Future of Search

Computer Based Training

nospam@example.com (Steve Monas) — Fri, 5 Jan 2007 14:37:04 -0500

Computer-Based Training (CBT) is a form of electronic training that is attracting significant attention as an effective delivery method. It is a serious option for those who need to improve their educational level, from the comfort of their home.

Almost any domain can be included and the results are spectacular. It is not an easy way for many, but those who want to succeed, will do have a high degree of professionalism using it.

The early CBT programs were little more than programmed instruction teaching machines. It was not until the 1990s that their multimedia capabilities were put to full use. It is based on individualized instruction that allows a learner to work through the material at her own pace. It is a natural progression from printed individualized instruction and teaching machines to the computer with its speed, branching capability and visual display.

A series of computer-based training courses, or CBTs, are now available on the Web to help Information Technology customers to acquire or build on their valuable computer-related skill at their leisure. In today's fast-paced business environment, you need flexible training options. CBT offers you a number of ways to learn, either at home, in the office, or on the road. It is possible to develop training in a variety of formats: web-based, or on multimedia CD-ROM.

This project is the second in an Information Technology project, which aims to improve customer service by providing all IT products and services on the Web. These services will be supplied in an automated and convenient way, 24 hours a day, and seven days a week.

CBT was initially aimed to train employees as a more convenient and less expensive alternative to seminar training. Now, IT is using this system to bring independent learning to UH staff, students and faculty. By putting the courses on the Web, IT enables people to access the courses at any time, and to educate themselves at their own pace.

The definition of CBT is close to the definition of individualized training - an interactive learning experience between a learner and a computer in which the computer provides the majority of the stimulus, the learner must respond, and the computer analyzes the response and provides feedback to the learner. Its multimedia function has added the capability of displaying information in audio, graphic, and motion video form, which makes the teaching of skills and processes more effective than if only text were used. Individualized instruction delivered over the World Wide Web is a further development of computer-based training.

"Previously, the only way to access the courses was using a CD and an NT Workstation," says James Bradley, manager of Information Services. "We're trying to make it as easy as possible for our customers to access this kind of training. This enhancement also makes the service available to our own Macintosh and UNIX customers."

More than one hundred titles will be available at no cost, ranging from fundamental programming concepts to advanced techniques in almost every category related to professional computer application, as well as self- study courses to aid in the preparation of certification examinations. The primary study fields include classes in Web Design, Communication and Networking, Java, Microsoft Certification Solution Evaluation (MCSE) Training, Microsoft Certification Solution Developing (MCSD) Training, MS Office.

Each course begins with a one-time survey, a step-by-step objective assessment of the knowledge of the course material to determine how the course will be presented, and what it will cover.

"It is self-education," says Bradley, "Since the survey decides what's not relevant based on the customer's knowledge, they'll gain the information they need, without wasting time on familiar material."

The course ends with a Mastery Model, an exam that may be taken as many times as the user desires. According to Don Perry, an Information Services trainer who is leading the CBT project, this course is modeled like preparation courses for Microsoft Certification exams.

"The knowledge that you receive using these interactive courses is very valuable in the professional world," says Perry, "And it's available to IT customers, at no cost."

All customers have access to the courses online. There are two ways of using the online CBT's.

Web-based instruction can be used with any type of computer that can access the Internet and that has web browser software. The key to success in today's complex technical environment is the ability to manage projects efficiently and effectively. This takes strong skills and experience from people and teams that have succeeded in taking projects to completion regardless of the situation. Engineering and IT Services utilize proven experience and methodologies to deliver IT Solutions that meet the business technology needs of their clients.

The skills of Project Leaders and Team Members must be broad and deep. Important expertise in virtually every aspect of Systems Engineering, Software Development, and Technology Solutions are vital. A long experience in delivering complex solutions for the clients is telling that success requires skills in both working with clients as business partners, and in providing leadership to manage large-scale complex consulting engagements.

Computer-based courses usually incorporate proven training methodology to ensure the best rate of information retention for each employee or student. Full audio, engaging graphics, comprehensive text and pre and post practice exams provide the basic applications needed for training and IT certification. Also self-study computer based training course titles are including hands-on lab simulations to offer valuable working experience to provide the highest skill retention.

The courses are usually reviewed, approved or co-developed with industry leaders including Microsoft, Cisco, Lotus, Oracle, and more. If you are looking for industry certifications such as CCNA, MCSE, A+, Network+, CISSP, and more find a training provider!

Examples of where e-learning can be used are management skills, customer care, quality management, process engineering operations, manufacturing procedures - the list is endless. One system can train thousands of people and proves very cost effective reduces the need to travel to a training centre.

Computer training usually offers you:

e-learning Media Development
Computer Based Training (CBT)
Web Based Training (WBT)
Interactive Learning Media Authoring
Learning Management Systems (LMS) integration
e-learning Tracking Systems
Central Administration Database Logging

Computer training has, usually, a wide range of experience and skills in this area and can develop custom made e-learning, web based training (WBT) and computer based training (CBT) courses for on-line, off-line and CD-ROM deployment. Often an innovative mix of these allows for the training of thousands without the need for all to be on-line at the same time.

If you have people that need training in specific skills based areas then e-learning with links to reference material, tutors and on-line mentoring is an idea solution. Self-assessment test monitored and recorded centrally allows trainers and administrators to keep informed of who and what people are learning. On-line examinations can be carried out and full activity tracking and recording enhances the systems effectiveness.

Web Services

nospam@example.com (Steve Monas) — Fri, 5 Jan 2007 14:29:54 -0500

The standardization part: several influential vendors, notably Microsoft and IBM, have attempted to take matters into their own hands by collaborating on the development and publication of specifications. However, this approach may lack sufficient adoption by other vendors and users to reach critical mass.

The most successful and popular approach vendors are taking is to provide demos and case studies of what is possible. And, unanimously, vendors are keen to build "learning networks" not just about their own toolsets and technologies, but also about the potential of Web services and the loosely coupled architecture.

Are we looking into the future? Yes, Web services promises to steer us through a world of opportunities and empower us with the ability to conquer the next e-business frontier. Capitalizing on web services in this new way of operating offers companies a good enough reason to join the web services revolution.

