http://tc.eserver.org/publisher/IBM A listing of works published by IBM in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/IBM http://tc.eserver.org/35548.html http://tc.eserver.org/35548.html 米国IBMアクセシビリティ・センターの提供情報や、IBMアクセシビリティ・リサーチ・グループによる高齢者・視覚障害者関連情報の公開など、アクセシブルな情報社会のための関連リソース。インターネット閲覧支援ソフト「らくらくウェブ散策®」の紹介など。 http://tc.eserver.org/35376.html http://tc.eserver.org/35376.html The TCP/IP protocol suite has become the de facto standard for computer communications in today's networked world. The ubiquitous implementation of a specific networking standard has led to an incredible dependence on the applications enabled by it. Today, we use the TCP/IP protocols and the Internet not only for entertainment and information, but to conduct our business by performing transactions, buying and selling products, and delivering services to customers. We are continually extending the set of applications that leverage TCP/IP, thereby driving the need for further infrastructure support. It is our hope that both the novice and the expert will find useful information in this publication. http://tc.eserver.org/35377.html http://tc.eserver.org/35377.html The implementation and exploitation of centralized, corporate-wide directories are among the top priority projects in most organizations. The need for a centralized directory emerges as organizations realize the overhead and cost involved in managing the many distributed micro and macro directories introduced in the past decade with decentralized client/server applications and network operating systems. This IBM Redbook will help you create a foundation of LDAP skills, as well as install and configure the IBM Directory Server. It is targeted at security architects and specialists who need to know the concepts and the detailed instructions for a successful LDAP implementation. http://tc.eserver.org/35295.html http://tc.eserver.org/35295.html You've probably heard that everything in Linux is a file, so start on the right path with a solid grounding in file and directory management -- finding, listing, moving, copying, and archiving. You can use this material in this article to study for the LPI® 101 exam for Linux system administrator certification, or just to learn for fun. http://tc.eserver.org/35065.html http://tc.eserver.org/35065.html RSS is a hot topic these days, as it provides an easy way to stream data online. This article, the first of a four-part series on developing VoiceXML applications, shows you how to develop a voice-enabled RSS reader. The input to the application is RSS data, and the output is VoiceXML that can be read and spoken by your favorite compatible voice application. http://tc.eserver.org/35046.html http://tc.eserver.org/35046.html The DITA Open Toolkit can transform your DITA files into a wide variety of output types. When you first install it, it's easy to get the impression that you need to know Ant well to use it, but you can pack most of its available options into a single Java™ command line. http://tc.eserver.org/35016.html http://tc.eserver.org/35016.html The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) provides maps for assembling topics into deliverables. By specializing the map elements, you can define a formal information architecture for your deliverables. This architecture provides guidance to authors on how to organize topics and lets processes recognize your organizing principles, resulting in a consistent, clear experience for your users. http://tc.eserver.org/35017.html http://tc.eserver.org/35017.html XML provides a way to identify data items and subcomponents within any structured data set, but has its roots in documentation development and production. Robust, open standards for XML document markup and a rich set of freely available tools for XML document parsing and format conversion make it easy to install and configure a complete documentation development and formatting environment on any UNIX® or Linux® system. http://tc.eserver.org/35018.html http://tc.eserver.org/35018.html Discover simple solutions to reuse information in XML documentation, such as how to use XInclude to include other documents at a given point in a document and how to use XPointer to include small document fragments from other documents or a similar pool of information in XML format. Also, get tips for structuring XML documentation to simplify information reuse, and learn how to maintain stand-alone documents that you can incorporate into larger documents. http://tc.eserver.org/35019.html http://tc.eserver.org/35019.html XML is an optimal format for writing documentation that you can use with many different documentation software packages and production environments. In this third article in the series, discover how to create single-source documents that can produce output in a variety of different output formats. http://tc.eserver.org/35020.html http://tc.eserver.org/35020.html In this article we will introduce the concept of WS-Management and Common Information Model (CIM). By exploring the SOAP message with multiple examples, we will learn how to transfer CIM operations through WS-Management SOAP messages. http://tc.eserver.org/35021.html http://tc.eserver.org/35021.html Google Web Toolkit (GWT) applications, apart from connecting to servlets in time-honored Java fashion, can also use PHP Web services to send and receive data in XML. You'll explore methods to generate XML documents and process them, both in the Java language and in PHP. http://tc.eserver.org/34973.html http://tc.eserver.org/34973.html Developing web-based applications can be done using a variety of tools and languages. However, the Java™ programming language and Java servlets are the ideal choice because of a number of attractive features, namely, portability, efficiency, safety, extensibility, and flexibility. Few viable alternatives exist that can be considered equally powerful. Over the past few years, I have developed an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand framework based on Java servlets to facilitate the development of web-based applications. The framework (called Hamlets) is the result of a radical simplification effort. In this article I show you step by step how to write your first web-based application in Java using Hamlets. http://tc.eserver.org/34264.html http://tc.eserver.org/34264.html If you're new to XML, this article introduces the basic construction of XML documents as well as the rules that you must follow to create well-formed XML, including naming conventions, proper tag nesting, attribute guidelines, declarations, and entities. You'll also gain an understanding of validation in terms of both DTD and schema usage. http://tc.eserver.org/34220.html http://tc.eserver.org/34220.html With the number of publicly offered Web service APIs, it's now much easier to get content from different Web sources and to build mashups—if you have access to the right APIs and tools. Discover how you can combine an obscure cross-domain call technique (JSONP) and a flexible JavaScript library (jQuery) to build powerful mashups surprisingly quickly. http://tc.eserver.org/34221.html http://tc.eserver.org/34221.html <a href="http://tc.eserver.org/34220.html">In the previous article of this series</a>, we introduced JSONP (JSON with Padding) as a way to overcome browser same-origin policy limitations while combining and presenting data from