Francis Shanahan[.com] » zuggest

Adobe and Wikipedia

Francis — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 06:31:00 +0000

This website is primarily for my own gratification and rarely do I presume to think that it’s a valuable source of information. On the other hand, I do occasionally put forth the odd interesting nugget of information that you won’t generally find elsewhere.

Hence it’s always gratifying to come across websites that link to mine as a point of reference. Today I came across two such instances. The first is Wikipedia on their Live USB page [LINK] referencing my post on how to install and boot Linux from a Creative Zen MP3 Player [LINK].

The second is actually Adobe’s website[LINK], referencing my Zuggest [LINK] experiment. Zuggest was one of the first non-Google examples of Live Search using AJAX and it’s funny how Adobe refers to it as "Zuggest type results".

I have come across a few other Universities linking to this site which is terrific. Hopefully that indicates I’m putting out some useful information and somehow influencing the technology minds of the future.

This Blog Nominated in Irish Blog Awards

Francis — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 06:25:00 +0000

In the words of Pat Ingolsby, welcome to my head, please remove your shoes.

The Irish Blog Awards are currently open for voting and this blog is nominated in the Technology category [LINK]

It’s nice to be nominated in the Technology category but more so it’s nicer to be nominated in the IRISH technology category. It’s also a great way to uncover other Irish bloggers in this space.

I often struggle with categorizing this blog as it covers a weird mix of stuff.
The list includes various projects I’ve written such as the Audiovox 8600 cell phone utility [LINK], the Movie making Screen Capture tool [LINK], and RoboCast [LINK]

I’ve screwed around with Ajax quite a bit resulting in Zollage [LINK] and Zuggest [LINK] among others.

But it’s not all software, I also blog on Computer building [LINK] and my book [LINK] along with CardSpace and how to Boot Linux from your MP3 Player [LINK].

But this is a full-service blog so along with technology stuff, you also get into things like Wood Working [LINK] and Gingerbread [LINK].

The occasional thing I do gets mentioned in BusinessWeek [LINK] or Ajax Patterns [LINK] or even Sun’s training material (slide 9) [LINK].

So if you like this blog…VOTE FOR ME!!! [LINK].

Voting is easy, go here [http://www.awards.ie/vote/], put your name and email in and scroll down to "Best Technology Blog/Blogger" and pick my name from the list.

Voting will close at 5pm on Friday February 16th.

Here’s the Tech Nominees…

Best Technology Blog/Blogger – Sponsored by Bitbuzz

Matt Firth on Zuggest

Francis — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 15:07:00 +0000

In a recent interview [LINK] on NET Magazine, Matt Firth (design directory at Dare Digital in London) cites my very own Zuggest as a great example of Ajax in use:

"Have you dabbled with AJAX yet? Not personally, but I know our tech guys are ‘dabbling’ and looking at how it can be used in an interesting way. It’s got usability issues, but you can do some really powerful things with it. There’s some great stuff you can achieve with user interface results like the Zuggest application that enables you to search Amazon products while it updates your results as you type (www.francisshanahan.com/zuggest.aspx)."

Zuggest featured in Ajax Patterns Book

Francis — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 06:51:00 +0000

The recent book by Michael Mahemoff entitled Ajax Design Patterns featured a write-up of my Amazon search utility, Zuggest.

Zuggest implements the common-sense idea of submission throttling. Rather than submit a query for every single key-stroke the user hits, it waits until you’re done typing and then searches.

It’s always surprising and interesting to me to find that one man’s common sense is another man’s design pattern but there you go.

Read the sample chapter [Link] and search for "zuggest".

My own book: Amazon.com Mashups will also mention Zuggest along with TagLines and Zollage and so on so you can make your choice as to which one you buy.

And finaly a note to AUTHORS: If you are planning on including a reference to one of my applications, that’s great and thanks! But please drop me a note to let me know!!!! Common courtesy and all that.

This Little Blog of Mine, I’m Gonna Let It Shine.

Francis — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 19:09:00 +0000

What a crap blogger I am eh?

It’s been 10 days since my last blog-a-boo. Oh well, that’s what happens when you have kids. Time management is critical and sleep is now a major focus of every day. It’s amazing how little you actually need to function. I say function but then again, was I ever really firing on all cylinders to begin with? Who knows.

Hopefully in another few months Ethan’s stomach will grow to the point where he can ingest enough food to sustain him through the night. That’s my engineer’s view of how to determine when a baby will sleep. In the meantime we’re feeding every couple of hours and the little mite has gained an amazing 2lbs already. Way-to-go champ!

Now, on to some news.

Seems my forays into the world of mashups, ajax, web services and remixes has attracted some attention. What started as some idle curiosity as to how best to integrate web services and xml has produced some interesting experiments: Taglines, Zuggest, Zollage, Baebo to name a few. Just when you thought the party was over, the mainstream media has taken hold.

David Berlind and Doug Gold have announced the first Mashup Conference or Un-conference in San Fran this year, read all about it here: http://mashupcamp.com/. The notion of an un-conference is quite unique and echos the underground nature of mashups themselves quite appropriately. Let’s hope they get some funding though, who wants a conference without swag right?

David and Doug asked me to go and I’d love to attend but it’s just too hectic right now on the home front. Family comes first. Combined with Ethan, I’ve taken on one other project which will likely keep me up nights long after Ethan’s sleeping through them. More on that once it’s confirmed.

I’d imagine my buddy Jeff Barr of Amazon will attend and Robert Hof of Business Week also. Should be a great networking opportunity.

I’d also be very interested in any discussions on how to monetize mashups. Perhaps they’ll capture session notes and publish on the wiki. We’ll see.

