Monday, May 05, 2008
Relational Music Discovery
I spend most of my days and nights in front of the computer screen. Needless to say I listen to countless hours of music. I'm always looking for new music to listen to, and face it, iTunes can only get you so far with it's rather limited discovery features. Recently, I've turned to relational, and visual music discovery engines to find more tunes that related to my current musical tastes.
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Max Kiesler,
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visualizations
Saturday, May 03, 2008
New Search Visualizations Paradigms
I really like to search the web. I search because I'm curious. I search because I need specific information. When I need to find something specific I still go to Google. When I'm curious, and searching for entertainment sake I go to visual, faceted, and relational search engines. There are many ways to search the web these days that are not just liner. Today searches can now be based on context, color, relationship, and even child safe content.
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Max Kiesler,
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visualizations
Monday, November 19, 2007
Designing Visualizations for Time-Based Data
Most interaction designers understand the concept of timelines and other time-based data. Blogs, calendars, and to-do lists are all examples of time-based data. However, if you are trying to fit 400 data points into a 1024 x 726 screen you'll quickly see how challenging time-base data can be. Currently, many interaction designers are turning to visualizations to overcome many of the issues associated with this form of data representation. Below you'll find a list of some of the best time-based visualizations on the web.
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examples,
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Sunday, November 18, 2007
AJAX Your Blog - Plugins, Source Code, and Tutorials
I started this blog around the same time AJAX was introduced by
Adaptive Path's Jesse James Garrett. At the time there were no out of the box add-on's for blogs. Fortunately, now there are a plethora of plugins, source code, and tutorials designed for specific blog software. The following is a list of AJAX components you can add to Wordpress, Expression Engine, and Moveable Type.
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ajax,
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wordpress,
blog,
expression engine,
moveable type,
plugins
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Visualization Programming Languages, Software, and Toolkits
If you've seen websites such as,
Digg Big Spy,
We Feel Fine, or
Gapminder. and you're a web surfer you are probably amazed. If however, you're a web designer or programmer you may be wondering how to accomplish these dramatic visualizations. Below you'll find a list of visualization software, toolkits and programming languages to get you started.
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Max Kiesler,
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visualizations,
software,
toolkits,
programming languages
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Javascript and AJAX Security - How to Make Your Website Safe
Beneath the peppy front ends of many of todays Rich Internet Applications lies a dark flaw that if left unchecked can bring a site down to it's knees. For the past few years many designers and developers have been adding AJAX and Javascript functionality to there websites. Many of these websites suffer from threats such as, cross site scripting (also known as XSS), cross-site request forgery (XSRF), and several other well know exploits. Maybe your using one of the popular libraries such as, Prototype and Script.aculo.us, or Dojo and think You're safe. Think again. Unless you've implemented security fixes you may be vulnerable to several types of attacks. The same goes for blog plugins, popular open source applications, and of-course the plethora of free Javascript and AJAX add-ons available at free script websites. If you want to protect yourself, please read on.
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Max Kiesler,
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javascript,
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security
Sunday, November 04, 2007
How To Minimize Your Javascript and CSS Files for Faster Page Loads
Over the last 11 years I've spent a great deal of time trying to improve client websites with an eye for minimalist interface design and code. While the minimalist design esthetic is not the choice for every client the notion of less code and faster load times always goes over well. Today, many of web applications I design and code for have a plethora of Javascript and CSS files. Fortunately, there are many options to solve this rather simple problem. Compression, obfuscation and bundling are all great options.
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javascript,
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minimal,
compression
Monday, October 29, 2007
Learning AJAX & Javascript by Example - Tutorials, Source-Code and Documentation
I learn the best by example, so I read about, and try, as many AJAX and Javascript examples as I can find. Below you'll find a short list of the AJAX tutorials and examples that I've seen recently. They have all been organized by category with the exception of the "General" category which includes some example that didn't lend themselves to a vertical. Please let me know through email or a comment if you know of any other great AJAX tutorials, and I'll be glad to post them. Also special thanks to all of the folks who produced all of these great free learning experiences.
