Ajax Lesson 01

Today I will be blogging about AJAX. AJAX uses a number of old web technologies, but it has recently become a very hot topic. A number of cool web applications like Google Maps as well as new email services like Windows Live Mail Beta use AJAX. You may even have noticed it in our application when you create an invoice or use a coupon.

AJAX basically allows you to access information from another web address without actually visiting that web address. To me, it means real-time access to our databases. Although AJAX is a very useful technology, it does have a number of short-comings. Browser compatibility and usability are the top two on my list. I will be going into more details about the benefits and drawbacks of Ajax in my next post.

For the time being, here are a few useful links on AJAX. I have separated them into two categories:

For Designers and Web Fanatics:
Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications
Written by the man who coined the term AJAX, this article introduces the concept of AJAX. The diagrams in his article illustrate the concept of AJAX beautifully.

Wikipedia – AJAX
This article is an excellent resource outlining a lot of information about Ajax as well as a good overview of its history.

For Nerds:
Guide to Using AJAX and XMLHttpRequest from WebPasties
This is an excellent step-by-step tutorial on creating a basic AJAX application. I highly recommend it. Did I mention it comes with downloadable source code?

AJAX : A Basic Example and a Bookmarklet
This is another great AJAX tutorial to try once you have mastered the one above. This article goes into more detail about the core functions of AJAX.

Stay tuned for more.

It’s Not About the Invoice, It’s About the Experience

It’s interesting getting feedback from web designers.

We have been building 2ndSite for over three years now. There is still a lot we have in mind and many places we plan to go.

One of the things that has really helped us grow and guide our development is user feedback. We like it and we encourage it.

Recently, I have noticed a spike in requests for more flexibility in the invoice design templates offered by 2ndSite.

This is good feedback and we’ll certainly get to that. That being said, I’m curious about this feedback.

At 2ndSite we offer Direct Link InvoicingTM. When you send an invoice with 2ndSite a brief text email is delivered to our client. In that email is a link. When clicked, the link logs your client straight into your system and they are presented with the invoice you sent them. Once inside your system your client can see all their past invoices. They can also see the address you have on file for them, past payments and more.

Because you can customize the colours and add your logo to your system and your invoices, your clients get an experience with your ’system’ when they log in. This experience is what we have focused on and allowed you to customize to a decent degree. We have not focused as hard on the customizability of “Invoices” to date, though they include your logo, fold nicely into a window paned envelope and convey a professional image. Instead, we have focused on delivering an experience, which to my mind is more powerful than the look and feel of an everyday invoice – a business document that is relatively run of the mill. Experiencing your system is not run of the mill and helps you stand out in your client’s mind. Or so we hope…

Anyhow, we will be offering more invoice customization, but I wanted to share my thoughts on the invoice “experience”. Our clients tell us their clients love getting their invoices via 2ndSite (though the clients don’t know they are using 2ndSite - that’s key).

We are in the business of making small and medium sized businesses look good. In today’s internet world, looking good is more than appearance – it is about delivering a positive brand experience. It is about standing above the crowd. Direct Link InvoicingTM helps with that.

Flack for Change?

I just came across a post that points out that the site you are on is a new site and a stark contrast to our old site to, which I say, “yes it is!” We are happy about that and currently rebuilding that old site to reflect a whole bunch of things, but mainly what we have learned over the past 20 months of operations.

In a small company (we are six) you have to conciously choose where to spend your time. I was disallowed from playing with the old site until this January. Resources are limited in a small company so you have to constantly decide where to invest your time. You have to make choices. I can live with that.

The truth is our old website does some things very well. It does not demonstrate how we have evolved however - that is why we are murdering it and our brand. 

I am not afraid of change. Being able to make change is something that makes small companies strong and makes the work we do fun. Imagine getting to murder your brand? What an adventure…

Here is the post that sparked this post:
http://pinds.com/articles/2006/02/13/web-1-0-vs-2-0-exposed

Death to our Brand

Did you know we are going to kill our brand?

http://www.brandmurder.com/

API Released – version 1.11

Hi everyone. My name is Daniel and welcome to my first blog post. I am a member of the FreshBooks development/support team and today I am proud to introduce to you our new API (Application Program Interface).

Click here to download our API

For those of you who are not familiar with an API, an API is “any interface that enables one program to use facilities provided by another“. In other words, our API will allow you create invoices and clients in your FreshBooks account from an external program. Most of you might find it useful to use our API to create clients or even send invoices from your commercial websites, but that is just one of the many things you can do with our API.

The following is a list of things you can do with our API:

• Create clients and invoices from your website.
• Update your FreshBooks account in real time.
• Avoid entering duplicate data.
• Avoid errors from keying data.
• Automate your FreshBooks system (This saves you time).
• Allows you to design your own user-interface.
• Design your own custom solutions around FreshBooks (Integrate FreshBooks with your other B2B solutions).
• Integrate FreshBooks with your store front (shopping cart).
• Import your own unique invoice and client data.

Our API works with XML (Extensible Markup Language) which is a popular format for transferring data on the web and in databases. Basic use of our API will involve your server sending XML to our server. Once our server receives the XML, your FreshBooks account will be updated with the new information in real time. Our API is currently limited to creating and updating client/invoices, but we will be updating our API in the coming months. Subscribe to this blog and I will keep you informed.

If you are interested in trying our API, you can download it from the following web address:

Click here to download our API

P.S: We are also developing a new forum so we can share ideas and code relating to our API. I will keep you informed.

