Security Setting can turn your AJAX off.

Today, I spent my whole day figuring out how MS AJAX toolkit work. Well, it was a such easy process as specified in its video tutorial. Having a video showing how to do it step by step, I thought it is just invisible, would be super fast.

1. After installing toolkit, I found it is not working though AJAX partially worked. OK, let me reading its release notes thoroughly.
2. After reading release notes, it is recommended to install service pack for Visual Studio.
3. Downloading the service pack is 450Mb, thank you Microsoft.
4. Installing the SP1, take me around 4 hours. Why it is just that sloooow. In the middle, C drive run out of space. Then I rushed to move some stuff to D.
5. Thank you, SP1 installation eventually finished. Try it again, not working...
6. Figure crossed, what can runs wrong, Oh, need to un-install AJAX entension, then reinstall.
7. Oops, after the step, not working.
8. Try the copy in Microsoft site, why it works, mine not worked.
9. Try the copy in another server, which I know it worked before. Bingo, today, it was not working!!! But nobody touched it recently.
10. Try Firefox, it worked locally and for the server copy. Well, I know what is wrong, the damn browser.
11. OK, my Explorer was corrupted, reinstall it Explorer 7. Not working.
12. OK. It must be security setting, after some changes, it worked fine.

Because MS site is trusted site, same code worked there but not for me locally or my company server. Took me a day.

Google Developer Day Sydney 2007 - Australia

Virtual sex in Second life

"And sometimes when people are talking across a table, that leads to sex. In real life and in Second Life, too. " This is the conclusion from review "Sex in Second life".

30% of second life economy is related to sex. Haha, why so, in real life, how much economy is relate to sex. In virtual life, avatar does not need to eat, does not need to sleep, so can always have have energy to have sex. Maybe this is one of the primary reason second life is so popular. Unlike World of Warcraft, its great animation and violence attracts people. In second life, its freedom, different lifestyle which you can not achieve attracts people. Well, people will get what you want, sometimes including people's dark side.

Not only individual, many big well-known companies took part in, hopefully 'not in sex'. Playboy will enter 'second life' in early of June, for sure, this would attract some new comers. Just wondering, how many more first-life jobs will be outsourced to second life.

Google Developer Day 2007

I had a few trainings recently, Asp.net, MS SQL, IBM Domino 7.0. Also I attended a few sessions for Macromedia in recent years. I likes MS ones. Well, the most exciting one, is Google developer Day, so many people are eager to go. In Sydney, its initial seminar was fully booked 1 month before the events. I was pleased knowing the room was changed to hold more audience and my late booking was accepted.

Rather calling it Google day, it is better calling it AJAX day. Back in 2005, after knowing Google map & Google suggest, I tried to use 'suggest' for my enterprise staff lookup. It worked great, I was so amazed to see how fast and powerful it can be used, but it took me very long time to configure it.

Since after, enabling AJAX is much simpler, for example PowerWeb is a nice tool allows developer to develop much quickly. Microsoft's Atlas now (AJAX) is also easy to use. Microsoft's samples make life easy, though not all of them are AJAX.

MS and Google, good work.... Great innovation and make developer's life better.

Google AJAX Search API - Access Google search results from JavaScript apps.
Google AJAX Feed API - Download and mashup public feeds in JavaScript.
Google Data APIs - Read and write data to Google services including Google Calendar and Blogger.
Google Gadgets - Write simple mini-apps for the Google homepage and Google Desktop.
Google Maps API - Embed Google Maps in your own web pages.
Google Web Toolkit - Write AJAX apps in the Java language

Comments on 50 ways to promote traffic

1. Write and submit articles to the article directories.

Well, not easy. Top article forum only accept top and unique articles. I had around 6 articles in GoArticles. To be honest, not many people read them at all. Because there are so many good articles there. I don't see a direct impact on my links increase in my Google crawl.

2. Leave comments on other people��s blogs with a backlink to your site.
3. Answer people��s questions on www.answers.yahoo.com.

Cross. Time consuming... I would prefer the second option, because at least you are learning.

