files, especially suitable for images containing large areas of the same color. GIF format files of simple images are often smaller than the same file would be if stored in JPEG format, but GIF format does not store photographic images as well as JPEG.
Ref: http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol)
IMAP is one of the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval, the other being POP3. Virtually all modern e-mail clients and servers support both protocols as a means of transferring e-mail messages from a server, such as those used by Gmail, to a client, such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook. Once configured, the client's use of such protocols remains transparent to the user.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAP
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
DHCP is a network application protocol used by devices (DHCP clients) to obtain configuration information for operation in an Internet Protocol network. This protocol reduces system administration workload, allowing devices to be added to the network with little or no manual intervention.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DHCP
FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface)
A standard for transmitting data on optical fiber cables at a rate of around 100,000,000 bits-per-second (10 times as fast as 10-BaseTEthernet, about twice as fast as T-3).
Ref: http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html
Firewall
A firewall is a part of a computer system or network that is designed to block unauthorized access while permitting outward communication. It is also a device or set of devices configured to permit, deny, encrypt, decrypt, or proxy all computer traffic between different security domains based upon a set of rules and other criteria.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_wall
GIF (Graphic Interchange Format)
A common format for image files, especially suitable for images containing large areas of the same color. GIF format files of simple images are often smaller than the same file would be if stored in JPEG format, but GIF format does not store photographic images as well as JPEG.
Ref: http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol)
IMAP is one of the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval, the other being POP3. Virtually all modern e-mail clients and servers support both protocols as a means of transferring e-mail messages from a server, such as those used by Gmail, to a client, such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook. Once configured, the client's use of such protocols remains transparent to the user.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAP
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
terms and definition - Week 8
Terms selection - 6
Atom
Atom is a type of web feed, written in XML, which allows a user to download any updates made to the website or blog using a feed reader.
Ref: http://www.blogossary.com/define/atom/
Applet
An applet is a small program, usually embedded in a web page, which can perform a number of duties such as playing audio or video clips and querying a database. These programs are normally written in Java.
Ref: http://browsers.about.com/od/glossarywordsa/g/applet.htm
IDE (Integrated Development Environment)
IDE describes a single application which contains an entire programming environment. This normally includes a compiler, debugger, and a graphical programming interface.
Ref: http://browsers.about.com/od/i/g/IDE.htm
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
VoIP is a general term for a family of transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications over IP networks such as the Internet or other packet-switched networks.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VOIP
WiFi
The term Wi-Fi often is used by the public as a synonym for wireless Internet (WLAN); but not every wireless Internet product has a Wi-Fi certification, which may be because of certification costs that must be paid for each certified device type.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiFi
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Atom
Atom is a type of web feed, written in XML, which allows a user to download any updates made to the website or blog using a feed reader.
Ref: http://www.blogossary.com/define/atom/
Applet
An applet is a small program, usually embedded in a web page, which can perform a number of duties such as playing audio or video clips and querying a database. These programs are normally written in Java.
Ref: http://browsers.about.com/od/glossarywordsa/g/applet.htm
IDE (Integrated Development Environment)
IDE describes a single application which contains an entire programming environment. This normally includes a compiler, debugger, and a graphical programming interface.
Ref: http://browsers.about.com/od/i/g/IDE.htm
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
VoIP is a general term for a family of transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications over IP networks such as the Internet or other packet-switched networks.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VOIP
WiFi
The term Wi-Fi often is used by the public as a synonym for wireless Internet (WLAN); but not every wireless Internet product has a Wi-Fi certification, which may be because of certification costs that must be paid for each certified device type.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiFi
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
terms and definition - Week 7
Terms selection - 5
Edublog
An edublog is a blog written by someone with a stake in education. Examples might include blogs written by or for teachers, blogs maintained for the purpose of classroom instruction, or blogs written about educational policy.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edublog
FeedBurner is a web feed management provider, it provides custom RSS feeds and management tools to bloggers, podcasters, and other web-based content publishers. Services provided to publishers include traffic analysis and an optional advertising system.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeedBurner
Digg is a social website made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet, by submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting on submitted links and stories. Voting stories up and down is the site's cornerstone function, respectively called digging and burying.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg
AdWords is Google's flagship advertising product and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adwords
Folksonomy (also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, and social tagging) is the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content. Folksonomy describes the bottom-up classification systems that emerge from social tagging.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Edublog
An edublog is a blog written by someone with a stake in education. Examples might include blogs written by or for teachers, blogs maintained for the purpose of classroom instruction, or blogs written about educational policy.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edublog
FeedBurner is a web feed management provider, it provides custom RSS feeds and management tools to bloggers, podcasters, and other web-based content publishers. Services provided to publishers include traffic analysis and an optional advertising system.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeedBurner
Digg is a social website made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet, by submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting on submitted links and stories. Voting stories up and down is the site's cornerstone function, respectively called digging and burying.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg
AdWords is Google's flagship advertising product and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adwords
Folksonomy (also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, and social tagging) is the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content. Folksonomy describes the bottom-up classification systems that emerge from social tagging.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
terms and definitions - Week 6
Terms selection - 4
User Experience Design (UX)
is a design field that pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models which impact a user's perception of a device or event. The area include all aspects of the user's interaction; how the user perceive, learn and use the device or system.
