Tag Archives: JavaScript

An Ajax RSS Reader

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William Lazar cooked up a sweet RSS reader you can read about on his blog using Google’s Ajax Feed API and MooTools.

Part of me wants to whip up a Popurls page using this, that stores what feeds you want to see in a cookie. Something like that could take only a few hours, with minimum feed tech knowledge.

What’s exciting about Google Gears

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A lot of folks are going gaga over Google Gears and its capability to enable partially connected web applications (web applications that can run offline).

Here is a paraphrase from a comment I left at Burningbird (Shelley Powers’s blog is one of my favorite places to discuss web technology and how it relates to society, politics, and more):

What really interests me about Google Gears is the local web server.

It’s the Dave Winer Fractional Horsepower HTTP Server idea (from back in 1997), that’s finally come of age.

Just what is possible when each of us have our own web servers, running on our desktops?

Immediately you think p2p heaven. But the possibilities for building collaborative apps is just massive.

I know, I know, for anyone who knows Perl, Python or Java, it’s never been too much of a big deal to spin up your own webserver, but this looks like it makes it more than simple – it makes it practical.

If I’m reading it right, you’ll need some form of centralized web app to co-ordinate collaboration across machines, which is no big deal.

The web’s about being connected. And it’s the online possibilities that Google Gears opens up that are rather mind boggling.

Flex, Flash, and Comcast Interactive Media’s Fan 4.0 Alpha

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The team I belong to at Comcast, Comcast Interactive Media, released an alpha version of our video player, The Fan, this week.

You can give it a try here. If I say so myself, it’s pretty sweet.

While more information is available on its official cimLabs page, including links to give feedback, I’d like to point you towards one of its developers, Arpit Mathur, and his blog entry about it.

This version of The Fan was built with Adobe’s Flex and Arpit has a lot to share about the project. Feel free to leave a comment and tell him what you think.

As Arpit mentions, we’re on the lookout for Flash developers. But there’s more to the CIM story than Flash. In fact, the development stack we use at CIM resembles what Bruce Eckel proposed in a piece called “Hybridizing Java” on Artima a while back. We are looking for experienced Web developers of all stripes to join us. Check out cimLife for more.

Update:

Arpit’s post about the new version of the Fan is earning some buzz.

RIApedia: Comcast Launches New Flex Based Video Site

Masable: The Fan – Comcast’s New Flex Video Site

Ryan Stewart: Comcast jumps into Flex 2 for media content

Shelley Powers: Cool Thingie

Update:

Aaron Held, my manager at CIM, checks in with more about Flash, Java, and The Fan.

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Follow the linkage on Techmeme.

Coworker and friend showcased at Adobe Labs

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I’ve been far to busy to write here lately, but wanted to share this with you: Arpit Mathur has a sweet Flex-built mp3 player that shows off a little of what Flex can do when building a mashup that combines media, storage, and identity (in this case Box.net, Flickr, YouTube and Amazon). He built this in very little time, so it has a few quirks and bugs, but hey, it’s a proof of concept. They’ve been featuring it at Adobe Labs over the weekend. Check out FlexAmp here (Flash 9 required).