Datadial Blog
As the web progresses and continues to deliver more elaborate and rich media content it is inevitable that the speeds at which this information is delivered must increase or at least stay relative to what is considered acceptable. This means that the broadband speeds offered by internet service providers (ISPs) needs to stay on par with the progression of the Web. If we are to realise the true potential of the World Wide Web, first we need to build an infrastructure that can support it.
The main issue in achieving faster broadband is that currently the UK relies on an out dated telephone system to deliver broadband internet. There is a danger that the future growth and use of next generation web applications will be stunted due to our out-dated method of transmitting data. Sites like YouTube, MySpace, BBC iPlayer, 4 on Demand etc, would never have been possible using a dial-up 56k modem. This is a clear indication of how better connection speeds can improve level of web applications that can be delivered. Currently broadband speeds are sufficient for today’s use, but we must look to the future if we are to realise the potential of the Web.
The majority of the UK ISPs is still using copper wire to deliver their services, as opposed to fast fibre connection. It is estimated that fibre alternative connections can increase broadband speeds as much as 20 times.
BT has plans to install super fast fibre connections via their Openreach project, which will hopefully replace their old copper phone network in the future. The cost will be huge but their aims are to finance this by renting lines to rival ISPs such as TalkTalk, Tiscali, Car Phone Warehouse and Sky on a wholesale basis. This will allow next generation broadband packages and services to be delivered to consumers at a competitive price.
Leaders
At present the UK is miles behind countries like Japan and South Korea who have some of the fastest broadband speeds in the world, allowing them to watch broadcast quality television over the internet.
It is estimated that 90% of South Korea’s population are using broadband with an average connection speeds of 43MBPS. In Japan the average advertised connection speed is an incredible 90MBPS, which has been made possible via fibre-optic networks.
Current state of play in the UK
UK broadband prices are certainly dropping, and speeds have definitely improved since the days when 512KBPS was something to be proud of! Today’s norms are as much as 16x faster than they were a few years ago. The downside though, is that many of us in the UK don’t actually receive the broadband that we are sold. It is very much a postcode lottery, as people who live in more rural areas often receive a poorer service. This is due to the direct correlation between distance from the exchange and broadband speeds achieved.
If we are to keep up with Japan, Korea and of EU countries like France and Germany, our main focus should be on upgrading the way we transmit data. The fact that we are trying to squeeze every ounce of speed out of a network that was designed to transmit voice calls is a stark reflection of where we are and where we need to be in the future. Our current telephone network lacks the capacity to deliver the kind of high-speed broadband we require to realise the potential of UK Internet services.
Conclusion
We risks being left behind if we do not take the necessary steps to upgrade our data transmission infrastructure. This upgrade will allow businesses to develop new web related technologies to serve us in the future.
The future is bright for the Internet as new web applications are developed everyday that would never have been possible 5 years ago. The Internet will continue to evolve in years to come but its growth must not be stunted by something as simple as poor data transmission speed.
For some time now typography on the web has been high in the radar of many web designers. Although the web may not be the most friendly enviornment for typography because of browser differences (compared to print) it is still a key part in any design work. This should be no surprise when the key to any successful website is its content, and as Robert Bringhurst says – “typography exists to honor content” (The Elements of Typographic Style).
Giving extra attention to the typography works especially well in minimalistic designs. For example, artists or galleries they want few distractions to the works they are showing on the website, resulting in (often) a white background and shades of grey. To stop this beautiful minimalism being interpretted as “boring” by the general public, the role of the type on the page becomes crutial. We will soon be launching a website where this is the exact case.
As there are only a handful of “web safe” fonts, the lack of choice can sometimes be a hurdle. However we have recently also been employing some fonts that come packaged with Windows Vista, and use appropriate roll-backs for those who are not on Vista. Likewise if your audience is going to be primarily creatives, there is a good chance they will also have the Adobe font packages installed, opening up a wider range of fonts available for use.
Some cool typography websites:
Many developers spend a huge amount of time creating well designed object orientated applications only to have to have to write complex mapping classes in-order to interact with a relational database. A large percentage of application code often consists of mapping application objects to a relation database model.
Relational databases have been the industry standard for persisting data since the mid 70’s. Relational databases consist of flat two-dimensional table that are related to other tables using keys.
Data manipulation is handled by SQL (Structured Query Language) which is standard across the majority of database vendors.
Downside
The downside to relational databases is that the application object model that developers code against cannot be stored in a relational database. Classes have to be written to provide the necessary mapping so that the objects and databases can communicate. Each object has to be flattened out to support many-to-many relationships. Each field and property has to be mirrored in database tables or views in-order for fields to match up. Stored Procedures are also needed (sometimes as many as four per class) to marshal data to and from the object. The mapping of class fields to database columns is a laborious but unavoidable task.
Alternatives
Object database approach things from a different perspective, offering a different way of designing the persistence layer of an application. The fundamental idea behind object databases is the idea that you store your data in the same way that you use it.
Matisse Object Databases
One of the major .Net object database vendors, is a company called Matisse Software Inc. Matisse have created a database management system that helps developers to bypass the whole mapping process usually associated with object application design and relational databases.