FriendFeed
FriendFeed is a feed aggregator that consolidates the updates from social media and social networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and micro-blogging updates, as well as any other type of RSS/ Atom feed.
Aggregator website
In general internet terms, a news aggregation website is a website where headlines are collected, usually manually, by the website owner.
Boxee
Boxee is a freeware cross-platform media center software with social networking features that is a fork of the open source XBMC media center software with some custom and proprietary additions
Micro-blogging
is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
HW #7 – Article 4
Article title:
10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design
Link: http://mashable.com/2009/01/09/user-experience-design/?cp=2
Inspired by my last post, I want to follow up with the term "user experience design", and this article is the most interesting one that I found. The author is Whitney Hess, who is a New York based independent user experience consultant. She recorded some of the most influential and highly respected professionals in UX field and cleverly compiled them to create the "10-most" things that she thought UX design is not. The list is as follow:User experience design is 1. not user interface design 2. not a step in the process 3. not about technology 4. not just about usability 5. not just about the user 6. not expensive 7. not easy 8. not the role of one person or department 9. not a single discipline 10. not a choice.
Commentary
I think the article is great because the content was cleverly arranged, so that you can gradually understand what the user experience design is. And the quotations could drive you to think about the process of user experience design. I like how she described her job — user experience design is to make stuff easy and pleasurable to use. Don't you think that is the key to any website's success. An easy and pleasurable experience can definitely draw more users to return to the website.
I also want to recommend Whitney Hess's blog: Pleasure & Pain
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design
Link: http://mashable.com/2009/01/09/user-experience-design/?cp=2
Inspired by my last post, I want to follow up with the term "user experience design", and this article is the most interesting one that I found. The author is Whitney Hess, who is a New York based independent user experience consultant. She recorded some of the most influential and highly respected professionals in UX field and cleverly compiled them to create the "10-most" things that she thought UX design is not. The list is as follow:User experience design is 1. not user interface design 2. not a step in the process 3. not about technology 4. not just about usability 5. not just about the user 6. not expensive 7. not easy 8. not the role of one person or department 9. not a single discipline 10. not a choice.
Commentary
I think the article is great because the content was cleverly arranged, so that you can gradually understand what the user experience design is. And the quotations could drive you to think about the process of user experience design. I like how she described her job — user experience design is to make stuff easy and pleasurable to use. Don't you think that is the key to any website's success. An easy and pleasurable experience can definitely draw more users to return to the website.
I also want to recommend Whitney Hess's blog: Pleasure & Pain
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
HW #6 – Article 3
Article title:
Facebook, Google, and the data design disaster
Link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10206053-36.html
As the title said it all, the article is about the problems of the information design that Facebook and Google were facing. In Facebook case, the issue was about user experience (UX). The new redesign interface was too much for the majority users to digest right away. While Google on the other hands, wouldn’t change the look of its products for the approval of a design professional. The author, Miss Caroline McCarthy pointed out both companies have the same problem — seduction by information, and the resulting disconnect between data and design.
Commentary
I think the article is a great example of the challenges that information designers might need to face in the real life. “How to get the balance between data and design?” — That’s the question that I had in my mind when I finished the story.
Also the part that really hit me hard is the case of Google’s missing “delete” button when it launched Gmail. The response from Google was there was a gigabyte in each Gmail account, so the clients did not need one. Whitney Hess, a UX designer, pointed out that Google did not understand the real reason for the people delete their emails is to make space on their mind. They didn’t want to look at something that they might have an emotional response to.