Microsoft's .NET initiative is a platform for the tools and servers required in the Web services world to come together. The .NET platform promises to help build, own and operate the Web services of tomorrow easily. The future will be industry wide specialized web services that will emerge to provide reliable, fast and economical services that integrate together as a custom application to serve the needs of a particular client/organization.

Despite the fact that there is already more support for the core Web services technologies—SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI—than there ever has been before for any set of comparable specifications, the killer applications for Web services haven't yet emerged; and no one can yet chart a clear path for their future evolution among the plethora of proposals, organizations, and vendors' initiatives in this space.

Several influential vendors, notably Microsoft and IBM, have attempted to take matters into their own hands by collaborating on the development and publication of specifications. However, this approach may lack sufficient adoption by other vendors and users to reach critical mass.

Many industry organizations have taken positions on or adopted various Web services-related specifications, including the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C); the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS); the Object Management Group (OMG); the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF); and the Electronic Business XML (ebXML) initiative, sponsored in part by The United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT), UDDI.org, and now the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I).

An interesting and important side issue concerns what happens to UDDI. Despite the fact that WS-I includes UDDI, UDDI.org remains a vendor-controlled organization. UDDI.org has consistently stated that the UDDI project will be turned over to an independent standards body at an appropriate time, and that the future course of UDDI will be thereafter determined by that standards organization.

This intention has been a consistent part of the proposition that UDDI.org has offered its members and the industry at large: Whatever the privately controlled organization produces will be placed under independent control at some point. The original timeline for the handover was following the completion of UDDI V3. However, the group has badly missed the original December 2001 deadline for V3, and no announcement has been made about which independent organization is to assume control.

But beyond the core specifications—which give you interoperability (SOAP), service description (WSDL), and service discovery (UDDI)—there is even less consensus among vendors with regard to adoption of additional technologies.

Sun has said that additional specifications for "enterprise quality" or industrial-strength Web services are not necessary because ebXML already provides them. The ebXML messaging service is based on SOAP with Attachments, so there are some grounds for viewing the remainder of ebXML as enterprise quality of service specifications on top of core Web services—but ebXML does not include WSDL or UDDI. Microsoft has said that it will never implement ebXML, and IBM seems to have ended up somewhere in the middle as a supporter of both (although I guess you could argue that IBM is big and divided enough to take a position both for and against ebXML, depending on whom you ask). Among Web services vendors, IONA and a few others remain more neutral, and support both initiatives.

The initial push behind the SOAP specification was to get it adopted by W3C, and thereby place it under independent control and ensure the kind of widespread adoption necessary for standardization. Everyone could agree upon the standardization of SOAP because the real money to be made is not in the basic transport or fundamental communication unit, but in the added value services and features over which everyone is currently fighting. The danger, of course, is that the fighting will somehow spill over onto the foundational specifications, and that an effort such as WS-I will end up hurting rather than helping the effort, especially if it becomes exclusive rather than inclusive.

A Web service is a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. It has an interface described in a machine-process able format (specifically WSDL). Other systems interact with the Web service in a manner prescribed by its description using SOAP messages, typically conveyed using HTTP with an XML serialization in conjunction with other Web-related standards.

Four architectural models:

Message Oriented Model
Service Oriented Model
Resource Oriented Model
Policy Model

The Message Oriented Model

Addresses in the MOM and service references:

Protocol independent specification of delivery information
Response delivery information
Important concept that is lacking a standardized solution
Proposals for a reference framework:
WS-Addressing
WS-MessageDelivery
Gap that needs to be filled

Semantics in the Service Oriented Model:

Setting expectations:

Will make people's life easier
Examples of use:

Connect two services, ensuring that they speak the same language with same meaning
Merge data from different sources
Out of a list of 50 existing services, get only the 2 candidates that actually do what the user wants
Automatic recovery from failure, etc.

Continuing building the infrastructure:

In progress: service description, choreography, attachments for SOAP 1.2, internationalization issues
Needs to be addressed:

Delivery and service references
Privacy
Integration of semantics
Constraints and capabilities
Completing securing Web services

The truth is that Web services are usable today for many applications, just as the initial Web was. It's also true that no one really knows which direction Web services will evolve. It would be better for everyone if the user or consumer of Web services software became the force behind their evolution, rather than leaving it up to the vendors—who can't agree, anyway.

What a great day it will be when the users and customers finally stand up and speak for themselves, and start telling the vendors what they want and need—and what to do about standardization. Only users and customers can really judge the benefits, after all, and only they can truly force widespread adoption. Competing vendors by definition will find a way to disagree, and try to gain advantage over each other.

XML / XHTML

nospam@example.com (Steve Monas) — Fri, 5 Jan 2007 14:25:08 -0500

XTML was created for one basic purpose: To create HTML Tables quickly and easily.
The HTML of the end of the 1990s had become large, cumbersome to process, presentation oriented. This had dramatic impacts on accessibility and the web's device independence. Rather than being "access to information by anyone, anywhere, regardless of disabilities" the web had become "access to anyone with a browser on a PC with reasonable eyesight and few if any disabilities."

Recognizing this, the World Wide Web Consortium founded by now Sir Timothy Berners-Lee (inventor of the Web, HTML and HTTP) developed XHTML.

The underlying aim of this project is to build a solid foundation for the future of content on the World Wide Web. It is expressly designed to overcome many of the issues with device dependence and accessibility that developed along with the ad hoc development of HTML.

Like HTML, XHTML is a markup language. It has the same expressive capabilities as HTML, but a stricter syntax. This is because XHTML is an application of XML, while HTML is an application of the much older, pre web SGML. XML is an international standard language for developing other markup languages. It was designed as a newer generation of SGML, specifically for markup languages in a networked world.

XHTML's purpose first and foremost to be HTML as an application of XML. With this, come the benefits associated with all languages which are applications of XML.

XHTML is a much simpler, cleaner language than HTML. This makes learning, coding, and maintaining XHTML code much more straightforward. XHTML was designed explicitly as a device independent language. HTML 4 is a large, complex language. For many web-enabled devices, such as mobile phones, with limited computing power, the complexity of HTML presents significant obstacles. XHTML was explicitly designed with accessibility in mind. It is not an afterthought.

