RIA Watch - Reviews on rich internet applications

Banning Mobiles in Schools - by Krish Ashok

2009-09-22T04:41:00.001-07:00

I was reading Krish Ashoks blog on "Banning Cellphones in School"

http://krishashok.com/blog/2009/08/banning-cellphones-in-school/

He advocates that change should be embraced and his examples on past attempts to resist change were un-questionable.

An idea immediately jumped into my mind (luckily i was not in the bath tub ;)

Why not build a Web 2.0 app for schools to integrate the students phone with the school CMS?

The possibilities are endless - This would take the education domain to a whole new level.

Not only the students but the parents too can be targeted - (apart from asking them to pay for it)

One quick tag line - "Taking the class room to the student"

RIA for Automobile Industry

2009-06-24T22:20:00.000-07:00

Automobile industry has been one which has been the long time patron for new technologies. I would say they were the pioners in using RIA solutions.

Volkswagen Used car locator is one such example. I would not rate it high on innovation as we come across such sites by the dozens now. However i would rate it high on the simplicity and neatness of the application.

Highlights of this application are good Information Architecture, highest degree of task optimization and content level navigation.

Check out - http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/used/search

Creating a usability dashboard

2009-02-10T05:31:00.000-08:00

http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/dashboard.html

Now this site is a must read for those in BI, RIA or UX line. The article is constructed around the usability of creating a dashboard. But i see it as the tutorial for collecting the KPI which form the foundation of all dashboards - this is realted to B1's

The representation of the KPI's in one page forms the RIA part

And the overall readability forms the UX part of it.

Why i am asking you to read it is that you will not get such a explanation with examples in any real life situation.

Read it and let me know ur views

What will be the focus in 2009?

2009-01-08T02:50:00.000-08:00

Good question isnt it. Well this is what i have been thinking from my last entry. Well my answer to that is RMA - Rich Mobile Application.

You might ask hey why is Subbiah jumping from Rich Internet to Rich Mobile application. My answer is simple - mobile screens are going to be the next window to the internet.

What i am talking about is the next revolution. Imagine doing most of the work we do on the computer in the mobile itself.

Blog,
Share photos
read/send mails
Check the news
RSS feeds
Pay bills
Fund transfer
book tickets
Play games
............ and the list goes on.

The catch now is how much of this can be done in such a small device. Come on where is the user experiece angle here.

This is where the RMA steps in. Not only will will one be able to do the above and more but they would be satisfied using the mobile for it.

Watch out for more on RMA

Designing Executive Dashboards by Tom Gonzalez

2008-09-05T13:43:00.000-07:00

For all those in RIA field, Dashboard is not a new word. In fact it is one of main most asked for requirement in the RIA space.

Tom Gonzalez is the founder and Managing Director of BrightPoint Consulting, and has a wonderful article on Designing Dashboards: Part 1 , Part 2 and Choosing Correct Metrics & KPIs .

I would highly recommend reading this article.

Widget Library

2008-08-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

There are some amazing widget libraries out there and one such library is http://www.gwt-ext.com

what i liked in this site is the way the content is organised. the whole site itself is created by the widgets they are show casing.

worth a visit :)

RIA Company watch - Effective UI

2008-07-20T22:37:00.000-07:00

I have been looking at latest RIA tools and services all these while. One thought came into my mind as to who are the people behind them and how are they defining their solutions/services.

The first of my series is Effective UI.

These are the people behind ebay's AIR desktop tool and few other Discover channel application. The reason why they require a special mention is that the number of downloads for ebay desktop tool has crossed 1 million downloads.

They also follow my doctrine of integrating Usability with RIA technology. Everything said for any application Usability comes first and then comes the technology used to deliver it.

FLEX-3 Tutorials - For Beginers

2008-05-05T01:04:00.000-07:00

Lots of people have been asking me for good Flex tutorials. So i have decided to post such good tutorials as and when i come across them.

To start with here is one such good tutorial. I would highly recommend this for first timers.

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/beginners-tutorial-flex-3

Flex Office tools

2008-04-25T07:26:00.000-07:00

MS office tools have been getting stiff competition from AJAX based online office tools. Now Adobe Flex has entered the ring and are coming out with some really cool web based office tools.