What Miss Hess said is very inspiring, it make you understand how important the users’ experience can be if you want to build a successful website.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Facebook, Google, and the data design disaster
Link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10206053-36.html
As the title said it all, the article is about the problems of the information design that Facebook and Google were facing. In Facebook case, the issue was about user experience (UX). The new redesign interface was too much for the majority users to digest right away. While Google on the other hands, wouldn’t change the look of its products for the approval of a design professional. The author, Miss Caroline McCarthy pointed out both companies have the same problem — seduction by information, and the resulting disconnect between data and design.
Commentary
I think the article is a great example of the challenges that information designers might need to face in the real life. “How to get the balance between data and design?” — That’s the question that I had in my mind when I finished the story.
Also the part that really hit me hard is the case of Google’s missing “delete” button when it launched Gmail. The response from Google was there was a gigabyte in each Gmail account, so the clients did not need one. Whitney Hess, a UX designer, pointed out that Google did not understand the real reason for the people delete their emails is to make space on their mind. They didn’t want to look at something that they might have an emotional response to.
What Miss Hess said is very inspiring, it make you understand how important the users’ experience can be if you want to build a successful website.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
terms and definitions - Week 5
Terms selection - 3
Vertical search
Also known as domain-specific search. It is a relatively new tier in the internet-search industry consisting of search engines that focus on specific slices of content that are based on the information type.
XML
The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose specification for creating custom markup languages. It is classified as an extensible language, because it allows the user to define the mark-up elements.
JavaScript
is a scripting language widely used for client-side web development. The script usually embedded in HTML source code, providing interaction for the user. JavaScript is not related to Java programming language
IP address
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical identification that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol for communication between its nodes. The role of the IP address has been characterized as follows: "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there."
LAN - local area network
is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a home, office, or small group of buildings, such as a school, or an airport. The defining characteristics of LANs, in contrast to wide-area networks (WANs), include their usually higher data-transfer rates, smaller geographic range, and lack of a need for leased telecommunication lines.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Monday, March 9, 2009
terms and definitions - week 4
Terms selection – 2
Information design
the detailed planning of specific information that is provided to a particular audience to meet specific objectives. It includes information content design, page design, Web site design, illustration design, typography decisions, and so forth.
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)
An XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. This architecture consists of a set of design principles for creating "information-typed" modules at a topic level and for using that content in delivery modes such as online help and product support portals on the Web.
Metadata
Metadata is structured data which describes the characteristics of a resource. It shares many similar characteristics to the cataloguing that takes place in libraries, museums and archives. A metadata record consists of a number of pre-defined elements representing specific attributes of a resource, and each element can have one or more values
Semantic Web
the extension of the World Wide Web that enables people to share content beyond the boundaries of applications and websites. It has been described in rather different ways: as a utopic vision, as a web of data, or merely as a natural paradigm shift in our daily use of the Web. Most of all, the Semantic Web has inspired and engaged many people to create innovative semantic technologies and applications.
Web content management system (WCMS) is content management system (CMS) software, usually implemented as a Web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential Web maintenance functions.
Usually the software provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease of use.
A WCMS allows non-technical users to make changes to an existing website with little or no training. A WCMS typically requires an experienced coder to set up and add features, but is primarily a Web-site maintenance tool for non-technical administrators.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
HW #5 – Article 2
Article title:
Web 3.0: When Intelligent Applications Take Over
The author, Olivar Kamprojo, thought that Web 3.0 would be a transition phase and introduction of "intelligent Applications" — the applications that knew how you work, adapted to your workflow, came up suggestions of website that you might want to visit for ideas. He then actually showed the following examples:
Baspin by Mozilla, Lovely Chart, iWork from Apple, bubble.us and etc.
Baspin by Mozilla, Lovely Chart, iWork from Apple, bubble.us and etc.
Commentary
I strongly recommend the class to read this article and find out the examples that the author listed. This is because if you want to study the Web, you need to know what is the newest trends in the industry, or what might be the next thing that everyone will get into.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
HW Assignment 2-2
Title:
It depends on what is the research for, and definitely the time that I have to finish the project.
