Simon's CS3382 Blog

RIA

2008-12-04T08:10:00.000-08:00

Rich Internet applications (RIAs) are web applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications. RIAs typically form a stateful client application with a separate services layer on the backend.

RIA with real-time push
Traditionally, web pages have been delivered to the client only when the client requested for it. For every client request, the browser initiates an HTTP connection to the web server, which then returns the data and the connection is closed. The drawback of this approach was that the page displayed was updated only when the user explicitly refreshes the page or moves to a new page. Since transferring entire pages can take a long time, refreshing pages can introduce a long latency.

Gadget for Web Pages

2008-11-27T04:42:00.000-08:00

It is a way to make you webpage nice by adding gadgets.
click the link below and find something interest.
It is both available for

Google Gadgets For Your Webpage

The google gadgets contains many category : News, Tools, Communication, Fun&Games, Finance, Sports, Lifestyle, Technology.

below is some example.

Web 2.0 And Web 3.0

2008-11-20T01:32:00.000-08:00

This is a funny movie, that constrained to just text & pictures, explaining Web 2.0 & how it affects global society.

There is a research consultancy Project10X has just published a "Web 3.0 Manifesto".
The below image try to explain the innovation of the Web.

101 Web Marketing Ideas and Tips

2008-11-13T06:19:00.000-08:00

see this: 101 Web Marketing Ideas and Tips

Web marketing is a wide range topic. There are so many things you can do.
This is a web page mentioned most of the web marketing and it will get you many tips.
Take it for you reference!!

There are are some highlight of it.

Global Marketing
Advertising and Affiliate Marketing
RSS & Newsletter Marketing
Analytics Marketing Techniques
Brand and Visibility Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Link Baiting, Link Building and Research
Corporate & e-Commerce Marketing
Blog Marketing
Design, Content, Accessibility and Usability Marketing

Six Steps to Ensure a Successful Usability Test

2008-10-30T08:27:00.000-07:00

See This: Six tips to successful usability testing

This is a article that gets you some tips to find problem and fixing problem in usability testing.

Here is some a highlight. I will make it short. If you wanna know why and long description, please visit Six tips to successful usability testing.

Start early!!
Select issues that uncover problems if they exist
focus on tasks that: are critical, are done frequently, have serious consequences if done, incorrectly, you or managers, designers, developers, writers are worried about.
Find participants who really represent users.
Watch and listen carefully.
Help the designers and developers to see that uncovering problems is not a sign of failure.

Accessibility Tips

2008-10-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

See this: Accessibility Tips

There are some useful techniques to increase the accessibility for your website.
Here is the highlight:
Validation: Make sure your website is valid for web standard. So that the accessibility tool can read it.

Platform Independence: Your website should be accessible regardless of the user's platform and settings.

Structural HTML: Concentrate on the structure of the document rather than its presentation. Let the Style sheets work for presentation.

Images: ALT is a must! Avoid using Images of Text and Image Maps!!

BODY Colors: . If you set the body color or body background, you should also specify all color attributes. Make sure that the page is readable.

The FONT Element: Avoid using "FONT" tag and "basefont" tag. Style sheets is much flexible.

Tables: Avoid using it for layout. WIDTH attribute is unnecessary. Never try to place a TABLE within a P element.

JavaScript: Don't rely on it. User can disable it. Screen reader ignore it.

Want to know why and how? Visit Accessibility Tips or Google it.

Top 10 SEO Mistakes

2008-10-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

There many useful SEO information and tools I have found in this website (http://www.webconfs.com/).

You can find out something in this website too. Like SEO Tools, SEO Tutorial, SEO Articles, SEO Quiz, Web Tools, etc.

One of the articles I would like to introduce to you is this one. It reminds you don't do the wrong thing when you are working on the SEO of the website.
Top 10 SEO Mistakes
1. Targetting the wrong keywords
2. Ignoring the Title tag
3. A Flash website without a html alternative
4. JavaScript Menus
5. Lack of consistency and maintenance
6. Concentrating too much on meta tags
7. Using only Images for Headings
8. Ignoring URLs
9. Backlink spamming
10. Lack of keywords in the content

Web Design Tips

2008-10-02T07:56:00.000-07:00

The project is going to do layout design. I started looking for some web design skills. And very lucky, I have found a website that contains what I need. Its Web site designed to share the web design experiences from a experienced web designer. I t gives the suggestion for other web designers.