4. Post in forums and have a link to your site in your signature.
5. Write a press release and submit it to www.PRWeb.com.
6. Advertise your website in the appropriate category on www.CraigsList.com.
7. Give an unbiased testimonial on a product/service that you have used in exchange for a backlink to your site.
8. Start a blog and submit it to the 100's of free blog directories.
9. Manually submit your website to the major search engines.
10. Optimize each page of your website for a particular keyword or search phrase.

11. Add a link in your email signature to your website. It��s a free and easy way to get a little more traffic.

12. Make a custom 404 error page for your website redirecting people to your home page.
13. Use PPC search engine advertising.
14. Add a ��bookmark this site�� link to your webpages.
15. Have a tell-a-friend form on your site.
16. Send articles to ezine publishers that includes a link to your website.
17. Hold a crazy content and make it go viral.
18. Give away a freebie (ebook, report, e-course) to keep people coming back to your site.
19. Add an RSS feed to your blog.
20. Submit your site to any related niche directories on the net.
21. Participate in a banner or link exchange program.
22. Create a software program and give it away for free.
23. Purchase the misspellings or variations of your domain name, or those of your competitors.
24. Buy a domain name related to your niche that is already receiving traffic and forward it to your site.
25. Pass out business cards with your domain on them everywhere you go.
26. Start and affiliate program and let your affiliates send you visitors.
27. Start a page on social bookmarking sites such as www.MySpace.com.
28. Submit a viral video to www.YouTube.com
29. Conduct and publish surveys to your website.
30. Find joint venture partners that will send you traffic.
31. Start your own newsletter or ezine.
32. Use a autoresponder or email campaign to keep people coming back to your site.
33. Purchase ads on other sites.
34. Send a free copy of your product to other site owners in exchange for a product review.
35. Sell or place classified ads on www.eBay.com with a link to your site.
36. Post free classified ads on any of the sites that allow them with a link to your site.
37. Exchange reciprocal links with other related websites.
38. Network with other people at seminars or other live events.
39. Purchase advertising in popular newsletters or ezines.
40. Advertise on other product��s ��thank you�� pages.
41. Create a free ebook and list in on the ��free ebook�� sites.
42. Buy and use a memorable domain name.
43. Do something controversial.
44. Create an Amazon profile and submit reviews for books and other products that you have read.
45. Start a lens on www.Squidoo.com.
46. Use a traffic exchange (low quality traffic, but can sometimes be worthwhile).
47. Get referrals form similar but non-competing sites.
48. Create and sell a product with resell or giveaway rights and include a link to your site in it o others pass it around for you.
49. Email your list. If you don��t have one, get one.
50. Buy a pair of sandals; get your website engraved on the bottom and walk on the beach, stomp in the mud or play in the snow.
51. Print your Blog URL on your T-Shirt, might be better than 50th.

Vertical Slideshow

Science picture, it looks like AJAX enabled. There is no page refreshing.

Code is named "js/image-slideshow-vertical.js" which can be found in www.dhtmlgoodies.com.

There are a number of ways of displaying picture on web as slide. Some of them are really advanced.

In reality, AJAX is still the weapon dominating the market. Flex looks good, just like mission few are really using it.

Try Javascript in Blog

Below code is testing how to use JavaScript in a blog document.

Normal JS code copied is not working straight away, need to code the (/p) tag in front and reopen it (p) for the next article. There should be no new line break between codes. Else, it would automatically insert (br) tag beween lines.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics v.2 is just Astounding.

Google Analytics is cool to analyse visitor of your website. It knows what is your customer live and what is the most popular customer area. Who are your visitors, and what is their behavior while visiting your site, such as average time spent on your site, how many new visitors.

If you have a merchandise website, the tool will be so useful in terms of analysing markets, trend and profitability.

Sound with Google Earth

Google earth will have sound soon from this month. One of the prediction last year. How about more, building the environment as second life, having real Avatar (teleport and I can fly), real animals around, real fishing experience, real wave...