third-party sources. This article continues this process and shows you how to use Yahoo! Query Language (YQL), a JSONP service from Yahoo!, to build a mashup Web page using jQuery. http://tc.eserver.org/34213.html http://tc.eserver.org/34213.html Learn the basics of the UNIX shell and discover how you can use the command line to combine the finite set of UNIX utilities into innumerable data transforms. http://tc.eserver.org/34214.html http://tc.eserver.org/34214.html Virtually all non-trivial problems require you to filter good data from bad. Discover the many UNIX command line utilities that use regular expressions to discern the relevant from the irrelevant. http://tc.eserver.org/34124.html http://tc.eserver.org/34124.html Add to your bag of tricks several handy techniques for crafting real-world regular expressions (regexps). Building regexps is a part of the daily life of any administrator. Learning to think in terms of pattern matching, in order to construct successful regexps that return the desired criteria, is a skill that takes both time and practice. http://tc.eserver.org/34125.html http://tc.eserver.org/34125.html Do you want faster-loading Web pages? Learn how you can make the browsing experience better for dial-up users by reducing loading times by as much as 80 percent, in some cases. http://tc.eserver.org/33921.html http://tc.eserver.org/33921.html Want to know more about cloud and grid computing? Learn how you can use Infrastructure as a Service to get a full computer infrastructure using Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). See the similarities, differences, and issues to consider in grid and cloud computing. Explore some of the security issues and choices for Web development in the cloud, and see how you can be environmentally friendly using cloud computing. http://tc.eserver.org/33728.html http://tc.eserver.org/33728.html DITA supports the proper construction of specialized DTDs from any higher-level DTD or schema. The base DTD is ditabase DTD, which contains an archetype topic structure and three additional peer topics that are typed specializations from the basic topic: concept, task, and reftopic. The principles of specialization and inheritance resemble the principle of variation in species proposed by Charles Darwin. So the name reminds us of the key extensibility mechanism inherent in the architecture. http://tc.eserver.org/33468.html http://tc.eserver.org/33468.html Frequently, error messages are totally uninformative -- or, worse, just plain wrong. Here, we look at how meaningful error messages can make it easier for users to correct problems without having to rely on technical support, and how poorly chosen messages can turn users into ex-users. http://tc.eserver.org/33445.html http://tc.eserver.org/33445.html In this paper, we describe the results of an effort to first understand the value of personalising a website, as perceived by the visitors to the site as well as by the stakeholder organisation that owns it, and then to develop a strategy for introducing personalisation to the ibm.com website. http://tc.eserver.org/33447.html http://tc.eserver.org/33447.html Usability studies tend to focus entirely on software, ignoring the impact of hardware design and features on a system's usability. In this first installment of a two-part miniseries, Peter takes a look at the interactions between hardware and usability. http://tc.eserver.org/33224.html http://tc.eserver.org/33224.html When your Web pages load, you can't afford to let people be bored by a blank page at the outset. This article gives some tips on how to avoid common page loading problems and give users that valuable information they want even as more downloading takes place. http://tc.eserver.org/33161.html http://tc.eserver.org/33161.html This paper provides an overview of the process and organizational transformation that IBM has gone through in improving the user experience with our offerings. http://tc.eserver.org/33164.html http://tc.eserver.org/33164.html Today's software applications need to be both useful and usable, supporting simple and efficient completion of tasks by the intended user audience. Part 1 of this two-part series on user-centered design defined the essential activities of useful and usable software. Here in part 2, Lynn Percival and Jack Scanlon describe the applicability of these core activities across a range of development project types -- selection and possible customization of a vendor application, evolution and rewrite of an existing application, and creation of a new application. http://tc.eserver.org/33165.html http://tc.eserver.org/33165.html Today's software applications need to be both useful and usable, supporting simple and efficient completion of tasks by the intended user audience. Much has been written about methodologies for designing software that meets user needs. But little emphasis has been placed on what types of activities are truly essential in achieving these goals. Here in part 1 of this two-part article, the authors tap into their 30+ years of combined experience in applying such techniques to boil the design of useful and usable software down to its essential activities. http://tc.eserver.org/33095.html http://tc.eserver.org/33095.html How can an organization empower its employees, reduce costs and improve data quality? Implementing employee self-service tools is one direction that a number of leading companies are turning to as they look to build win-win propositions with their most important assets: their people. http://tc.eserver.org/32978.html http://tc.eserver.org/32978.html Computer documentation is shoddy, or more often absent. Missing information amplifies usability problems, leaving users stuck calling unfriendly technical support lines. In this installment of The cranky user, Peter Seebach explains what's missing in the documentation effort and why it is gone. http://tc.eserver.org/33004.html http://tc.eserver.org/33004.html The success of a product or service depends on how well it is received by its intended audience. Usually success results from a systematic design process that involves the intended users. The user experience consists of how a product or service is perceived by users, and the goal is to make the experience consistent and supportive. User Engineering (UE) is an evolving discipline that focuses on designing the total user experience, from initial awareness and acquisition of a product or service—the “offering”—to first use, then day-to-day use, onward through the life cycle of the offering. http://tc.eserver.org/33012.html http://tc.eserver.org/33012.html Usability consultant Paul Englefield takes you on a journey to demonstrate that listening to your customers is the only way to provide the ultimate usability when designing an e-commerce site or Web-based applications. Through examples, the article weaves user-centered design techniques into the steps of designing an effective business site, focusing on gathering data about your customers' (and their customers') usage behaviors, offers two design models, and demonstrates how to integrate customers' input into the testing and evaluation process. http://tc.eserver.org/32704.html http://tc.eserver.org/32704.html Security in a PHP application includes remote and local security concerns. Discover the habits PHP developers should get into to implement Web