Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Though there are as many variations as possible, a Web application is commonly structured as a three-tiered application. The Web browser, in its most common form, is the first tier. The second tier or the middle tier is an engine using some dynamic Web content technology. Some of these are ASP, ASP.NET, CGI, ColdFusion, JSP/Java, PHP,embPerl, Python, or Ruby on Rails. The third tier is a database. The Web browser, which is the first tier, sends requests to the middle tier, which then services them by making queries and updating against the database then generating a user interface.
Project management is no easy task and it usually involves a lot of managing, coordinating and synchronizing of tasks, people and schedules. With all the worries, wouldn’t it be great if there would be a software that can help us in this stressful job?
Basecamp, an online project management software, actually can do that for you: creating, managing and communicating files, tasks and other to-do lists. Launched in February 2004 by 37 Signals and claimed as one of the easiest project management tools out there,
Basecamp lets users easily create a new project which can include Messages, Files, To-Do’s, People and Milestones. You can try out the introductory plan for free which lets you create one project (no file uploads) while those who want to explore other features of
Basecamp can choose from their different plans ranging from $19-$59 per month.
1. Provide a Query Interface – One of the basic functions of web applications is to provide users with an interface for inputting data. The data is termed as a “query” or a “request” because this user-defined data is used to ask or make a request from a service on the web server machine.
2. Transmit User-Defined Query – The user-data is sent to a web server once it is received.
3. Perform Server Side Processing – The web server processes the user-data which it has received through a “middleware”.
4. Massage Data – The user-defined request indicates how the data should be processed.
5. Transmit Query Results – The processed data is now sent back to the client
6. Perform Client Side Processing – The sent data is displayed to the user.
The move by Google who is considered to be the leading mapping and location aware experts anywhere on the internet (except for the military and intelligence community maybe), and Mozilla have joined forces to take part in the Geode, an awareness add-on package that allows Firefox to display locational data along with Google’s maps. This may be their answer to Yahoo’s Fire Eagle project that resulted in the Geocoder API, allowing yahoo to be web aware. The partnership may be well-placed with Google’s extensive data centers and mapping data to go with it, and Firefox’s overall dominance of the browser market, its a mix of two good things that allows your browser to tell you where you are and possible where other people are. Read the rest of this entry »
The software giant from Redmond just can’t let Google take a way most of their market without at least some resistance and with that, they release Microsoft Office 14 set for release this coming 2010, a version of their world renowned Microsoft Office System that is still one of the most widely used software in the world to date. It comes with stripped down version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more, allowing people over the net to share their work online through the internet, Google Apps style. Microsoft has done an almost complete turnaround with it’s embracing of PHP that has surprised industry experts who regarded Microsoft as more of a proprietary software maker who shares nothing and buys everybody they step on. Read the rest of this entry »
The world has forever been changed with the advent of the social web and one other technology that has made finding friends where ever they are a breeze. New generation web apps like “Glympse“, allows people to share their whereabouts in real time, enters the email number of the people they have to meet at get real-time feeds on where they are and vice versa, even going as far as presenting estimated arrival times to your agreed meeting place and more. You get a page that has a map with your geo-location based on your smart-phone’s coordinates changing as you move through traffic making meeting as real as it can get. The nifty feature, the fed shuts down after a few a few hours leaving you and your friends to finish your drinks or go home and rest. Read the rest of this entry »
The ventures of Google who is one of the promoter of the shift into the cloud by being too over eager with the implementation. The initiation of several of Google’s applications that are bit by bit making cloud computing a reality have gotten some criticism due to their monopoly on the system. The concept of cloud computing can be compared in some sense to the implementation of distributed computing in commercial applications of past where specific users only got access to the apps they were allowed to use. The servers had all the programs and were responsible to distributing and administering the apps and databases. With cloud computing you get all the programs loaded into cyberspace along with the data and everybody who wants access gets it from virtual space, the information on the other hand jumps from server to server as they become available making the whole internet one large machine. Google has been getting hits first by it’s venture into the breakup of the Yahoo and Microsoft deal where the government decided that that would be a violation of the freedom of information for they would get control of over 80% of the search engine marker, the two being the two largest and most popular in the world.
Image source: www.java.sun.com
Creating web applications is as complex as writing a thesis paper or a dissertation. It does not only necessitate quite a tedious amount of effort to perfect the function of the program but also demands one stable thing from the user: internet association.
Whenever a program is being written, it takes several factors in deliberation but the most important of them is the user-interface. It is imperative that the application’s interface is easy to understand, lest it will not be used as it was intended to be so.
Using a atypical office text created raises an issue on standards compliance, moving the evasive issue of file partaking and association. What must be noticed is that these browser applications are used by accessing the internet through the remote servers. It is threatening however, for the document, if the connection is suddenly lost or interrupted. Chances are, the document being programmed online will be lost and inferior, irretrievable.
This kind of disadvantage poses a threat to the survival of the web applications, hence, companies such as Google have made preliminary solutions to this problem. However, for now, only prototypes have been developed to repress the threat raised by this problem. Just like so, Google has created Google Gears—a beta display place that aims to improve the usability of web applications.
Web application, or webapp, in software engineering is an application which is accessed via Web over a network, like an intranet or the Internet. Also, it is a computer software application that has been coded in a browser-supported language (like ASP, HTML, Perl, PHP, etc.). It is reliant on a common web browser to enable the application to become executable.
Because of the ubiquity of a client, web applications have become very popular, sometimes they are called “a thin client”. One other key reason for their popularity is the ability to update and maintain the Web applications without the need to distribute and install software on potentially thousands of client computers. Some of the most common Web applications are Webmail, online auctions, online retail sales, discussion boards, wikis, MMORPGs, Weblogs, and many other functions.
One major difference of web application use from traditional application use is the inherent delays in navigating from one web application page to another. These delays are typically caused by network traffic and computation. It takes more time to serve the pages to the browser if the web server is on a distant network and computing data (calculations, data-sorting, etc.) also prolongs the waiting time for web application users. Fortunately, there are some ways through which users can lessen the delays which specifically result from working on a public network:
• Control the infrastructure by making an intranet rather than using the public internet.
• Using smaller graphics and lesser pages can minimize page loading time.
• Reduces errors and overall task time by making navigation easier and clearer.