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javascript,
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Thursday, October 25, 2007
VizList - The Data Visualization List
I'm pleased to announce VizList as a new addition to my blog. VizList is a constantly updated list of all forms of next generation web-based visualizations. Posts will provide a screenshot, a description written by either myself or the developer, and a link to the website. All visualizations will be categorized for easy browsing. I am focused in keeping you up to date with the latest developments in data visualizations, software and applications.
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visualizations,
data visualizations,
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Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Beyond the List View - New Patterns in User Interface Design
Currently there are many ways to view content on the web. From an interface design perspective these usually fall into one of three categories which include, list views, grid views and content visualizations. This article will look at each one of these patterns and discuss their history along with the pro and cons associated with their use. Then, I'll give some examples of past and present websites using these patterns. Finally, we will look at a few examples of what we might be seeing in the next few years in the way interface design patterns.
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Max Kiesler,
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design,
design patterns,
minimalism
Saturday, October 20, 2007
AJAX & Javascript Galleries, Slideshows and Effects Redux
I was looking through some of my older posts tonight and realized my last post about AJAX galleries, slideshows and effects was from March 2006. Tonight I did a quick search through some of my sources to see what was new and exciting in the world of AJAX and Javascript image display and manipulation. Once again, below you'll find a categorized list of all of the AJAX image solutions I've been able to find that were of some use.
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Max Kiesler,
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examples,
ajax,
downloadable,
slideshows,
galleries,
photography
Monday, October 15, 2007
Content Visualizations - The Next Wave of Interaction Design
While the web is changing every day, the one constant is the need to discover information. Search, browse, lists and tags are all great ways to find what you are looking for, however, today content visualizations are giving us a whole new way to discover deep content and relational data like never before. For instance if you search for RadioHead in most of the current search engines you will find lots of links to RadioHead related information. What do you search for if you want to find bands that you might like that have the same sound as RadioHead? This is where content visualizations shine. Many give you the ability to drill down in the content you are interested in and, in a very graphical and visual way.
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Max Kiesler,
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examples,
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data visualizations,
design,
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Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Minimalist Website Design Patterns
Do you want your website to be beautiful, SEO friendly and fast loading? Try a true minimalist approach. Total, complete and utter minimalism is a high mark to meet in any medium. Wikipedia describes
minimalism as, "movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features." In web design minimalism translates into style, structure, and download time. Many websites that look minimal are actually mired in obtrusive or invalid code and slow download times. I believe true minimalism in web design should consider the design, code and efficiency of each page. In this article I'll discuss a basic standard for minimalist web design, show examples of how a few current sites measure up to these standards, and finally show you a road map to your own web design minimalism.
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Max Kiesler,
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examples,
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minimalism
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
40 Downloadable Open Source Social Software Applications
While large scale social sites like Flickr, Digg, Youtube and Myspace have predominated the web-o-sphere over the past few years there still is a need for narrow content verticals in this arena. This list will give you links to 40 open source resources to get you started building your own social bookmarking, networking, filesharing or search application. The following is a list of what I consider the be the best open source social software that I've found over the past year.
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examples,
source code,
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social software
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Twitterverse Launches
We're psyched to launch our first release of
Twitterverse tonight after working on the idea for the last couple of weeks and then the last 48 hours straight.
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Max Kiesler,
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visualizations,
data visualizations,
web apps,
projects,
site launches
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
20 Trusted AJAX, DHTML and JavaScript Tool Sites
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 individuals who spent their free time to put up these wonderful resources.
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examples,
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Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Data Visualization Software, Resources, Tutorials and Source Code
As an interaction designer I'm always wondering what's next. Over the last few years we've become familiar with web application design, new constructs like recency and popularity, however, in the back-channel of web design there has been an increasing movement towards data visualizations, both large and small. You can currently see this in everything from blog design to large-scale data visualizations like We Feel Fine and digg labs. Designers and programers are coming together in new ways, which in the end result are producing some of the most functional, and creative web interfaces I've ever seen.
