Update

14Dayz has only been in private beta testing for one weekend and already feedback is finding its way to fill up my mailbox. :) Thank you, thank you and thank you. I cannot say how much value this provides for us. Tomorrow we start addressing the first issues beta testers have brought up. So keep that feedback flowing. It means we can give you better software.
Nice stuff is: Zero bug reports and zero known bugs at release. That is something we strive for, and good to see effectuated.
Most of you say navigation definitely needs improvement so that will be the first thing we address on Monday.
A quick shout out to Michael Arrington for featuring his experiences on Techcrunch. I love this quote: “It does one thing, and well: time tracking.” That is what matters most to us, because it was our goal as we set out. The other issues you and others have brought up can and will be resolved. Thanks Mike. Thanks also to people who have made valuable comments on that post.
There is still room in the private beta, and I would note that beta testers providing us with constructive feedback, like Mike, are eligible for a 50% discount for life*. We value your opinions highly and we feel beta testers’ work should be rewarded.

* more information, pricing and terms on your invitation. so get yourself invited already.

More copy paste web on Ajaxian

I was playing with some new blog stats I found at http://performancing.com/ the other day. When I noticed Ajaxian picked up on the Copy-Paste-Web post from last week. Thanks to Chris Cornutt for the write up. Metapundit remarks that there is prior art, well conceptual art anyway on the lesscode.org blog from October 2005. Now why do I like that name? In the lesscode discussion I found some other links to similar activities. Amongst them is Bogle's Blog who refers to unAPI. "unAPI is a tiny HTTP API for the few basic operations necessary to copy discrete, identified content from any kind of web application."

I've been meaning to get some copy-paste demo pages up myself to interact with Ozzies demo, and we still need to put some content behind those great looking buttons Serge has designed for our new website. (Thanks for pointing out the dead links, linb.) :) But we've been too busy with the upcoming launch on 14Dayz online time tracking, which we are all really excited about... Maybe when the dust settles next week I'll whip something up.

Comet

Alex Russell, from dojotoolkit, has found time in his busy schedule to dedicate an article to explaining about Server side push Ajax and has finally put a name on it: Comet. Alex hopes that analogous to AJAX, the technique will finally take off big-time when it is easier to communicate about by calling it by its name.

In short, Comet is the technique of continuously updating the browser screen by using server side pushed events instead of polling or pull events by the browser. In many ways the technique is similar or can be viewed as an extension to AJAX if you will. Alex describes possible scenarios for application as well. Not every web application is going to need it or even profit from it. "Comet improves application responsiveness for collaborative, multi-user applications..." A few obstacles are there to overcome, since each client browser has to maintain an open (if idle) connection to the server. Handling that amount of connections requires new techniques on the server side as well. Luckily for us, the discussion in the comments exposed an already flowering community and some server side techniques already implemented. Twisted seems to be a well cooked candidate, written in python. There's even an O'Reilly book out. What a formidable coincidence.

For more in-depth information check out: Alex Russells' blog entry. Ajaxpatterns on HTTPStreaming.

For those of you familiar with JotSpot live it is an example of a web 2.0 application using this technique.

An excellent introduction to twisted by Ken Kinder, Event-Driven Programming with Twisted and Python

Prototype Cheat Sheet PDF

Jonathan Snook has invested time in disecting the latest Prototype Javascript libraries, which are notorious for their lack of documentation. He has learned a lot about the libraries and created some nice Prototype Cheat Sheets. Check Jonathan's blog here. In an update Jonathan requests that someone create a PDF version of his cheat sheets. Well, here you go;

 Download Prototype Cheat Sheet

There's a lot of references to documentation on Script.aculo.us as well and here's a link to the unofficial prototype reference.

A nice AJAX throbber for you

Here's a nice AJAX throbber that I made. I have no particular use for it just now. The throbber is based on the zebra pattern in Photoshop. Some bevel and a lens flare make it look a bit like a marble. The movement is supposed to be that of a marble rolling in different directions. Remember Marble Madness? It is hard to capture that motion in Image Ready. For it to look like a real marble it needs smoother transition of movement in different directions. Like the sinoidal transition in scriptaculous. Image Ready knows only about linear transitions. Still, I think it's quite nice and I hope someone finds some good use for it.

Share and Enjoy!

The animated B4AzebraThrobber.gif image above is licenced under the creative commons licence. You can use it anywhere you like, edit and modify it, as long as you share your modifcations under the same licence. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.