Jason Salas' WebLog

Book Review: "Ajax in Action"

guam-aspdev — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Let me first preface this review by saying this is the first technical book that I've read cover to cover TWICE prior to posting a review. I had to make sure the stuff stuck, because the material covered in Manning's very excellent "Ajax in Action" is really deep. But bringing the next evolution of user experience, giving your web applications a rich client feel, isn't completely easy. This won't scare you away from using Ajax in your existing applications, but make you aware of exactly what to expect.

The book first starts out by presenting a healthy discussion of the key components of remote scripting - CSS, the DOM, JavaScript's XmlHttpRequest object and client callbacks - and how they interact within the scope of your project. Before diving into full-on Ajax development, authors Dave Crane and Eric Pascarello discuss the need for object-oriented JavaScript programing, which will be foreign and awkward to most developers, even those coming from procedural backgrounds like Java and C++. The authors familiarize you with the various ways of composing the unconventional constructs available (JSON-RPC, prototypes) for optimizing remote scripting.

Best practices are encouraged throughout the chapters and enforced in all code snippets. The use of patterns like Observer, Command and MVC and refactoring and module-based programming (mainly .NET assemblies and Java servlets) permeate the entire work. The actual meat of the book doesn't get started until Chapter 9, which the authors clearly state, dealing with the aforementioned discussion of raw JavaScript programming that'll be completely new to most people. But for those not wanting to engage in the massive task of writing syntax by hand, the major libraries available are thankfully referenced.

The book also isn't a "copyist's" title, one that can provide working code right out of the gate. Also, the audience for this work should be fairly sopisticated and experienced with modern-day web programming, as the book assumes a certain level of competency and doesn't waste time with rudimentary concepts or examples. Crane and Pascarello take a platform-agnostic look at incorporating Ajax-style programming into web applications, citing examples in PHP, Java and .NET, and accordingly the examples are all partial and abstracted, to be implemented in whatever platform the developer/reader is familiar with.

This is also one of the few books that I've ever recommended people read the appendices in addition to the chapters. Most titles have supplementary info that doesn't match the flow of the chapters, or exclusionary stuff you can skip, but this book is really a tome of good reading. Appendix B is an outstanding discussion on JavaScript OOP, providing an introduction to and examples in JSON.

Ajax programming is a lot more complex than it lets on, but not as daunting as you might think. This book is critical in your understanding of how to make the next big thing in web development to work for you. A must-have.

Book review: "Murach's Java Servlets and JSP"

guam-aspdev — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 08:52:00 GMT

The one quality that makes "Murach's Java Servlets and JSP" (buy from Amazon) a clear winner is the quality of the content and clarity of author Andrea Steelman and Joel Murach's writing. They use a friendly, humorous voice that eases the normal tension accompanying such a complex topic as programming Java servlets and designing JavaServer Pages. I'm a C# developer, so this was most appreciated by someone like me. You'll also be thankful for this tone as the book takes you through some very challenging scenarios in developing winning browser-based apps.

The book is the rare breed of tech manual that stays relevant to the neophyte reader and the experienced developer alike. It's outstanding as a college-level classroom reference, with oversized dimensions (it's a large book, height- and width-wise) are loaded with rich illustrations and healthy amounts of code with thorough explanations of the concepts behind then. Physically the book is ready to sustain the harsh conditions of the learning programmer. Its rigid design will survive a reader's rampant paging through chapters to find that one code sample and stretching the book's spine, in the classroom as well as the web shop.

The book presents the reader with the holistic JSP experience, and the organization of the chapters is very logical. I particularly enjoyed the chapters dealing with JavaMail programming, working in SSL environments, database access with JDBC and MySQL, working in the HTTP pipeline, custom JSP tags and use of XML. Also featured are basic discussions of incorporating componentization in your projects through JavaBeans. I also liked wrapping up my reading with the capstone project: designing, coding and deploying a very practical Music Store web app.

The accompanying CD-ROM is outstanding, including the Java 2 SDK for Windows, Tomcat 4.0, MySQL, and trial versions of HomeSite and TextPad.