Website design tips: http://websitehelpers.com/design/

This web site has mentioned 9 tips for web design, with some examples.

Here some highlights, after I read it.

1. Provide compelling content / something of value
Don’t just focus on design, content is what the visitors need.
Suggest Advertising ratio: 75% editorial to 25% advertising.

2. Avoid Sleazy Elements
Don’t distracting the visitors. No blinking, No scrolling, No pop-up, etc.

3. Make it Easy to Find Stuff
Minimize clicking. It make a visitor find the information more efficient.
Minimize screenfuls.
Menu on every page

4. Don't bog your website down
Compress the image. Don’t use too much flashy multimedia.

5. Website Readability
Make your text easy to read.
Page not too wide.
Text not too large and not too small.

6. The right and wrong way to use links
Use the link in right way.

7. Be Accessible
Don't waste your readers' time by making them hunt around your site!!

8. Make sure it works, and that it keeps working
Keep testing and modifying.

9. Other webmaster tips
Just some avoid for web masters.

Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design

2008-10-01T08:31:00.001-07:00

See this: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html

There is a website listed the top ten mistakes in web design. You may take a look from there when you are developing a website. And There are few pointers we should pay attention. Because whey maybe the web development trends in the future.
1. Bad Search.
That is SEO. what we are going to learn.
2. PDF Files for Online Reading
I think only few lazy people will do that. How can you use the PDF file for content?!
3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links
Pages are always be updated. So, don't change the color, don't remind visitors don't click that link.
4. Non-Scannable Text
Surely, visitor will not read your content word by word. So, show the important things first.
5. Fixed Font Size
Use "em" instead of "px". It makes the page more accessible.
6. Page Titles With Low Search Engine Visibility
Good title make your web page more visitors.
7. Anything That Looks Like an Advertisement
Don't do that. Because users ignore advertisements.
8. Violating Design Conventions
Be Consistency!!
9. Opening New Browser Windows
Visitors may ignore that too.
10. Not Answering Users' Questions
Visitors can found what they want, then they will gone.

Learning from bad designs.

2008-09-25T06:49:00.000-07:00

After this course we may know how to make a good web design.
But you may know the worst designs now. Know it than avoids it.

Here is a cool collection of worst web designs.
http://www.jimwestergren.com/worst-web-design-ever/

For the above link I found some basic bad design techniques. There some commonly techniques.
Blinking image is everywhere or using blinking background.
Links is everywhere but too many and only link.
All text and link are in same style.

Useful tool for web developer

2008-09-16T21:02:00.000-07:00

As long as designing a web page, you may encounter the problem that wasting too much time on evaluating the layouts, colors, cookies, CSS, JavaScript, etc. Hence, an add-on for Firefox called “Web Developer” is recommended for both web designers as well as web developers to save time of trying and evaluating. You can try, modify and preview styles on the browser dynamically. Also, it contains some useful function and amazing function, that let you see the changes of the web page.

This web site introduced some functions of Web developer.
http://searchengineland.com/080417-111400.php

10 Things You May Not Know About the Web Developer Toolbar
http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/000692.php

download & install to Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/zh-TW/firefox/addon/60
Official website: http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/

An interesting website...

2008-09-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

Last few months, I went to The Museum. And it introduce an interesting website that built by an artist. Why did I say it is interesting? Because I don’t think that anyone has searched any context of the website before. This website is almost completely built by Flash. You can see that the content of the HTML is only a “swf” file. Can anyone tell me is it a good design? Even though the layout is clearly, the color is attractive, the content is rich. But the traffic rank is still not very high (ref:http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/db-db.com).

I don’t know the purpose of the website founder. Maybe he wants the web unsearchable and makes it private. But nowadays, It is maybe may be not beneficial.

Here’s the website you can try, http://www.db-db.com.

If you guys found something new or interesting please share with me and leave me a message.