Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Using Ajax to Improve the Bandwidth Performance of Web Applications
Using Ajax to Improve the Bandwidth Performance of Web Applications : "Christopher Merrill over at webperformance.com wrote up an article on the performance impacts of Ajax development in which he measured bandwidth results for an application using full page refreshes vs. Ajax techniques. The Goal In order to test the theory, we decided to see if we could cut the bandwidth use of an application by at least 50%. We selected a rather simple internal data-analysis application. The application consists of a typical page layout with a central section containing the changing content. The header, footer and navigation menu do not change during the application operation. We modified the application so that it can be accessed in either traditional (page-refresh) mode or AJAX mode. We then used our measurement tool (Web Performance Analyzer) to record and analyze the bandwidth utilization of each application. Conclusion In applications that have a significant part of each page containing content that is identical in multiple page requests, using AJAX-style methods to update only the relevant parts of a web page can bring significant bandwidth savings. Using less than 100 lines of javascript, we were able to quickly convert an existing web application to use AJAX page-update methods to drastically reduce (>60%) the bandwidth requirements of our sample application. It is important to not"
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Web Trends 2006 - is yesterday's news...
Web Trends 2006 - is yesterday's news...: "In late-december 2005 I sat down and tried to guess what the future would be like here in 2006 - that is about a month ago. Now, I was imagining that I was being bold, and that life had to, in some mysterious way, get just right for it to actually happen - at least in 2006 instead of 2007... or 2009. I was wrong - terribly wrong! One company changed several of my predictions into yesterday's news - only 9 days after 2006 had started. Nine freaking days... That company is Apple. I predicted things like 'The internet as a pipeline is getting started - in the second half of 2006'. But, with Apple's new photocasting it is already here. This allows you to work in a desktop based environment at both the start and the finish - all connected trough the internet. This is an amazingly good way to utilize the internet as a pipeline. It is also the future of web applications (more on that later). I also predicted that 'interoperability is the key', which is very clearly visible in the way Apple's new iLife applications work together - and more importantly, extends the capabilities of each application. This is a classic example of development on an exponential rate - add one thing and use it for two things (more on that later too). Then there was the prediction called 'simplicity is going to be r"
New Minimum Font Size
New Minimum Font Size: "The good people of Microsoft User Experience and Microsoft Typography have found that the minimum font size used on computer screen is too tiny for modern computer displays. The absolute minimum size used to be Tahoma 8pt (comparable to 11px on Mac OS X or on the web). But, as the average screen display has moved from 640x480 to 1024x786 (and above) the font has simply become intelligible for most people. This evidently caused by that the average screen resolution has increased more rapidly than the use of larger displays. It is a problem that has become profound on most laptops, and noticeable on many desktop systems. To fix this Microsoft has developed a new font - Segoe UI (pronounced, 'SEE-go'), and changed the minimum from 8pt to 9pt. But, that is not all. The new font has also been designed specifically for ClearType, and has been given a more human appearance than Tahoma. You should care too In May 2004, I wrote an article about the minimum font size you could use on the web. With this, that article, and my recommendation has changed. If you are creating a website, web application or a regular application, you should actively consider using a larger font-size - based on this new knowledge about user experience vs. computer displays. In Minimum Font Sizes I recommended that you; 'Make you body font-size 70% (the exac"
Web 2.0: A glimpse into the future?
Web 2.0: A glimpse into the future?: " What is Web 2.0? (as of Dec. 2005) A new approach to web and web application development that is characterized by: Web sites offering free (cool) web services and tools (examples below); Open source code (open API's)- software code becomes a viral marketing tool; An enhanced user experience afforded by new approaches to information sharing and use of existing/new web scripting technologies; Giving users the ability to share their opinions, media or to offer back to the community aka 'The Architecture of Participation' (see Wikipedia's Web 2.0 definition) or peer-to-peer goes mainstream. Web 2.0 seems to have taken flight in the last 10 months related to: The rising popularity of social networking websites (like MySpace); online dating sites (like Match.com) and social networking sites (like LinkedIn) that create more emphasis on the 'Social Web'. Google's rising influence and use of new ways to present a map interface (Google Maps; Gmail; Google Suggest). And Amazon, Microsoft and other big players are working on what will be central to the 'Web 2.0' user experience (i.e. Tagging in Amazon and RSS web feeds in IE 7). Yahoo's positioning as a stakeholder in Web 2.0 with it's acquisition of Flickr photo sharing and del.icio.us social bookmarking services and hiring of key 'Social Media' executives to spearhea"
The Politics of Pop-Ups, Pop-Up Blockers and the Pop-Up Error Message
The Politics of Pop-Ups, Pop-Up Blockers and the Pop-Up Error Message: " Pop ups are dead- so what? First of all, let me just get this out in the open: there is nothing wrong with pop-ups per say. Next, let me qualify what I just said: Pop-ups are ineffective as an advertising tool and are not recommended on the web since pop-up blockers are ubiquitous. E.g. Every browser and search engine tool these days has a pop-up blocker: AOL pop-up blocker, Google Toolbar pop-up blocker, Yahoo Toolbar pop-up blocker, Firefox built in pop-up blocker, third party free pop-up blocker tools...etc. Google Killed the Pop-Up From the late 90's to the early 00's Google quietly used it's simple and easy to use design (read great user experience) to hijack the pop-up as a form of web advertising. If you remember every credible large and small website used pop-up windows for advertising and more. Google's text advertising (right column block short phrase with a link) wiped out the pop-up since the click through rates (CTR) for text based advertising (or contextual advertising) were higher: under .5% CTR for pop-ups to 2-3% CTR for text ads. Back to 'There is Nothing Wrong with Pop-ups' Pop-ups are not the problem. It is the forcing of them on your users without telling them, which also violates the permission-based marketing model. This issue is rarely unders"
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