applications that have both characteristics. http://tc.eserver.org/32705.html http://tc.eserver.org/32705.html People love Ajax applications so much that they are willing to use them instead of their desktop equivalents. The only problem occurs when they fail to have network access. This is when an offline feature is necessary. Apache Derby is a great option for enabling offline access to Ajax-powered applications. Learn how to use Apache Derby as a local data store that can be used to take your Ajax application offline. http://tc.eserver.org/32706.html http://tc.eserver.org/32706.html Picasa Web Albums offers Web application developers a REST-based Data API to manipulate the photos and albums stored on its servers. PHP's SimpleXML extension and Zend's GData Library are ideal to process the XML feeds generated by this API so you can customize PHP photo management and photo sharing applications. In this article, meet the Picasa Web Albums Data API and see how you can use it to retrieve photos and photo metadata; add, modify and delete photos; and perform keyword searches of Picasa's user-generated content. http://tc.eserver.org/32597.html http://tc.eserver.org/32597.html The addition of new values to a list is a common and necessary requirement. Schema designers often seek to build into the architecture a means to permit additional values that were unknown at design time. How can schema designers create an enumerated value list that is extensible and easy to implement? Discover several approaches used to achieve this goal. http://tc.eserver.org/32598.html http://tc.eserver.org/32598.html Discover a technique that lets you move sections of a Web page using drag-and-drop functions. Different aspects of the interactivity are implemented separately and then composed into a unified whole, allowing for flexible customization that can make your Web users very happy. http://tc.eserver.org/32599.html http://tc.eserver.org/32599.html The Creative Commons (CC) initiative develops popular licenses for content, including Web content. Some people think using these licenses means giving up all your rights to content, but this is just one of many misconceptions. Learn how to choose and use CC licenses for your Web sites and applications and how to process these licenses in code. http://tc.eserver.org/32366.html http://tc.eserver.org/32366.html The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) provides a way for documentation authors and architects to create collections of typed topics that can be easily assembled into various delivery contexts. Topic specialization is the process by which authors and architects can define topic types, while maintaining compatibility with existing style sheets, transforms, and processes. The new topic types are defined as an extension, or delta, relative to an existing topic type, thereby reducing the work necessary to define and maintain the new type. http://tc.eserver.org/32367.html http://tc.eserver.org/32367.html The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) has emerged as a standard topic-oriented document architecture. DITA holds many advantages over information authored directly in HTML, including better reuse, easily changed presentation styles, and easy single sourcing. This article, the first of two parts, explains how to get a quick start with DITA using HTML topics that are already available. It shows you how to use the provided XSLT transform to do the migration, and examines what is needed to ensure quality results. http://tc.eserver.org/32368.html http://tc.eserver.org/32368.html The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based format for structuring and authoring technical content. This article explores advantages DITA provides for producing HTML content -- including easy global changes, portability through standards, superior linking and Web management, conditional processing, content and design reuse, and better writing through focused content. DITA consolidates all of the benefits in a consistent, overall information architecture that can evolve and grow along with your product information needs and delivery modes, and with the evolution of standard tools for delivering XML as the presentation mechanism. http://tc.eserver.org/32369.html http://tc.eserver.org/32369.html The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) holds many advantages over information authored directly in HTML, including better reuse, easily changed presentation styles, and easy single sourcing. In Part 2 of this two-part series on how to quickly migrate HTML topics to DITA, the author explains the details of migration, and shows you how to override parts of this process for ideal results. http://tc.eserver.org/32254.html http://tc.eserver.org/32254.html At the core of good science and engineering is the careful and respectful treatment of data. We calibrate our instruments, scrutinize the algorithms we use to process the data, and study the behavior of the models we use to interpret the data or simulate the phenomena we may be observing. Surprisingly, this careful treatment of data often breaks down when we visualize our data. http://tc.eserver.org/32242.html http://tc.eserver.org/32242.html Learn the process of writing Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) applications using native JavaScript™ code and PHP. This article introduces a few different frameworks and application program interfaces (APIs) that reduce the amount of code you need to write to achieve a complete Ajax-based Web application. http://tc.eserver.org/32243.html http://tc.eserver.org/32243.html From a software development viewpoint, model-driven architecture (MDA) encourages efficient use of system models. It also encourages reusing best practices as families of systems are produced. One of the main aims of MDA is to separate design from architecture, which places the business analyst in a unique and potentially powerful position within the organization. Learn how you as a business analyst can take an active role in this type of architecture. http://tc.eserver.org/32244.html http://tc.eserver.org/32244.html This article takes a high-level look at project requirements and the requirements cycle to help you understand the role of the business analyst in requirements planning. http://tc.eserver.org/31888.html http://tc.eserver.org/31888.html You've seen reader comments on weblogs and other Web 2.0 sites, but the Atom protocol makes it possible to create and manage such comments in a very flexible way. Flexible Web annotations is an idea that will open up an entirely new class of Web applications with very little actual new invention. Learn how to create a system to manage annotations for anything on the Web, from nearly anywhere. http://tc.eserver.org/31887.html http://tc.eserver.org/31887.html "State" is a central concern of all sorts of distributed applications, but especially of Web applications, as HTTP and its derivatives are intrinsically stateless. Clear thinking about how data persists across retrievals, sessions, processes, and other boundaries can help you improve your Web applications, both present and future. http://tc.eserver.org/31637.html http://tc.eserver.org/31637.html Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) continues to raise user expectations for interactivity and performance, and developers are increasingly treating Ajax as