Well, if I am 60, Google earth will be really nice, plug into a big TV (possibly at the Time it is 3-D image), no need to travel.

Create Picture Slide - Picasa

What is behind this, AJAX, similar Google map. Here are the steps to embed a slide into a page.
1. Create an account in Picasa, sign in, create folders and building images.
2. Get URL for the slide page.
3. Code uses iFrame to display the web page.

Personalization

Search is always returning same results, particularly if searching customised websites , how about just searching document I have not read before. That would be nice, if the link has been opened before, the document would not come out and save my time. Optionally, user can choose searching all docs including read. So how and where to store which document or URL is read. IBM's domino application does this feature years before, and actually the tool is very well designed. I can go to a notes database, turn on show 'unread only' or all'. This is stored in people's desktop. Similarly, this can be done in user's computer. It can satisfy most of cases. If user is browsing web office, home and pub, such information has to be installed somewhere else and browsing has to be user-name driven. This can be done, if Google can provide such tool, log in once, store opened URLs centrally.

The other question is for all pages it does not tell you when it was created or last modified. If it is modified, then the document should be searched out. How to find out when the doc is modified has to rely on search index. I am sure by using Google's index and webmaster, and providing another place storing user's history (actually Google does provide such tool), this feature is not hard to implement.

Personalization is a large area to explore.

Resolving Sudoku by IBM's Domino

The document is related to some discoveries I had resolving Sudoku puzzle. I did this in a IBM Domino application, or call it notes database years ago. Writting code is much more enjoyable than thinking by hand, the bad thing is after I wrote the application, I had never used my brain to do it.

Normally I would need 10-20 minutes to resolve a puzzle, the quickest I did is less than 6 minutes. I am not sure whether there is a world record for human brain. for programming, it takes less than 3 seconds.

There is something I can't understand, IBM's Deep Blue can beat chess champion (though I don't know how it was possible), but for another game, computer seems useless. This is "Go Chess" or "Wei Qi" which is popular in Japan, China or South Korea. I played with a number of computer before, all of them I can beat them easily.

It have a number of ways doing it according to wiki. Below is the logic I coded, it uses same logic if I do it by hand.

1. Eliminating number for a cell.
1 to 9 can be possibly assigned to a cell. A number of figures can be eliminated if same row, same column or the 3-3-cell group has the figure. If after elimination, only one number is left for the cell, it must be right.

I tried this first, tested a few it works fine. It can not resolve all puzzles. I found I overlooked figure constraint in the 3x3 group. So I wrote the 2nd part.

2. Allocating missing number in 3x3 cell, or eliminating cell for a number.
If a number is missing in 3x3 cell, normally it can be put into a few remaining empty cells. The question is how to eliminate cells for the figure. For example, if there are 3 cells left to put fiure 1 in a 3*3 group, but 2 of them are impossible because parallel cells in same column or row has got it, the last spot is must be right.

After this, it can resolve 80% puzzles in seconds, just by one click. 20% are really hard ones. It needs to take a guess to see whether all cells can be filled for the possibility, if it fails, try a different one until it works. I use this way to resolve the rest 20%, for most difficult puzzle, I took around 2-3 mins. I reckon, the step is extremely difficult for human, this needs a great member and fast analytical skill, if doing by paper, it would mess up quickly before the person is lost.

Computer is so powerful, so great, but it is not as good as human.

What is predicated for web RIA 2007.

RIA web in 2007 , now it is half way through, let us see how accurate is the prediction.

1. Vista is going to raise the bar for experiences across the board
Disagree, My view, Vista is not turning well. There are complaint 'Too slow'.

2. Adobe's Apollo is going to be much better than expected
Agree, Adobe is going to open source on this. Hotter and hotter.

3. Microsoft is going to make inroads into the design market
Agree, Visual studio is great, now it has WPF and AJAX. .Net 3.0 will fully released next year. So forget PHP programming, that is Web 1.0's product. Use Flex and Visual Studio.