AJAX…62% good?

I remember when FLASH was the big thing. I was a freelancer and it was 1999.

I went to so many web sites. Almost all of them were a let down. Questionable content presented in frustrating ways.

People got caught up in FLASH. Everyone was a Flash developer.

At the time, FLASH (or at least 90% of the implementations I saw) did not make sense to me. I advertised myself as someone who made “subtle use of Flash”. To me that meant “practical” use of Flash.

AJAX is the big thing right now. AJAX is pretty cool. I really like that the BIG THING with AJAX is NOT the wow factor, it’s the improved usability – at least that’s the big thing in my books. That said, there will be lots of sites that get caught up in the WOW and lose sight of the usability.

We use AJAX on 2ndSite now and we will use it more. Our use is so “subtle” you may not even realize we use it. We use it to enhance performance (page loading).

Flash is 99% bad is a concept I heard about Friday. It stands for 99% bad implementations. I’m curious to see how people use AJAX and what the implementations turn out to be. There are a lot of browser compatibility issues with AJAX. The “Back” functionality is problematic.

I’m a glass is half full kind of guy. What do you think? Ajax is 62% good? I guess we’ll have to wait and see…

Does Product Quality Finally Matter Most?

Dave Winer just released a great post concerning how the market for software products, and the marketing of them, has changed.

One of the things he said is this:

“But none of that means that I can’t find enough users for my aggregator, and you for yours, to be able to continue development and influence the market, because we don’t have to convince the editors of PC Mag and PC Week that our products matter. When the big dinosaurs, Microsoft, Lotus and Ashton-Tate, and later Borland, wanted our market, the publications had little choice but to give it to them. Now I am a publication myself. I can communicate directly with users. That changes everything.“

This suggests two interesting things to me.

1) Perhaps the time has come when QUALITY of product will matter more than STRATEGY. I’m not sure the time has come for this yet, as history has clearly shown that strategy can trump quality (think MAC vs PC). But maybe for the first time a quality product will be able to SURVIVE and not die off the way many have in the past (think ATARI computers). Part of the reason for this is #2.

2) Distribution Channels no longer mean the difference between success and failure. Until the last 24 months or so, to get your product into the hands of consumers you HAD to have a distribution deal (think Quickbooks in BestBuy). Using the web, you don’t need that anymore – 2ndSite is proof of that.

Next Release (v 3.2) Coming Tuesday February 7th, 2006

We released version 3.1 two and a half weeks ago and we are really excited to let you know about version 3.2. It’s coming Tuesday February 7th, first thing in the morning (EST). This release will require a very brief period of downtime (about 10-20 minutes on the high side) and will include:

1. Some REALLY nice usability enhancements
2. New pricing
3. An API with documentation
4. An invoice “Find” page your clients can use (we’ll also give them the code they will need!)
5. More “elegant” Direct Link Invoices (DLI’s)

In a nutshell, points 4 and 5 are much more elegant solutions than what we have been offering to date. Both changes were long overdue, so thanks for waiting.

(Added late friday) Here is a link to an email with all the details.

That’s all for now. As usual you can expect a pre and post release email with more details.

About This Blog: Intersection

Let’s start with the name: Why “Intersection”?
Well, this blog is going to be regularly updated with topical content. What kind of content? Web DESIGN content. Web DEVELOPMENT content. Web MARKETING content. This blog is going to tie these three things together. It’s NOT going to be the crossroads of these things - it’s going to be the intersection.

Who’s blogging?
Great question. Currently 6 people will be blogging: three people from 2ndSite and three friends of 2ndSite:

Mike McDerment (Design, branding, marketing, startups)
Mike has been blogging since August 2005 is the co-founder of 2ndSite. This being his third business, you could say he’s a bit of an entrepreneur. His background is business, design and internet marketing, and he guest lectures at Humber College on these topics.

Kathy Donoghue (Copywriting, marketing, project stuff)
Intersection will be Kathy’s first blog, but she is a copywriter with an English degree. She likes libraries. Kathy worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers managing e-business projects before changing pace and teaching yoga. She now has great posture and has returned to technology and marketing with 2ndSite.

Daniel Tsang (Development, design and usability)
Daniel is a quick study and key developer at 2ndSite. He’s been involved with Mike’s blog and likes to post there. He often does write-ups on new development techniques that we use internally at 2ndSite. Now he’s going to share them.

Mark Evans (App reviews, news and business models)
Mark is one of Canada’s leading technology journalists and is a panelist at many big tech conferences around the world. He is an active blogger (usually about 3+ posts per day) and was one of the first tech journalists north of the 49th to take an interest in Web 2.0.

David Crow (Development, design and usability)
Development is a lifestyle for David, and he has been blogging since August 2000. David has pretty much single handedly restored life to the software development community in Toronto and he likes to play with and discuss development tools, so we’ve invited him here to do more of what he likes to do. David says, “This will be fun.” We agree.

Rob Hyndman (Privacy, legal and venture capital, small business law)
Rob is a technology lawyer who architected many tech deals before, during and after the bubble. Rob is a busy blogger (about 3+ posts a day), frequently teaches, speaks and writes on technology, business and the law, is passionate about giving sensible, useful advice to small, dynamic tech businesses. That’s why he now practices law from a wired home office.

So, roll call is over. We hope you enjoy your visits to Intersection. 

Please subscribe by RSS and we STRONGLY encourage you to comment anytime.