Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 6:02 pm   Year:February 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

February 27th, 2007 Google SERP favors Google Checkout Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 6:02 pm Categories: Google, Marketing, Self-Promotion, ecommerce, Google Software Applications, Google Checkout Tags: Google continues to find new ways to make sure Google searchers cant ignore the Google Checkout merchants Google is subsidizing through 2007 (maybe even 2008!). In "Google Checkout: Where’s the love?" and Google Checkout is a loser, really I discuss the difficulties Google is having in gaining significant traction with merchants and the negative financial impact ofmerchant and consumer subsidieson Googles financial performance. Google nevertheless perseveres, with both subsidies and prime Google Checkout placement in Google SERPs. Google has already promised to cover the cos...

...

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 5:45 pm   Year:February 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

February 27th, 2007 Adobe Engage: Experience Design Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 5:45 pm Categories: Rich Internet Applications, Adobe, Design, Adobe Engage Tags: In Focus ? See more posts on: Adobe Engage Mike Sundermeyer is up talking about design. He made a good point that design is not about making things flashy, but should be a rigorous problem solving exercise. He says there a series of myths about design. Myth 1 : More Features = More Value / New Thinking: Value = Simplicity and Quality Design for the 80% and make sure it is simple and usable. Myth 2: Chrome is Cool / New Thinking: Content is King Design around content, not chrome. Express visually and let users interact with content. Myth 3: Animation is gratuitous / New Thinking : Flow Orients and Guides The h...

...

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 5:16 pm   Year:February 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

February 27th, 2007 Adobe Engage: Virtual Ubiquity - BuzzWord (Updated with screenshots) Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 5:16 pm Categories: Rich Internet Applications, Flex, Virtual Ubiquity, Adobe Engage, BuzzWord Tags: In Focus ? See more posts on: Adobe Engage Update: Someone here sent me some screenshots, so enjoy! Theyre saving the best demos for last, and Virtual Ubiquitys word processor application, BuzzWord, looks like an awesome application. Its a web based word processor built using Flex 2. Rich text has always bee a knock for Flash, but these guys have built an app that handles text resizing, embedding assets into the document and making sure fonts are displayed cleanly. Google Docs, eat your heart out. The biggest things were pagination and typography. Once those ...

...

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 5:02 pm   Year:February 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

February 27th, 2007 Adobe Engage: Scrybe Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 5:02 pm Categories: Rich Internet Applications, Flash, Scrybe Tags: I apologize for the lack of pictures. I dont have time to insert logos and I didnt bring a camera. There are people taking photos so Ill update these with links to those tomorrow or later today. Scrybe generated a lot of chatter with its YouTube video showing off the features. That video is featured on their front page and Faizan Buzdar is going to show us around. Scrybe is a calenar, todo, contact manager - a productivity suite. They looked at ease of development, reach, and ease of development. Comparing those three, they decided that Flash was better than Ajax or .NET Scrybe is built for Flash 8, and they had to do some code workarounds t...

...

Posted by Garett Rogers @ 4:49 pm   Year:February 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

February 27th, 2007 What does rebang mean? Posted by Garett Rogers @ 4:49 pm Categories: Google Speculation Tags: Yesterday Google added a mysterious entry into their (often telling) robots.txt file that has got people asking: "What does rebang mean?". Put simply, I have no idea. When doing research on something like this, you often find yourself using a search engine to try and figure it out. While doing so, its easy to look at rebang.com or blog.rebang.com and draw some mislead conclusions. For example, the website in question mentions 3D modeling, and the webmaster comments on an blog article by saying he thinks Google is working on something like "Second Life". The man behind rebang.com, C. Sven Johnson, also comments on the new "/rebang" entry, and denies he is involv...

...

