Author Archive for Adam Duvander

File Under: Mobile
Nov
25
2008

Mobile Browsers Deserve Location Data

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How come my desktop browser can get my location, but mobile Safari on my iPhone acts as if it doesn’t know where I am? I hate to seem impatient, but there is a proposed geolocation standard. Mobile browsers should adopt it swiftly.

The mobile web is here. The iPhone and Android are going to duke it out, and the end result will be more users. Facebook’s mobile visitors have tripled in the last year. That’s a lot of mobile browsing.

If the location-aware services are going to be as disruptive as everyone has said, these devices need to get better at sharing the information available within them. Yes, Android and iPhone both have apps. But we shouldn’t need to wrap our web projects in an app just to access the coordinates.

The Geode plugin for Firefox and its presence as a full feature in the browser’s most recent beta have proven it’s reasonable to include it even on a non-mobile machine. Despite the flakiness of WiFi-based geolocation, innovative sites have incorporated the technology. You can shout your whereabouts or tie files to a location all with the help of browser-based geolocation. Of course, we have a Geode/Gears geolocation tutorial so you can incorporate it, too.

But we really want it incorporated in mobile devices, so we’d be able to see some real innovation. Location-based services are at the horse and buggy stage right now. Let’s give it an engine.

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File Under: Uncategorized
Nov
25
2008

Mashups Are Dead, But the Web is Alive

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Photo/Wikipedia mashupMashups, web apps which merge two or more data sources, essentially arose from the introduction of the Google Maps API in June 2005. APIs for easily accessing data existed before then, but a way to visualize it geographically was a huge tipping point.

Due to the popularity of map mashups, ProgrammableWeb’s mashup directory is over a third mapping-related. But something interesting has been happening: other types of mashups are becoming popular. Over the last two weeks, for example, maps mashups are only 20% of the new additions to the directory. Granted, it’s a small sample and mapping is still tops by far, but other ways of mashing up data are becoming more relevant.

How can mashups be both dead and more relevant? Consider Friendfeed, which aggregates your data using APIs of several social websites, pulling in each item you and your friends post to Twitter, Flickr, Digg, your blogs. It fits the criteria of a mashup perfectly. If Friendfeed was entered into the recent MashupCamp contest, it would have come away victorious. Friendfeed is an uber-mashup, though nobody calls it that.

Mashups are dead because the whole web is becoming a collection of APIs. In the future, showing an embedded map of liquor stores near that New Year’s party won’t be a snazzy add-on, it will be a necessary feature.

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File Under: Uncategorized
Nov
24
2008

New Tools Help You Build Better Maps

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Example of progressbarcontrol

What’s cooler than Google Maps? Tools built on top of it. Developers from the Netherlands have released some helpful libraries to make more usable, interactive Google Maps.

Google hosts an open source utility library with several useful examples. Among them, a drag-to-zoom feature and a way to create dynamic labeled markers.

A progress bar is among the new additions to the libraries. When adding more than just a few markers, it can take some time. Rather than make your users sit through the slow-down, this library shows the progress via a popup status bar that fills as it completes.

The other new library, SnapToRoute, allows developers to restrict some actions to just along a polyline. The example included shows zooming along a specific route.

I love these sorts of libraries that make creating advanced maps easy. Of course, I’d love to see platform-independent examples, so developers of any map API could benefit. These libraries would be great to see as a part of Mapstraction, the multi-map I covered in a tutorial.

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File Under: Software & Tools
Nov
24
2008

Developer Rebuilds Twitter in a Week

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“Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We can make Twitter better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster.”

That’s the speech I imagine Niall Kennedy giving himself recently when he decided to rewrite Twitter’s front end using web best practices. The result is a read only Twitter that’s a little less pretty, but a whole lot more streamlined.

To start, Kennedy converted Twitter’s table layout to XHTML/CSS-based design. He also split the page load so that all those little avatar graphics are loaded asynchronously, which makes pages appear faster.

One of the larger undertakings was localizing (or is it localising?) the site. Kennedy had to choose common wording throughout the site and ensure nothing that would ever need translating was hard-coded.

Kennedy claims a 41% decrease in bandwidth and a much faster DOM footprint. It’s a geeky way of saying that TwitterFE is an improved Twitter.

Of course, the front end has never been Twitter’s biggest problem. It’s the back-end, with thousands of messages a second, that prompts the Fail Whale. In all, TwitterFE reminds of redesigning Craigslist. It seems like a great idea, but it ends up being a solution searching for a problem.

But as a case study, TwitterFE is extremely useful. Perhaps Kennedy will release his source code, which runs on Google App Engine, and we can all learn from his experience.

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File Under: Mobile
Nov
24
2008

Beware of iPhone Clickjacking: Update to 2.2

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Example password jacking on iPhoneAn iPhone clickjacking attack was fixed with last week’s release of the 2.2 software. Prior versions contained a CSS transforms bug that caused iframe content to appear as part of the actual page.

It looks like the bug never saw malicious use in the wild, because the developers who noticed it alerted Apple and kept the bug secret while it was fixed. Like other clickjacking attacks, the most likely use is to get a user to inadvertently click an ad. Although, an even more dangerous example is shown to harvest passwords.

If the StreetView and Maps additions in the latest iPhone software wasn’t enough to get you to download the free update, let this attack be reason enough.