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examples,
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resources
Monday, February 26, 2007
Source Code Released for aPop and footoo AJAX Photo Galleries
First, I'd like to say thanks for the overwhelming support and requests for the aPop and footoo photo galleries source code. Next, I'd like to apologize for not getting back to the wonderful developers who emailed me for the code. I just found out this weekend that due to an error, my server was treating all of these emails as spam, and they have been sitting in a log file for the past year. I'm very sorry about this. So, tonight I'm releasing the source code and am hoping I can reach out to everyone who was kind enough to want to push the development forward on these two unfinished projects.
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examples,
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galleries,
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Ecosystem Navigation and Tiny Visualizations
It's not AJAX, DHTML, Java, or Ruby but it is a new way of seeing blog categories. Tonight I'm presenting the first in a series of tiny blog visualizations. If you look in the top right corner of my new home page you'll see a clickable pie chart of my current blog categories presented by popularity. Why tiny visualizations? In the last year I've been impressed by the number and quality of large scale data visualizations. Sites like Digg Labs, We Feel Fine and Gapminder all present a new flow and discovery model for data. However, in these examples the visualization is based on a very large data set. Recently, I've become increasingly interested in the idea of tiny visualizations and how this notion can be used as a way to navigate blogs and other micro communities.
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visualizations,
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Tuesday, July 04, 2006
42 Recent AJAX Tutorials
When I first started posting about AJAX over a year ago, many of the posts I found were about definitions, theory or examples. Today, most of the links that I find are tutorials and I applaud this. The following is a list of what I consider to be the best and most helpful AJAX tutorials I've found in the last two months.
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Max Kiesler,
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examples,
ajax,
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Wednesday, June 28, 2006
How to Make Your AJAX Applications Accessible - 40 Tutorials and Articles
AJAX is a great tool for creating rich internet applications, however, when improperly implemented it can cause huge accessibility issues. The good news is that most of these issues can be fixed so your websites are viewable by a much wider audience. Great resources on accessibility have been around for years, however, many web 2.0 and AJAX websites ignore all of the research that went into turning website accessibility into a movement followed by most professional web developers. Below you'll find a list of 40 best AJAX accessibility tutorials and articles that I have found on the web in the last year.
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examples,
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Monday, June 26, 2006
What You Should Know About AJAX Security: 24 Tutorials
For the most part AJAX does not significantly increase the security vulnerabilities in most web applications. However, javascript, XML and asynchronous server calls do have potential holes if not properly implemented. If you're an application developer or security professional there are things to watch out for with AJAX applications. If you're new to AJAX there are many hazards to watch out for, and tutorials and examples are one of the worst culprits for security vulnerabilities. Before you start downloading examples and making them live on your server you should learn a bit about security first. Below, you'll find a list of tutorials, examples, and articles that will detail many of the security implications of using AJAX..
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Max Kiesler,
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examples,
ajax,
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Saturday, June 10, 2006
50 AJAX Reference Websites From Around the World
As a consistent devotee of the AJAX scene over the past year or so I have hundreds of feeds in my reader. Recently, I've had several email requests from readers requesting to know what AJAX websites I visit daily. While I visit any title that interest me, these are the sites I go to consistently.
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examples,
ajax,
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Monday, May 08, 2006
60 More AJAX Tutorials
With the popularity of AJAX growing every day I've had the opportunity to collect and try out many more tutorials in the last several months. These examples and how-to's represent the best tutorials that I've personally used or otherwise had the opportunity to work with out of the overall group. This post is intended for individuals who learn best by example. Most of the listed tutorials come complete with instructions and source code. I've also categorized all of the tutorials for easy browsing. Enjoy!