a must-have component of their Web applications. As more code is moved client side and the network model changes, the community is responding by building more tools to address the unique performance challenges of Ajax. Examine toolsets that find and correct performance problems within your Ajax-enriched applications. http://tc.eserver.org/31638.html http://tc.eserver.org/31638.html Wasting server resources can impact the performance of Ajax applications, resulting in excessive HTTP requests, high memory consumption, and the need for an unusual amount of polling to make applications work. Regular developerWorks author Judith Myerson suggests some open source tools and Firefox add-ons you can use to improve or solve problems with your Ajax applications. http://tc.eserver.org/31635.html http://tc.eserver.org/31635.html Most developers dread dealing with HTML tables and cells to build their Web sites. For one thing, tables make it difficult to modify the site later or to change its appearance. Discover some basic techniques for writing Web sites that you can later re-skin by using templates during the site's initial creation. Also, learn why you should use data-driven techniques for your own Web sites. http://tc.eserver.org/31634.html http://tc.eserver.org/31634.html To meet the needs of users worldwide, today's Web applications often require internationalization. In this article, you'll see an approach for client-side internationalization based on XSLT. This solution only requires that both the data to be internationalized and the server stores are in XML. http://tc.eserver.org/31104.html http://tc.eserver.org/31104.html Any programming problem can be solved in multiple right ways. This series looks at four approaches for creating an Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) weather badge, a small reusable widget that's easily embedded on any Web page. This first article lays the foundation and examines the first approach--walking the DOM tree. http://tc.eserver.org/31103.html http://tc.eserver.org/31103.html One strong suit of Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) is presenting data from the server to users in a dynamic fashion. Discover several techniques that use Ajax for dynamic data display using tables, tabs, and gliders. http://tc.eserver.org/31075.html http://tc.eserver.org/31075.html An application that, using an inexpensive camera, lets users control a mouse pointer by aiming their face around the screen. http://tc.eserver.org/31073.html http://tc.eserver.org/31073.html When you design or modify Web sites to allow access to people with disabilities, you make the Web accessible. New Web sites and applications, however, are introducing new problems and barriers. There are complex graphics and multimedia applications that assistive technology simply has not solved. One solution to these new problems is to put accessibility in the hands of the Web developer and content author. Creating a Web site that is accessible by people with disabilities is relatively easy as long as the Web developer and author follow some basic guidelines. http://tc.eserver.org/31074.html http://tc.eserver.org/31074.html Software that dynamically adapts Web pages to meet the needs of individuals with visual, motor, and print limitations. http://tc.eserver.org/30804.html http://tc.eserver.org/30804.html RSS (Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication) has been around since the mid-1990s. Over the years, several variants of the RSS format have popped up and several claims have been made about its ownership. Despite these differences, RSS never ceased to serve its usefulness in distributing Web content from one Web site to many others. The popularity of RSS gave way to the growth of a new class of Web software called the feed reader, also known as the feed aggregator. Although there are several commercially available feed aggregators, it's easy to develop your own feed aggregator, which you can integrate with your Web applications. You'll appreciate this article's fully functional PHP code snippets, demonstrating the use of PHP-based server-side functions to develop a customizable RSS feed aggregator. In addition, you'll reap instant benefits from using the fully functional RSS feed aggregator code, which you can download from this article. http://tc.eserver.org/30806.html http://tc.eserver.org/30806.html Converting an Atom document to JSON might, at first, appear to be a fairly straightforward task. Atom is, after all, just a bit of XML and XML-to-JSON conversion tools are widely available. However, the Atom format is more than just a set of XML elements and attributes. A number of subtle details can make proper handling of Atom difficult. This article describes those issues and demonstrates a mechanism implemented by the Apache Abdera project to convert Atom documents into JSON and produces a result that is readable, usable, and complete. http://tc.eserver.org/30805.html http://tc.eserver.org/30805.html Back end processing -- server-side scripts and programs -- can't always be tossed into an Ajax application and behave well. Instead, careful planning to ensure data is sent in an appropriate and efficient form ensures your entire application is cohesive, rather than needlessly complex. Brett McLaughlin explains how a good server-side script complements Ajax behavior. http://tc.eserver.org/30671.html http://tc.eserver.org/30671.html In a world where everything is designed to amaze and distract, it's awfully difficult to get a user's attention. Learn how to use new techniques such as lightboxes, pop-ups, windows, and fading messages with your Ajax tools to get your users' eyes on your content. http://tc.eserver.org/30677.html http://tc.eserver.org/30677.html In the age of the people-powered Web, allowing your readers to rate and review content on your site is critical. Discover just how easy it is to add rating and commenting features to a site with Ajax. http://tc.eserver.org/30670.html http://tc.eserver.org/30670.html XUL is a surprisingly easy way to build cross-platform browser extensions or even stand-alone applications. Discover how to build powerful, flexible Mozilla browser extensions that go beyond the capabilities of other tools like embedded scripting languages or CGI--because they're built right into the user's browser. http://tc.eserver.org/30674.html http://tc.eserver.org/30674.html JSON is an easy format to use for sending (and receiving) data that maps to objects, or even arrays of objects. In this final article of the series, you'll learn how to handle data sent to a server in the JSON format and how to reply to scripts using the same format. http://tc.eserver.org/30676.html http://tc.eserver.org/30676.html HTML 5 introduces new elements to HTML for the first time since the last millennium. New structural elements include aside, figure, and section. New inline elements include time, meter, and progress. New embedding elements include video and audio. New interactive elements include details, datagrid, and command. http://tc.eserver.org/30673.html http://tc.eserver.org/30673.html Have you ever wanted to bring the technical know-how of developerWorks straight to your workspace or personalized iGoogle, Netvibes, or My Yahoo page? Now you can with developer gizmos. It's the power of syndication at the click of the mouse: no programming, training, or