Using Matisse the object database management system, developers can create database schemas and generate application code from simple class diagrams. The development mapping process is eliminated as this is all taken care of for you behind the scenes. Performance is increased as complex joins are no longer needed. Object databases store object as they exist in the application domain along with all the necessary object relationships.
Conclusion
There are many other interesting feature object databases have to offer and this post has simply scratches the surface as to what is possible. The main point to make though is that using Matisse or any other object databases database management system allows you to stay within the object orientated paradigm, eliminating the need to bridge a gap between two different domains. Matisse’s support for VB.Net, C#, Java and C++ make it an extremely via candidate for a .Net developers that are ready for the paradigm shift or tired of the huge overheads in terms of code maintenance and database administration.
Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is currently in its beta testing phase and will be the next version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser.
IE browsers have been renowned for being bug ridden due to the inability to follow web standards. As well as introducing some new addition to their browser IE8 also tackles past compatibility issues by attempting to make IE8 standards compliant. The downside to this is that it may break existing web page / applications designed to run on their previous browsers (IE6 & IE7).
To combat this issue, Microsoft has design the new browser with a facility that allows IE8 to be switch to three different modes: Quirk, Strict and Standard. These modes are activated either by the inclusion of specific tags (e.g. <meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=7″ />) within a web page or via user setting within the browser itself (the latter requiring a restart). Standard mode will be the default making IE8 use a more standardised DOM like Firefox and Opera.
The ability to switch modes is a very important as IE8 must stay compatible with older web pages; especially offline versions such as those found on instructional installation DVDs and CDs. Pages like these cannot be updated to accommodate the new changes so this facility is essential.
The addition of the browser version switching facility has been met with some controversy as some have argued that this hinders the progression of web standards. By giving people a choice, developers may continue to target older browser version instead of finally adopting a universal standard. Some have also stated that this is an example of “monolithic behaviour due to Microsoft’s dominating position in the web browser and operating system market.†– Hakon Wium Lee – Chief technology officer of Opera Software.
Web Slices
IE8 offer a brand new and interesting feature called Web Slices, which allows users to bookmark a specific section of a page (e.g. the London weather section of the BBC web site). This then allows users to view this specific snippet of information in isolation as a widget of popup. In the future web browsers will be able to predefine specific content that is available as a Web Slice so that users can simply add them to the browser tool bar and access them on demand. Each time a Web Slices content is updated the user is given an un-intrusive indicator to let them know that the content has been updated.
Activities
Activities allow developers to attach specific functionality to information on a page. For example, with additional browser add-ons users will be able to hover over an address field and IE will open a popup layer that links directly to Google Maps or by hovering over a key word for an item of clothing IE may open up an EBay popup with a list of search results. Current IE8 beta add-ons include Translate, Send, Map, Find, Define and Blog.
Developer Tools
Fans of Firefox’s Firebug will be happy to hear that IE8 will be equipped with a similar development tool that allows them to inspect a pages HTML, CSS and JavaScript in a visual debugging environment.
Conclusion
We must remember though that IE8 beta 1 is aimed at developers as it still contains many bugs. It has a long way before a general user beta version is available but it is heading in the right direction. The slight downside is that as much as many developers are excited about many of the new additions and updates, a lot of these updates are simply bug fixes for issues that weren’t addressed in IE6 and 7. Some of these issues even go as far as their core layout engine Trident, which was developed 10 years. IE8 will use Trident Version 6 which, believe it or not is first version to pass the Acid 2 test (except for the white stripes).The decision to make its default mode to be set to Standard (i.e. standard compliance) is also welcome even if some pages viewed in IE8 will initially break.
Microsoft has a huge task of improving their support for web standards without breaking existing web sites and we all know that standard compliance and backward compatibility do not go hand in hand with Internet Explorer.
Microsoft Silverlight is a cross browser implementation of the .Net Framework that delivers interactive applications via the web. It does so by unifying the capabilities of the web server, the web browser and the desktop.
Silverlight improves the potential for developers and web designer to create rich applications that aren’t limited by the constraints of modern web browsers.
Silverlight runs on all major browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari and also has the ability to adapt its video quality depending on what device it runs on e.g. desktop browser, mobile device, or 720p HDTV video mode.
Silverlight application can be created by a graphic designer or a web developer using either:
- Microsoft Extended Blend – for layout and graphic design
- Visual Studio .Net – for coding
There are currently two versions of Silverlight, 1.0 and 2.0 beta. The most noticeable difference between the two versions is Silverlight 2.0’s support for the .Net Framework.
Silverlight includes Windows Presentation Foundation which is new to .Net 3.0 and is designed to allow rich client features by extending browser based user interfaces beyond what is capable with HTML alone. It also provides a declarative mark-up language known as XAML (Extensible Application Mark-up Language; pronounced “zammel”) as well as adding extensions to JavaScript so that the client UI elements can be manipulated programmatically using event handlers.
Silverlight 2.0 is designed to integrate seamlessly with existing JavaScript and ASP .NET AJAX code and goes one step further by making it possible to create applications using VB .NET and C# due to its ability to access the .NET Frameworks programming model.