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Round-up of 50 AJAX Toolkits and Frameworks
The following is a compilation of all of the AJAX toolkits and frameworks that I have either reviewed or have first hand experience with and would recommend. It seem like a new AJAX toolkit or framework has come out every week or so since the term AJAX was coined a little over a year ago. As a designer and developer I find these tools invaluable in the process of rapid web development.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax
Friday, March 31, 2006
Social Bookmarking From Inside Second Life?
Last week one of our clients at Ideacodes held a virtual fashion show at their virtual showroom in the online world known as Second Life. Stylehive, which is a a collaborative shopping community purchased land and built their virtual showroom inside of Second Life several weeks ago. Since then they have populated their space with items that users have bookmarked in the hive. These products that they feature in their showroom are not just the user submitted images, they have been rendered in a 3-D program to be exact replicas of the original products. Very cool.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax
Monday, March 27, 2006
The Web 2.0 Big Font Controversy
Do you ever wonder why many of the new websites you go to have giant high-contrast fonts? Extraterrestrials, a clan of very elderly web designers, or maybe it's just a bunch of punk kids that are trying to be trendy? While in some cases any of these may be true, I would argue the real culprits are designers who base their typographic decisions on research (hopefully).
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax
Monday, March 20, 2006
Learning Ruby: A Guide to Online Tutorials, Examples and Downloads
When I started learning Ruby on Rails a little over a year ago someone in the Ruby community told me there were currently on 164 developers in the United States. Over the course of the last year that number has grown exponentially. As with many next generation technologies the challenge is how to learn it. Often times the only resources for learning are workshops, seminars, books or online tutorials and examples.
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Max Kiesler,
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ruby on rails
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Round-up of 30 AJAX Tutorials
There are quite a few AJAX demos and examples on the web right now. While these are invaluable to learning AJAX, some people need a bit more information than just a raw piece of code. In todays environment there are many ways to learn AJAX including, books, classes, conferences, workshops and tutorials. Of these the only one that is free and accessible to everyone are web-based tutorials. The following is a list of what I consider the be the best and most helpful AJAX tutorials that I've found over the past year.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax
Monday, March 06, 2006
Downloadable AJAX Galleries, Slideshows and Effects
Until recently many of the most visually stunning and functional image galleries, slideshows, and effects were done through Flash. With the advent of AJAX many developers are taking another look at javascript and are producing some very amazing functionality in these areas.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax
Monday, February 27, 2006
Logahead - Next Generation AJAX Weblog
It was inevitable that someone would use web 2.0 social aspects together with an AJAX interaction layer to create a next generation weblog. As usual it took a seventeen year old to do it. Logahead is everything I've been looking for recently in blogging software. It's PHP, MySQL, AJAX, and has several social features.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Introducing DesignDemo - Web 2.0 Design and Interaction Demos
DesignDemo is a constantly updated list and resource of next generation web (web 2.0) interfaces and interaction design. We will show categorized UI elements as well as overall application design. Most design reviews only provide screenshots of the page. When appropriate, DesignDemo will also provide a short demo of the interaction. This will allow users, developers and designers to view multiple categories of interaction design in one place.
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Max Kiesler,
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web 2.0
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Techcrunch 5 Party Wrap Up
Last night my partner at ideacodes Emily Chang and I attended the Techcrunch 5 party at Mike Arrington's home in Atherton, California, located in the heart of Silicon Valley. The night was cold and wet, but MIke's house was full of warm personalities, stimulating conversation and free wine.
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Max Kiesler,
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city life
Saturday, February 11, 2006
The Agile Web Design Manifesto, An Introduction
Co-authored by Max Kiesler and Emily Chang of Ideacodes
On August 20, 1980, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler were the first to summit Mount Everest without the use of bottled oxygen. They accomplished this amazing feat by doing what no other expedition had ever done. They carried all of their own gear, did no route preparation, and did not use supplemental oxygen. They were successful where others were not, because they approached the problem from a different angle. After years of climbing experience, they recognized that their two greatest assets were agility and improvisation in the face of constant change. This philosophical shift enabled them to not only succeed, but to innovate, while others had attempted only to survive.