Though the bug was apparently discovered by developer Wayne Pan, it was submitted by jQuery creator John Resig. Resig just keeps showing up for his various work. In addition to jQuery, he’s on the Firebug team at Mozilla, performance testing browsers and creating JavaScript animations.

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File Under: Mobile
Nov
24
2008

Your iPhone Idea is Worth Zilch

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iPhone ideasDo you have an idea for an iPhone app? Yeah, me too. And so does the barista at my local coffee shop. Ideas for iPhone apps are as ubiquitous as screenplays in LA. The idea alone isn’t worth anything, according to iPhone consultant Raven Zachary.

There are several factors conspiring against your iPhone idea:

  1. There are still few people who know how to create iPhone applications
  2. There are plenty of iPhone ideas from people who are willing to pay
  3. The App Store is lucrative enough for developers to create their own apps

I could probably add “you don’t know Objective-C” to that list, because if you did, you’d already be writing iPhone apps. Apple’s NDA, now lifted, handcuffed many developers eager to share their knowledge, so thorough iPhone how-tos are still hard to come by. Plus, see #3 on the above list. If you know how to create iPhone apps, you’re probably too busy doing just that.

Like Zachary, I love hearing ideas. Some iPhone ideas may be based on wanting to join the gold rush at the App Store, but I’d guess most are rooted in passion. It’s a terrible thing, dousing the fire of your iPhone excitement. But it’s not just the iPhone: all ideas are essentially worthless, as some commenters mentioned in reactions to Zachary’s post.

Ideas have always been a multiplier of execution. That was the case in 2005 when everybody had great ideas for a lucrative mashup and it’s the case now with the iPhone. The difference is that now it’s even harder to execute.

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File Under: Software & Tools, Visual Design
Nov
21
2008

Share Your Mundane Details

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Pie chart of ingesting liquid

The web has all sorts of data, but it’s sorely missing yours. If you request an account from Daytum, you can change that.

The site lets its users collect data about themselves and share it via beautiful charts. Track your coffee consumption, how often you exercise, or anything else that matters to you.

One of the site’s creators, Nicholas Felton creates a personal annual report each year that shows his year in data. Through gorgeous visualizations, Felton shows off the mundane. And now you can, too.

Felton gave a talk about the history of Daytum at the Future of Web Design. His slides are embedded below:

Using the site is super easy. You can drop in, add some data, and drop out. There’s also a Twitter submission system, for adding your data on the go.

The site is so simple, yet has a number of options for users. There’s lots of room for improvement, such as an API to allow some automated inclusion of data. Overall, this is a fun, easy-to-use site that’s worth checking out.

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File Under: Uncategorized
Nov
21
2008

Go Go Gadget OAuth Support

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I Can Has Open

Passwords are a little bit more secure now that Google added OAuth support to its iGoogle Gadgets. Developers can now use their gadgets to easily grab data from OAuth-enabled APIs. Using OAuth, users do not have to give their passwords to developers. Instead, if a developer wants data from a service, the user enters the password into the service itself, providing the developer permission to access their data.

MySpace updates, AOL Mail and Google Book Search are the first gadgets to use OAuth. Finding the MySpace gadget via the iGoogle search is difficult, as there are pages of results by non-MySpace developers. Some of these ask for your password in an insecure manner, without OAuth. If you have a MySpace account, try adding the official MySpace gadget.

MySpace OAuth experience from Google Gadget

Adding the MySpace gadget gives a good idea of the user experience provided by the OAuth process. Rather than username/password fields within the iGoogle box, there’s a sign in button. Click it, and an OAuth page pops up providing a MySpace login page. Once you’ve signed in, the popup disappears and the gadget is populated with your MySpace data: updates, status, bulletins, and inbox.

Behind the scenes there is an exchange of keys that ensures the gadget maker really does have your permission to access the data. Those keys are permanent, so the sign in process is a one time deal for each OAuth gadget, not something you’ll have to do every time you visit your iGoogle page. For an example of how OAuth works, check out my FireEagle tutorial.

The update to gadgets is world’s beyond password-sharing, but there should still be phishing worries. Emulating the popup process would be easy and there’s nothing to signify that the page I’m seeing really is MySpace. Luckily, that’s the same problem that many are already trying to fix. A solution to the problem for banking sites, for example, will probably be the same solution for OAuth.

[Photo by Eran Sandler]

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File Under: Web Basics
Nov
20
2008

Yahoo Improves Its OpenID Support

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Yahoo continues to make strides to improve its OpenID implementation. Thursday it announced limited testing for Simple Registration, which supplies profile data once a user logs in with their Yahoo OpenID. Currently it is only testing Plaxo and Jyte.

OpenID sign in screen at Jyte

The experience logging in with Jyte is remarkable. It only takes a few clicks and I’m started using the site. It receives my preferred nickname from Yahoo, so I’m not even asked to fill in anything else.

Plaxo, on the other hand, requires a process that feels like signing up. Requiring info after signing in with OpenID makes moot one of the best things about OpenID for website owners. You can lower the barrier to entry for users by letting them use the site as soon as they arrive from their provider.

To that end, Simple Registration should be able to help solve the double signup issue, assuming sites treat the process like Jyte and not like Plaxo. Other OpenID providers have been sharing user’s profile information, with permission, for some time.

This part of OpenID is important, and it’s good to see one of the big boys on board. Still, it’ll be hard to say OpenID has really made it until I can sign on to Yahoo with any OpenID.

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