Traditionally, a web spider system is tasked with connecting to a server, pulling down the HTML document, scanning the document for anchor links to other HTTP URLs and repeating the same process on all of the discovered URLs. Each URL represents a different state of the traditional web site. In an AJAX application, much of […]
Direct manipulation of video is one of the more uncanny HCI concepts I’ve ever seen. Instead of manipulating time with a traditional scrubber bar, the user can drag objects in the video across their path of movement. Nothing in the video actually changes, but the perception is that you can directly manipulate the objects in […]
A paper cup, a sewing needle, and a simple LEGO Mindstorms robot make for a nice little record player. This might be a fun project to work on with the kids this 4th of July weekend. You know they’ve been wondering about the boxes of vinyl frisbees in the basement. Aside from anything else they […]
Currently Firefox, Safari and Opera have reasonable support for the Canvas HTML element. With IE the only major remaining laggard, there are a lot of people starting to experiment with Javascript’s new graphical capabilities. I mentioned John Resig’s Processing.js library in May, and now Aza Raskin has released the ContextFree.js library, which brings another generative […]
Ryan Sit sent in a link to Swurl, a Web 2.0 application/startup he’s been working on that attempts to collect all of the artifacts of your digital life and assemble them into a sensible whole. You could call it an aggregation tool—which, deep down, it is—but it does a little more than other things I’ve […]
Add-Art is an ad blocking extension for Firefox, but it’s a bit different from other ad blocking hacks. Instead of simply removing ads, leaving a score of empty holes in ad-laden sites, Add-Art replaces all those nasty skyscrapers and leaderboards with a selection of images from a contemporary artist. The image above, for instance, is […]
Yay! Philipp Lenssen’s Google Apps Hacks just got reviewed on Slashdot by JR Peck, who had some kind words for the book: Well, this book is an excellent introduction to Google’s many on-line applications. I use many already and still learned of a couple new ones when I read this book. It also does bring […]