In criticism, I felt the book to be ironically a little light on servlets themselves. I would have liked to see more on servlets and beans programming discussed, and perhaps highlight a bit more some of the key classes in the Java 2 API. The book also I feel neglects the object-oriented programming concepts that are so critical to modern-day development. Maybe such topics are out of this book's range, but simple class design would have been nice. However, the best-practices approach to development - use of patterns, proper system organization and implementing MVC architecture greatly offset the book's very minor shortcomings.

I fully recommend this book to anyone looking to get into beginning to intermediate JavaServer Pages programming. It's essential to becoming a well-versed Java programmer.

My new blog's finally up...

guam-aspdev — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 01:43:00 GMT

I've gotten the hang of Blogger now to be productive, although I still haven't published to JasonSalas.com from my mobile or from e-mail, but I hope to give it a shot sometime this weekend. And I still can't find where to access my stats, if such a feature exists.

But it's up and running...kindly add my new Atom feed to your RSS aggregators accordingly: http://www.jasonsalas.com/blog/atom.xml

iTunes Music Store should adopt subscription for TV programming

guam-aspdev — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 23:24:00 GMT

I suggested when pontificating over the merits of the iTunes Music Store's for-purchase method of ABC network television programming a permanent subscription format. This can easily be done by applying the proven opt-in concept of RSS, perfectly marrying the tried-and-true media concepts of print's paid, inncentive-based subscription with TV's traditional syndication.

How cool would it be if Apple/ABC/other sources collaborated on a permanent subscription model for network TV content? A consumer would pay a set fee for a certain number of episodes, which would be a certain percentage cheaper than if you bought an entire season's shows individually and got automatic delivery of the content. It's retooling information by applying new media applications to proven concepts, taking a page right out of Sports Illustrated (pun intended), and from blogging/podcasting.

Think about it: assign users a secure account in the iTunes Music Store. They agree to pay $25.37 for a 15-episode season of "Grey's Anatomy" (15% off the cover price of $1.99 per episode). Add an incentive - subscribers exclusively get an extra bonus video of cast interviews, outtakes, etc. - and programmatically subscribe the user's local version of iTunes 6 to an authenticated RSaS feed that delivers their shows according to a set schedule (an additional subscriber-only incentive might be they get the video a few hours earlier than its released in the ITMS).

For the consumer this would mean cost-effectiveness, guaranteed delivery, convenience and reliable viewership. And the networks get more money up front, regardless of the quality of their programming, the ratings of their stuff, or whether the end-user actually watches their stuff, or not. It's the perfect application of RSS to paid content.

Operators are standing by, cancel anytime.

The new marketing tagline for movies from this point on

guam-aspdev — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:53:00 GMT

I'm still coming down from my Apple sugar rush from yesterday, so one more post on the impacts of the multimedia-rich "One More Thing..." announcement Steve Jobs gave.

Imagine the new mandated tagline movie compaines, TV networks and content multimedia producers are going to have to start using in commercials -

"[ SOME MEDIA PRODUCT NAME HERE] , coming soon on October 12 for DVD, PSP, and in the iTunes Music Store"

I'm moving...

guam-aspdev — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 02:00:00 GMT

I finally setup JASONSALAS.COM, so I'll be replicating/archiving some of my blog posts over the next day or so as I transition content to my new domain. I've not used Blogger as a publishing tool before, so setting up some of the feed and archive directories is a new thing. I've really enjoyed .TEXT, but it's time to try something new.

4 things wrong with college football today

guam-aspdev — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 04:53:00 GMT

I used the following topics for part of my "5-in-5" segment of my sports show where I debate the hottest topics in national sports. This is my favorite time of year, when America's new pastime is in its full glory. Forget baseball - football's been the national game for years, and everyone knows it. The most menial play in a gridiron highlight reel is typically more awe-inspiring than what would be considered phenomenal feats of athleticism on the diamond.

But while it's the most popular sport in America, it's far from perfect. And the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement, and this season's certainly candidate for that, so consider the following things I find objectionable in the college game today.

