Andrew Stevens » Technology

Usability Do’s And Don’ts For Interactive Design

Andrew — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:48:16 +0000

We often talk about how to make our websites more usable, whether it’s tweaking the HTML structure of pages to benefit the user’s process or figuring out how best to display a message via CSS. But we never bring this thought process into our jQuery-based (and other JavaScript-based) elements. How can we enhance the user experience and usability of our jQuery events?

This Smashing Magazine article discusses more.

How WebKit loads a page

Andrew — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:43:08 +0000

An interesting read on the Surfin’ Safari Blog:

Before WebKit can render a web page, it needs to load the page and all of its subresources from the network. There are many layers involved in loading resources from the web. In this post, I’ll focus on explaining how WebCore, the main rendering component of WebKit, is involved in the loading process.

WebKit contains two loading pipelines, one for loading documents into frames and another for loading the subresources (such as images and scripts).

Parallel Information Retrieval

Andrew — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 07:38:03 +0000

Parallel Information Retrieval is a sample chapter in what appears to be a book-in-progress titled Information Retrieval Implementing and Evaluation Search Engines by Stefan Büttcher, Google Inc and Charles L. A. Clarke, Gordon V. Cormack, both of the University of Waterloo. The full table of contents is on-line and looks to be really interesting: Information retrieval is the foundation for modern search engines. This text offers an introduction to the core topics underlying modern search technologies, including algorithms, data structures, indexing, retrieval, and evaluation. The emphasis is on implementation and experimentation; each chapter includes exercises and suggestions for student projects.

Whitepaper: 8 Steps to Holistic Database Security

Andrew — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 21:22:31 +0000

Most of the world’s sensitive data is stored in commercial database systems such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2 and Sybase – making databases an increasingly favorite target for criminals. This may explain why SQL injection attacks jumped 134 percent in 2008, increasing from an average of a few thousand per day to several hundred thousand per day according to a recently-published report by IBM.

This white paper discusses the 8 essential best practices that provide a holistic approach to both safeguarding databases and achieving compliance with key regulations such as SOX, PCI-DSS, GLBA, and data protection laws.

TheServerSide.NET

Whitepaper: The Quest for a Cloud Integration Strategy

Andrew — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 21:21:13 +0000

The advent of Software as a Service and Cloud Computing has revolutionized the software industry by providing access to enterprise-grade software and services via the web to businesses of all sizes. SaaS and cloud environments are characterized by web-based delivery, multi tenancy, and centralized management and updates- completely unlike traditional software. As a result, new infrastructure and supporting services, such as integration, are crucial to the success of this model.

TheServerSide.NET

Opera Mini Dominates the App Store

Andrew — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:00:25 +0000

Apparently “The Opera Mini iPhone app is the most popular free app in every single country with an iTunes Store”.

Well when I checked in, every store BUT Australia. I am proud to say that my fellow countrymen chose Bird Strike instead. Opera was number 2.

Maybe it was blocked by Conroy?

FAQ facts

Andrew — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 23:14:56 +0000

As Jakob Nielsen said, “Too many websites have FAQs that list questions the company wished users would ask.” Most web site FAQs do patronise it’s readers.

Check out this interesting article on A List Apart if you need some FAQ facts.

Singapore launches smart map portal

Andrew — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 22:36:35 +0000

Sixteen government agencies in Singapore have joined forces to launch an intelligent online map portal. Built using web 2.0 technologies, ‘OneMap’ enables government agencies, citizens and businesses to mash-up geospatial data for their own purposes. The S$2.2 million (US$1.8 million) project is the first major product of the Singapore Geospatial Collaborative Environment (SG-SPACE) initiative, a whole-of-government push to spur innovation using map-based information.

futuregov

Design Patterns for Mobile Faceted Search

Andrew — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 11:54:32 +0000

I am working on faceted search across web and mobile sites at the moment and this article popped up so I check it out:

Faceted search is extremely helpful for certain kinds of finding—particularly for ecommerce apps. Unfortunately, the designers of mobile applications do not have established user interface paradigms they can follow or abundant screen real estate for presenting facets and filters in a separate area on the left or at the top of a screen. To implement faceted search on mobile devices, we need to get creative rather than following established Web design patterns.

UX: Dealing with Risky and Safe Assumptions

Andrew — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 11:52:20 +0000

From UX Matters:

One of the most important aspects of product development is the process of predicting the behavior of a product’s intended users.

“Assumptions are important and useful. However, if not managed properly, they can definitely lead a project down the wrong path.”