First of all, I go to YouTube website, looking for some short video lessons in order to get a quick understanding of the title. For example, there are several short interesting video clips about Web 2.0, in YouTube. The one with the title "What is Web 2.0? — from ZDNet, hosted by Andi Gutmans from ZEND was a good one. He brought up the following terms: RIA (Rich Internet Applicatin), SOA (Search Oriented Architecture), and Web Services; in order to explain the principles of Web 2.0. They were: Web as a Platform, Harnessing Collective Intelligence, Data is the Next Intel Inside, and Rich User Experiences. The other recommended clips was "What is a Mashup?" from ZDNet as well, it really helped you to have a better understanding of what was going on in the web.
Secondly, I look for the definition of the terms from Wikipedia website, the great thing about this website is, there are links for each corresponding terms that lead to their own definition page, that really help me in understanding some "long tails" complicated terms. Then, if I need more references, I continue the research with Google or sometimes even del.ico.us. website.
Explanation of my research process
It depends on what is the research for, and definitely the time that I have to finish the project.
First of all, I go to YouTube website, looking for some short video lessons in order to get a quick understanding of the title. For example, there are several short interesting video clips about Web 2.0, in YouTube. The one with the title "What is Web 2.0? — from ZDNet, hosted by Andi Gutmans from ZEND was a good one. He brought up the following terms: RIA (Rich Internet Applicatin), SOA (Search Oriented Architecture), and Web Services; in order to explain the principles of Web 2.0. They were: Web as a Platform, Harnessing Collective Intelligence, Data is the Next Intel Inside, and Rich User Experiences. The other recommended clips was "What is a Mashup?" from ZDNet as well, it really helped you to have a better understanding of what was going on in the web.
Secondly, I look for the definition of the terms from Wikipedia website, the great thing about this website is, there are links for each corresponding terms that lead to their own definition page, that really help me in understanding some "long tails" complicated terms. Then, if I need more references, I continue the research with Google or sometimes even del.ico.us. website.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
HW #3 – Article 1
In the research for this assignment, I have found several articles, which I think they are all significant and interesting. As a matter of fact, I had a hard time to decide which one to use.
Anyway, here is my approach:
Article Title:
(I know the article was not published recently, but I found it through another blog post: Web 3.0, Where are we?, which was published on February, 2009. )
The article is about this formula: Web 3.0= (4C+P+VS), come up by the author Sramana Mitra, to predict what will be more significant in the future of the Web. The 4Cs in the above equation represent Content, Commerce, Community, and Context; P = Personalization; VS = Vertical Search. Ms. Mitra pointed out that the Content, Context, or Database of the websites would be more personalized, as most of them tend to go this way. And in order to make vertical search works, the content of the website need to be more specific and, what they called, intelligent. That leads to my second article:
Web 3.0 = (4C +P+VS)
(I know the article was not published recently, but I found it through another blog post: Web 3.0, Where are we?, which was published on February, 2009. )
The article is about this formula: Web 3.0= (4C+P+VS), come up by the author Sramana Mitra, to predict what will be more significant in the future of the Web. The 4Cs in the above equation represent Content, Commerce, Community, and Context; P = Personalization; VS = Vertical Search. Ms. Mitra pointed out that the Content, Context, or Database of the websites would be more personalized, as most of them tend to go this way. And in order to make vertical search works, the content of the website need to be more specific and, what they called, intelligent. That leads to my second article:
Article Title:
What Constitutes “ Intelligent Content”? Interview with Ann Rockley.
Ms. Rockley stated that the content should be structurally rich, semantically aware, discoverable, reusable, reconfigurable and adaptable. The technical terms such as: DITA (Darwin information Typing Architecture) and Content Management, come up to support intelligent content. Even more, some websites has introduced so called intelligent applications. Examples of these applications are Bespin by Mazilla, and Bubbl.us.
(check them out in the following link: http://www.olivarkamprojo.com/web-30-when-intelligent-applications-take-over/ )
Commentary
I think both articles are interesting and significant as they show how the web may go in the future and how one of the industry leaders try to suggest a better way to organize the data in order to improve websites.
Please, let me know what you think of these articles?
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
Monday, February 23, 2009
HW Assignment #2-1
Terms selection — 1
All the following definitions are obtained from Wikipedia website, so I am not going to list them in double spacing. However, in some of the terms, I add my comments on why I think they are important to understand for the provided articles.
1.) An Application programming interface (API) is a set of routines, data structures, object classes and/or protocols provided by libraries and/or operating system services in order to support the building of applications.