Conditionally implementing instant replay - with the Big Ten having spent last season being the NCAA's guinea pig for the test of whether instant replay reviews can be inserted into the college game, we were all left shaking our heads. Duh?!? Of course it would work. Now, it's implemented in all but two conferences - the WAC and the Sun-Belt - both of which are pretty much ignored by network TV coverage. We all knew/know instant replay would be a positive thing for the game. It's already worked definitively this season (twice against Michigan vs. Notre Dame), and any football purist will tell you it's a step in the right direction. It's time to allow instant replays (and possibly NFL-style coaches challenges) across the board.
Games are taking way too long - chalk up the previous benefits of instant replay as a contributing factor for longer games. In certain situations, televised college games are lasting as long as four hours to finish. Four hours? That's insane. An incessant amount of TV timeouts, extended commercial breaks, long delays, and the ever-damaging college rule that stops the game clock while the chains are being moved add up to very long experiences. Some have suggested shortening the quarters to 10 minutes, which will never happen. I say reduce the forced stoppage of play due to promotional and school hype considerations and let the people play.
Overtime - even though I've listed OT here as a shortcoming, I actually like it a little. The NCAA's version of deciding games has been relegated to the game of bluff we all played as 13-year-olds in basketball (if I try and make it, then you try and miss, I win). It's an insult that such a system exists in a sport so complex. Ironically, NFL analysts want the college OT rule applied towards its games, with too games being decided by the unlucky outcome of a coin flip.
The Bowl Championship Series - while the preceding arguments are debatable by coaches, analysts and sportswriters nationwide, the one consensus everyone involved with college football has is that the BCS has got to go. While conceived as a means of more accurately determining a national championship by calculating a team's RPI by way of (de)valuing overall/conference record, strength of schedule, margin of victory, and performance. Sounds good, but it's never worked out. Someone's always going to get screwed. If it were left up to human voting, we'd be complaining about constant political interference leaving a team out of bowl consideration or rankings. It may make perfect sense mathematically, but not artificial intelligence engine I know of can realistically determine that a Auburn shouldn't have won a national championship in 2004, or LSU should have been sole champions a year before. It's not working and it's got to go. Solution? We need a playoff tournament. It works for Division III schools, so why not implement it with the cash cow?

Still learning ins and outs of Google Reader

guam-aspdev — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 02:43:00 GMT

I'm realizing that while I'm remaining less forthright in flaming Google for the perceived inadequacies of Google Reader, the one thing that is getting on my nerves is a lack of help links or tutorial documentation. I stumbled across the fact that the program can read and more importantly play podcasts yesterday, and apparently I'm not the only one. Today I jjust figured out that I'm supposed to be reading feeds from the "Home" link, not the "Read Items".

It's a lot of fun and a cool, new way to get RSS-based information, but a tad more help for idiots like me would be appreciated. I'm in the crowd whose main frustrationn comes from the fact that we're admittedly used to using aggregators in a certain way based on other services and programs.

Flag-planting in Ann Arbor...ouch

guam-aspdev — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 23:58:00 GMT

There was much ado about the Spartans after they planted the Michigan State flag in South bend after dethroning the then-undefeated Fightin' Irish. Here's a painful shot of Minnesota's Laurence Maroney doing the same at midfield in the Big House after taking out the Wolverines.

ESPN guys were panning the practice, but I say let it go. This really hurt a UM fan like me to see, but the players certainly earn it. People are worried about injury? How about potentially thousands of kids ripping down a goal post?

Whiel I'm at it, the NCAA really needs to re-think the "excessive celebration" rule, without doubt the dumbest penalty ever created in sports. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of banning the practice of crotch-grabbing and throat slashing, but let players celebrate achievement.

Farewell, Little Brown Jug...

guam-aspdev — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 08:50:00 GMT

My Michigan Wolverines lost to the Golden Gophers of Minnesota 23-20 on a last-second field goal to give up possession of The Little Brown Jug for the first time since 1986 (see this excellent Flickr photostream by Boston Fan in Michigan). Geez.