registration required. Add any developerWorks custom feeds, or a developerWorks spaces portlet as a Google Gadget, Netvibes Module, or Yahoo Widget directly to your preferred syndication mashup, keep up with developerWorks feeds on your Apple iPhone, or download a developerWorks Gadget for Google Desktop with the content you select from developerWorks. http://tc.eserver.org/30675.html http://tc.eserver.org/30675.html Web 2.0 is well known for the fact that it's not built on breathtaking new inventions, but rather on renewed emphasis on age-old Web technologies. One of those age-old technologies that is enjoying a revival in Web 2.0 is bookmarklets. A bookmarklet is essentially a Web application shoehorned into a regular browser bookmark. This article includes a fully functioning bookmarklet and installation instructions you can use to highlight text on any Web page and search IBM developerWorks for that text. http://tc.eserver.org/30672.html http://tc.eserver.org/30672.html Construct a highly available Apache Web server cluster that spans multiple physical or virtual Linux(R) servers in 5 easy steps with Linux Virtual Server and Heartbeat v2. http://tc.eserver.org/30680.html http://tc.eserver.org/30680.html Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) programming techniques are increasingly dominating the world of Web application development. New developers are stepping into the world of Ajax development every day, and they come from disparate development backgrounds. Part 1 of this multipart series gives you a cheat sheet of Ajax development resources from an expert team of Ajax developers at IBM(R). The authors draw from their own ramp-up experiences to help you with practical information that will put you on a fast track to effective Ajax development. http://tc.eserver.org/30679.html http://tc.eserver.org/30679.html Web 2.0 repositories can help you create a flexible software architecture, which can easily be plugged into Web 2.0 communities and extranets. Creating a fluid system that also works in accordance with requirements for modifiability, performance, security, scalability, and reusability can be challenging. In this article, learn techniques to help ensure your Enterprise Web 2.0 architecture meets your quality requirements. http://tc.eserver.org/30678.html http://tc.eserver.org/30678.html Does it ever occur to you that today's Web developers could learn a thing or two from traditional computer programming? The cranky user talks about the foundations of software engineering and asks where in the Web those best practices have disappeared to. http://tc.eserver.org/30659.html http://tc.eserver.org/30659.html Learn to build a chat system into your Web application with Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) and PHP. Your customers can talk to you and to each other about the content of the site without having to download or install any special instant-messaging software. http://tc.eserver.org/30663.html http://tc.eserver.org/30663.html With the advent of widely available broadband, media, movies, images, and sound drive the Web 2.0 revolution. Learn to combine media with technologies such as PHP and Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) to create a compelling experience for your customers. http://tc.eserver.org/30661.html http://tc.eserver.org/30661.html Where possible, creating Web applications -- including Ajax-based applications -- in a RESTful way avoids a large class of bugs. However, a pitfall of REST (REpresentational State Transfer) is sending duplicate data across similar XMLHttpRequests. This tip shows how the moderate use of session cookies can maintain just enough server-side state to significantly reduce client-server traffic, while still allowing fallback to cookie-free operation. http://tc.eserver.org/30665.html http://tc.eserver.org/30665.html With Ajax still one of the industry's hottest buzzwords, more and more applications are being built with Ajax technologies. However, it's not always easy to build a good application. This article focuses on how to build intuitive, easy-to-use Ajax-driven applications. http://tc.eserver.org/30655.html http://tc.eserver.org/30655.html 'Test on multiple browsers' has been a mantra ever since there have been multiple browsers to test on. Testing them all--especially these days--is impossible. But you can come a lot closer than you may think. In this article, learn a variety of techniques for cross-browser testing, from the very thorough to the quick and dirty. The choice you make will depend on your resources, but this is an issue you can't ignore. http://tc.eserver.org/30656.html http://tc.eserver.org/30656.html In this article, the authors put your newly gained knowledge into practice by starting the development of a simple Dojo and Atom-based blog reader. http://tc.eserver.org/30660.html http://tc.eserver.org/30660.html While the intention of both HTML V5 and XHTML V2 is to improve on the existing versions, the approaches the developers chose to make those improvements is very different. And with differing philosophies come distinct results. For the first time in many years, the direction of upcoming browser versions is uncertain. Uncover the bigger picture behind the details of these two standards. http://tc.eserver.org/30664.html http://tc.eserver.org/30664.html Developers and users have much higher expectations for the usability and responsiveness of Web-based applications in the Web 2.0 era. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past two years, you've likely heard of Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (the Ajax technique). Ajax allows you to build slick, responsive, and highly dynamic browser-based user interfaces without requiring browser page reloads. This article takes a look at AjaxTags, a Java/JavaScript Library that lets you easily integrate Ajax functionality into your JSP pages. http://tc.eserver.org/30658.html http://tc.eserver.org/30658.html It takes some finesse to make the best use of asynchronous callbacks for Ajax data sources in JavaScript applications. This tip discusses why you should use asynchronous callbacks for Ajax data sources and gives examples of coordinating the readiness of mutually dependent application data sources that may become ready at undefined times with asynchronous calls. http://tc.eserver.org/30662.html http://tc.eserver.org/30662.html Wouldn't it be nice for developers if all browsers, computer models, and Ajax application users were the same? Maybe, but the reality is that they are not. Developers face a myriad of challenges when developing applications that behave predictably across browsers, computers, and individual user settings. When users transfer Ajax applications from one browser type to another (and especially when they transfer an Ajax application into a Web service portal), they're not guaranteed the same browser experience because of each browser's inherent limitations. In this article, author Judith Myerson gives a brief discussion of these limitations and what pitfalls to avoid, including some helpful solutions for optimizing browser differences. http://tc.eserver.org/30666.html http://tc.eserver.org/30666.html The CSS @media rule is a useful way to target an HTML or XML document to an intended output device. Use of the print media is now fairly widespread, and provides a much cleaner means of creating