This project is an example of the “elastic list” principle for browsing multi-facetted data structures. The data is based on the Noble prize winners dataset used in the Flamenco facet browser. Elastic lists enhance traditional facet browsing approaches by, visualizing relative proportions (weights) of metadata values by size, visualizing unusualness of a metadata weight by brightness and animated filtering transitions. To use the application click any number of list entries to query the database for a combination of the selected attributes. If you create an “impossible” configuration, your selection will be reduced until a match is possible. You can also switch on little sparklines to see the temporal distribution of each metadata value. While I’ve seen this concept used several times before the elastic list interface was very fresh. Thanks!”

Twittervision is a real-time geographic visualization of posts to Twitter. The application is basically a mash-up of the Twitter API and Google Maps. The interaction is smooth and fast and gives you a great vision into who’s Twittering around the world and at what speed. If you’re as big of a fan of Twitter as I am you spend far too much time viewing the Twitter map. In order to try out the application just sign up for twitter and post. You must have a location and an image defined to appear on the public feed (and to be located on the map). Hats off to David Troy who spent his free time to develop this fun visualization of Twitter. “

Thanks to Michael Calore of wired.com for featuring my post ” Round-up of 30 AJAX Tutorials ” on Webmonkey’s blog Monkey Bites. rn

AJAX routine to validate form based input. The script is easy to use and works on everything I’ve tried it on. If you use forms and AJAX on your website you should check this one out.

Website: http://www.mutationevent.com/projects/validate.js/index.php

In many ways this site feels like an exploration. There is no about section or faqs, so when you arrive you’re not really sure what to expect. As I found out, it turned out to be a wonderful visual experience. The site provides several free software packages that allow you to compose algorithmic music, image and video presentations. The results are stunning as you will see from the examples on the site. While it takes a little getting use to, the flash based navigation is fun easy to use. The downloads are available for Mac and PC.”

I started posting about AJAX shortly after the term was coined by AdaptivePath’s Jesse James Garrett in 2005, and in the beginning most of the examples, tutorials and references were produced by programers interested in the subject. Today many of the so-called AJAX, DHTML and Javascript sites are splogs, or other types of traffic generating ad platforms. My question is always who can I trust for tested quality scripts and tools? While there are probubly hundreds of trustworthy sites out there these are the ones I go to when I’m looking for ideas and inspiration. This is not the definitive list of trusted sites so if you have a site you trust for AJAX, DHTML and Javascript tool please let myself and the community know of them through the comments section of this post. Thanks to all of the …

Highslide JS is a piece of JavaScript that streamlines the use of thumbnail images on web pages. The library offers these features and advantages, no plugins like Flash or Java required. Popup blockers are no problem. The images expand within the active browser window. Single click. After expanding the image, the user can scroll further down or leave the page without restoring the image. The approach uses two separate images. No heavy full-size image packed into thumbnail display size! The full-size image is loaded in the background either on page load or when the user clicks the thumb. You specify this option in the script’s settings. Compatibility and safe fallback. If the user has disabled JavaScript or the JavaScript fails in any way, the browser redirects directly to the image itself. This fallback is able to cope with most exceptions …

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts I’m very interested in new ways to present blog content. Data streams, attention data and rss blending all address this issue, however, they all still relay on activities presented in a liner fashion. While the standard blog layout works well for discovery I’m wondering if there is a way to display blog data in a new paradigm . Box Grid was originally developed as an experimental blog site. The two things I find most fascinating about Box Grid are the fact that it was originally released in 2002, and that does not use flash. The interface is all CSS and javascript based. While this type of content visualization will not work for every blog it’s a place where we can start to imagine new ways to surf a blog. The source code is …

This visualization shows the carbon dioxide emission levels for every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates – all in real-time. The site was created by David Bleja (a.k.a. Stillwater). All of the data used in the visualization comes from the World Factbook and the United Nations. To see it in action just mouse over any country and the application will display population, CO2 emissions, death and birth rates. Another column keeps a running tally of CO2 emissions, death and birth rates for the world in the time you’ve been on the site. This is a very insightful way to show the impact different countries have on climate change.”

If you have children you know that many search engines retrieve sites you may not want them to see. If you’re a kid you know how boring most search engines can be. “Quintura, Inc. is the next-generation web search company that was launched with a mission to make Web search easier and faster by adding context or meaning to keywords and visualizing search. The patent-pending technology of Quintura is based on over a decade of the founders’ innovative research and development in the area of neural network and artificial intelligence”. Quintura also has a wonderful search for standard use, and a women’s version is planned soon. So far I love both versions that are public. “