With 3 losses and a 3-3 record (2-2 Big Ten), the hopes of locking-down the conference title are bleak (although Ohio State did drop a game to a very impressive Penn State squad, and Northwestern shocked Wisconsin), and it's probably safe to say the Rose Bowl's out of the picture, too. The best we can hope for now is to win out the remaining 5 games...including the Buckeyes at the Big House for the season finale.

Go Blue.

The undesirable social impacts of a Web 2.0 world

guam-aspdev — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 08:16:00 GMT

An image instantly popped into my head as I reviewed the impressive list of the major participants of this year's Web 2.0 Conference - their polar opposites. I saw in my mind the generation of Dot-Com busts. One of the collateral things that I hope doesn't arise when Web 2.0 really starts to take off with the masses is the insane rush by any and every would-be entrepreneur to get involved with it, as was evident with the web gold rush of the late 1990's (I'm referring to the legion of failures, not those listed in the Conference).

The one quality that made the e-commerce industry such a great thing - limitless opportunity - I believe also caused, in part, its downfall.

Remember how things were in those days? Everyone who claimed to be "a FrontPage expert" or passed the MCSE exams or knew at least three IT acronyms, regardless of formal education, proper training or business savvy, and whether they really "got" what being on the web meant, wanted to start their own company and instantly appoint themselves CEO. Each one of these people wanted to turn their communities into the next Silicon Valley, and were quick to let you know that (there were tons of guys like this in Guam...stress the "were"). Or, barely with a year of college under their belt, they wanted to work for a company on the verge of going public and worship at the altar of the almighty IPO and retire by 30. As a result, we've got a generation of misinformed wannabes who are still to this day still struggling to make it, now too proud to humble themselves and work for someone else at entry level; a result of their own lack of focus, lack of vision and lack of effort.

The biggest business hurdle in the Web 1.0 world was translation - understanding how to express logistical models in a purely online environment. If you could bullshit your way around this to a customer or venture capitalist, you'd be a part of something special. Today and going into the future concepts and models that are much more complex are the governing dynamics. Things like public APIs, syndication, open source models, social networking, harnessing the true power of data, loose coupling, The Long Tail, and distributing software as services aren't for the faint of heart and won't tolerate being managed by the ill-advised or improperly motivated. Hopefully, this complexity will produce a de facto shakedown enough to only allow the truly worthy in the club. At least initially.

The Web 2.0 economy is going to be way too intricate for such foolishness, and even in a capitalist macroeconomy we can't afford to permit the same mistakes. I'm hoping for a self-policing structure that mandates the right people get in on the action first, lest we be inundated with a community of semi-learned fools mucking it all up.

Accessing Word documents programmatically with an ASP.NET web form

guam-aspdev — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 08:06:00 GMT

I'm trying to incorporate a new feature into my company's CMS that doesn't require population of form fields in a web page. Basically, the system will read a DOC/RTF file from a directory and programmatically extract data to be inserted into a database, based on a predefined structure within the document (title, author, body). Sounds like the perfect candidate for BizTalk Server, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I'm not that lucky. So, I'm attempting to do so by hand.

It's simple enough to do, but examples don't exactly abound on the Web, so I'm doing some testing of some new concepts I've developed about reading/extracting the contents of such a binary file and using it via an ASP.NET web form. This is going to further automate an already-speedy proces for getting news from our newsroom management system to our CMS to the public World Wide Web.

Pretty geeky way to spend a Sunday night, eh?

Gold star for Writely

guam-aspdev — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 05:30:00 GMT

I finally figured out what everyone has known for awhile - Writely rules. I've setup an account and have been messing around with it in between taping my sports show this afternoon. I've previously used the roaming collaborative environments Basecamp and WriteBoard from 37Signals before with the Podcast Specification Working Group, and those were really fun.

I see it as a mash-up of the wiki concept of community-editable documents with RSS feeds to track document changes chronologically. It's amazing how simple the concept is. I prefer Writely mainly for the fact that I can (take the product tour):

Import files (Word documents, images, HTML)
Apply tagging and share documents
Post straight to my blog
Export to Word
Generate/subscribe to RSS feeds

I think this app is in need some of sort of mobile support, but it's way cool. I've already added this to my list of Firefox tabbed start pages.