One benefit that is not widely understood is that as an application of XML, XHTML is XSL ready. XSL, or the eXtensible Stylesheets Language not only allows for the styling of XML documents, more importantly it allows for the transformation of documents.

But above all, XHTML is the future of the World Wide Web, at least for many years to come. There will be no new versions of HTML. XHTML works on any reasonably modern web browser today (that would mean just about every one in use). And it will work on all web browsers for the foreseeable future.

One of the major steps in transitioning to XHTML is the need for a change in outlook. HTML is seen by most developers and content creators as purely a human oriented technology. But increasingly machine processing, whether by search engines, accessibility devices such as screen readers, or browsers themselves is becoming as important for online information as the human readers of content. HTML developers still largely conceive of their content in terms of how it will appear as rendered in a browser to human readers. XHTML is much more oriented toward the information architecture of content, to the structure and semantics of the information.

Consequently, most HTML content is quite frankly an invalid mish-mash of invalid pseudo HTML, which "works" in a couple of major browsers (or probably only on IE6 for windows). This is a disaster in terms of device independence and accessibility, as well as forward compatibility of content. Such sites are largely inaccessible to machine processing, which with the increasing sophistication of search engines such as Google, and similar information processing devices is popularity suicide.

What should we be doing to transition to XHTML? There are a number of steps in the process of transforming your HTML content to XHTML. These can be don one at a time, or simultaneously.

Pretty soon:
- Preserve vertical alignment (especially now that XTML handles carriage returns within cells).

- An option to 'compact' the output HTML code to reduce all the carriage returns.
This would result in smaller HTML files, but they would be less readable.
- Set 'row-level' alignment in the <tr> tags, if it would reduce the repetition in the <td> tags.
A little later (maybe):
- Handle 'rowspan'
- Nested tables.

The purpose of XHTML 1.0 was to transition HTML into an XML vocabulary. It introduced the constraints of XML syntax into HTML: case-sensitivity, compulsory quoted attribute values, and balanced tags. That done, XHTML 2.0 seeks to address the problems of HTML as a language for marking up Web pages.

W3C's Steven Pemberton expressed the design aims of XHTML 2.0:

Use XML as much as possible: Where a language feature already exists in XML, don't duplicate or reinvent it.
Structure over presentation: Thanks to CSS style sheets, you no longer need explicitly presentational tags in HTML.
Make HTML easier to write: Remove some of the needless idiosyncrasies of HTML.
More accessibility, device independence: Make as few assumptions as possible about the way a document will be read.
Improved internationalization.
Better forms: Long overdue improvements are required!
Reduce the need for scripting: Include typical scripting usages in HTML itself.
Better semantics: Make it easier to integrate HTML with semantic Web applications.

These aims certainly appear pretty laudable to anybody who has worked with HTML for a while. I'll now take a deeper look at some ways in which they were achieved in XHTML 2.0.

The process of future proofing your web content by transitioning to XHTML may initially appear daunting. The fact is that developers and organizations usually find it less difficult and more rewarding than expected.

With the increasing use of a wide range of devices, and the growing emphasis on accessibility, as well as the increasing sophistication of web processing by search engines and other services, can you afford to continue with outdated content development and management practices?

CSS

nospam@example.com (Steve Monas) — Fri, 5 Jan 2007 14:20:20 -0500

CSS at LEAST helps separate style - but not always "design". And yes - there are very necessary design needs for certain audiences and markets.

Everyone involved in Web design, and more specifically in CSS coding, knows that mastering theory is needed to determine browser error versus human error. Theory is essential, but it's not enough, everyday we have to face browsers’ discrepancies, rendering problems and bugs. This, although initially discouraging, should instead be considered a challenge to our skills...

Two things, which seem likely to be added to CSS; first was transparency (or opacity), which is the ability to set a degree of transparency on the foreground of elements. In other words, you could make the text in a paragraph semi-transparent, allowing the background to "shine through" the text (or be composite together, if you prefer graphic-design terminology). The other was multi-column text, although there were no details given on how this feature might be accomplished.

Bert Bos of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) gave a talk in which he discussed the future direction of the CSS specification. First and foremost will be the modularization of CSS. This will entail splitting CSS into several mini-specs, each of which covers a specific topic, such as "Colors and Backgrounds," "Selectors and Syntax," or "Printing."

The benefits of this approach, as described by Mr. Bos, are an increased responsiveness on the part of the CSS Working Group, and greater flexibility for implementors. To take the second point first, the fact that CSS will be split into modules will allow implementors to tackle a module at a time, and then claim support for that module once they've correctly implemented the properties and behaviors described in a given module. For example, with positioning in its own module, implementors can claim support for CSS Positioning or Aural Styles, without necessarily having to worry about other modules. This will free implementors from worrying about the fact that the lack of a single property (or set of properties) will keep them from being able to claim, for example, full CSS2 support. Of course, there won't be as much pressure to claim full and complete CSS2 support, because the focus will be more on who has implemented which modules.

This change should have some interesting consequences. In the first place, it should allow the CSS Working Group to be more flexible and responsive to demands for change and clarification. It will also have the effect of showings, which areas of the specification are popular, and which aren’t; the modules, which have several revisions being the ones people, find interesting. If a module sits for a long time without many changes, it may not be something many people find compelling, or else something which is stable and doesn't need to be changed. Modularization will also allow revisions in one area to be made without their being held up by controversy over a change in another area, which is a definite advantage. Just because there is disagreement over a new type of selector syntax, that won't prevent minor changes to the positioning section from being approved and released.

And what new changes might be in the works? In his talk, Mr. Bos mentioned two things, which seemed likely to be added to CSS. First was transparency (or opacity), which is the ability to set a degree of transparency on the foreground of elements. In other words, you could make the text in a paragraph semi-transparent, allowing the background to "shine through" the text (or be composited together, if you prefer graphic-design terminology). The other was multi-column text, although there were no details given on how this feature might be accomplished.