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Max Kiesler,
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web design
Monday, February 06, 2006
Decrease Load Time and Increase ROI in Web 2.0 and AJAX Sites
In this article I'll be explaining the concept behind content encoding and discussing how this issue relates to web 2.0 web and AJAX sites. Next, I'll be showing some examples of web 2.0 sites that are using this technology and those that are not. I will also do some simple tests with a few of the sites that are not currently using HTTP compression, to show what the benefits would be. Finally, I will give you all the resources you need to need to implement content encoding on your own website.
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Max Kiesler,
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Friday, February 03, 2006
Downloadable Web 2.0 and AJAX Widgets
It seems as though every other day a new web 2.0 or AJAX widget comes to the attention of del.icio.us or Google.
Many user interface elements lend themselves to being "ajaxified". Calendars, image galleries, contact forms and auto-complete search functions are currently very popular. The problem is how to find working and downloadable examples. This post is an attempt to provide a list of the current best of the best web 2.0 and AJAX widgets that can be downloaded and integrated into your website.
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Max Kiesler,
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Thursday, February 02, 2006
Web Design Contest: ExpressionEngine $15,000 Shootout
I'm please to announce the ExpressionEngine $15,000 Shootout. Myself, and Emily Chang co-founders and principals of Ideacodes, have been invited to be judges for the prestigious design contest. We've used pMachine web products since their inception, and couldn't be more pleased to be judging the contest.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax,
web design,
good web
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Release of Backbase Version 3.1.1
Backbase was already a fast development tool for large scale development projects, now they've made it even easier to use for all professional application developers With additional user interface controls , pre-build user interface components, and new features which fix the problem of browser incompatibilities with AJAX applications.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax,
web apps,
ruby on rails,
good web,
web 2.0
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Yahoo Design Group Dinner
We were very pleased to be invited to the Yahoo Design Group Dinner on Monday night! The dinner was a gathering of web design, UI, and user experience icons from around the country. Currently, the Web Design World conference is going on in SF so there are even more talented people than usual in the bay area right now.
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Max Kiesler,
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good web,
web 2.0
Podcast of the JP Morgan and Connector Group Showcase
Tonight we were pleased to be invited to the JP Morgan and the Connector Group Showcase, which is an exclusive event for influencers and tastemakers in the technology sector. The show case is a catalyst between technology companies and some, "of the country's most well-respected businesspeople, technologists, style mavens, bloggers, and thinkers". (Connector Group)
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Max Kiesler,
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web apps,
good web
Monday, January 30, 2006
Mobile and Device Connectivity - Entrepreneur27 Technology Symposium Final Thoughts
Can your website connect to every mobile device or to your company's live inventory system? How about your customer's neural network? After thinking about what I saw yesterday at Stanford with the nine entrepreneur's under the age of 27, I was struck with the percentage of applications that were connected in some way to another device. Last year I saw Howard Rheingold at SXSW and he spoke about cell phones being the most prevalent computing device. Think about it. As Rheingold pointed out, "do you see more computers of cell phones?"
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Max Kiesler,
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good web,
web 2.0
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Entrepreneur27 Technology Symposium Wrap-up and Podcast
Yesterday we attended the Entrepreneur27 Technology Symposium on the campus of Stanford University. This Entrepreneur27 symposium was a chance for nine start-ups to demo their products to, "influential representatives from newspapers, popular blogs, progressive companies, universities, and venture capitalist firms".
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Max Kiesler,
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web 2.0
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Is Microsoft Really Changing - Search Champs v4 Initial View
My partner at ideacodes Emily Chang and I were recently invited to participate in Microsoft's Search Champs v4 this past week. In short Search Champs is brainstorming session between Microsoft designers, developers, project managers, and executives and a group of 57 internet thinkers and doers from around the world.
