Course Review

As the subject Web Apps comes to end, it’s time to reflect on the things I’ve learned, liked and disliked. Let me start off by saying that the Web Apps was by far my favourite subject this semester. While some were quite interesting (Behaviour in Organisations), the main thing to do is memorize the textbook and reproduce the professor’s opinion in numerous essays. Web Apps started off slow but got more and more intense during the semester. The first assignment was both a lot of fun and very challenging. I can proudly say that I finally got CSS. Especially the fact that you can realize most of the layouts you create in Photoshop or drawings is quite fascinating. The second assignment is a whole different ballgame. Very intense and hard, but after all we are here to learn something and while I am working on my post grad assignment simultaneously I can see the learning effects resulting in faster output. I think I’ve spent days on Twitter 2.0 trying to figure out how to save to xml. In my postgrad assignment I am using the same technique and everything flows. Well, kind of. Two projects at one time is very confusing. I tried to let me guide by the marking scheme and stopped once I was sure I’ll get a good grade. There are still some features missing so it’s going to be a long Monday. Calling my postgrad a beta would be lie… Very stressful times. I am spending my days in front of the computer trying to include every feature. But hey, if I think about it, it becomes clear that this is what I like. So it’s cool. Two more days until the presentation I am sure that I learned a lot of things which makes me happy because that doesn’t apply to every subject I took this semester.

Bond World Cup Final

In a couple of hours, two Web Apps students will take part in the Bond World Cup Final. I am talking about soccer, of course. After a long season, Gerpan (Germany and Japan) are facing Latin in the grand final. Lorance and me are part of the Gerpan team and we hope we are going to win. Or do we? The problem with winning is that you have to celebrate and deadlines, especially for Web Apps, are in our heads. It’s a very tricky situation. Do we want to win and waste one whole afternoon (and probably great parts of the evening) or should we lose, take a shower, have dinner and finish our projects?

Not so fast, Google!

This morning I saw a short report about a new search engine on CNN. Like most of the students these days, I’m surfing the web while “watching” TV so I decided to give it a go and checked out cuil and well, it looks like a search engine… The magic happens when you search for something. The search results are arranged in colums with pictures which gives them a nice look and feel. The “Explore by Category” feature on the right hand side suggests additional related topics which provide a bunch of useful links “onmouseover”. For someone who is using AJAX heavily at the moment, cuil is a nice application of useful ideas.

Cuil claims to search 121,617,892,992 pages, an acclaimed three times more than Google. Well, the search result for “Bond University” showed 110,040 results while Google showed approx. 8,630,000. The quality of the results is hard to compare. You will eventually find what you were looking for by going to the homepage or refine your search. Cuil seems to be a great starting point for queries about unfamiliar topics, that is because while you type your query, suggestions are displayed and the layout and exploring by category helps you to find your way through the web.

The best feature, in my opinion, was not shown while testing both search engines with the example “Bond University”, so I typed in “AJAX” – since it haunts my dreams anyways – and WOW, there it is: Tabbed search results. The first tab, obviously, is about the Asynchronous Javascript and XML, the second one is about the famous soccer club AJAX Amsterdam (think Geelong, Aussies). The third one about a lovely place called Ajax, Ontario and the fourth one, mmh, it’s that soccer club again. Well, no one’s perfect at the beginning. But organizing the search results has one major adavantage: If you can’t or don’t want to limited search results by smart queries (AJAX AND Programming), cuil does that for you which is very convenient if you are unexperienced or have absolutely no idea what you are looking for.

One problem for small websites which are featured on CNN is serious traffic. While testing, I experienced one timeout which was resolved by a simple key press (F5). Google needed five years to become decent, cuil started well with some great ideas. If these guys can keep it up and don’t sell out to Google too fast, we might actually see some competition which is always good for users.

IT (un-)enabled Group Projects

Four subjects – three group projects. A nightmare for most of the students, including me. Countless meetings, even more mails and a million different documents containing the work of several people. As a Business and IT student I am lucky to have some insight into solutions that make life easier, but unfortunately most of my fellow students (especially the business ones) use a laptop and Office 2003. That’s it. Versioning is a nightmare and real IT enabled collaboration is just not existing. I tried to foster the use of Office Live where groups and work together online – the perfect solution and it’s free (for now). But most people say we don’t need that and that it’s too complicated. Bull*?$!. It’s so easy and it safes time because you don’t have to meet every other day and follow up with countless emails. Especially as a student no matter what your major is, you should know and use the new solutions for collaboration. Everyone’s using Facebook, hardly anyone uses Google Docs or Microsoft’s Office Live.

Same old, same old

So Apple announced their new iPhone on Monday. What’s new? 3G and some applications and a lower price. The not very critical Apple fans love it and can’t wait to buy it yet the stock price fell 5%. Finally! Even with the adjusted price this gadget is way too expensive and manufacturers from Asia already proved that they can do better for a smaller price. AT&T, Apple’s official retailer in the US announced because of they are selling the iPhone the earning per stock are expected to go down 11 cents – now that’s a healthy business relationship. The problem for AT&T is that they signed a long term contract which means they still have to give Apple a part of their earning and pay to subsidy the phone. That’s generous. I just hope that people wake up and realize that Jobs and his team are the real evil here. They are charging consumers for next to none improvements and call it updates (sounds familiar?) and are constantly trying to make as much money as possible by showing no mercy for suppliers and distribution partners.

The wind has changed, Apple is no longer the cool and friendly brand trying to bring joy into your life. They are after your money, people.

The Empire Strikes Back!

During his last Microsoft CEO Summit Bill Gates pulled of a Steve Jobs’s like presentation (minus the presentation skills – notice how he has his back to the audience all the time) and introduced Microsoft’s Touch Wall, a huge interactive screen that let’s you browse through vast amounts of information by just using a huge screen with cameras and your hands as an input device. It’s like the iPhone on steroids! Although still in development this might be the future of corporate and educational presentations. To watch Bill Gates’ presentation, follow this link.

iSearch?

According to a report in the German edition of the Financial Times, Apple is working on a search engine to complement their browser and hardware devices like the iPhone. For me it’s the logical next step on the highway from everybody’s darling to Microsoft II. (Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Microsoft is bad, but their rep is) With their consistent strategy of closed systems a search engine is a money maker obviously missing in their portfolio. I bet the thing comes with awesome features such as:

- only 1 result if you search for Microsoft:

- you can advertise for US-$ 0.99 or € 0.99 because it’s almost the same, right?

- and obviously, the search results cannot be transfered to any PC…

Can’t wait!

Back in the Saddle!

My second semester at Bond started on Monday. As part of my assessment for Web Applications I’ll be posting topics of interest for this course regularly from now on.

This post is intended to provide an overview over my level of knowledge with Web Applications. Studying Business and IT I’ve always been interested in computers and the web. I started designing some web sites back in high school and used these skills throughout different internships. In 2005, I redesigned the website of the Boston-based non-profit United Planet. In addition to that I designed a Joomla! based portal in order to stay in touch with my friends. The site can be found at here. I mainly used Macromedia software (now Adobe) and Photoshop. I am particular interested in Adobe Flash because the possibilities with this software are nearly endless. I’ve spent some time programming basic games in Flash but couldn’t really find the time for it lately. My diploma thesis back in Germany was about Web 2.0 and the new possibilities it offers for organizations to communicate both in- and outwards. If you are interested in this topic and fluent in German I’ll be more than happy to send you a copy…

Make sure you check out this video which explains the concept of Web 2.0 and a lot of topics we are going to tackle in the upcoming weeks.