Between the promised release of two browsers with 100% support for CSS1, and the knowledge that the CSS Working Group is continuing to examine the specification for ways to enhance and improve the utility of CSS, the future of CSS seems better than ever. Most important will be the widespread adoption of specification-conformant browser, of course. The mere fact of their existence will encourage designers to use CSS more widely than ever, and should convince many a doubter that CSS is a technology worth exploring.

CSS hacks allow web developers to send different rules to different browsers, usually (paradoxically) to make each browser’s rendering of the site look the same. This is generally necessary as Internet Explorer 5 and 6 have many bugs, so gets “good” rules wrong.

There are two types of CSS hacks:

Parsing Error Hacks use the fact that browser “x” stops reading a rule when it sees some weird combination of characters (like "}"), while browser “y” continues unvanquished and receives the subsequent good rules. The problem with these is that they’re utterly unintuitive because they’re pretty random. If they aren’t well commented, you’ll never guess what they do.
Weak CSS Support Hacks use the fact that IE can’t support advanced css selectors, and uses those to feed a rule to an advanced browser. The problem with these is that IE7 is coming over the horizon, and it will understand these rules. There may or may not be a problem, but if you want to be sure that your site won’t break in IE7, you’d better do something about it.

Everyone involved in web design, and more specifically in CSS coding, knows that mastering theory is needed to determine browser error versus human error. Theory is essential, but it's not enough, everyday we have to face browsers’ discrepancies, rendering problems and bugs. This, although initially discouraging, should instead be considered a challenge to our skills...

SEO

nospam@example.com (Steve Monas) — Fri, 5 Jan 2007 14:17:30 -0500

SEO is unlikely ever to be an exact science since the techniques used to promote Web pages are constantly evolving as the search engines refine their algorithms to deliver more accurate results whilst combating spam.

SEOs will need to take usability and conversions into consideration when coming up with the search engine marketing campaigns in the future, if they're not already doing this. Therefore, we see there being a much brighter future for those SEOs who are able to make the transition. Whether that means learning all that stuff themselves or partnering with those who do, it's going to have to get done somehow.

The general opinion is that SEO help people make more money. With Web sites, we don’t need to guess at what works and what doesn’t. It is matter of testing and measuring, testing and measuring. Google’s Website Optimizer makes this process even easier. Website Optimizer all0ws you to experiment with various elements of your page- copy, headlines and images, in order to find out which combination results in the reports, which make it easy for you to make the right changes to the site, and achieve the best possible results.

As Pay per Click, advertising becomes even more competitive; making the most of each and every visitor will become even more important. People can get the edge with Website Optimizer. It is always god to know who you competitors are and what they are doing. In business, as in sport, the more information you have about your competitors, the better. If you know hat your competitors are bidding on, you can identify some opportunities you might not have known about otherwise.

The search engine world never rests. As online marketing professionals discover new ways to obtain top rankings the algorithms evolve right along side. There are two primary reasons behind the updating of ranking algorithms. To increase the quality and relevancy of the results, and to decrease the many pages of online spam.

As the algorithms are updates, new ways to affect the results are discovered, and the algorithm must then be again adjusted. This is a cycle that has been around since the early days of search, and one that won’t be going away any time soon. A lot has changed over the years, and the future is sure to also deliver its plethora of surprises, but there are three main factors that will always have some level of impact on your search results.

Some people say that the world of search engine optimization is over that the entire basis behind successful ranking lies in the power of incoming links. While incoming links do play a significant role, and in most cases are a necessity, they are far from the only determining factor.

There are many determining factors behind what will affect the ranking of a site. The three largest contributing factors are SEO, links, and site content. To compete in highly competitive industries a site needs numerous on-topic pages of content, relevant incoming links from a variety of sources, and, solid site optimization. While search is always changing, these three factors will remain constant. Each may change in the level of impact they have, but they will always contribute to the top listings.

Site content and SEO go hand in hand. Content is very important, but without the SEO to add focus, it can go unnoticed. Proper keyword densities, link paths and keyword placement will always ply a role in having the content discovered and ranked by the search engines. If the fundamental SEO aspects are not in place, there is a strong chance that the content may never see the light of day. Incoming links add focus and relevance for the site overall, but if the content is not relevant to the desired phrases the odds of obtaining a top ranking are very bleak.

Links play, and will continue to play a strong role in the future of searching rankings as they add that important vote of confidence. When site A links to site B, that tells the search engines site B is worth considering. Value is passed, based on relevance and the overall authority of site A. As more and more webmasters develop new linking schemes, the algorithms responsible for displaying top sites have continually evolve to weed out the ever-increasing amounts of spam. While Google’s current algorithm change and mutate over time as the Internet continues to evolve. If rankings were determined 100% by inbound links where would this leave us? Thousands if not millions of valuable websites would go completely unnoticed. We would also see many sites ranking that are not relevant to the actual search term due to issues related to Google bombing.

For us to know the exact future of search we will have to wait and see what happens but some things is certain t grow in popularity. The future wills undoubtedly see more advances in localized search, serving results relevant to the locality of the searcher. Is this the best way? Only time will tell, but even if this is the future, we still see SEO, link and content dictating the results. The SEO and content will have to be in part geared towards local information such as zip codes, city names, but thy still will be important contributors.

Links will undoubtedly contribute to rankings long into the future, but quite possibly will have a reduced role with more SEO fundamentals making a comeback. Take a look at MSN Live Search. As reported by Ross Dunn in the SEO BLOG, and algorithm update has shown increased value on fundamentals such as title tags and domain names. These two areas were once an incredibly powerful tool in obtaining rankings, and had reduced in value. Now, at least in MSN, they are gaining ground once again.

Still in its infant stages, Mobile Search is growing as more and more people turn to their cell phones and other mobile devices for search. Mobile search will likely have the most benefit for localized type searching; people looking for an address, weather report, local business, entertainment information, and so on. As time goes on the numbers of users using Mobile Search will continue to grow, and optimized sites will be the ones found by these searchers. A whole new level of optimizing mobile websites will likely emerge.