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Max Kiesler,
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web apps,
good web,
web 2.0
Monday, October 24, 2005
Blummy Your Social Web
Currently my browser toolbar is full! I have so many bookmarklets that in order to use my toolbar bookmarks I have to scroll to the left to see most of them. Why is this? I have four weblogs and subscribe to at least ten social software and bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, flickr, and blinklist. While I love the idea of bookmarklets and they save me lots of time I currently have bookmarklet overload. Finally, someone has come up with an intelligent and easy to use solution using AJAX.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax,
good web
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Ideacodes Helps Redesign CommunityWalk
I'm pleased to announce that Emily Chang and I will be working with Jared Cosulich, creator of CommunityWalk, to redesign the front-end interface for the application. See the news story from my company site also posted here.
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Max Kiesler,
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web design,
projects,
web 2.0
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
eHub Interviews Launches
eHub Interviews launches featuring four interviews with creators of web 2.0 applications, including Writely, Protopage, CommunityWalk, CentralDesktop.
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projects,
web 2.0
Monday, October 03, 2005
Stowe Boyd and Ken Yarmosh Covering Web 2.0
In addition to eHub Interviews launching this week, we're pleased to promote two others that are doing a great job covering the shifting landscape.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax,
web design,
web apps,
ruby on rails,
good web,
web 2.0
eHub Interviews to Launch the Week of Web 2.0
eHub Interviews, a series of email interviews with the creators of Web 2.0 applications and services, will launch this week (October 3-8, 2005) as part of the unofficial Web 2.0 week here in San Francisco.
1 With over 150 web applications and services in eHub (and growing every day), we felt it was time to hear about Web 2.0 from the people making it.
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ajax,
web design,
web apps,
ruby on rails,
good web,
web 2.0
Saturday, October 01, 2005
AJAX Image Gallery Example - Alpha Release
We're pleased to provide an alpha release of two examples of AJAX image galleries by Max Kiesler and Emily Chang of Ideacodes. One uses PHP and MySQL and the other requires no database and simply pulls images directly out of a designated directory on your web server.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax,
good web,
projects,
web 2.0
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Web 2.0 Personal Portal With AJAX Features
There are hundreds if not thousands of developers working hard to produce web 2.0 applications, however some are more successful that others. Today I found what I think is one of the most intelligent uses of web 2.0 technology that I've seen so far.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax,
web apps,
web 2.0
Friday, September 16, 2005
AJAX and PHP File Browser
Do you have a dump folder in your ftp that's always filling up with files, and do you have to download them to see what they are? Or maybe you're savvy enough to have a file browser in that directory but, you still can't view the images or the contents of the files?
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax,
web apps,
good web
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
mHub: Ajax, Ruby, Rails and Web 2.0 software list
mHub is a constantly updated list of web applications, services, resources, blogs or sites with a focus on next generation web (web 2.0), blogging, Ajax, Ruby, Rails and open source developments. Submit or suggest a site and I'll be happy to include it : )
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax,
web apps,
ruby on rails,
good web,
blog services
Sunday, September 11, 2005
AJAX and Ruby on Rails Based Spellchecker Demo
Today I found a great AJAX based spellchecker demo which uses ActionPack instead of ActiveRecord. As with many Rails applications this wonderful app only requires 67 lines of code plus a few HTML templates.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax,
web apps,
ruby on rails,
good web
Friday, September 09, 2005
Make an AJAX Website in Less than 10 Minutes
I've been toying around with AJAX apps and XMLHttpRequest but have wanted to put up a site that loads all of its content asynchronously. If you're like me and you learn best from working with examples you're only 10 minutes away from your first AJAX website.