There is no single office suite yet in Flex. Samir Bhatia is working on one such suite called Live Documents. Which offers Word, Excel and Powerpoint tools.

While we are waiting for that, there are people focusing on one of the above and really bringing out some amazing Flex based office tools.

I would recomend the following

Slide Rocket - For PPT features. This has cool features of Mac Keynote. Making it more attractive.

Buzzword - for word documents

idubee for Excel spreadsheets.

There are more tools available and more being launched as i am typing this. So if anyone knows these tools pl do add it to this post.

Want your picture on a Magazine Cover???

2008-04-22T07:53:00.001-07:00

Who doesnt :D.

Well the wish come true at Mag my Pic (http://www.magmypic.com).

Its one of those fun RIA sites where technology simplifies our wishes ;)

One can share the final magazine cover with friends and ask them to vote on it. The results can be associated with our email. The code can be pasted on to our blog and many more features are there.

Check out my pic on Style Magazine.

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

Data Visualization in Sports web sites

2008-04-16T00:54:00.000-07:00

While we are seeing a increase in the usage of RIA technologies in sports web sites, they have been predominently for video streaming and blog purposes.

Now they have brought in data visualization of the tonnes of data they have. Check out the "Stats Machine" tool of NHL (National Hockey League. Its Java based so dont expect the richness of Flex. However this is a good start and pretty neat in terms of functionalities.

http://www.nhl.com/cgi-bin/superstats/process_stats.cgi?source=NHL.com&statType=team&seasonType=playoff&season=20072008

Flash Plugin touches 12 million downloads per day?

2008-04-15T00:31:00.000-07:00

Not only due 98-99% of the browsers in the world have the Flash Plug-in but has about 12 million downloads per day.

This should be a bigger push when trying to sell Flex technology :)

However - i read about the 12 million statistics, but am yet to come across proof of the same.will post the same as soon i get my hands on them.

Some general statistics about Flash player penetration:-

http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/
http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/PC.html

RIA For mobile devices

2008-04-01T03:46:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to come up with a RIA POC for mobile devices. However the main constraint has been to zero in on the right RIA technology.

I found a good blog on the same topic in jajahdevblog.com. I would recomend this blog highly.

http://jajahdevblog.com/guy/2008/03/30/ria-on-the-mobile-phones-and-small-devices/

3D Interactive Video using Flash & ActionScript 3

2008-03-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

Now this is what i call a video - a real interactive video. Imagine a video where you can decide which angle and the depth (zoom) you want to see.

I would have expected this functionality in a advanced 3D or a movie software. But achieving this in Flash using ActionScript 3 is really awesome. This was achieved by the folks at Immersive Media, check out their videos - without fail (http://www.immersivemedia.com/)

This is going to be the next Youtube of videos :)

If you want to know how they do this - here is all the info u need (http://www.immersivemedia.com/demo/demo.php#)

Many thank to Aasim for sharing this link with me :)

Flex based search engine

2008-03-24T04:31:00.000-07:00

Vizzl - The Visual Search Tool.

A really cool search engine. But only to search within sites like Amazon, ebay and youtube. The power of sorting the search reults is show cased here.

A must use tool if you a online shopping freak.

http://www.vizzl.com/

Microsoft's Expression Design Event @ Chennai India

2007-11-15T21:19:00.000-08:00

Well i got to attended the recently held Microsoft's Unique Design Event (Expression) in Chennai at "Dublin, ITC Hotel Park Sheraton & Towers".

Supreet Singh, User Experience Evangelist, and Pandurang Nayak, Technical Evangelist , did manage to impress the audience who had turned out in pretty large numbers.

What i was most impressed with was the sample solutions they showcased especially the travel website. You can check that out in http://www.silverlight.com/.

What i was not impressed by was by the claim that this tool can be used by designers who don't know any coding. The target audience should have been Usability Sales professionals, Business Analysts, Competency Leads, and RIA/usability analysts who need to come up with quick walk through for their clients.

One the whole Microsoft Expression tools shown did promise a lot but the real question was can it generate requirements from the client?