In 10 years time search will certainly look very different. While it has become a staple in the lives of millions, in the big scheme of things the Internet is still very young and search even younger.

SEO will always play an important role in having sites found in the search engines. Regardless f how search algorithms evolve will always require a level of on site content in order to correctly rank websites. As long as this content is considered, proper keyword placement and frequencies will play a role.

SEO in itself will continue to change. The proper frequencies of keyword placement, linking techniques and URL structure may alter, but will always have an impact. As we move into the future and as the search engine algorithms continue to evolve SEO will always play an important role in having your website obtain top rankings. While the small things will always change it is important to have the basic fundamentals in place and doing so will help sustain consistent rankings into the future.

People you care about can benefit from the wealth of information on new and maturing technologies available on the Internet. Help them learn how to do it. SEO will constantly adapt and respond to the quest forever more reliable and relevant search results irrespective of whichever platform or medium they are displayed on, and as the search engines refine their processes the opportunities to tease out a marketing edge through algorithm exploitation will gradually disappear. May the best page win!

Marketing

nospam@example.com (Steve Monas) — Fri, 5 Jan 2007 14:12:46 -0500

A totally paperless, highly-dynamic environment has been created in which ideas and images are exchanged free from the binds of the physical world. In this virtual space, there are no rules. There is no government regulation. What exists is the most massive amount of knowledge ever assembled on a common grid. It is for this reason that an Internet connection is fast becoming the best way to reach the masses and provide input into a large percentage of the Earth’s composite knowledge. The implication of a digital tomorrow on the way man conducts his day-to-day affairs is astounding. How will the business traditions of the past fit into the binary stream of the future? The world of mass marketing is evolving at an alarming rate, and the vehicle, which will bring the business of the future to the doorsteps of every person, lies in the web of the internet.

As technology grows and as the number of users increases, you will see the Web address begin to replace the phone number as the contact method of choice. When someone can go to a site and see an entire portfolio of products or services, the site will be where people go first for most information.

You are already seeing that now in radio and TV commercials that simply give people a site address and no number in which to find more information. Since no one knows for certain what the future will hold, my advice is to think in terms of an interaction between video, audio and your customers. For instance "live" customer service where a consumer can watch you in your studio and actually order from the shelf; or perhaps place an order for a "work in progress"; of course you will have to cater to your particular situation and needs. My point is that things like this will soon be not only possible, but also practical.

But it's interesting how close that future already is ... it's already happening.

It began with the rise of the Internet and then continued when smart companies started publishing their own educational e-zines, while more and more traditional media were establishing their presence on the Internet as well.

Direct marketers will be able to rely less and less on traditional “push” marketing methods and will need to start considering other ways of getting their messages across … approaches that will have them produce content consumers will actually want to subscribe to and stay subscribed to (RSS marketing).

There's so much hype and misinformation about marketing online that it's very difficult for the beginner to find the truth. Most end up using wrong or outdated Internet marketing strategies and techniques that leave them working hard but getting nowhere. But don’t give up, because Internet marketing works. Web marketing is effective and profitable. Today thousands of companies and individuals from all over the world sell products or services via Internet and make good money. Professional Internet marketing information and tools will save you time and heartaches.

Any firm needs to present its products not only on line, but also on CD/DVD, Web sites or catalogues. We continuously strive to use the latest technology, creating products and maintaining services to satisfy our clients growing demands.

Various formats and dynamic presentation materials, such as Web sites are the best marketing tool for products or services. Digital photography, E-commerce, Flash animation, graphic arts, catalogues, most sophisticated dynamic Web sites can be presented on CD or DVDs without needing to rewrite the Web site code, while never being connected to Internet.

Flash

nospam@example.com (Steve Monas) — Fri, 5 Jan 2007 14:06:44 -0500

Microsoft is already developing a media box that will enable users to watch movies, play games, and control household appliances from one unit. Flash will play a vital role in the delivery of broadband entertainment, news, and information. If Flash continues to develop on its current path, it will become the essential ingredient that helps the browser glue many different types of rich content together. Video, 3-D objects and other types of media can be displayed using rich interfaces created in Flash.

Video was, is and will be a huge new trend for the Flash Player. Maelstrom, the next-generation Flash Player, identified as Flash Player 9 on screen during a demo, offers improved rendering performance, allowing for effects such as blurring of a live video or applying "grayscale" adding gray tint to an image.

Adobe Flash Player is the high performance, lightweight, highly expressive client runtime that delivers powerful and consistent user experiences across major operating systems, browsers, mobile phones, and devices. Installed on over 700 million Internet connected desktops and mobile devices, Flash Player enable organization and individuals to build and deliver great digital experiences to their end users.

Abode is now featuring prerelease versions of the Flash Player 9 update software. This release will include bug fixes and support for additional operating systems, specifically Linux. Release versions of Flash Player 9 Updates for Windows and Macintosh platforms will be soon available. This software is being made available for developers and consumers to test their content to ensure existing Flash content plays back correctly and that there are no compatibility issues. The purpose of this beta release is to gather the users’ feedback so that Adobe can verify that:

The new Flash Player is compatible with previously authored Flash content
Developers have an opportunity to test their content and applications prior to the product release to help identify bugs on a variety of machines and configurations.

Ten years from now we believe that Flash will truly be ubiquitous, not just on the web but in many aspects of daily life. Chances are high that for any device and screen you interact with, you'll be dealing with Flash. As Flash runs on more and more devices and platforms, including Linux, it won't really matter any more to the end user what powers their favorite content because it will run essentially everywhere. As content creators, we have truly become cross-platform developers.

The potential for the Flash platform, following Macromedia's merger with Adobe, is virtually limitless.

In the next years, the Flash platform will move beyond the browser to become a standard content and application delivery platform for occasionally connected, mobile, and desktop applications. The evolution of tools such as the Flash authoring environment and Flex, combined with the Adobe range of products such as Photoshop and After Effects, will provide developers with an even more elegant and integrated toolset and workflow for content and application authoring than we have today. With the growth of broadband penetration, we will see the Flash Player gain new features such as hardware-accelerated 3D support and advanced real-time video and sound manipulation—some of which we are already seeing in the latest versions.