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Max Kiesler,
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ajax,
web design,
good web
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Yahoo: You’ve Got Jail
The question everyone is asking today is, "did Yahoo help jail a foreign dissident from China?" I too would like to know. I always worry a little about my privacy when I use a online service however, I did think my personal information was secure with my flickr account.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
bad web
AJAX, Ruby on Rails, Beta, Tagging, Ping Me T-shirts
Looking for a cool web t-shirt
and want to help the cause? Get your ajax, ruby on rails, ping me, tagging, beta, design is strategy t-shirts today. All proceeds will go to the Katrina relief efforts.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax,
web design,
ruby on rails,
good web
Monday, September 05, 2005
AJAX loader for XML and HTML files through xmlHttpRequest
Have you read about AJAX and xmlhttprequest but never loaded anything into your webpage using this brilliant technology? Read on because here is a easy to use AJAX script that will let you do that in less than five minutes.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax,
good web
Ruby on Rails Blog Software With AJAX Goodies
Being new to the Ruby on Rails framework I wanted to experiment with some pre-packaged software to get a feel for the new environment. After all, for someone who has building websites for nine years The Ruby on Rails environment is very different than the current web 1.0 environment.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax,
web apps,
ruby on rails,
good web,
blog services
Thursday, September 01, 2005
AJAX Enhanced Website Helps Solve RSS Reader Overload
A friend told me the other day that she was speaking to someone about RSS feeds and he said he had five hundred feeds in his reader. While my aggregator is not that full, it is filling up everyday with new sources of information. Read on, because there is an AJAX enhanced website that will help you start dealing with this issue.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax,
good web
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Something’s Gone Horribly Wrong - With A List Apart
I was greeted with the first part of the title today when I click on a Goggle link for "Discussing: A Better Image Rotator: A List Apart". Was it because there was a page or script error? Did someone forget to do redirects? I'm not sure, but It looks as if the content has either moved or been removed. In either case as the W3C says, "Choose URIs wisely".
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
web design,
bad web
Sunday, August 28, 2005
The Door Project Launches
Bonjour. I've just launched The Door Project which is a collaborative digital art project dealing with artistic and creative visions of doors of any kind.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
good web,
projects
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Great Hosting Provider for Ruby On Rails
After playing around with many inline AJAX applications I finally decided to take the dive an try to develop my own web app. The first thing I needed to do was find a host that already had Ruby On Rails installed and configured on their servers. This proved to take much longer than I had expected.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax,
ruby on rails,
good web
Friday, August 26, 2005
Designing for Ajax and Next Generation Websites
With AJAX and other asynchronous web applications right around the corner, the question we must ask ourselves as designers is - how are we going to move our interfaces towards a more user-centric paradigm (which is fully supported by these emerging technologies)?
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Max Kiesler,
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Thursday, August 25, 2005
AJAX Fun For Anyone With Protopage
As a designer I'm faced with new and emerging technologies everyday. For me, a big part of the enjoyment of working on the internet is seeing a new wiki, and trying to figure out how it can be applied to real-world web design. Recently, AJAX has been at the forefront of many of the latest developments on the internet. Here is a great example to show yourself or your clients the power of AJAX - and it free!
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax,
web design,
web apps,
good web
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
An AJAX CMS built on Ruby on Rails
There are many CMS downloads out there however, as a designer I find many of them hard to use and sometime nearly impossible to style. Read on because relief is on the way.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax,
web design,
ruby on rails,
good web
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
AJAX Search Wiki
Search boxes and results seem to be a natural extension of the capabilities inherent to AJAX. If your blog is running Movable Type (MT), I found a great example of how to implement an inline search using AJAX, complete with a progress bar and same page search results.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax,
good web
Monday, August 22, 2005
Low Contrast Websites, Bad Kitty!