printer-friendly pages than does a separate 'printable version.' The use of the screen media has been somewhat underused, perhaps because of an overly general assumption that screen is merely the 'default rendering.' However, in regard to positioning--especially absolute positioning--the screen media type has an important meaning that is not covered by media-free stylesheet rules. http://tc.eserver.org/30669.html http://tc.eserver.org/30669.html Deploying bandwidth-efficient Ajax applications does not guarantee that the service levels in a Service Level Agreement will stay high. No matter how well you change code in the Ajax format to make it more bandwidth efficient, there will be always risks and vulnerabilities you'll need to watch out for and mitigate. Regular developerWorks author Judith Myerson gives a brief Ajax recap, shows what Web services vulnerabilities are and why Service Level Agreements (SLA) are important, and suggests some solutions for speeding up Ajax applications. http://tc.eserver.org/30667.html http://tc.eserver.org/30667.html Regardless of what sort of Content Management System or Web application framework you might use to develop your Web site, there are some basics you should cover. A sophisticated user interface and rich content is great to have, but before you get to that, you should provide the basic files that users anticipate finding and that tell both humans and machines what your site does. http://tc.eserver.org/30657.html http://tc.eserver.org/30657.html When your Web application reaches a certain size, it needs a good database design behind it. And in fact, this 'certain size' is much smaller than almost every small-site developer thinks. Relational Data Base Management Systems (RDBMSes) need not be restrictive or over-architected, as their bad reputation sometimes brings developers to fear. A bit of thought toward what your site does quickly turns into a sensible schema design, and it is easy to leave open expandable storage mechanisms like a configuration table within an RDBMS back end. http://tc.eserver.org/30668.html http://tc.eserver.org/30668.html Encourage user contribution to your Web site by learning from Wikipedia. Wikipedia builds on open source and respects the geographical variety and potential accessibility needs of its users. It provides tools to help users contribute, but also fosters an atmosphere where contributions are verified and discussed by the broader community. http://tc.eserver.org/30257.html http://tc.eserver.org/30257.html The Persevere persistent object framework brings persistent object mapping to the browser JavaScript environment. Object persistence has seen great popularity in the Java(TM) programming and Ruby worlds, and the dynamic JavaScript language is naturally well suited to mapping objects to persisted data. Persevere automates mapping and communication in Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax)-based Web applications in addition to simplifying much of the development challenge by providing a manageable data model, transparent client-server Ajax interchanges, automatic state change storage, and implicit transaction management. http://tc.eserver.org/30258.html http://tc.eserver.org/30258.html Organizations today face the challenge of two important enterprise architecture requirements: the need for agility and the overhead of regulatory governance. These requirements can be seen as mutually antagonistic -- if business processes must be flexible, then governance of those processes may be difficult. This article, part six in a six-part series, explores the notion of using manageability as a key enterprise architecture (EA) quality attribute to solve this problem. EA development is an ongoing process, and the central idea of this article is that by applying manageability as an EA attribute, the organizational processes, systems, and software become manageable. http://tc.eserver.org/30259.html http://tc.eserver.org/30259.html Wouldn't it be nice for developers if all browsers, computer models, and Ajax application users were the same? Maybe, but the reality is that they are not. Developers face a myriad of challenges when developing applications that behave predictably across browsers, computers, and individual user settings. When users transfer Ajax applications from one browser type to another (and especially when they transfer an Ajax application into a Web service portal), they're not guaranteed the same browser experience because of each browser's inherent limitations. In this article, author Judith Myerson gives a brief discussion of these limitations and what pitfalls to avoid, including some helpful solutions for optimizing browser differences. http://tc.eserver.org/29954.html http://tc.eserver.org/29954.html In a world where everything is designed to amaze and distract, it's awfully difficult to get a user's attention. Learn how to use new techniques such as lightboxes, pop-ups, windows, and fading messages with your Ajax tools to get your users' eyes on your content. http://tc.eserver.org/29966.html http://tc.eserver.org/29966.html In the age of the people-powered Web, allowing your readers to rate and review content on your site is critical. Discover just how easy it is to add rating and commenting features to a site with Ajax. http://tc.eserver.org/29958.html http://tc.eserver.org/29958.html The domain model is a familiar concept to most OOP (Object Oriented Programming) developers and architects, and has been used successfully in a variety of systems and projects. But how does this principle apply to SOA-based solutions? http://tc.eserver.org/29964.html http://tc.eserver.org/29964.html File upload is a basic function of today's Web portals. In this article, authors Xiaobo Yang and Rob Allan describe how to develop an Ajax-based file upload JSR 168-compliant portlet using DWR (Direct Web Remoting). DWR is an ideal Ajax framework for Java developers that dynamically generates JavaScript based on server-side deployed Java classes. You will learn how you can use DWR to retrieve file upload progress from the portal server. http://tc.eserver.org/29962.html http://tc.eserver.org/29962.html XML is often used today as a data export and exchange format. In such cases, you might deal with a feed of XML records; sometimes, if this feed, is too long, there are performance problems importing it into another system. As such, you might want to produce only an incremental feed--that is, one that only includes items that have changed. This article presents a collection of simple techniques that you can combine into a system for more digestible feeds containing only updated records. http://tc.eserver.org/29953.html http://tc.eserver.org/29953.html Firefox 2.0 brought several important changes in its XML support. It's currently reaching its peak in user deployment. Learn about updated XML features in Firefox 2.0, including a controversial change to the handling of RSS Web feeds. http://tc.eserver.org/29957.html http://tc.eserver.org/29957.html This four-part series demonstrates how to use the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and XForms together to create a dynamic Web application. http://tc.eserver.org/29955.html http://tc.eserver.org/29955.html This four-part series demonstrates how to use the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and XForms together to create a dynamic Web