As far as rich Internet applications and occasionally connected applications are concerned, we will see a mass exodus as Ajax developers embrace the cross-platform support, simpler workflow, and elegant toolset provided by Flex. Already there is much interest in the Flash platform from the traditional web application community and developers are starting to realize that Flash has moved on considerably from its humble roots 10 years ago as an animation package. Myths are being shattered daily as the Flash platform grows from strength to strength with massive improvements in the areas of accessibility, performance, and development workflow. An open-source solution called FlashAid helps make Ajax more accessible by using the accessibility features in Flash Player.

Open source will continue to play a very important role in bringing the brightest minds to the Flash platform, and we will see the growth and maturation of open-source tools and servers to complement the commercial offerings by Adobe and other vendors. These open-source products will also increase the adoption of Flash in the creation of communication and e-learning initiatives in third-world countries. Eventually, as the Flash platform reaches a certain level of maturity, we may even see open sourcing of Flash Player and Flash becoming a truly open standard.

First, what's going to happen to Flash Player? Second, what's going to happen to the Flash authoring environment?

As for Flash Player, WE think it has achieved so much momentum that in the next years it will be used on many non desktop devices—ones that don't require a heavy-duty operating system, like cameras—or in control panels for home security systems or in-car navigation systems. Those systems might run Flash Player as a kind of miniature operating system that interfaces with the hardware.

In the desktop world—that is, the web-browser plug-in and future desktop player—the future seems less certain to me. It depends on how quickly Microsoft moves in on the territory. On the desktop, Flash succeeds because it gives users the "rich experience" (motion graphics, branded interface) that they don't get from the operating system. Flash is basically a preview of what a lot of desktop computing experiences really should be like. Hence, WE imagine Windows, Mac OS, and Linux will eventually natively provide everything that Flash provides, but at the operating-system level.

The Flash authoring tool is the other side of the question. There are quite a few animation tools on the market, and there are many programming tools. But there aren't very many development tools that let you combine those disciplines the way Flash does. With development tools being what they are today, including Flash, it takes a lot of work to make a beautifully handcrafted, unique, custom-designed interface, or a custom-designed game or marketing piece.

We think the future of Flash depends on its ability as an authoring tool to improve on that enterprise of creating the rich experience. Animation on its own is not unique, and programming is not unique, but WE think where those two cross paths is incredibly important territory. Authoring tools like Flash are just starting to address that union. Flash has inspired such creativity and exploration because it brought those two worlds together.

We see Flash continuing to expand into device markets and being on literally every device that requires a user interface. We see native desktop applications being replaced by web-enabled versions that work as well on your desktop as they do on your mobile phone.

We see Flash displays hanging in art galleries, depicting the latest creative explorations, right alongside oil painting and sculptures.

Where will Flash be 10 years? Everywhere?

Seriously, Flash is spreading from the Internet onto the desktop (Apollo) and into phones, embedded systems, and appliances. There's just so much opportunity for this technology. The same consumer force that is driving build-to-order running shoes and designer vacuum cleaners is driving the market for rich, personalized software experiences—and Flash is the best technology to deliver them.

Most important of all, we will see Flash on 64-bit Linux. Maybe by then, it'll even be 128-bit Linux.

Now with Adobe's strategies of redefining software and technologies, and setting new standards for delivering content, we can see Flash reaching a new peak with every version release.

We would expect Flash in the coming years to have a dynamic image saving function. We had always wanted to make a Flash card application where a user could drag and drop predefined objects, write text, and then save the card as an image on a location on their desktop.

We would also want to see Flash have vector 3D creation and animation tools. This would save us a lot of time and money purchasing third-party tools.

Finally, we would love to see a feature that makes it possible to convert vector graphics to bitmaps within the Flash authoring environment. This is, of course, bypassing the export and import route.

We think there will be Flash operating systems or Flash embedded systems, which make developing cross-platform applications and content very easy. This includes very powerful APIs and low-level operations for every purpose, such as 3D, sound manipulation, and so on.

Flash will be built into every mobile phone, so you'll be able to do everything from remotely controlling the temperature of your refrigerator to playing multiplayer games with your friends, to having a nice video chat with your mom.

More and more people are connecting to the Internet using mobile phones. We forecast that in the near future mobile gadgets will become the main access point to the Internet rather than personal computers. When that happens, Flash will become an important tool for making mobile device interfaces more interactive and easier to navigate.

With the speed at which the technology is progressing now, this could all feasibly become a reality in less than five years.

Flash has the potential to become the universal runtime and make differences among operating systems and platforms irrelevant. In the next 10 years, Flash will fully realize this dream. One thing will not change, though: we'll still be out there working to create better experiences using Flash.

Web

nospam@example.com (Steve Monas) — Fri, 5 Jan 2007 14:04:26 -0500

Microsoft officials won’t comment on a timeline for IE7 availability, but it does expect that IE& will continue its large presence in the browsers community too.

W3Schools shows IE users make up only 68% of its visitors, with Firefox accounting for 24%. The Mozilla Foundation has planned a major upgrade to its browser scheduled for this year.

Microsoft’s big nightmare is the free online apps; the future will bring a new generation of browsers to make Web applications better than downloadable desktop software. The browser will be the new OS, making the operating system irrelevant. Marc Andreessen made this prediction 10 years ago, Netscape as a Web powerhouse is gone and Anderseen is no longer on Time cover, but his vision of computing through a browser window turns out to have been premature.

Soon we’ll be able to take the Web applications “to go” and work offline. The new generation of browsers will make it possible. It is not difficult to figure how we will work very soon: write the documents in Writely, e-mail them via Gmail, and arrange appointments to jointly edit the documents via Google calendar. A Google talk can let us collaborate. This means that no software will be downloaded to the hard disk, everything is free. It is possible to work on a document on an office computer and update it at home. No matter the operating system: Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux, so long we have the latest browser.

We will live in the best of worlds: all data lives on the Web because the storage is online. The browser is making possible the offline access too. Can we say “good bye” to laptops? For the moment it is difficult to overcome consumer resistance to Web -based applications. The new offline mode will help with adoption of many Web -based projects that are starting just now.