4. The Designer/Developer workflow will get some mainstream press.
Agree, not that evident.

5. Apple is going to make a play in Rich Internet Applications
.....

6. Competition for technology in the online video space will heat up
Agree, the virtual world is just expanding so fast.

7. Flex becomes the primary technology for building Rich Internet Applications.
Can not agree more on this. Flex is so great, does not have the boundary facing for Java, JavaScript or AJAX.

8. "WPF/E" will have a higher penetration than Apollo.
Agree, fiece competition. Microsoft will be likely to win. Its foundation is so solid and strong. Looking at video provided for Asp.net programming, can tell its strength.

9. The Mozilla platform and Apollo will fight for the cutting edge Ajax developers
Agree. Crossing boundary more.
Sun microsoft has Java Fx. For Java developers, a great news.

10. OpenLaszlo is going to be a beacon for open source developers looking to build Rich Internet Applications
.....

YouTube API for Asp.net

This component interfaces with YouTube's API. The download comes with a website full of examples on how to use it. If you want to integrate it into your project copy the DLL from the bin folder and put it into your project.

YouTube's API

Fractal

Many people have planned to draw a nice Fractal gragh, I tried using VB6 years ago, at the time drawing a nice pic would take hours.
Now technology is ready, can draw a nice Fractal picture on web, speed should not be a problem, Google Map can be transmitted well, nice zooming feature can be also possible.

Either can be done by AJAX or by Flex. Flex might be better.

Microsoft is considering acquiring Yahoo

Microsoft is considering acquiring Yahoo! in what could be a $50 billion deal.

Well, search engine will be dominated by Microsoft and Google. Who have more innovative ideas will win. Microsoft is good at following and take over.

Apart from USA market, China is 2nd largest market in the world. China will be replacing USA as the largest internet market in 2010 by having 200 Million on the line.

Why buy Yahoo, can consider to buy Baidu, which is the largest search engine in China, taking 53% of market share. Li KaiFu, its CEO mentioned in near future, there will be no place for overseas company.

The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, April 2007

Looksmart in Australia is not listed. Is the 101 search engine.

The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, April 2007

How many blogs

According to web study, every day there are 120,000 new weblogs are being created, in mid 2005, there are around 70 million websites in the world.

And website are indexed and searched out by a few main search engines, to make a living from web by Google Adsense, is difficult.

First needs to find a good topic, secondly create a nice attactive web site or blog, thirdly, need to consider ways to improve traffic.

No many clicks a day people are conducting, 20 billions. So, there is still a chance to get clicked if page is rank is low.

Blog in Flex

This is a blog application written by Flex, like to see its appearance in one of the server. RIA, this would be Blog 2.0 The flash blog

iGoogle and web applications

When I first experienced iGoogle, first thing in my mind is what application can bring business value. Unlike weather, time, or art tool, is there any application small and easy to be used by end users. On the other hand, it can also benefit the community. Then I come across the Amazon search tool, which I feel is one of the best to be used by every one.

When buying stuff online, unlike shopping in grocery, we are unable to compare product and ask people's advice. Therefore, 2 aspects are affecting people's decision most, 1) what other people's comments on the product, 2) what are similar products.

One tool can help comparing similar products, make sure you have used it well before you go shopping online. It is an application written in Adobe Flex 2, a new programming language that is able to move traditional windows application to Web based.

Now we are talking Web 2.0, what is it, Blogging, Wiki, AJAX, community sharing, Web services. Another important concept for web 2.0 is we now going to face "the Platform of Future", that is more applications will be used in web. There will be less dependency on operating system, less need for software installation. Its benefit is obvious, having better security & support, less maintenance cost. IT people call it Web 2.0, none- IT can call it business 2.0.

Google introduced iGoogle today (May 2nd 2007), a personalised web platform. It has hundred applications or gadgets allowing customer to customise. The trend is Google and other IT companies will bring more and more business related application to web based, such as Microsoft's Word, Excel, Visio. Microsoft is not far behind on this either, its windows presentation foundation to be release in 2008 is really fascinating.

Make sure you have searched Amazon properly before you go shopping online - search Amazon