application. Part 1 looked at the JavaScript underpinnings of each technology. Part 2 shows you how to use those JavaScript underpinnings to start mixing the two technologies together to build the rock star application. http://tc.eserver.org/29956.html http://tc.eserver.org/29956.html A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) typically exports a range of services. For XML service modelling and subsequent consumption of those services by users (people, machines, or other services), Java technology provides powerful mechanisms to handle XML data, which in turn provides a key foundation for using SOA concepts. Dive into the practical aspects of SOA using XML and Java technology, and discover clear examples of why this seemingly complex technology is so popular. http://tc.eserver.org/29965.html http://tc.eserver.org/29965.html HTML 5 introduces new elements to HTML for the first time since the last millennium. New structural elements include aside, figure, and section. New inline elements include time, meter, and progress. New embedding elements include video and audio. New interactive elements include details, datagrid, and command. http://tc.eserver.org/29961.html http://tc.eserver.org/29961.html Three interesting new features in XPath 2.0 and XSLT 2.0 are the item data type, the to operator, and the concept of sequences. Build a sample application that uses these features to generate a sophisticated HTML view of an XML document, and with the new features in XSLT 2.0, create shorter stylesheets that are easier to maintain. Along the way, spend a bit of time on data typing in XSLT 2.0, and learn to use the new <xsl:function> element. http://tc.eserver.org/29963.html http://tc.eserver.org/29963.html Deploying bandwidth-efficient Ajax applications does not guarantee that the service levels in a Service Level Agreement will stay high. No matter how well you change code in the Ajax format to make it more bandwidth efficient, there will be always risks and vulnerabilities you'll need to watch out for and mitigate. Regular developerWorks author Judith Myerson gives a brief Ajax recap, shows what Web services vulnerabilities are and why Service Level Agreements (SLA) are important, and suggests some solutions for speeding up Ajax applications. http://tc.eserver.org/29967.html http://tc.eserver.org/29967.html Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) programming techniques are increasingly dominating the world of Web application development. New developers are stepping into the world of Ajax development every day, and they come from disparate development backgrounds. Part 1 of this multipart series gives you a cheat sheet of Ajax development resources from an expert team of Ajax developers at IBM. The authors draw from their own ramp-up experiences to help you with practical information that will put you on a fast track to effective Ajax development. http://tc.eserver.org/29960.html http://tc.eserver.org/29960.html This two-part article series is designed to get PHP developers up to speed in leveraging Web 2.0 XForms forms for their PHP forms development so that they can finally put their outdated Web 1.0 HTML forms away. This will be accomplished by creating a library of functions that generate XForms elements when called upon. In this article, Part 1 of a two-part series, developers will create the XForms library using PHP, allowing each function to take in parameters and output XForm elements. http://tc.eserver.org/29959.html http://tc.eserver.org/29959.html This two-part article seriess is designed to get PHP developers up to speed in leveraging Web 2.0 XForms forms for their PHP forms development so that they can finally put their outdated Web 1.0 HTML forms away. In Part 1, you created the PHP XForms library. In this article, Part 2, you will enhance the library to include some error checking and convenience functions to help make using the library more manageable, and lastly you'll demo the library by creating a proof of concept XForm. http://tc.eserver.org/29407.html http://tc.eserver.org/29407.html The open source Hamlets framework can help aid your Web development and properly separate content from presentation. The OSGi framework provides an excellent tool for development on embedded devices. Together, the two frameworks work as a team to provide browser-based interactivity to the humblest gadgets -- such as the lowly coffee maker. Read on to find out how it works. http://tc.eserver.org/29394.html http://tc.eserver.org/29394.html This paper summarizes the work of a study group on ways to improve the usability of publications that support programming products. Task orientation, an approach to providing, organizing, and packaging information, is covered, together with innovations to improve the usability of programming publications: ease-of-use education, measurement of user opinion, and incorporating usability into the publications development process. http://tc.eserver.org/28853.html http://tc.eserver.org/28853.html With the growing popularity of Web 2.0, a new data interchange format called JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is emerging as a useful way to represent data in the business logic running on browsers. Learn how PHP-based server programs can convert XML-formatted enterprise application data into JSON format before sending it to browser applications. http://tc.eserver.org/28857.html http://tc.eserver.org/28857.html Ruby on Rails is increasingly showing up as the base framework for sophisticated and scalable applications of medium and large size. Because Ruby is an interpreted language, to bend Rails to your will, you will need to employ many different caching strategies. This article explores the caching strategies that are available to you, including the ones we use for ChangingThePresent.org. http://tc.eserver.org/28854.html http://tc.eserver.org/28854.html Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) is quickly emerging as a modern way of bringing desktop-quality software features to Web applications running on browsers. Open source software such as Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (LAMP) and open standards-based J2EE middleware, such as WebSphere Application Server Community Edition, provide excellent capabilities to develop and deploy Ajax Web applications. http://tc.eserver.org/28856.html http://tc.eserver.org/28856.html To maintain success, companies often incorporate the benefits of new and evolving technologies into their star products. Unfortunately, integrating new technologies can sometimes compromise a product's features and adversely affect the time to market. The time it takes for a product development team to become acquainted with the new technology can limit the number of new features added to the product. Discover the most common problems associated with incorporating new technologies into existing products, and learn what steps you can take to avoid these issues and upgrade your products successfully. http://tc.eserver.org/28855.html http://tc.eserver.org/28855.html Gerald McCobb continues his introduction to the forthcoming W3C Multimodal Architecture with a survey of the many XML languages that you can use to author multimodal applications. He then shows how several specifications -- SCXML, XHTML, REX, and XML Events -- could work together in a complete multimodal