Comment: As the first principle of Web 2.0 — The Web as Platform, it is important to know that most of the big players, such as Google, in Web are providing API for the developers to build their own website.
2.) The Document Object Model (DOM) is a platform- and language-independent standard object model for representing HTML or XML documents as well as an Application Programming Interface (API) for querying, traversing and manipulating such documents.
Comment: same as API
3.) Mashup
In web development, a mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool. The term Mashup implies easy, fast integration, frequently done by access to open APIs and data sources to produce results that were not the original goal of the data owners.
Content used in mashups is typically obtained from a third party source through a public interface or API (web services). Other methods of obtaining content for mashups include Web feeds (e.g. RSS or Atom), and screen scraping. Many people are experimenting with mashups using Amazon, eBay, Flickr, Google, Microsoft, Pictometry, Yahoo and YouTube APIs, which has led to the creation of mashup editors. Some programming languages, such as Orc, offer support for the creation of mashups.
Comment: This is the term that people used to call the program or software that built with web services. Therefore, it is definitely a buzz word for explaining web 2.0.
4.) Rich Internet applications (RIAs) are web applications that have some of the characteristics of desktop applications, typically delivered by way of proprietary web browser plug-ins or independently via sandboxes or virtual machines. Examples of RIA frameworks include Adobe Flash, Java/JavaFX and Microsoft Silverlight.
As web standards (such as Ajax and HTML 5) have developed and web browsers’ compliance has improved there is less need for such extensions. HTML 5 delivers a full-fledged application platform; “a level playing field where video, sound, images, animations, and full interactivity with your computer are all standardized”
Comment: As one of the principles of Web 2.0 is Rich User Experience, this is the goals for the web application developers.
5.) AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), is a group of interrelated web development techniques used to create interactive web applications or rich Internet applications. With Ajax, web applications can retrieve data from the server asynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page. The use of Ajax has led to an increase in interactive animation on web pages. Data is retrieved using the XMLHttpRequest object or through the use of Remote Scripting in browsers that do not support it. Despite the name, the use of JavaScript and XML is not actually required, nor do the requests need to be asynchronous. The acronym AJAX has thus changed to the term Ajax, which does not represent these specific technologies.
Comment: This is one of the key technologies for today’s web application developers.
6.) Search Oriented Architecture (SOA)
The use of search engine technology as the main integration component in an information system. In a search-oriented architecture the data tier may be replaced or placed behind another tier which contains a search engine and search engine index which is queried in-place of the database management system. Queries from the business tier are made in the search engine query language instead of SQL. The search engine itself crawls the relational database management system in addition to other traditional data sources such as web pages or traditional file systems and consolidates the results when queried.
The benefit of adding a search layer to the architecture stack is rapid response time large dynamic datasets made possible by search indexing technology such as an inverted index.
7.) Social Web
The Social Web is currently used to describe how people socialize or interact with each other throughout the World Wide Web. Such people are brought together through a variety of shared interests. There are different ways in which people want to socialize on the Web today. The first kind of socializing is typified by “people focus” websites such as Bebo, Facebook, and Myspace. Such sites promote the person as focus of social interaction. To do this a profile is constructed by each user. In many ways the profile is similar to a passport.
The second kind of socializing is typified by a sort of “hobby focus” websites. For example, if one is interested in photography and wants to share this with like-minded people, then there are photography websites such as Flickr, Kodak Gallery and Photobucket.
The Social Web may also be used to refer to two different, yet related concepts. The first is as a description of web 2.0 technologies that are focused on social interaction and community before anything else. The second is a proposal for a future network similar to the World Wide Web.
Comment: This is the key player for Web 2.0, as all these big social web sites utilize all the Web 2.0 tools. It is important to take a closer look of all these sites
8.) RSS
RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop-based, mobile device or any computerized Internet-connected device. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's URI (often referred to informally as a "URL", although technically, those two terms are not exactly synonymous) into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.
9.) Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) is an XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents into other XML or "human-readable" documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized (output) by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format, such as HTML or plain text. XSLT is most often used to convert data between different XML schemas or to convert XML data into HTML or XHTML documents for web pages, creating a dynamic web page, or into an intermediate XML format that can be converted to PDF documents
10.) Web 2.0
The term "Web 2.0" describes the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-culture communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.
P. S.: Comments on the style, the structure, anything you do not like about the blog are welcomed and thank you!
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