Online Applications

Category Archives: Online Applications

Take Off with Google App Engine

April 17th, 2008 by Robin Tebrake

Google App Enigine You waste your server resources for web applications? Why don’t accept the help of Google. Just a few days ago Google launched its Google App Engine. Being still in beta it allows you to upload your web application on the Google network and use their computational power. With a free account you are already able to use 500MB space, a CPU usage of 200,000,000 megacycles and a maximum of 10GB bandwidth per day. Also you get several other features:

Dynamic webserving, with full support of common web technologies
Persistent storage
Automatic scaling and load balancing
Google APIs for authenticating users and sending email
Fully featured local development environment

Great - Where do I have to sign in?

Google App Engine is still in beta. There were 10,000 beta accounts available but after ca. 3 hours they were all gone. Google already announced that more accounts will follow in the near future. So don’t hesitate to subscribe to the waitlist.

Comments (1) Also posted in Technology, web2.0

Javascript Libraries and Code-Snippets

April 6th, 2008 by Gerrit Tebrake

Talking from web2.0, you think of fade effects, live form validation and other nice and often practical effects. But how are these things realized? Is it something that only professional programmer can assemble?

The only thing that would be helpful is a general understanding of Javascript and HTML. Many of the effects you may have in mind are realized by using open-source libraries or other freely available code snippets. You just have to integrate a few Javascripts and call a few functions to have a beautiful web2.0-ish effect for your website.

In my view the best library is script.aculo.us in connection with prototype.js. They are easy to understand, have a large documentation and a good community. Other libraries worth mentioning are jQuery, Dojo, MochiKit, mootools and YUI. After installing the libraries, it’s so easy to create. Make a few Ajax calls, fall back on entire functions, get some groove effects - and your code is much lighter than before! So why not try to use one of these libraries, after a bit practice you will thank yourself for taking this step.

Comments (0) Also posted in Technology, web2.0

BlogRush - The Easy Way to Get More Readers?

October 3rd, 2007 by Robin Tebrake

What is the aim of every blogger? As much traffic as possible, of course! Normally it means a lot of work and sometimes money. But than comes BlogRush and says it has the ultimate weapon to send you thousands of visitors for (quite) nothing.

To start, go to BlogRush.com, register for a free account and add your blog. You can select a category which will later help BlogRush finding the right content for your site. After you have installed the widget, let the magic begin..

Blogrush

How does it work

Now you can see the BlugRush widget on your site (or look in the menu on the right of this blog) showing 5 posts of blogs with related content. If you click on one of these links, a new window will open and refers you to the article. But how should this supports you drive more traffic to your own blog? That’s easy. Always when the BlogRush widget is shown on your site, one of your posts will, in return, appear in the widget of another (topic related) blog. This means that if you have 100 pageviews a day, your posts will appear on 100 other blogs.

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Stay Organized - Become Productive

October 2nd, 2007 by Robin Tebrake

Time - time management means productivity, means money! In a world of multitasking you have to reduce stress and improve your self-organization. You can use pen and post-its or you try one of these web-based equivalents…

Online Mindmaps

1. Mindmeister is an Ajax driven web application specialized on collaborative mind mapping. Also it allows you to instantly start a Skype conference with your friends/partners.

mindmeister

2. Mindomo, a very heavyset mindmapping tool, enables you to structure your maps in every detail. It’s one of a few which supports image-integration.

mindomo

3. Bubbl.us uses Ajax and Flash for creating beautiful and simple mindmaps. You can share them with your friends or print your work.

bubbl.us

To-do Lists

1. Rememberthemilk is a powerful to-do list tool that allows you to locate tasks, share, publish and get reminded of them via IM, SMS or email.

Comments (1) Also posted in Webguides, web2.0

A Comprehensive Guide to Free Fonts

September 26th, 2007 by Robin Tebrake

Font

It’s always difficult to find the right typeface for a logo or even a website. Here are some resources of free fonts but remember if your are using special fonts on your site less visitors will be able to see the site with the actual font and most see the site in a standard font. I recommend you to use rare fonts just for your logo but if you really want to use such a special font for your site be sure to declare alternative font styles in your stylesheet.

Free font resources:

Dafont.com offers user created free fonts. 7500 typefaces have already been submitted to Dafont.
Grsites.com has a big collection of about 6800 fonts, including a logo and button maker.
1001freefonts.com gives you 1001 fonts for nothing.
There are 11202 nicely categorized fonts on Abstractfonts.com. It’s one of the biggest free anthologies out there.