With its immediate competitor Adobe already way ahead and still going strong in this race track we need to see if this rookie can catch up.

Digital Bucket - online file folder

2007-10-22T02:08:00.000-07:00

Came across this interesting and elegant site for online file storing and sharing.

http://www.digitalbucket.net/

I like the simplicity of the functionalities in the site - where they have maintained our age old windows explorer feel in a web based utility.

No software is required to install.
Fully drag and drop capability between files and folders.
Copy, Cut, Move, Delete, Rename and zip files or folders.
Folder publishing using direct links or RSS feeds.
Sharing with digitalbucket.net users with permission assignment.
Photo Album and Photo editing capabilities.
Word, excel online editing and PowerPoint presentation viewing.
Online music and video players.

1GB space is there for free. I tried it and i liked it. :D

Copyright your content! Numly

2007-09-27T03:07:00.000-07:00

Yes you have read it correctly. We can copyright our content on teh web now, using Web 2.0 technology provided by "http://www.numly.com"

Now the advantages of doing this is that one can track who is viewing the content and when it is views, ratings can be monitored and to top it off no matter where the content is published it can be consolidated.

Final verdict is this is a must watch out Web 2.0 feature for all you bloggers/content writers out there in the Cyberspace :D

RIA job trends and salaries

2007-09-17T02:10:00.000-07:00

Everyone is talking about how RIA is growing, next in thing, etc.... but here is actual facts which support these enthusiastic statements. The growth of Flex jobs and the salaries are shown here. One can also search for other RIA technologies to understand the job trend.

http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=%22adobe+flex%22 - (Adobe Flex Job Trends)

http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=%22AJAX%22&l= ("AJAX" Job Trends)

http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=Nexaweb&l= (Nexaweb Job Trends)

http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=Java+FX&l= (Java FX Job Trends)

http://www.indeed.com/

Flex based virtual desktop

2007-09-04T02:54:00.000-07:00

For those who assume FLEX is only for playing around with page data and UI elements. Here comes a pleasant surprise.

http://www.thereplicants.net/flex/test/Dashboard.html

Imagine a 4 sided desktop which can be personalized. Here one can drag and drop availabe tools on to teh desk top and also rotate between the desktops using the following key comobo

Shift+Esc+mouse click(right or left) to rotate the desktops. This gives a 3D cube effect.

Powerpoint as an effective RIA storyboarding tool

2007-08-13T22:14:00.001-07:00

I agree it sounds little unbelievable that our good old PowerPoint can be used as an effective RIA storyboarding tool.

But believe me it is - i use it almost daily to showcase various RIA features like Auto suggest, text pop ups, sliders, etc... - i primarily use animation feature in PPT and have also created one "RIA_Story_suite" where the components are created and i can just drag and drop them into the new story board i am creating.

There is one more good article on the same topic in boxes and arrows by Maureen Kelly - "

Interactive Prototypes with PowerPoint"

http://findin.gs/davids/?p=202

Silverlight VS Flex

2007-08-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

I came across this simple but pretty good comparison between Flex and Silver Light.
Do check it out

http://blogs.bluemango.in/index.php/2007/08/02/silverlight-vs-flex/

P.S do read the comment below the comparison - that too is informative

Data Visualization

2007-08-10T03:06:00.000-07:00

For anyone intrested in data visualization, especially with wanting to create some mashups using RIA technologies and tonnes of data. Then this site is a must read.

This is the single largest source of really appealing information i have come across on Data Visualization.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/02/data-visualization-modern-approaches/

Geni - Online Family Tree

2007-08-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

One of the most easiest and cool sites i have come across for creating a family tree. Its pretty simple, just keep adding ur siblings /spouse / kids information and it will automatically relate you to that person.

Here you can invite anyone or all in ur tree to update their links so that your treee gets to grow real big.

There are lots of features and information one can use or just stick to the basic feature of the site.

http://www.geni.com/

INM eLibrary

2007-07-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

A good structured way of showcasing and retrieving documents. Here one can see the usefullness of Flex as well as Google book search (image thumbnail) kind of mashup.

Its pretty simple to use and can be a good demo of Flex documentation and retreval capabilities