application. http://tc.eserver.org/28477.html http://tc.eserver.org/28477.html Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and the idea is that with modern Web browsers you can, with acceptable reliability, keep a channel open to the server to pass data back and forth as your Web application is used. This contrasts with standard Web techniques that follow links, causing the entire page to load anew. Many aspects of Ajax-based development require design different decisions than traditional Web pages: How to manage the back button, how to display updated data, how often to send updates, and more. The focus for now will be on just one group of related aspects: what format should the data exchange take? http://tc.eserver.org/28486.html http://tc.eserver.org/28486.html This tutorial focuses on key aspects of the W3C XForms 1.0 standard to produce a fully functional Web-based shopping cart. With this approach, the reader will get a good start at creating real-world applications with XForms, without having to learn the entire XForms specification. http://tc.eserver.org/28481.html http://tc.eserver.org/28481.html Ruby on Rails provides an excellent platform for building Web applications. Discover how to use the built-in Asynchronous JavaScript(TM) + XML (Ajax) features of the platform to give your application the Web 2.0 rich user interface experience. http://tc.eserver.org/28479.html http://tc.eserver.org/28479.html With ThinWire, an open-source development framework, you can build Web applications that look and feel like desktop applications. In this five-part series, you'll learn how to develop rich Web applications using ThinWire and Java. In Part 2, you learn to use the SplitLayout class in conjunction with your own layout management code to dynamically change the layout of a ThinWire GUI based on the current size of the Web browser window. http://tc.eserver.org/28485.html http://tc.eserver.org/28485.html JavaScript is often ridiculed as the black sheep of programming languages. The development tools, a complicated and inconsistent document object model for HTML pages, and inconsistent implementation in browsers contributes to that sentiment. But JavaScript is much more than a toy. In this article, Bruce Tate explores JavaScript's language features. http://tc.eserver.org/28484.html http://tc.eserver.org/28484.html Rich Internet Applications is the new buzz-phrase for Web 2.0, and a key component of the substance behind Web 2.0 is Adobe Flash. Learn how to integrate Flash movies into your application and generate Flash movies dynamically using the Ming library. http://tc.eserver.org/28478.html http://tc.eserver.org/28478.html Web 2.0 is still one of the computer industry's hottest buzzwords, despite widespread disagreement as to what the term actually means. This month, The Geronimo renegade cuts through the hype and looks at the Apache Geronimo project as both an enabler of Web 2.0 applications and as a Web 2.0 application itself. http://tc.eserver.org/28480.html http://tc.eserver.org/28480.html One key benefit of XML is the fact that it was designed for international use. But do you really understand the concepts of internationalization and localization? This article explains what they are, how they work, and why you want to use them. http://tc.eserver.org/28465.html http://tc.eserver.org/28465.html Ajax, which consists of HTML, JavaScript™ technology, DHTML, and DOM, is an outstanding approach that helps you transform clunky Web interfaces into interactive Ajax applications. The author, an Ajax expert, demonstrates how these technologies work together -- from an overview to a detailed look -- to make extremely efficient Web development an easy reality. He also unveils the central concepts of Ajax, including the XMLHttpRequest object. http://tc.eserver.org/28042.html http://tc.eserver.org/28042.html Test-driven development and unit tests are the latest way to make sure your code is behaving as you expect through changes and refactoring. Find out how to unit test your PHP code at the module, database, and user interface (UI) level. http://tc.eserver.org/28043.html http://tc.eserver.org/28043.html Along with creating a database schema and populating tables with data, being able to selectively modify data is one of the most important skills necessary for a database developer. This article teaches you how to selectively delete or update data in an existing table and how to modify the structure of an existing table. To perform data modifications on a more complex database schema, you'll learn about embedded subqueries, both scalar and table, with data update and data insert operations. You'll also find out how to delete and modify data in complex schemas using the Apache Derby database. http://tc.eserver.org/28040.html http://tc.eserver.org/28040.html This article demonstrates several ways to create configurable PHP applications. It also discusses the ideal configuration points in an application, and finding the balance point between an application that is too configurable and one that is too closed. http://tc.eserver.org/28041.html http://tc.eserver.org/28041.html This tutorial is for developers who want to learn about creating a simple mashup, a Web application that uses information from different sources. It uses the Zend Framework's Zend_Services component and the principle of Representational State Transfer (REST) to demonstrate how to seamlessly include information to extra resources related to our feeds. http://tc.eserver.org/28039.html http://tc.eserver.org/28039.html In this series, follow along as the IBM Internet Technology Group team designs, develops, and deploys a closed community Web site using a suite of software that is freely available. The open source community provides various tools that, when plugged together, begin to create a useful development and production environment for complex Web applications. Using these tools as a foundation, we provide a methodology and set of enhancements to help you simplify the production process. Although customization is still necessary, this series shows you the tools and techniques to get relatively complicated Web sites up and running quickly using open source tools, including Drupal, MySQL, PHP, Apache, and Eclipse technologies. In this first article, you'll compare our approach with other software tools available and explore the enhancements we made. http://tc.eserver.org/28038.html http://tc.eserver.org/28038.html In this series, you follow along as the IBM Internet Technology Group designs, develops, and deploys a closed community Web site using a suite of software that is freely available. Most of this series focuses on the actual implementation of the Web site, but this second article is a bit more generic. Read it to explore our design process, which can help you to create user experiences for applications, other interfaces, or Web sites. Part 1 discusses the team's requirements, compares several open source content management systems, and provides the rationale for choosing Drupal. http://tc.eserver.org/27896.html http://tc.eserver.org/27896.html This framework provides an easily-used and easily-understood way of developing Web-based applications. The framework not only supports but also enforces the complete separation of content and presentation. Its simple and elegant design does not hide the familiar underlying servlet infrastructure.