Have you ever gone to a website from your favorite search engine looking for some information you need only to find it, and the text is unreadable? Low contrast websites have gone from the realm of art and design sites to the mainstream at an alarming rate.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
web design,
css,
bad web
Sunday, August 21, 2005
The Ultimate Blog Ping Service
How would you like to automatically ping 49 services from your blog's control panel with one click? I found a new ping service today will do just that.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
good web,
blog services
Mambo Dancing to a New Tune
How would you like to work for several years on a volunteer basis developing an open source product only to be thrown off the project for another case of corporate greed? I recently opened an email from the Web Standards Group to find out that Mambo will have a very different face in the coming days.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
web apps,
bad web
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Facilitate User Experience with CSS Compression
How would you like to decrease the load time of your bloated CSS file by up to 85% in less than five minutes?"
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
css,
good web
Friday, August 19, 2005
Simple CSS Imput Field Color Changer
Have you ever wondered how websites change the color of their input fields when you click on them? Here is an easy to use method you can implement in less than Five Minutes!
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
css
Thursday, August 18, 2005
AJAX Contact Form
Have you been trying to add a progress bar to your contact form? Me too. After several days of searching Google and trying several different solutions, I finally found a great AJAX contact form that anyone can implement.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Filtering Your CSS for Safari 1.2
On a recent project I found a need to apply a single style rule to Safari. Initially I turned up a great link to dithered.com which has all known CSS filters. Unfortunately, I could not locate one that filtered for Safari only.
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Max Kiesler,
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css
Designing With AJAX: CSS and AJAX Web page Transition
I've always loved the page transitions in flash but, being a devotee of tableless CSS, I've never used them in my own, or my client's sites. In steps AJAX. There are many ways to fade object in AJAX, but how do you apply that to your web page? Here is a simple technique that anyone can use.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax,
css
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
The Tale of Three Pops
In the city, who doesn't love their corner store? For me it's Pops, or as it's officially known, "The Moscone Deli". I seem to stop in there every day or so for something I desire for that evening. When I first moved into this space in SOMA, I wandered out of the back of my building looking for some food. Right around the corner I happened onto the Moscone Deli. I was looking for some bread and cheese, and their selection was rather small by my former suburban supermarket standards, but I found what I wanted and headed to the counter.
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Max Kiesler,
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city life
Monday, August 15, 2005
From Under the Homeless Sky
When I first moved to the heart of the web world in SOMA a year ago today I wasn't really thinking too much about the boom and the bust that had gone on out a few years ago. I was fresh from freelancing in New York, and as an independent had not suffered the bust. I had several contracts with bigger firms and the work just kept coming.
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Max Kiesler,
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city life
Sunday, August 14, 2005
AJAX Slideshow
It resizes, it transitions, it fades in and out and it's not flash! The new AJAX slideshow on the homepage of my site comes to you courtesy of Scott Upton at Uptonic. This smooth, easy to use delight, is a great toolbox addition, for anyone who considers themselves part of the new breed of AJAX designers and developers.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Personas
Bapu, Peaches, Onyx - these are the names of the employees we met today at an organic grocery my girlfriend and I frequent. In fact, all of the people that work there seem to have an interesting names. Recently my girlfriend asked Onyx if that was his real name. Onyx responded, "it's not my official name, but I'm REALLY Onyx".
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
city life
Friday, August 12, 2005
Max’s Photo Tips
As a web designer I sometimes work with bad photographs (from clients) every day. After doing this for nine years I've come up with three simple suggestions that someone who wants to shoot photographs can try.
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Max Kiesler,
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photography
Thursday, August 11, 2005
The Fade Anything Technique
Remember the page curl? How about graphical rounded corners, and of course the current omni-present background gradient? Well, here comes the fade. While this is not a new subject since Basecamp came out but, the The Fade Anything Technique (FAT) will make this very interesting technique accessible to everyone who designs websites.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
ajax
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
San Francisco Cab Drivers
Whether your cabbie has a shaved head and is playing loud smooth jazz, or he just came back from Greece and is giving you a diatribe on the Iranian nuclear issue from the European perspective, you must love SF cabbies.
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Max Kiesler,
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Tags:
city life