To run Silverlight applications all you need is a modern browser and the Silverlight plug-in, which can be downloaded and installed in minutes.
Silverlight XAML syntax is very similar to HTML as it allows you create rich web based UIs in HTML like syntax. Using Microsoft Extended Blend (MEB) designers can create engaging graphics, animation and media. MEB can generate XAML so that (via Visual Studio .Net) programmers and designer can collaborate and work on the same files.
XAML
XAML is to Silverlight what HTML is to web pages. It is text based and can be incorporated directly into a web page via the Silverlight runtime. It is used to define objects and their properties and focuses on defining UIs. XAML is firewall friendly unlike other technologies like Java Applets, Active X or Flash, (which all send binary content to the browser) which can pose security risks and is also easier to updates due to its text-based nature, unlike its rivals, (mentioned above) which have to be recompiled and redeployed after every change. Each time a Silverlight application is updated a new XAML file is generated that will be automatically downloaded the next time a client request is made. This eliminates the need for re-installation or redeployment and prevents the user experience from being disrupted.
Silverlight has a long way before it can compete with flash’s popularity, especially as it is a Microsoft only product. It has a huge amount of potential as it is designed to work with the .Net framework, which is a robust and proven foundation. Only time will tell as to how popular it will become and whether users and developers will jump on the Silverlight express!!
The latest version of Visual Studio .Net 2008 will be shipped with as many as 250 new features and enhancements. There are too many new features to cover in one blog post so we will concentrate on features that will improve the productivity of our Datadial developers.
Multi-Framework Targeting
This is a superb new feature that allows Visual Studio to target previous versions of the .Net Framework. In the past developers have had to have as many as three different versions of Visual Studio installed (i.e. 6.0, 2003, 2005) so that they could update and modify old applications built on previous frameworks. It is now possible to target applications written with .Net framework 2.0 SP1, 3.0 and 3.5, safe in the knowledge that each project targeted at a specific version will contain the correct project types, toolboxes, references, features and intellisense.
Intellisense
A welcome addition to the intellisense library is JavaScript. This new Intellisense library is smart enough to look at the underlying type and deduce what methods and properties are available (e.g. if you choose a numeric type, the intellisense dropdown will be populated with the correct methods and properties available to that type).
Intellisense has gained an additional feature in the shape of option filtering. This is very similar to the way Internet Explorer suggests previously visited web sites when typing in a URL. Visual Studio now filters the options available based on the words you type, instead of just jumping to the key word that best matches the text. This makes it easier to find the properties or methods you require as it eliminates unnecessary choices.
Support for the ASP.Net AJAX Library is also included as standard (due to Visual Studio .Net 2008’s full integration with .Net 3.5), so traversing the new JavaScript base class via intellisense is a welcome addition. This added functionality makes creating next generation AJAX enable web application more pleasant.
Split Screen View
The use of multiple monitors is not just reserved for designer anymore. It is fast becoming more common for developers to use dual monitors too; due to an increased number of simultaneous applications being used (i.e. Dreamweaver, VS .Net, Adobe Photoshop, Outlook etc). Visual Studio capitalises on this fact by allowing users to tile their code and design view windows across two monitors. This feature will increase a developer’s productivity by decreasing the amount of time spent scrolling through lines of code.
ADO .Net Entity Framework
ADO.Net has also been improved by raising the level of abstraction at which programmer work with data. This changes the way developers interact with databases and removes the need to code against rows and columns. This means that developers can use a richer vocabulary that includes concept like inheritance, complex types and explicit relationship (See. LINQ blog post).
Conclusion
Visual Studio .Net 2008 offers a vast array of additional features and takes advantage of the latest framework advances. With each update programming and application development moves to a new level and commonly used programming techniques and coding procedures are moved into the framework to help increase productivity and so that developers can concentrate on higher level functionality.
It is expected that the majority of .Net developers will eventually upgrade to Visual Studio .Net 2008 as the benefits literally speak for themselves. Any developer that wants to stay on the cutting edge of today’s software development procedures should upgrade to Visual Studio 2008 as it will allow them to concentrate on the next generation of application development.
You have a website. People come to it, and within a few seconds they make a decision about whether or not your site is what they are looking for.
How do you capture their interest within those few seconds? First of all you must understand these people. If content is prioritised and targetting to them they are much more likely to start exploring. If you are close to the people that will be using your website then you start to understand their priorities.
If it’s within your budget consider establishing a focus group, which is an effective way of understanding your audience. If you don’t have the time & money for this, at least try to interview representatives of your audience. You can cheaply develop a survey where people can then opt-in for further in-person interviews. Never forget that these are real people, and go out of your way to befriend those that will either make your project fly or fall. Listening to their concerns can be especially useful.
Design is so much more than putting pictures on a page and slapping on some pretty colours. Informed design revolves around who you are reaching, and what they are wanting to achieve from the site. These designs are also never really finished – they thrive off feedback and further modifications based on informed decisions, constantly improving for your audience – and in turn you.