It’s surprising how many folks I’ve consistently exchanged emails with but never met in person. Hoping to rectify that in the coming year.

Lastly, Baebo has had both good and bad reactions. People like the functionality but are violently repulsed by my crappy user interface design. Some have been quite vociferous about it. Oh well. So I’m in the process of re-designing the UE.

The 2nd thing about it is that it’s been so popular that I’ve already used up the monthly limit of API calls for EBAY. That SUCKS because the whole point is to query multiple sites at the same time. Yahoo, Amazon, Google, Youtube and Technorati continue to work but if you’re wondering why searching EBAY returns no results, that’s why.

Zuggest #5 on Dan Grossman’s List

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 20:09:00 +0000

Dan Grossman (a venture capitalist in NYC) from A Venture Forth lists Zuggest as #5 on his top 10 Ajax Applications from a Venture Capitalist’s perspective. If you haven’t heard of Zuggest where’ve you been? It’s an experiment of mine to let you search Amazon as you type! No need for a submit button or a page-refresh. Try it!. Thanks Dan!

He’s got a pretty good list there primarily as it doesn’t include commercial efforts from Google which folks ALWAYS mention, rather these are all home grown. Very cool.

I said I wouldn’t comment on it but can’t help be shocked by Wolf Blitzer’s “so poor and so black” comment on the news the other day. The basic primary function of Wolf and his ilk is public speaking. Clearly without a script he’s incompetent. That guy should be fired or resign.

Article: Building Rich Internet Experiences with XmlHttpRequest

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 23:07:00 +0000

I’ve written the following article which appears in Visual Studio .NET Developer July 2005.
The article covers XmlHttpRequest and the notion of RIA(Rich Internet Applications).
Click here to read the article.

The techniques presented in this article are in use in Zollage, Zuggest and my Ajax Enhanced Blog. I’m sure you can dream up some other innovative uses.

As always feedback is appreciated.

More Ajax Fun

Francis — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 20:52:00 +0000

Seems there’s a lot of interest around the Ajax Collage of Jeff Bezos. A quick word on this, I’m not sure if folks have realized as this is not in the normal vein of LiveSearch (ala Zuggest) or Google Maps but this Collage thing is actually an Ajax example also.

Clicking the images does a request behind the scenes to load the product.

There are plenty more collages on the way over the next week…

In other news, I’ve been playing with XML-RPC the simplest and some would say best of all protocols. I figured I’d try it out with the Visual Studio 2005 beta and .NET 2.0. I have to say, those partial classes and enhanced IDE are quite nice. I could get used to vs2005.

Anyway, long story short I was finding that the HttpWebRequest was intermittently throwing an exception.

When I tried the same code in .NET 1.1 it worked everytime. A quick google reveals the following bug logged on MSDN. It’s encouraging to note as this would indicate that MSoft is finally taking standards compliance and security much more seriously than with previous releases. Unfortunately the likely down-side is that Microsoft will be releasing a bunch of "work-arounds" e.g. the "httpWebRequest useUnsafeHeaderParsing = "true"" to enable migration of legacy NET 1.1 code. So where’s that leave us? With the option of tighter security, the likelyhood that it’ll be bypassed and zero culpability on MSoft’s part. And that’s ok, the onus is on the developer to ensure the security of the app. Two thumbs up!

Zuggest – Demo’d at the SDForum in Silicon Valley!

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 16:56:00 +0000

First of all let me just say thanks to one and all for the kind wishes on today, my birthday.

I read over on Push To Test that Jeff Barr, Amazon’s Web Service Lead had been the keynote speaker at the SDForum’s Web Services SIG (Special Interest Group) last Tuesday 22nd.

The SDForum is no joke, for those of you not familiar with this group : “SDForum is the leading Silicon Valley not-for-profit organization providing an unbiased source of information and insight to the technology community for 20 years. SDForum provides a venue for engineers, executives, researchers, technology leaders, and venture capitalists to exchange information on emerging technologies and best practices. Each month SDForum connects 1200 software professionals through more than 20 events.”

This group meets in eBay’s Silicon Valley Conference Center and my plane ticket never arrived so unfortunately I missed it

According to the Push to Test transcript, Jeff actually demo’d Zuggest which not only was tremendous exposure/publicity but was also tremendous validation and very gratifying for me as a technologist.

I would love to hear from anyone who attended this meeting and get any feedback on the demo.

In other news it is interesting to learn the REST vs SOAP debate is still raging on. Personally I can see the benefits to each approach but we’ll always have these types of debates I suppose. It’s encouraging to see folks passionate about the tech.

Time now to treat myself to a nice cup of hot tea.

Amazon Product Data

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:34:00 +0000

I realize I haven’t written much in the way of updates in the last few days. This is mainly because I’ve been enhancing the behind-the-scenes functionality of Zuggest.

In the first release, I was shooting for pure speed and hence not storing the product information coming back from Amazon. This I thought was a waste of great information. So last week I added a little thing to store the raw Product data in a huge text blob in the database. Just the raw data as I didn’t want to slow things down by inserting N number of products per keyword.

So on average I end up with about 10 products per keyword including the URL, the Small, Medium and Large images and Product Title etc. The last few days have been spent writing a data cleanser to extract and normalize this data. The thing works great and so far I’ve processed roughly 25% of the gathered data into over 4000 distinct products, all with links to Amazon.

Not sure what I’m going to do with this data but it’s tremendously useful and I’ve a number of ideas brewing which you’ll learn about in the next few days/weeks.

If you have any ideas, send them my way and I’ll see what can be done.