Developers will see their dream coming true: they will be free to write browser based applications and never worry about which operating system or device will be used.

VB

nospam@example.com (Steve Monas) — Fri, 5 Jan 2007 13:57:20 -0500

Visual Basic 2005 may be the latest incarnation of the 15 year old programming language, but an ongoing survey of SerachVB.com readers indicates that more developers are still coding in VB6 that in VB.NET. On top of that Visual Basic 9, code named Orcas, is due for release at the end of 2007. Each new release brings productivity enhancements but also questions about performance and migration.

VB 9 code-named Orcas, is slated for release with the next version of Visual Studio. Steven Lees, group program manager of VB at Microsoft, indicated at Tech Ed that VB9 will likely appear “sometime late” and that Microsoft will nail down a timetable for Orcas later.

Perhaps the biggest enhancement VB9 brings to the table is its ability to work with data. This is accomplished with features like object initializes, anonymous types, and full integration with LINQ, integration with LINQ, or the Language Integrated Query. As Mike Gunderloy wrote in “Let’s think about LINQ”:

“LINQ is designed as a general purpose query facility that will be baked right into the .Net framework. It allows traversal, projection, and filtering operations to be expressed in a declarative syntax in any .NET language, with benefits including compile-time syntax checking, static typing, and IntelliSense.”

In a Tech Ed session called Visual Basic today and tomorrow”, Lees described LINQ as an extensible system that works with “pretty much anything that can represent itself as a CLR type.” LINQ uses SQL-like syntax, Lees continued, “but there’s no database in sight.” LINQ technology supports five data domains –LINQ to DataSet, LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Entities, LINQ to XML and LINQ to objects. LINQ to SQL, which will bring raw SQL objects into LINQ, was previously referred to as DLINQ. In addition, LINQ to XML, which supports direct XML coding, used to be called XLINQ.

Entities refers to ADO.NET Entities, which is data mapping tool the ADO.NET group plans to have in preview form by the end of the year, Microsoft corporate vice president of development Soma Somasegar announced. This is much noise about the features in LINQ, but the reality is that a vast majority of VB developers know very little about it. A quick show of hands during Lees’ session showed that nearly everyone had used VB 6, about half had used VB 2005 and only a handful had even heard of LINQ.

VB 6 developers, and the VB 6 applications they built, will have a home in Vista. In a document entitled Support Statement for Visual Basic 6.0 on Windows Vista, Microsoft states “The Visual Basic 6.0 IDE will be supported on Windows Vista as part of the Visual Basic 6.0 Extended Support policy until March 2008?”

The document also indicates that runtime support that key VB 6 runtime files will ship as part of Vista and will be supported for the lifecycle of the OS, five years of mainstream support and five years of extended support. A list of key runtime files is included with the document. Binaries that will not be shipped with Vista are going to follow their planned support schedule.

As for VB 6 applications, Microsoft says the goal of the Visual Basic group is that VB 6 apps that work with Windows XP will wok with Vista. According to the document, “A set of applications written on the Visual Basic 6.0 runtime are being tested for compatibility between Windows XP and Windows Vista with a goal that applications work similarly on both operating systems.”

VB 9.0 is the version for “Orcas”, the codename for the version of Visual Studio that will follow Visual Studio 2005 at some as yet unannounced future date (maybe yearly 2008).

Keeping track of Microsoft’s doings is so important that we tend to seize on any little tidbit of information and try to build an entire story on it, whether there’s really enough these to justify a story or not. Microsoft recently made available for download the complete session abstracts for this year’s Professional Developer’s Conference (PDC), coming up in Los Angeles.

Here's the entire abstract, which is literally all of the information that Microsoft has so far released on VB 9.0:

“Visual Basic 9.0 will offer radical improvements in its ability to work with data in all its forms: as objects, as XML, as relational data. Join the language architects for a detailed discussion of features such as query comprehensions, object initializes and anonymous types that enable querying data in a more flexible, natural way than ever before. Also, get a glimpse into the future of dynamic programming in VB with coverage of new features intended to radically simplify working with dynamically typed data on the .NET platform.”

For a decade people have been predicting the demise of Visual Basic, and with VB.NET, nothing has changed. According to some specialists, the future of VB.NET is threatened competitively by its free cousin, C#. Even after all these years, some people still don't understand that VB—and now VB.NET— will continue to be one of the world's most popular programming languages. Sure, some VB programmers will switch to C#, Java, or Delphi, but the very fact that they would consider making the change highlights the fact that these languages have evolved over time to address issues of usability and functionality that Visual Basic invented. Whatever happens to VB, the language, the spirit of VB has conquered the programming world, and will live on. In fact, VB, as a concept, has never been more alive. It is a visible success.

The earliest releases of Visual Basic didn't make a huge splash, but the language was innovative and attracted considerable attention as a new programming paradigm, because it let programmers build forms visually. For the first time, people could drag and drop controls onto a design surface and see how a program would look without going through the lengthy edit-compile-test cycles required by other languages.

VB further reduced the edit-compile-test cycle by performing an end-run around it. VB classic, like many earlier BASIC implementations, was an interpreted language; you could edit VB code at runtime. The VB IDE could apply most code changes immediately, even while the application was running, letting you step through a block of code in the debugger, find errors, fix them and then retest the code without stopping the program to recompile. Called "edit and continue," this feature gave VB a major productivity boost over older edit-compile-test languages.

Programmers loved being able to drag and drop controls, but they weren't completely satisfied with the built-in controls. Fortunately, Microsoft made the architecture for building those controls available to the programming community. Soon, enterprising developers created hundreds of "VBX" controls (and later, ActiveX controls), spawning an entire industry and taking the idea of reusable code to new levels.

VB was also the first popular general-purpose language to offer truly integrated database access. Via Microsoft’s Data Access Objects (DAO) technology, working with relational databases in VB became so simple that in many cases developers didn't need to know anything about how the underlying relational databases worked; they could simply drag-and-drop database-aware controls onto forms. Even for more advanced developers, DAO (and its successors such as, RDO, ADO, and now ADO.NET) provided huge productivity increases.