A local IT guy thinks this is neat, but won't start using it, citing similar functionality within SharePoint Services.

Finding your voice: recording tips for mic-shy podcasters

guam-aspdev — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 03:22:00 GMT

A friend that I got interested in the podcasting revolution wrote me and gave giving recording time-shifted digital audio a try. Not surprisingly he was sheepish and self-critical not only about the finished product, but of the voicing process in general. Take it from me, because I do it all - recording for the first time, or the 1,000th time, can be a daunting experience if you're not comfortable with yourself.

I already had several years of mainstream broadcasting and new media experience under my belt voicing radio & TV scripts when I did my first podcast, and I still was very uneasy with the whole thing. The biggest hurdle to overcome is the fact that you're talking into a lone PC with no one else around. Being a marketing guy, this was particularly unnerving for me, with my public speaking comfort zone being in front of hundreds of people, whose reactions I could read and feed off of. Being all alone in a room with no feedback mechanism was very...scary. For others, this is better.

But regardless what type of public speaking you're most comfortable with, consider the following hints to making your podcasts sound better, to the enjoyment of your audience/subscribers.

Just be yourself. This is so often said, but realistically the hardest thing to do if you're new behind the mic. But think about it: what better way to be comfortable than to be yourself? Use your own voice, your own humor, your own personality, and let that be the presence you establish in the podosphere. If doing this still is bothersome, you might want to try the following two tips...
Don't talk like you would in real life. Often, broadcasters will develop a new, more authoritative James Earl Jones-ish voice when they're on the air, and the same principle applies for recording a podcastable MP3. You get used to sounding like some other person, which psychosomatically makes you an "actor" (I used this approach early on in my career), and you lose the self-consciousnes that limits yoiu from truly being yourself during a recording session. Just like writers who assume a ghost name, you create an alter-ego of yourself and be that person.
Copy someone you like. Find a podcaster or mainstream broadcaster who's voice you'd like to emulate and do just that (when I got started, I copied my favorite communicator, former ESPN and current MSNBC host Keith Olbermann). There's nothing wrong with trying to copy someone else's style, especially if they've been successful at it - they're probably doing something right. When you do this, you're own personality will slowly start to come out, and inevitably take over. Then you'll have a voice and style all your own.
Be arrogant when you read. You may feel weird acting pompous, but being a little vain when you read comes off sounding like confident. In my experience, 90% of vanity is in facial expression & body language, so ego is more present in visual mediums like video than audio and in print.
Be sarcastic when you read. If you're the type of person who has natural humor and ask a lot of intriguing and natural questions, it doesn't hurt to factor this into your dialogue. It'll sound better for the inquisitive stuff.
Posture makes a difference. When you record, sit properly & upright. This allows air to flow more freely through your esophagus and projects your voice better. It also lets you take longer, deeper breaths and reduces the saliva flow to your lower lip (I've learned this through practice).
SMILE! This sounds so Care Bear-ish, but a positive attitude does make a difference in your cast. It also does improve the intonational quality of your show if you force yourself to smile while reading or saying something. Doing so makes your voice brighter and more authoritative.

Little orange nightmare: Microsoft's new state-mindful RSS iconography

guam-aspdev — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 23:04:00 GMT

Microsoft announced a series of icons under consideration to represent various states of an RSS feed in IE7, perhaps in addition to using the proposed "Pod" graphic. I've got to say I like this idea in theory...although it's certainly subject to mass overuse/misuse. I hope they not go overboard with too many states (see the second option below...exactly what is "movement around a feed"?).

Quoting from MSDN:

We took a look at the prevalent icons used today but none of them fit our principles. The Firefox icon is close, but it lacks the rectangular dimension (principle #2). Here are some of the ideas that we’ve been playing around with:

    1 – We use a variation of the gleam to convey that feeds are updatable.


    2 – The ring illustrates movement around a feed.


    3 – This is a spark to show new information being broadcasted.


    4 – We use waves to show broadcasting of content.


    5 – This is the Beta 1 icon with our new requirements.