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:42 pm   Year:February 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

February 27th, 2007 Adobe Engage: eBays Internal Flex Applications Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:42 pm Categories: Rich Internet Applications, Flex, Flash, eBay Tags: In Focus ? See more posts on: Adobe Engage eBay has been using Flex for a long time, since the 1.5 days and Tom Ortega is giving us a view of some of their internal monitoring application. This is a refreshing presentation and while the application isnt pretty, its a look at how Flex does a great job of handling data. Hes showing two applications, an autoimage app and a management consoles which displays computers and users on the network and allows some remote management of them. Theyve combined the features in those two applications into a new User Interface that is much cleaner and much more intuitive. I dont...

...

Posted by Richard Koman @ February 27, 2007 @ 4:28 PM   Year:February 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

February 27th, 2007 Congressional hearings now safe for the Web Posted by Richard Koman @ February 27, 2007 @ 4:28 PM Categories: Government technology, Congress Tags: Web, Webcast, U.S. Congress, ZDNet Government Following a report in the New York Times (ZD Government post here) that video of US House and Senate hearings are actually the intellectual property of C-Span, which uses its own equipment to record the sessions (by agreement with the government), programmer Carl Malamud hacked up a way to capture webcasts of those sessions. It seems that the webcasts are owned by the Congress, but because theyre streamed, theyre not available to use in blogs (like Speaker Pelosis) and theyre not searchable. Malamud posted to Boing Boing The U.S. Congress provides webcasts for ...

...

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:15 pm   Year:February 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

February 27th, 2007 Keep an eye on WPF/E Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:15 pm Categories: Rich Internet Applications Tags: Theres been some buzz today on the web about WPF/E. Simon asks if Microsoft is screwing it up, while Robert talks about the future of .NET. WPF/E is a tough product. The codename was supposed to imply that it would be WPF everywhere, but when it was released, it was apparent that it was FAR from WPF everywhere. It didnt support .NET code, it doesnt have 3D, its tough to build real applications, which is what WPF does. Browser applications are all the rage. I talk a lot about how important desktop Rich Internet Applications are, and the ideal of breaking out of the browser, but there is still a very real need to provide rich applications in the browser. WPF ...

...

Posted by ZDNet Editor @ 4:07 pm   Year:February 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

February 27th, 2007 US governors: US education needs to get competitive - now Posted by ZDNet Editor @ 4:07 pm Categories: Education Technology, Policy, Science Ed Tags: Education, Worker, Governor, ZDNet Editor The message was loud and clear at the National Governors Association this week?the U.S. needs to take immediate action in order to keep up with globalization, reports the Sante Fe New Mexican. The governors expressed concern that the U.S. is quickly losing pace in the global marketplace and workers lack the skills to innovate and compete. The governors worked out a framework to address these needs. Some of the highlights are: Refocus on science, technology, engineering, math (STEM) and foreign language proficiency. They are seeking programs to encourage students ...

...

Posted by ZDNet Editor @ 4:04 pm   Year:February 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

February 27th, 2007 MIT joins with Emirates for countrys first research-driven grad program Posted by ZDNet Editor @ 4:04 pm Categories: Education Technology, Higher Ed, International Tags: Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, ZDNet Editor In a joint effort to pave the way for a new Science and Technology Institute in Abu Dhabi, MIT and the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company have sign an agreement to establish regions first-ever research-driven graduate program, according to the MIT News Office. The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology will be the first institution dedicated to research-driven graduate programs in the United Arab Emirates. "MIT faculty and staff will provide advice, scholarly assessment and assistance in connection with the establishment of the Masd...

...

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:00 pm   Year:February 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

February 27th, 2007 Adobe Engage: BMC - Business Dashboards Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:00 pm Categories: Rich Internet Applications Tags: In Focus ? See more posts on: Adobe Engage Were seeing a dashboard application by BMC Software, its an example of Flex 2 being used in the enterprise. It sounds like this is an out of the box solution for IT companies that enables them to manage their infrastructure. The main focus here is that by using a rich UI, its easy to create a valuable dashboard for managers. The BMC app looks like it is almost a dashboard platform. Theyve built some custom charts and some screens which can then be customized by the user. The dashboard allows users to drag in screens so they can look at specific datasets and customize their screens on the fly. Th...

...