By version three, VB was stable and fast. It had the best IDE available, and was accessible to millions of part-time programmers. VB rapidly became the world's most popular application programming language, and it has maintained that position despite predictions of its demise and substantial changes to the language itself.

It has maintained its popularity because VB delivers the six things that corporate developers care most about.

A BASIC-like, case-insensitive syntax
Visual design capabilities
A great IDE with an integrated debugger
Edit-and-continue
A variety of inexpensive, robust aftermarket controls
Simple, integrated database support

Other languages have offered a subset of these features, but none have succeeded in capturing the huge market that VB enjoyed.

Other vendors have long been covetous of VB's developer base, and made huge efforts to lure VB developers to other platforms. For example, Borland's Delphi language offered everything that VB did except the BASIC-like syntax and edit-and-continue. In fact, Delphi provided more capabilities than VB. For example, it was much faster. Delphi code executes at speeds essentially identical to that of C++. Delphi also shipped with native data-aware controls for its DBase and Interbase desktop databases. In later versions Delphi even provided ADO wrappers.

But Delphi used an Object Pascal language base rather than a BASIC core and that single feature change helped prevent its widespread adoption. Despite being faster and offering true object-oriented programming (OOP) capability—in short, all the features of VB.NET in a COM-based package—Delphi was never a serious contender for VB's popularity crown.

The bigger question is whether VB.NET will replace VB. One problem is that VB.NET doesn't have all VB's features yet. In particular, VB.NET is missing edit-and-continue, a long-promised, not-yet-delivered feature that will be key to getting many VB programmers to migrate to the .NET version.

Code incompatibility is another factor inhibiting migration. Microsoft hasn't made code migration from VB to VB.NET easy enough. While VB.NET syntax is very similar to classic VB syntax, it's not the same. In any case, it's not just the syntax that's changed; it's the addition of the framework. The VB-to-VB.NET upgrade wizard is not now, and probably never will be sufficiently intelligent to migrate all applications seamlessly.

Still, most VB programmers don't have large vertical applications to migrate; they either write smaller applications that aren't prohibitively expensive to rewrite or plan to maintain existing applications in VB while creating new applications in .NET. For most of these programmers, the language differences are welcome, making VB.NET the only likely threat to classic VB.

Interestingly, certain advancements in the Java camp are likely to have an effect on Visual Basic programming. By neglecting to create a cross-platform version of its languages, Microsoft has failed to take full advantage of their popularity. Meanwhile, Sun's Java leads in the cross-platform arena with its run-anywhere capabilities, which turned out to be a true business advantage—in the server space. In turn though, Sun failed to take advantage of Java's popularity by neglecting to provide it with GUI development capabilities equal to those of VB. The upshot is that Java is king over a large portion of the server-side, non-GUI applications market, while VB, C++, and .NET languages rule the desktop.

But nothing lasts forever. Thanks primarily to IBM's Eclipse project; Java developers can now create desktop Windows applications responsive enough to compete with those written in Microsoft's languages. And Sun has announced a push to give Java developers simplified RAD features with Rave.

Combating this trend will be the various open and shared-source projects that are busy porting the .NET framework to Linux and UNIX. If those projects bear fruit, .NET developers will eventually have cross-platform capabilities similar to those of Java. These changes will make for some interesting shifts and changes, but none of them threaten Visual Basic outright.

VB.NET is VB's true successor because no other language currently matches VB's feature set as well as VB.NET. But here's the kicker—once you decide to leave VB classic behind, it doesn't really matter which language you learn. If you make the move to VB.NET, you'll find that it's perfectly possible, if not quite as comfortable, to program in C# or in J#.

Even if you've decided to make a complete break with Microsoft and switch to Java or Delphi, you'll find that after you learn those languages and frameworks, switching to .NET aren’t terribly difficult. The ideas behind programming in all those languages are, with few exceptions, identical. They're differentiated by syntax and IDEs far more than they're separated by concepts or capabilities.

VB doesn't have an uncertain future. VB is a set of features. All the popular languages are mutating to adopt the features pioneered in classic VB and carried forward in VB.NET. The spirit of VB will live on, regardless of the syntax, platform, or framework.

AJAX

nospam@example.com (Steve Monas) — Fri, 5 Jan 2007 13:51:16 -0500

Whether apps are accessed strictly within an enterprise or developers need to share Web based docs with outside parties, one content sharing platform is using AJAX technology to enhance search and browse features for its on-demand service.

The final release of open source AJAX framework 1.0 is now available. The project extends the benefits of JavaScript and XML functionality to component framework Java Server Faces (JSF), which supports UI development for J2EE applications. This is a great application leading to the future AJAX development.

AJAX -based platform lets users share apps with the world; whether apps are accessed strictly within an enterprise developers need to hare Web -based documents with outside parties, one content sharing platform is using AJAX technology to enhance search and browse features for its on-demand service.

Stephen Walther, Super Expert pointed us to a new Ajax framework released for Microsoft .NET named Lollygag. The Lollygag framework includes a rich set of client-side widgets that you can use to display database data, perform form validation, and create rich animations.

Accessing database data with the Lollygag framework is easy. You can bind client-side widgets directly to data exposed by a database or you can bind widgets to data exposed by a business object.

When taking advantage of the Lollygag framework, you specify how a form field is validated only once. The validation is automatically applied on both the server and the client. Unlike other frameworks that only provide validation on the client, the Lollygag framework prevents malicious users from bypassing client-side validation and submitting data directly to the server.

Lollygag includes an entire animation framework. You can take advantage of animations to create different effects such as fades and wipes.

The full Lollygag framework works on the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

The Lollygag framework compresses all JavaScript sent to the browser automatically. Any custom JavaScript code that you write as a developer is also compressed automatically. The server-side portion of Lollygag is built on the Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework. You can build server-side business objects using standard .NET languages such as C# and VB.NET; Lollygag client-side widgets can consume data exposed through server-side objects.

AJAX does have the right goal in mind, holds up the promise of much quicker response to user input, which is a prime factor in user satisfaction. AJAX also allows user interactivity that traditional Web applications do not provide, such as drag and drop and right click functionality.